UMS Concert Program, Thursday, Mar. 09 To 19: University Musical Society: Winter 2006 - Thursday, Mar. 09 To 19 --

Season: Winter 2006
Hill Auditorium

Winter 2006 Season
127th Annual Season
General Information
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Event Program Book
Thursday, March 9 through Sunday, March 19, 2006
Vienna Philharmonic
Thursday, March 9, 8:00pm Hill Auditorium
Marc Bamuthi Joseph 17
Word Becomes Flesh
Friday, March 10, 8:00 pm Power Center
Belcea Quartet and Ian Bostridge 21
Saturday, March 11, 8:00 pm Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre
Shostakovich at 100 28
By Peter Laki
Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre 31
Friday, March 17, 8:00 pm Hill Auditorium
Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre 39
Sunday, March 19, 7:30 pm Hill Auditorium
Dear UMS Patron,
I would like to take a moment to offer my thanks to the many local corporations and busi?nesses that support UMS programs through their contributions. Such a message seems appropriate and timely for this particular pro?gram book, which includes the return of the
Vienna Philharmonic to Ann Arbor on March 9. This concert marks the Orchestra's first visit to Hill Auditorium since its appearance here on October 29, 1988 when Ann Arbor was one of only four cities on Leonard Bern?stein's historic 70th-Birthday Tour with
the orchestra. The concert was memorable for many reasons, one of which was its serving as the launch of UMS's first corporate partner?ship program. For that concert, 41 local corpo?rations and businesses purchased a total of 900 premium tickets and hosted their guests not only at the concert, but also at pre-concert dinners throughout the community. For most of the companies, it was the first time they used a UMS event as a way of helping them accomplish their business objectives while at the same time providing critical financial support to UMS, enabling us to present one of our most memo?rable concerts.
I hope you will take a moment to review the UMS Leadership section of this program book, pages P6 through P11. There you will see the businesspeople in our region who have chosen to invest in their community through their support of UMS performances and educational
programs. Many of the companies cited began their partnership with UMS 18 years ago at that historic Vienna Philharmonic concert. Their gen?erous gifts over the years make all of our pro?grams possible because, as you may know, less than half of the UMS operating budget is cov?ered by ticket purchases. When you have the opportunity, I hope you will thank the men and women within our corporate leadership pages for their support of UMS.
Beyond their philanthropic goals, our corpo?rate sponsors also benefit from their partnership with UMS through their exposure to an educat?ed, diverse, and growing audience in southeast?ern Michigan. UMS is able to offer a range of programs that provide opportunities for corpo?rations to:
Express their corporate image
Cultivate clients
Develop business-to-business relationships
Target messages to specific demographic groups
Make highly visible links with arts and education programs
Recognize their employees
Show appreciation for loyal customers
If you or your corporation would like to join this group of community leaders in support?ing UMS programs, please contact me at 734. 647.1177. Thank you for your attendance at this UMS performance.
@@@@Susan McClanahan
UMS Director of Development
Regards,
UMS Educational Events
through Sunday, March 19, 2006
All UMS educational activities are free, open to the public, and take place in Ann Arbor unless otherwise noted. For complete details and updates, please visit www.ums.org or contact the UMS education department at 734.647.6712 or umsed@umich.edu.
Kirov Orchestra
of the Mariinsky Theatre
Shostakovich Centennial Symposium
Saturday, March 18, 1-6 pm, Rackham Amphitheatre, 4th floor, 915 E. Washington Avenue
An afternoon-long symposium with U-M experts and a keynote address by Alex Ross (The New Yorker). It will be followed by a showing of The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin (1997).
A collaboration with the U-M Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies, U-M School of Music, U-M Department of History, U-M Department of Slavic Language and Liter?ature, and U-M Department of Political Science.
Children of Uganda
Children of Uganda Mini-Performance
Sunday, March 19, 3 pm, Shrine of the Black Madonna of the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church, 7625 Linwood, Detroit
Children of Uganda will give a mini-perform?ance at Detroit's historic Shrine of the Black Madonna of the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church. A love offering will be collected for the Children of Uganda and all proceeds will go to their charity, the Uganda Children's Charity Foundation.
A collaboration with the Shrine of the Black Madonna of the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church.
Rossini's Tancredi
Lecture: Rossini's Tancredi
Sunday, March 19, 3 pm, Ann Arbor District Library, Basement Level, 343 South Fifth Avenue
Ann Arbor District Library Music Specialist Richard LeSueur will discuss the plot and background of Gioachino Rossini's Tancredi. Requiring a cast of truly great singers to convey its full effect, Tancredi was one Rossini's forgotten masterpieces. With the rediscovery of the original tragic ending and performances of the opera featuring such luminaries in the title role as Marilyn Home and Ewa Podles, Tancredi is again taking its place as one of the great operas of the bel canto era.
A collaboration with the Ann Arbor District Library.
ums University Musical Society
and
Kaydon Corporation
present
Vienna Philharmonic
Riccardo Muti, Conductor
Program
Franz Schubert Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Schubert
Richard Strauss
Thursday Evening, March 9, 2006 at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor
Overture to Rosamunde, D. 644
Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385
Allegro con spirito Andante Menuetto Finale: presto
INTERMISSION
Symphony No. 4 in c minor, D. 417
Adagio molto-Allegro vivace
Andante
Menuetto: Allegro vivace
Allegro
Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24
38th Performance of the 127th Annual Season
127th Annual Choral Union Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such pho?tographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Tonight's performance is sponsored by Kaydon Corporation. Special thanks to Brian and Mary Campbell for their generous support of UMS.
Support for tonight's performance is provided by Bank of Ann Arbor. Special thanks to Tim Marshall for his generous support of UMS.
Support for tonight's performance is provided by Dennis and Ellie Serras. Special thanks to Dennis and Ellie for their generous support of UMS.
Additional support provided by the following hosts: Gardner and Bonnie Ackley Endowment, The Ann Arbor News, Carl and Charlene Herstein, Susan McClanahan and Bill Zimmerman, Mrs. Robert E. Meredith, Robert Bosch Corporation, Doug and Sharon Rothwell, Sesi Lincoln Mercury Volvo Mazda, Thomas B. McMullen Company, TIAA-CREF, and Tisch Investment Advisory.
Tonight's pre-concert dinner was sponsored by LaSalle Bank.
Special thanks to Steven M. Whiting, U-M Associate Professor of Music and Associate Director of International Studies, for his participation at tonight's Prelude Dinner.
Special thanks to Steven Ball for coordinating tonight's pre-concert music on the Charles Baird Carillon.
Special thanks to Tom Thompson of Tom Thompson Flowers, Ann Arbor, for his generous contribution of floral art for tonight's performance.
The Vienna Philharmonic appears by arrangement with creative partners in music.americaKonzertdirektion Hans Ulrich Schmid, Hannover.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Overture to Rosamunde, D. 644
Franz Schubert
Born January 31, 1797 in Himmelpfortgrund
(now part of Vienna) Died November 19, 1828 in Vienna
This beloved work should have more properly been called the overture to Die Zauberharfe (The Magic Harp), the fairytale opera Schubert wrote in 1820. After eight performances, the opera was taken off the program and quickly forgot?ten. The overture was attached to Schubert's Rosamunde music only when it was published, almost 30 years after the composer's death.
In 1823, Schubert composed incidental music for a play called Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus by Helmina von Chezy, the playwright and poet who also wrote the libretto to the opera Euryanthe by Carl Maria von Weber, put?ting considerable obstacles in the way of Weber's musical genius. Rosamunde, which was also less than a theatrical masterpiece, was pro?duced and performed twice, at the Theater an der Wien. Schubert did not write an original overture for this show; instead, he recycled the overture from another of his operas, Alfonso und Estrella, which had never been performed at all.
The ZauberharfeRosamunde overture con?sists of a brooding slow introduction (in c minor), followed by a spirited fast movement in C Major. It has an abundant flow of pleasing melodies, brilliantly orchestrated. Once freed from all the unsuccessful stage works that had been weighing it down, this sparkling music has thrived on its own as one of Schubert's most popular shorter works for orchestra.
Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385
("Haffner")
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria Died December 5, 7 79 7 in Vienna
The members of the Haffner family were good friends of the Mozarts in Salzburg. Sigmund Haffner the Elder (1699-1772) had been a wealthy merchant and the mayor of the city in whose house a great deal of music was made, with both Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart fre?quently participating. The relationship continued after the mayor's death, and when his daughter Maria Elisabeth Haffner (1753-84) was going to be married in 1776, Mozart was asked to write some festive music for the wedding. The "Haffner" Serenade (K. 250) was so successful that six years later, when another cause for cel?ebration arose, the composer received another commission from the family. This time the occa?sion was Sigmund Haffner the Younger's (1756-87) elevation to nobility.
In the meantime, Mozart had left his nativt city and moved to Vienna, where his fame was rapidly advancing. When the request from Salzburg reached him in July 1782, his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio had just been premiered. He was busy arranging selection: from it for wind ensemble (in those pre-copy right days, someone else could beat him to it and secure the not-inconsiderable profits!). Ir addition, his wedding with Constanze Webei was imminent (August 4) and he was preparinc to move to new quarters. In these circum?stances, the composition of the new symphony went more slowly than father Leopold--anxious for the symphony to arrive in time for the festiv?ities--might have wished.
Nevertheless, Mozart seems to have man?aged to send the score to Salzburg before the end of August, since on the 24th of that month he wrote to his father: "I am delighted that the symphony is to your taste."
We can tell from the music that the sympho?ny had originally been intended as a seconc. "Haffner" Serenade, to be performed outdoor
Its tone is bright and exuberant, without any dramatic outbursts or the slightest trace of sad?ness and gloom. The music sparkles with joy, and every bar brings new pleasures. The open?ing theme--with its wide octave leaps in uni?son--is quite an exceptional melody, and it is handled in a most original fashion. It is, in fact, the only significant melodic material in the movement, and is reintroduced when we would expect a second theme, with the only difference that it is now played softly and treated contra-puntally.
There is hardly a moment in the symphony when we don't hear at least the rhythm of the theme. The development section invests the melody with yet another character, exploring briefly the minor mode and adding a sensual sigh-motif as a counterpoint played by the oboe and the bassoon. The recapitulation runs exact?ly parallel to the exposition, except for the very end, where the last motif is changed from a jaunty staccato (short, separated notes) to a del?icate chromatic scale as a mock-tearful farewell gesture.
The second movement, marked Andante, is less slow than most second movements. Its tone, not surprisingly after what we know about the symphony's genesis, is that of an easy?going, peaceful serenade. The exquisite melodies flow one after another, and each has a distinctive touch--some detail of rhythm, har?mony, or orchestration--that no other compos?er could ever have invented.
The brief and concise third-movement "Menuetto" is based on a fanfare motif in which the trumpets and timpani play an impor?tant part. The movement's Trio section, whose melody is harmonized in the so-called "horn" style (using thirds, fifths, and sixths), seems to have been inspired by popular Landler tunes.
Mozart wrote that the fourth-movement "Presto" finale should go "as fast as possible." It is an extremely lively piece based on a simple tune, developed and varied in a most ingenious way. It starts softly on the strings, but the entire orchestra with trumpets and kettledrums soon joins in. The second theme, by contrast, is
scored for strings and woodwinds only. There is a brief coda, or a sort of musical postscript, which repeats the soft-loud scheme of the main melody a final time, before the jubilant ending played by the full orchestra.
The "Haffner" Symphony became one of Mozart's most successful works. Here is the composer's report of the Viennese premiere, from a letter to his father:
The theatre could not have been more crowded and...every box was full. But what pleased me most of all was that His Majesty the Emperor [Joseph II] was present and, goodness!--how delighted he was and how he applauded me! It is his custom to send money to the box office before going to the theatre; otherwise I should have been fully justified in counting on a larger sum, for really his delight was beyond all bounds. He sent 25 ducats.
The "Haffner" Symphony was performed in Mozart's lifetime in several cities outside Vienna, including Paris, where it was heard in the famous concert series "Concerts spirituels." After a 1786 concert in Germany, an anony?mous correspondent wrote in the Magazin der Musik:
The concert began with a new Symphony in D by Mozart, which was all the more wel?come to me because I had already long been desirous of hearing it. Chamber-musi?cian Lehritter....led the orchestra--which consisted of approximately 45 or 46 mostly young artists--with so much fire and solidity that I stood there full of astonishment. Everything hung together from one beat to the next: tempo, execution, forte, piano, and crescendo exhibited a perfection to the nth degree....I consider Mozart's symphony itself a masterpiece of harmony.
Symphony No. 4 in c minor, D. 417
("Tragic") Schubert
Even though Schubert himself appended the subtitle "Tragic" to his Symphony No. 4, we should not expect tragedy on the scale of Beethoven's Fifth, or even on the scale of Schu?bert's own song Erl King, written a year before the Fourth. As a writer of orchestral works, the 19-year-old Schubert was not yet ready to take on the challenge of Beethoven's heroic style; but he spoke the language of Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven as his mother tongue and it was to that style to which he was making some high?ly individual and mature contributions.
The overwhelming majority of 18th-century symphonies were written in the major mode, which was traditionally associated with bright and exuberant feelings. On the rare occasions when composers chose a minor key, the mood tended to darken and become more agitated.
When this manner of writing first appeared in the 1770s, it seemed to parallel the Sturm und Drang, a literary movement in Germany that favored tragic moods and paved the way for Romanticism. It was almost inevitable that Schu?bert should try his hand at the "tragic" genre established by his predecessors. Schubert's Sym?phony No. 4 is similar to the minor-key sym?phonies of Haydn and Mozart in its exceptional emotional intensity, unmatched in his oeuvre until the "Unfinished" (which, significantly, is also in a minor key).
In their minor-key works, Haydn and Mozart often engaged in harmonic adventures not seen when the tonality is major. The young Schubert, well aware that in the minor, business is never as usual, wrote one of his most complex and pro?found "Adagio" introductions to date. (It has been compared to the "Chaos" Prelude from Haydn's oratorio The Creation and to the open?ing of Mozart's "Dissonant" String Quartet, K. 465). Frequent key changes take the music as
far from the initial c minor as the Classical tonal system allows (reaching the remotest point with a long-held G-flat Major chord). Upon a no less eventful return to c minor, the "Allegro" section begins. It is a stormy movement with a theme of great urgency and a contrasting lyrical second theme. The harmonic experiment continues: instead of gradually modulating, Schubert "jumps," at one point, from A-flat to E and C and then back to A-flat. It was probably the first time ever that the octave (A-flat to A-flat) was divided like this into three equal major thirds--a symmetrical division that cuts across different tonalities. This simple idea had enormous impli?cations for the evolution of harmony in the 19th century. The accumulated harmonic tensions are finally resolved at the end of the movement when the tonality changes to the major. Usually, composers of minor-key symphonies save this particular move for their last movements, but Schubert evidently couldn't wait that long to introduce a powerful contrast between high drama and joyful celebration.
The second-movement "Andante" opens with a gentle major-key melody played by the strings, soon followed by an agitated passage in the minor mode. Schubert's model here seems to have been the second movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 39, built on a similar thematic contrast. In his biography of Mozart, Maynard Solomon found a particularly apt name for lyri?cal slow movements with dramatic middle sec?tions: "Trouble in Paradise." As in the Mozart, the "trouble" goes away at the end of the movement, and peace and order are restored in "paradise."
The third movement follows the outlines of a Scherzo, but the mood, instead of being playful, reverts to the Sturm und Drang world of the first movement, with some angular melodic motion emphasizing chromatic harmonies (which tend to destabilize the feeling of tonality). The Trio (middle section) brings temporary relief from the tensions, but even here the unusual key changes bespeak a certain sense of restlessness.
In the last movement, Schubert introduces a dark c-minor theme and treats it with inimitable
grace. In the second theme, first violins and clar?inets alternate to the lively accompaniment of second violins and violas, with persistent single notes thrown in by the first horn, to a splendid?ly humorous effect. The final switch to the major mode occurs sooner than it did in the first move?ment; although traces of the dark minor mode persist to the very end, the closing section is happy and buoyant. Whatever "tragedy" there was at the beginning has surely been overcome by now.
Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24
Richard Strauss
Born June 71, 1864 in Munich, Germany Died September 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Nothing could have been more "modern" in the music of the 1880s and '90s than the symphon?ic poem, that bold attempt to create drama without words and to test music's expressive powers to the fullest. Pioneered by Franz Liszt from the 1850s on, the new genre found a prac?titioner of genius in the young Richard Strauss. In a series of orchestral works that established him as one of the leading avant-gardists of the day, Strauss did not hesitate to tackle in his music the most complex literary and philosophi?cal topics possible. Although some have contin?ued to maintain that music is incapable of handling such topics, Strauss's openness to extra-musical ideas couldn't help but have an indelible impact. Works that sound like Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, or Also sprach Zarathustra would be unthinkable without pro?grammatic thinking. There may be traces of clas?sical forms in each of these works, but "Symphonies in C Major" (or any other key) they are certainly not: their unique musical fea?tures simply would not exist without the ideas reflected in their titles.
Strauss ended his magnificent series of tone poems with Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life) in 1899, but in a sense, all his symphonic poems are "heroes' lives." The youthful, reckless, yet at
the same time profoundly world-weary Don Juan; Till Eulenspiegel, who pays for his mis?chief-making with his life; Don Quixote, who loses his battle against the windmills--they all have one thing in common: each confronts the entire world all by himself, to be defeated in the physical sense but triumphing in spirit. The same can be said of the unnamed but certainly excep?tional dying artist in Strauss's third tone poem, Deaf) and Transfiguration. (It was preceded by Aus Italien and Don Juan; Macbeth, begun earlier than Death and Transfiguration, was only completed later.) Here Strauss dispensed with literary sources altogether; instead, he created an original conception that received its literary formulation from Strauss's friend and erstwhile mentor, Alexander Ritter, after the music had already been written. The work's underlying idea is explained in a letter written by Strauss in 1894:
It was six years ago that it occurred to me to present in the form of a tone poem the dying hours of a man who had striven towards the highest idealistic aims, maybe indeed those of an artist. The sick man lies in bed, asleep, with heavy irregular breath?ing; friendly dreams conjure a smile on the features of the deeply suffering man; he wakes up; he is once more racked with hor?rible agonies; his limbs shake with fever--as the attack passes and the pains leave off, his thoughts wander through his past life; his childhood passes before him, the time of his youth with its strivings and passions and then, as the pains already begin to return, there appears to him the fruit of his life's path, the conception, the ideal which he has sought to realize, to present artistically, but which he has not been able to com?plete, since it is not for man to be able to accomplish such things. The hour of death approaches, the soul leaves the body in order to find gloriously achieved in everlast?ing space those things which could not be fulfilled here below.
An ambitious program, it is certainly remark?able that a young man not quite 25 years old should have had such a highly developed image
of death and dying. What is even more aston?ishing is the unerring instinct with which Strauss realized his concept. Melodic material, orches?tration, and musical form are all uniquely suited to express that concept; for no matter what the "anti-expressivists" say, Strauss undoubtedly did full justice to his subject here.
The stages of the hero's last hours, as Strauss described them in his letter, are somewhat anal?ogous to the phases of anger, denial, and acceptance found in Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's famous (and, of course, much later) book on dying. After some introductory measures (Largo) in which the strings' rhythmic figure seems to imitate an irregular heartbeat, the woodwinds, accompanied by the harp, intone a melody of unspeakable sadness, followed by the main lyri?cal idea of the work, based on a descending scale and played by a solo violin. In the ensuing Allegro molto agitato, violent suffering erupts; as Norman Del Mar writes in his three-volume study of Strauss's life and music, "the ill man can be heard writhing in agony." The lyrical melody returns, this time played by the flute, evoking peaceful memories. But the theme soon becomes agitated again, to express both past and present turmoil; as in Don Juan, Strauss endows the traditional formal device of recapit?ulation with intense dramatic meaning. A sweeping new idea, the "transfiguration" theme, appears in this section. After all the other themes--those associated with turmoil, memories, and irregular heartbeat, have been revisited and left behind--the "transfiguration" theme takes over completely, to give the piece its radiant and justly celebrated ending. Accord?ing to the often-repeated story, when Richard Strauss lay dying in 1949 (exactly 60 years after writing this work), he told his daughter-in-law Alice: "Funny thing, Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Death and Transfiguration." Strauss had in fact set to music that "white light" that many people have mentioned when speaking of near-death experiences. If he had done nothing else in life, this would in itself be enough to make him immortal.
Program notes by Peter Laki.
R
iccardo Muti was born in Naples where he studied piano at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella under Vincenzo Vitale, graduating with distinction. He was sub?sequently awarded a diploma in Composition and Conducting by the Conservatory Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, where he studied under the guid?ance of Bruno Bettinelli and Antonino Votto. He first came to the attention of critics and public in 1967, when he was unanimously awarded First Place by the prestigious jury of the Guido Can-telli competition for conductors in Milan. The following year he was appointed principal con?ductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a position he maintained until 1980. In 1971 Maestro Muti was invited by Herbert von Kara-jan to conduct at the Salzburg Festival, which led in 2001 to a celebration of 30 years of artis?tic collaboration with this glorious festival. In January 2006, he was appointed Artistic Direc?tor of Salzburg's Pentecost Festival. During the 1970s, he was the London Philharmonic's chief conductor (1972-1982) succeeding Otto Klem-perer. Between 1980 to 1992, he inher?ited the position of Music Director of the
Philadelphia Orchestra from Eugene Ormandy.
From 1986 to 2005, Maestro Muti was Music Director of the Teatro alia Scala. Under his direction important projects were undertaken such as the Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy and the Wagn?er Ring Cycle. Alongside the classics of the repertoire, he brought many less-performed and neglected works to light. These include exquisite pieces from the 18th-century Neapolitan school as well as operas by Gluck, Cherubini, Spontini, and most recently by Poulenc, composer of Les dialogues des Carmelites. This lat?ter production earned Maestro Muti the prestigious "Abbiati" prize from the crit?ics. The long period spent as Musical Director of the La Scala organization cul?minated on December 7, 2004 in the tri?umphal re-opening of the restored La Scala with Antonio Salieri's Europa
riconosciuta, originally commissioned for La Scala's inaugural opening night in 1778.
Over the course of his extraordinary career. Maestro Muti has conducted most of the impor?tant orchestras in the world: from the Berlin Phil?harmonic to the Bayerischer Rundfunk, the New York Philharmonic to the Orchestre National de France, as well as, naturally, the Vienna Philhar?monic, an orchestra to which he is linked by par?ticularly close and important ties, and with which he has appeared at the Salzburg Festival since 1971. When Maestro Muti was invited to conduct the orchestra in the concert celebrating 150 years of the Vienna Philharmonic, he was presented with the Golden Ring, an honor bestowed by the Orchestra as a sign of special appreciation and affection, awarded to only a select few conductors.
In 2004 Maestro Muti founded the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra, consisting of young musicians selected, by an international commit?tee, from some 600 instrumentalists from across Italy.
Rkcardo Muti
Maestro Muti's vast recording activities, already significant during the 1970s, have received recognition in the form of many prizes, and span from the classical symphonic and oper?atic repertory to 20th-century contemporary works.
Riccardo Muti's social and civic conscience as an artist is demonstrated by concerts symboliz?ing our troubled past and contemporary history, which he has conducted in productions present?ed as part of the Ravenna Festival's Le vie del-I'Amitizia (The Paths of Friendship) project. These include Sarajevo (1997), Beirut (1998), Jerusalem (1999), Moscow (2000), Yerevan and Istanbul (2001), New York (2002), Cairo (2003), Damascus (2004), and El Diem, Tunisia (2005) with the La Scala Philharmonic and Chorus, the Orchestra and Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and the Musicians of Europe United, a group made up of the top players of Europe's major orchestras.
Innumerable honors have been bestowed on Maestro Muti over the course of his career. He has been made a Cavaliere di Gran Croce (Knight of the Great Cross) of the Italian Repub?lic and has received the City of Milan's Gran Medaglia d'Oro, as well as the Verdienstkreuz from the German Republic. He was awarded the Legion d'Honneur in France and made a Knight of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in Britain. The Salzburg Mozarteum awarded him its silver medal for his contribution to Mozart's music and he has been elected as an Honorary Member of the Wiener Hofmusikkapelle and the Wiener Staatsoper. Russian President Putin awarded him the Order of Friendship and the State of Israel has honored him with the Wolf prize for the arts. He has received honorary degrees from many universities in Italy and abroad.
With the Vienna Philharmonic, Riccardo Muti celebrated the 250th birthday of Mozart on Jan?uary 27, 2006 with a worldwide telecast of a concert from Salzburg. His most recent tour with the Vienna Philharmonic was a triumphant set of performances in Japan in November 2005.
T
here is perhaps no other musical ensem?ble more consistently and closely associ?ated with the history and tradition of European classical music than the Vienna Phil?harmonic. In its more than 160-year history, the musicians of this most prominent orchestra of the capital city of music have been an integral part of a musical epoch which, due to an abun?dance of uniquely gifted composers and inter?preters, must certainly be regarded as unique.
Until the first Philharmonic concert on March 28, 1842, the city which gave its name to the "Viennese classicists"--Joseph Haydn, Wolf?gang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven--had no professional concert orchestra. Concerts of symphonic works were played by ensembles specially assembled for the occasion. Orchestras composed entirely of pro?fessional musicians were found only in the the?aters. The logical step of playing a concert with one of these orchestras was taken at the end of the 18th century, when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart engaged the orchestra of the Vienna Court Theater for a cycle of six concerts in 1785. Ludwig van Beethoven also engaged this ensemble on April 2, 1800 for a concert in which he premiered his Symphony No. 7. On May 24, 1824, the orchestra of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of the Friends of Music) and the court orchestra joined forces with the court opera orchestra for the premiere of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.
Despite these promising beginnings, howev?er, the largest and finest ensemble in Vienna only managed to become an organizer of classi?cal symphonic concerts in a very roundabout way. The Bavarian composer and conductor Franz Lachner, conductor at the court opera the?ater from 1830, played symphonies by Beethoven in the intervals of ballet performanc?es. From these experiments to the court opera orchestra's first entrepreneurial activities was only a small step, and in 1833 Lachner founded the Kunstler-Verein for this purpose. However, the society disbanded after only four concerts due to organizational shortcomings.
Otto Nicolai (1810-49) was appointed con-
ums University Musical Society
UMS ARCHIVES
Tonight's performance marks the Vienna Philharmonic's 10th appearance under UMS auspices. The Philharmonic made its UMS debut in November 1956 under the baton of Maestro Andre Cluytens. The Vienna Philharmonic (conducted by Nikolas Harnancourt) last appeared under UMS auspices in Detroit's Opera House in February 2003 during which time Hill Auditorium was closed for renovation. Other note-worthy UMS presentations of the Vienna Philharmonic include a gala benefit concert held in honor of Leonard Bernstein's 70th-birthday year and Hill Auditorium's 75th anniversary. This gala celebration was held on October 29, 1988 in Hill under the baton of Maestro Bernstein. Of the nine Vienna Philharmonic concerts presented by UMS, five were conducted by Leonard Bernstein: two concerts in 1984, two concerts in 1987, and one in 1988; and two were conducted by Claudio Abbado in 1987.
Riccardo Muti made his UMS debut in April 1979 conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra at the 86th Annual May Festival. He last appeared in Hill Auditorium, again conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, along with soloists Krystian Zimerman (piano), Gidon Kremer (violin), Carlos Montoya (guitar), and Rockwell Blake (tenor) at the 90th Annual May Festival in April 1983.
ductor at the Karntertortheater in 1841. Because certain influential figures wanted to keep him out of musical life in Vienna, he revived Lachner's idea, and on March 28, 1842 conducted a "Grand Concert" in the GroGer Redoutensaal which was presented by "all the members of the orchestra of the k.k. (imperial-royal) Hof-Operntheater." This "Philharmonic Academy," as it was originally called, is rightly regarded as the origin of the orchestra, because all the principles of the "Philharmonic Idea," which still apply today, were put into practice for the first time:
Only a musician who plays in the Vienna State Opera Orchestra (originally Court Opera Orchestra) can become a member of the Vienna Philharmonic;
The orchestra is artistically, organizational? ly, and financially autonomous, and all deci? sions are reached on a democratic basis during the general meeting of all members;
The day-to-day management is the responsibility of a democratically elected body, the administrative committee.
When Otto Nicolai left Vienna permanently in 1847, the young enterprise almost collapsed, having lost in one person not only its artistic but also its administrative leader. In January 1860, the first of four subscription concerts took place in the Karntnertortheater under the baton of then opera director Carl Eckert, and since that time, the "Philharmonic Concerts" have been staged without interruption. The only significant change over the years was to switch from hav?ing one conductor for a complete season of sub?scription concerts to the present system of having various guest conductors within a sea?son, as the following chronology demonstrates:
1860 Carl Eckert
1860-1875 OttoDessoff
1875-1882 Hans Richter
1882-1883 Wilhelm Jahn
1883-1898 Hans Richter
1898-1901 Gustav Mahler
1901-1903 Joseph Hellmesberge jun.
1903-1908 Guest conductors
1908-1927 Felix von Weingartner
1927-1930 Wilhelm Furtwangler
1930-1933 Clemens Krauss
since 1933 Guest conductors
In 1938, politics encroached upon Philhar?monic activity in the most brutal way. The National Socialists dismissed all Jewish artists from the Vienna State Opera and disbanded the association of the Vienna Philharmonic. It was only the intervention of Wilhelm Furtwangler which achieved the nullification of the disband-ment order and saved the "half-Jews" and "closely-related" from dismissal and persecu?tion. However, the Vienna Philharmonic mourned the murder of six Jewish members in the concentration camps as well as the death of a young violinist on the eastern front.
Through its busy concert schedule, record?ings on film and record, tours all over the world, and regular appearances at major international festivals, the Vienna Philharmonic meets the requirements of the modern multimedia music business while still managing to emphasize its unique individuality.
The Vienna Philharmonic is not only Austria's most highly coveted "cultural export," it is also an ambassador of peace, humanity, and recon?ciliation, concepts which are inseparably linked to the message of music itself. For its artistic achievements the orchestra has received numer?ous awards, gold and platinum discs, national honors, and honorary membership in many cul?tural institutions.
Vienna Philharmonic
Riccardo Muti, Conductor
Concert Master
Rainer Kuchl Werner Hink Rainer Honeck Volkhard Steude
First Violin
Eckhard Seifert Hubert Kroisamer Josef Hell Jun Keller Daniel Froschauer Gerhard Libensky Herbert Linke Manfred Kuhn Gunter Seifert Wolfgang Brand Clemens Hellsberg Erich Schagerl Bernhard Biberauer Martin Kubik Milan Setena Martin Zalodek Kirill Kobantchenko Wilfried Hedenborg Johannes Tombock
Second Violin
Peter Wachter Raimund Lissy Tibor Kovc Gerald Schubert Rene Staar Helmut Zehetner Hans Wolfgang Weihs Ortwin Ottmaier Heinz Hanke Alfons Egger George Fritthum Alexander Steinberger Harald Krumpock Michal Kostka Benedict Lea Marian Lesko Tomas Vinklat Johannes Kostner Martin Klimek Pavel Kuzmichev
Viola
Heinrich Koll Tobias Lea Christian Frohn Peter Pecha Wolf-Dieter Rath Robert Bauerstatter Erhard Litschauer Gottfried Martin Hans P. Ochsenhofer Mario Karwan Martin Lemberg Elmar Landerer Innokenti Grabko Ursula Plakhinger Michael Strasser Gerhard Marschner Thilo Fechner
Violoncello
Franz Bartolomey Tamas Varga Robert Nagy Friedrich Dolezal Raphael Flieder Werner Resel Gerhard Kaufmann Jorgen Fog Gerhard Iberer Csaba Bornemisza Wolfgang Hartel Ursula Wex Eckart Schwarz-Schulz
Contrabass
Alois Posch Herbert Mayr Wolfgang Giirtler Gerhard Formanek Milan Sagat
Alexander Matschinegg Georg Straka Michael Bladerer Bartosz Sikorski Manfred Hecking Jerzy Dybal Christoph Wimmer Odon Racz
Harp
Xavier de Maistre Charlotte Balzereit
Flute
Wolfgang Schulz Dieter Flury Gunter Federsel Giinter Voglmayr Walter Auer Wolfgang Breinschmid
Oboe
Martin Gabriel Clemens Horak Walter Lehmayer Alexander Ohlberger Harald Horth
Clarinet
Peter Schmidl Ernst Ottensamer Norbert Taubl Horst Hajek Johann Hindler Andreas Wieser
Bassoon
Michael Werba Stepan Turnovsky Harald Muller Reinhard Ohlberger Wolfgang Koblitz Benedikt Dinkhauser
Horn
Wolfgang Tombbck jun. Ronald Janezic Lars Michael Stransky Volker Altmann Thomas Jobstl Gunter Hogner Wolfgang Vladar Roland Horvath Friedrich Pfeiffer
Trumpet
Hans Peter Schuh Gotthard Eder Martin Muhlfellner Reinhold Ambros Stefan Haimel
Trombone
Dietmar Kublbbck Ian Leslie Bousfield Gabriel Madas Karl Jeitler Johann Strocker
Tuba
Paul Halwax
Percussion
Roland Altmann Bruno Hartl Anton Mittermayr Kurt Prihoda Klaus Zauner Oliver Madas
Denotes newly engaged members of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra who do not yet belong to the association of the Vienna Philharmonic
Tour Direction
creative partners in music, america Konzertdirektion Hans Ulrich Schmid

Word Becomes Flesh
Gloria Bigelow, Director
Sean Riley, Lighting Design
Roberta Uno, Dramaturgy
Adia Tamar Whitaker and Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Choreography
Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Librettist
BRAVO, Musical Composition
CreatorsPerformers
Marc Bamuthi Joseph Paris King Sekou Gibson Ajayi Jackson
Friday Evening, March 10, 2006 at 8:00 Power Center, Ann Arbor
Tonight's production is performed without intermission.
39th Performance of the 127th Annual Season
The photographing or sound recording of this performance or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Media partnership for this performance provided by WEMU 89.1 FM, Metro Times, and Michigan ChronicleFront Page.
Special thanks to Judith Hommel and Washtenaw Community College; Ypsilanti High School, Pioneer High School, Susan Buchan and Scarlett Middle School, and Tappan Middle School; Lori Roddy and the Neutral Zone; and Jeff Kass for their participation in this residency.
Word Becomes Flesh was commissioned by the National Performance Network, La Pena Cultural Center, and the New World Theater through the NPN Creation Fund. It has received the support of the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Ford Founda?tion, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the City of Oakland's Cultural Crafts and Arts Department. It was developed with the consultation of Kim Cook, and further evolved through residencies at New World Theater, La Pena Cultural Center, Everett Dance Theater, Dance Place, the NYC Hip-Hop Theater Festival, and the Bates Dance Festival.
Word Becomes Flesh appears by arrangement with MultiArts Projects & Productions (MAPP).
Large print programs are available upon request.
The Living Word Project (LWP) is the resident theater company of Youth Speaks, Inc., commit?ted to producing literary performance in the verse of our time. Aesthetically urban, pedagog-ically Freirean, LWP derives personal performed narratives out of interdisciplinary collaboration. Though its methodology including dance, music, and film, the company's emphasis is spo?ken storytelling. LWP creates verse-based work that is spoken through the body, illustrated by visual and sonic scores, and in communication with the important social issues and movements of the present moment. Repertory works include No Man's Land, Cause, Word Becomes Flesh, and Scourge. LWP is the theater's connection from Shakespeare's quill to Kool Here's turnta?bles; from Martha Graham's cupped hand to Nelson Mandela's clenched fist: a new voice for a new politic.
For further information, please visit www.youthspeaks.org.
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arc Bamuthi Joseph (Playwright Choreographer), originally from NYC, is an arts activist currently living in Oakland, California. He is a National Poetry Slam champion, Broadway veteran, featured artist on the past two seasons of Russell Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO and a recipient of 2002 and 2004 National Performance Network Creation commissions. He recently returned from Tokyo
where he was presented during the First Inter?national Spoken Word Festival and from Santia?go, Cuba, where he joined the legendary Katherine Dunham as a part of the CubaNola Collective. He entered the world of literary per?formance after crossing the sands of "tradition?al" theater, most notably on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning The Tap Dance Kid and Stand-Up Tragedy. His evening-length work Word Becomes Flesh represents the completion of his third play, having already staged DeCipher (Theater Artaud and Yerba Buena Center, 2001) and No Man's Land (ODC, 2002). Bamuthi's performance schedule has carried him from dance apprenticeships in Senegal to teach?ing fellowships in Bosnia. Over the next two years, he will develop new projects with Le Cen?tre Nationale de Dance, the National Dance Pro?ject, and the International Theater Institute to be performed in France, Zaire, Germany, and the Philippines. His proudest work has been with the organization Youth Speaks, where he mentors 13-to-19-year-old writers and curates the Living Word Festival for Literary Arts. He recently served as an IDA resident artist in Stanford Uni?versity's Drama Department, teaching Spoken Word and Community Action. His next project, Scourge, reflects on the plight of Haiti in the post-colonial New World, and is being devel?oped while Bamuthi is a Phillis Wattis Artist-in-Residence at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Collaborators for Scourge include renowned choreographer Rennie Harris, Gram?my-nominated composer John Santos, dra?maturge Roberta Uno, and director Kamilah Forbes of the NYC Hip-Hop Theater Festival.
Tonight's presentation of Word Becomes Flesh marks Marc Bamuthi Joseph's UMS debut.
Adia Tamar Whitaker (Choreographer) has been dancing since the age of four. After grad?uating from San Francisco State University with a BA in Dance, and completing the Professional DivisionUS Independent Study Program at The Ailey School, she became an artist-in-residence for Dancing In The Streets, and a teaching artist
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
for The Schomburg Junior Scholars Program, The Door, Community Works, and Arts Connec?tion. In 2002, Adia's modern and folkloric cho?reography was commissioned by Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center for the Womendance-makers series in the Souls of Our Feet Dance Festival at the LIU Triangle Theater. Her work has been performed at the International Dance Fes?tival (Off-Broadway), the Hip-Hop Theatre Festi?val, the Theater at the Jedson Church, Riverside Church, The Schomburg, and various choreo?graphic showcases throughout New York City. She continues to act as the artistic director for Ase Dance Theatre Collective.
David Szlasa (Technical Director) is committed to producing art and artists with a conscious desire to affect social change. David has created, directed, and produced three original interdisci?plinary performance pieces: Dissection (1997), Light (2000), and GADGET (2004) that have been seen in and around New York. David is the former Production Manager and Designer-in-Residence at the Culture Project @ 45 Bleecker from 2002-2004 where he opened The Exoner?ated (Obie Award), Sarah Jones' Bridge and Tun?nel (Lortel Award), and Red Bull Theater's Pericles. Prior to this engagement, David was the Production Manager and Designer for Theater Artaud in San Francisco. Additionally, David has collaborated with Bill "Crutchmaster" Shannon for the past five years and performed at venues including the Edinburgh Fringe, Walker Arts Center, The Kitchen, and Sydney Opera House. In 2001, David toured to the Harare Internation?al Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe with Univer?sal Arts' the Beat. Other New York design credits: Rennie Harris Puremovement Facing Mekka, Holderness Theater Company Life of Spiders, Synaesthetic Theatre The Trial of K, Deb Margolin's Index to Idioms, Miss Julie, and Five Flights at The Rattlestick Theater. David holds a BFA from Tisch and a MA in New Media and Per?formance from the Gallatin School, NYU, and taught design for Playwrights Horizon's Theater School, a division of NYU. Currently, David is the production manager and designer in residence at Z Space in San Francisco.
Paris King (Musical DirectorComposer) is a musical artist native to Oakland, California. He's privately studied counterpoint and harmony with Mondre Moffett, and at the Ali Akbar Col?lege of Music in India. His subsequent work has carried him throughout Europe and the US, per?forming with Keepers of Time, Xroads, and Bamuthi while sharing the stage with recording artists as varied as Meshell Ndegeocello, Zion I, and Cody Chesnutt. His two most recent proj?ects are the result of his most recent sojourns to Europe, and are thus aptly titled The Irish Album and The Spanish Album.
Sekou Gibson (BassPercussionComposer) has performed on various stages including the Inter?national Music and Dance Festival in Beijing, China, The Okan to Mi Festival in Havana, Cuba, the African Collage Festival in London England, the African Arts Summit in Harare, Zimbabwe, and the Disney Land International Day Festival in Anaheim, California. Mr. Gibson currently teach?es music to youth, runs the Alaje Dide record label, and serves as artistic and musical director of the folkloric hip-hop ensemble, da Shout.
Ajayi Jackson is a Bay Area native with a richly diverse and versatile musical background. A jazz composer-pianist with a degree in classical bas?soon performance, Mr. Jackson is also an accomplished trap drummer who works with several premiere ensembles as an African, Hait?ian, and Cuban folkloric percussionist. His musi?cal talents have brought him across the globe, touring Cuba, the African Continent, and the US while teaching workshops and sharing the stage with Martin Luther, Dimensions Dance Ensemble, Goapele, and the legendary Jean-Leon Destine. Mr. Jackson currently lives in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Special thanks to Youth Speaks, Inc., BG Unlimited, MECCA clothing, Kim Cook, The Hip-Hop Theater Festival, Ase Dance Theater Collective, Re-Define Design, all our families, and the staff at MAPP.
For further information about Word Becomes Flesh:
MultiArts Projects & Productions (MAPP) Lisa Phillips, Director, MAPP on Tour www.multiartsprojects.com

with
Borders Group
and
EMI Classics
present
Belcea Quartet
and
Ian Bostridge
Tenor
Corina Belcea, Violin Laura Samuel, Violin Krzysztof Chorzelski, Viola Antoine Lederlin, Cello
with
Julius Drake, Piano
Program
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Dmitri Shostakovich
Saturday Evening, March 11, 2006 at 8:00 Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, Ann Arbor
On Wenlock Edge
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble
From far, from eve and morning
Is my team ploughing
Oh, when I was in love with you
Bredon Hill
Clun
Mr. Bostridge, Mr. Drake
String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73
Allegretto
Moderato con moto Allegro non troppo Adagio-moderato
INTERMISSION
Gabriel Faure
La Bonne Chanson, Op. 61
Une Sainte en son aureole
Puisque I'aube grandit
La lune blanche
J'allais par les chemins perfides
J'ai presque peur, en verite
Avant que tu ne t'en ailles
Done, ce sera par un clair jour d'ete
N'est-ce pas
L'hiver a cesse
Mr. Bostridge, Mr. Drake
40th Performance of the 127th Annual Season
43rd Annual Chamber Arts Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such pho?tographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Tonight's performance is co-sponsored by Borders Group and EMI Classics. Media partnership for this performance provided by WGTE 91.3 FM.
The Steinway piano used in this evening's performance is made possible by Hammell Music, Inc., Livonia, Michigan.
The Belcea Quartet appears by arrangement with Arts Management Group, Inc. Mr. Bostridge and Mr. Drake appear by arrangement with ICM Artists, Ltd.
Large print programs are available upon request.
On Wenlock Edge
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Born October 12, 1872 in Down Ampney,
Gloucestershire, England Died August 26, 1958 in London
"Everyone is agreed that your lyric poems were a revelation," wrote Maurice Ravel to Ralph Vaughan Williams after the first French perform?ance of On Wenlock Edge in 1912 (the pianist for the concert was originally supposed to have been Gabriel Faure, but seems in the end to have been Ravel instead). Study with Ravel dur?ing 1907-08 was vital to Vaughan Williams's development, a catalyst that helped him fuse the influence of English folk song, Tudor music, and the modern French school, and to crystallize a unique compositional style; On Wenlock Edge, begun in 1906 but composed mostly in 1908-09, was the first major work to signal this epiphany.
Scored for tenor and piano quintet--the composer exploits to the full the unusual accom-panimental medium, though he did later score a version for full orchestra--the cycle sets six poems from A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad (1896), a collection mined heavily by both British and American composers during the first few decades of the 20th century. (On Wenlock Edge was apparently the first Vaughan Williams work to attract attention on this side of the Atlantic.) Housman's miniaturist verse, often ironic and profoundly pessimistic, here becomes the basis of something more emotionally expansive and cathartic, with Vaughan Williams creating a powerful sense of affinity and progression across the song cycle.
The perennial ravages of time and mortality, especially on love, are constantly in focus; in the final song, "Clun," Vaughan Williams leads us, however, to find a measure of peace, implying that, pace the bitter ghost of the third song, death does finally offer escape from the cycle of suffering. The poems were surely chosen also for their dramatic scope and potential for musi?cal imagery: the gale-battered hillside of the title song, the dialogue of the living and the dead in "Is my team ploughing" and the midday haze
and tolling bells of "Bredon Hill" all offer oppor?tunities brilliantly exploited by Vaughan Williams (with some nods to his French models). And yet the tersely ironic setting "Oh, when I was in love with you," or the calm luminosity of "From far, from eve and morning," show a composer quite capable of matching Housman's understate?ment when he chose to.
String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73
Dmitri Shostakovich
Born September 25, 1906 in St. Petersburg
Died August 9, 1975 in Moscow
Few controversies of recent musical history have raged as bitterly as that surrounding the politics of Shostakovich: loyal Soviet or lifelong clandes?tine dissident--or some excruciating position in between Since his death in 1975 scholars have battled over a baffling legacy, the waters impos?sibly muddied by myth, rumor, conflicting and incomplete documentary evidence, ideological bias in both East and West, and the hall-of-mir-rors moral maze of life within a totalitarian regime. And, of course, by the ultimate inscrutability of musical meaning, which allows for dramatically divergent interpretations of the same notes. This is especially marked in Shostakovich's case, where irony also clearly plays an important role (as it does in the music of his hero Mahler), so that commentators so inclined may argue that the apparently sunny or triumphant character of this or that movement is in fact hollow and ironic.
There are no clear-cut answers to these ques?tions, and they sit in somewhat paradoxical rela?tionship to the pronounced accessibility of Shostakovich's musical language, its sheer tech?nical brilliance, formal clarity, and lucid handling of tonality. Such qualities are ideally suited to the essentially classical medium of the string quartet, for which Shostakovich wrote 15 works across his career, creating one of the pillars of the 20th-century quartet literature.
String Quartet No. 3 was composed between January and August 1946, and premiered in
Moscow the following December by its dedica?tees, the Beethoven Quartet, with whom Shostakovich had worked for over 20 years. Even as late as 1950 Shostakovich considered it his best work; yet shortly after its premiere it fell under the shadow of the notorious Cold War crackdown on Soviet artists, led by Andrey Zhdanov, that would cost Shostakovich so dear?ly in the coming years, and the Quartet was withdrawn from circulation. Whether or not, as some have claimed, it contains coded attacks on Stalin, bitterness, unease, and a sense of the grotesque are never far from the surface of the Quartet, and even its more relaxed moments quickly turn sour: there is none of the simple tri-umphalism expected by the Party in the after?math of the glorious victory over Fascism.
The sonata-form first movement begins inno?cently enough in the tonic of F Major, with a Rossinian opening theme, but the mood quickly becomes brittle, and the second main theme is much darker, slipping toward minor keys instead. A fiercely fugal development section confirms the serious turn; the loud recapitulation, led by the cello with a bloated version of the original theme, seems sinister rather than triumphant, and the faster coda is likewise frenetic rather than exhila?rated. Two scherzos follow, both in minor keys. The first is dominated by rhythms that are waltz-like yet mechanically stiff; three main themes are presented and then compressed before the open?ing idea returns for a final time. The closing meas?ures unsettlingly superimpose c minor and e minor, a clash adumbrated in the first theme. Unease turns to violence and hysteria in the third movement, also based on a trio of themes. Triple and duple meters are continually pitted against one another to often brutal effect, intensified by thick, stabbing chords generated by multiple stopping in all four instruments. Fury gives way to lament in the tragic fourth movement, a bleak, almost operatic elegy alternating unison recitative for the quartet with solo violin cantilena, under?pinned in the latter half of the movement by funereal drum-beat figures.
The work was written while Shostakovich was visiting his mother in Leningrad, where he had endured much of the terrible Nazi siege
before being evacuated, and for once the expressive intent seems unambiguous. The movement leads without a break into the finale, a lugubrious rondo. The one attempt at light relief, a jogging theme introduced midway through by the cello, fails; at the climax of the finale the opening theme of the slow movement is brought back, to harrowing effect, and though the Quartet ends on the tonic major chord, the first violin's final ascent imparts a spectral, haunting effect that resonates well beyond the final sounds of the work.
La Bonne Chanson, Op. 61
Gabriel Faure
Born May 12, 1845 in Pamiers, Ariege, France
Died November 4, 1924 in Paris
Faure is probably still best known for the cool otherworldliness of his Requiem. His songs, in contrast, reveal a worldly sensuality more obvi?ously in tune with fin-de-siede Parisian culture-an apparent duality elegantly encapsulated by contemporary Reynaldo Hahn, who dubbed Faure a "gregorianising voluptuary"-yet even here his expression is generally restrained and classically sculpted. In the song cycle La Bonne Chanson, however, Faure went beyond his usual limits and created one of his most explicitly impassioned, at times almost Wagnerian, works--indeed, Claude Debussy among others thought it excessive, though the novelist Marcel Proust loved it.
An autobiographical impetus was crucial: the cycle sprang from the composer's infatuation with soprano Emma Bardac, young wife of a wealthy banker, who advised Faure on the com?position and gave the first performance. (Bardac would later leave her husband for Debussy, sparking one of the greatest Parisian scandals of the era.) Composed between September 1892 and February 1894, the cycle represents the high point of another passion of Faure's, the poetry of Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). Verlaine's precise distillation of emotion suited Faure par?ticularly well; he first set the poet in 1887, and his most celebrated songs are almost all to Ver-
laine texts. The poet's 1870 collection of 21 poems entitled La Bonne Chanson, celebrating ultimately ill-fated but initially ecstatic love for his young bride, caused an immediate sensation when it first appeared. Faure selected just nine poems from the original, and omitted stanzas in some cases, but is faithful to Verlaine in the spir?it of enchanted wonderment that he conjures throughout (and in the exquisitely sensitive word setting).
Unusually for the late-19th century, love con?quers all in this cycle--and without death cast?ing its shadow. Even the two songs that begin in minor keys, Nos. 4 and 5, end in the major, as doubts and fears are transformed by love. The tide of passion also seems to dissolve predictable forms; each song is carried forward by the won?dering discovery of new vistas of emotion, reflected in sudden harmonic or modal shifts and, in several of the songs, changes of tempo. There is no strong narrative thrust across the whole work (though some landmarks in the romance are evoked, most importantly marriage itself in No. 7), but the cycle carefully charts a progression of moods and keys, and is knit together by a network of recurring themes, most notably that heard in the accompaniment in the very opening bars of the work (this returns prominently in the middle of No. 4, among other places). Faure added strings to the original piano accompaniment in 1898, creating the version we hear tonight, but vacillated over which medium he preferred.
Program notes by Alain Frogley,
O 2006 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation.
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an Bostridge was a post-doctoral fellow in history at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, before embarking on a full-time career as a singer. His international recital career includes the world's major concert halls and the Edin?burgh, Munich, Vienna, Aldeburgh and Schu-bertiade Festivals. In 1999 he premiered a song cycle written for him by Hans Werner Henze. In the 0304 season he held artistic residencies at the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Schubertiade
Schwarzenberg; in 0405 he shared a Carte-Blanche series with Thomas Quasthoff at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw; and in 0506 he has his own Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall.
Mr. Bostridge made his operatic debut in 1994 as Lysander in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Opera Australia at the Edin?burgh Festival; in 1996 he made his debut as Tamino at the English National Opera; in 1997 he sang Quint in Deborah Warner's award-win?ning production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw for the Royal Opera; in 1998 he made his debut at the Munich Festival singing Nerone in David Alden's production of L'lncoronazione di Poppea and he returned to the Royal Opera as Vasek in The Bartered Bride under Bernard Haitink. He sang Janacek's Diary of One who Vanished in a new translation by Seamus Heaney, staged by Deborah Warner in London, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam, and New York. Most recently he sang Tom Rakewell in Munich and Peter Quint in London.
His recordings include Schubert's Die schone Mullerin with Graham Johnson (Gramophone Award, 1996); Tom Rakewell with Sir John Eliot Gardiner (Grammy Award, 1999); and Belmonte (William Christie). Under his exclusive contract with EMI Classics, he has recorded Schubert lieder and Schumann lieder (Gramophone Award, 1998), English song and Henze lieder
Ian Bostridge
with Julius Drake, Britten's Our Hunting Fathers with Daniel Harding, Idomeneo with Sir Charles Mackerras, Janacek with Thomas Ades, Schubert with Leif Ove Andsnes, Noel Coward with Jeffrey Tate, Britten orchestral cycles with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, Wolf with Antonio Pappano and, for EMIAirgin, Bach cantatas with Fabio Biondi, Britten's Canticles and The Turn of the Screw (Gramophone Award, 2003).
Mr. Bostridge's concert engagements include the Berlin, London, New York, Los Angeles, Rotterdam, and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras; the Chicago, Boston, London, and BBC Symphony orchestras; the Royal Concert-gebouw; and the Orchestra of the Metropoli?tan Opera under Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Andrew Davis, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Baren-boim, Daniel Harding, Donald Runnicles, James Levine, and Antonio Pappano. His opera engagements include Semele for English Nation?al Opera, Don Giovanni and Ades's The Tempest for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, The Rape of Lucretia in Munich, Don Giovanni for the Vienna State Opera, and Death in Venice for English National Opera.
In 2001 Mr. Bostridge was elected an hon?orary fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford and in 2003 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Music by the University of St. Andrew's. He was created a CBE in the 2004 New Year's Honors.
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he Belcea Quartet is rapidly gaining an enviable reputation as one of the leading quartets of the younger generation. They continue to take the British and international chamber music circuit by storm, consistently receiving impressive critical acclaim for their per?formances. Since the fall of 2001, they have been the Resident Quartet of London's Wigmore Hall. In July 2002 the Quartet embarked on an exclusive recording contract with EMI Classics, and in 2004, the ensemble won UK's prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award.
In 2001 the Belcea Quartet won the Gramo-
phone Award for "Best Debut Recording." Sub?sequent recordings for EMI include Schubert quartets, Brahms's String Quartet, Op. 51, No. 1 and String Quintet, No. 2 with Thomas Kakuska, and Faure's La Bonne Chanson with Ian Bostridge. Other releases now include Schu?bert's Trout Quintet with Thomas Ades and Corin Long, and a double-disc of Britten's string quartets.
The Belcea Quartet's repertoire at Wigmore Hall has incorporated a new commission by Huw Watkins as well as works by Ades, Bartok, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Haydn, and Mozart. They joined forces for performances of Schubert's Trout Quintet with Thomas Ades and Schumann's Piano Quintet with Aleksander Madzar, and continue their involvement in the Hall's extensive education program. Past collab?orations have included Isabelle van Keulen, Piotr Anderszewski, and Imogen Cooper.
In the current season, the Belcea's North American appearances include performances at Carnegie's Zankel, Ann Arbor's University Musi?cal Society, and the Library of Congress with Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake. Additional perform?ances include San Francisco, Costa Mesa, Hon?olulu, Santa Barbara, St. Louis, Dallas, and
Belcea Quartet
UMS ARCHIVES
Tonight's performance marks the Belcea Quartet's UMS debut.
Mr. Bostridge makes his second UMS appearance after his April 2002 UMS recital debut performing songs of Franz Schubert with pianist Julius Drake. Mr. Drake makes his third UMS appearance tonight following his UMS Song Series debut with baritone Wolfgang Holzmair in February 1997.
return visits to Union College and Middlebury College.
Last season the Belcea Quartet performed concerts in both New York and Boston. Within the past two seasons, they have successfully concertized in Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
The Belcea Quartet was established at the Royal College of Music where they were coached by the Chilingirian Quartet, Simon Rowland-Jones, and the Amadeus Quartet. Between 1997-2000, the Quartet was repre?sented by Young Concert Artists Trust in London during which time they were coached by the Alban Berg Quartet, won First Prize at both the Osaka and Bordeaux International String Quar?tet Competitions in 1999, and represented Great Britain in the European Concert Halls Organization "Rising Stars" series in the 19992000 season. The Quartet was selected for BBC Radio 3's "New Generations" scheme from 1999-2001. The Belcea Quartet are supported by the Royal College of Music's New Generation Scheme, the Zurich Financial Services, Ltd., and Rosalind and Brian Gilmore. In May 2001, the Belcea Quartet received the Chamber Music Award of the Royal Philharmonic Society.
Julius Drake studied and resides in London. He specialises in the field of chamber music and works with many of the world's leading vocal and instrumental artists, both in recital and on disc. He appears regularly at all the major music centers. In recent seasons concerts have taken him to the Edinburgh, Munich, Salzburg, Schu-bertiade, and Tanglewood Festivals; Lincoln Center, New York; the Concertgebouw, Amster?dam; the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vien?na; the Chatalet in Paris; the Wigmore Hall and the BBC Proms in London; and on recital tours to Australia, Japan, and the US.
Director of the Perth International Chamber Music Festival in Australia from 2000-2003, Mr. Drake was also musical director in Deborah Warner's staging of Janacek's Diary of One who Vanished, touring to Munich, London, Dublin, Amsterdam, and New York.
Mr. Drake's passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise series for the Wig-more Hall, London (Britten Songs, Schubert Songdiary, Songs of the Nineties) the BBC, (Complete Songs of Faure) and the Concertge?bouw, Amsterdam (Brahms Songs). He gives regular master classes in Europe and the US and in 2006 he has been invited onto the jury of the 15th Leeds International Piano Competition.
Shostakovich Centenniafestival
Shostakovich at 100
BY PETER LAKI
W
e certainly don't need an anniversary to hear Shostakovich's music. Of all 20th-century composers, he is prob?ably the most often performed and recorded. Yet our rituals of specifically marking the birth and death dates of significant people every 25 years do serve an important function; it is impor?tant, once in a generation or so, to take a step back and ask what this person's legacy means to us, here and now.
This question is a particularly important one to ask about Shostakovich, who has meant so many things to so many people since his career began about 80 years ago. He is usually not included among the great musical innovators of the century, like Stravinsky, Bartok, or the mas?ters of the Second Viennese School. His overall commitment to tonality and the traditional gen?res of symphony, quartet, and sonata has caused some to label him a "classicist," if not down?right a "conservative". Yet such an assessment fails to take into account the historical context from which Shostakovich's music arose. Others, focusing on that very context, have tried to explain Shostakovich entirely on the basis of Soviet politics and society, seeking the key to his music in his relationship to the regime--which is just as simplistic.
The debate as to whether Shostakovich was a "loyal Communist" or a "secret dissident" has been raging for decades, but to anyone who has lived in a totalitarian state this question makes little sense. The composer did what he had to do to survive. He was keenly aware that in Russia, an economically backward country with no democratic tradition to speak of, the Commu?nists had vastly improved the life of the popula?tion, bringing education and decent living conditions to the masses. At the same time he couldn't be blind to the killing of untold millions during Stalin's purges (he could easily have become one of them), or the many other ways the Communist Party asserted its oppressive rule over the country's citizens. He was deeply torn and had no illusions; at the same time he was deeply attached to his country and its culture-what would you have done in his place
One thing is certain: Shostakovich was never the same again after the infamous attack "Mud-
die Instead of Music" in the newspaper Pravda (Truth) on January 28, 1936. Denounced for the "formalism" and "coarse naturalism" of his Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Shostakovich never wrote another opera. He also gave up the avant-garde experimentation that had character?ized much of his early music through the Fourth Symphony--which lay unperformed for 25 years. He became a "classicist," if you will, an official figurehead for Soviet music, and finally-though not until 1960--a member of the Party. Yet, even after he had long received every honor and prize in sight, he still did not have an easy ride. As late as 1962, the premiere of his Sym?phony No. 13 came close to being barred because it used Yevgeni Yevtushenko's poem Babi Yar to which the authorities objected. In the last decade of his life, he finally seemed to be above vicious attacks by Party bureaucrats, but by this time his health was ruined. The works of those years inhabit a very special world, beyond modernism and conservatism, and far beyond politics. Filled with nostalgia and obsessed with death, Shostakovich's late music constitutes one of the most poignant emotional legacies left by a 20th-century composer.
The present concerts will follow Shosta?kovich's path from his Symphony No. 1, com?pleted at the age of 19, through the Tenth, composed almost three decades later. In between came the "Muddle" article, the purges, World War II, a second harsh denunciation by the Party in 1948, followed by Shostakovich's fourth Stalin Prize in 1952 (he had previously received the prize in 1940, 1942, and 1946). Only one thing was constant amidst these tremendous upheavals: the intensity with which Shostakovich composed music through it all. His style changed considerably in the meantime, to the point that it may be hard to believe that the Second and the Seventh Symphonies---both of which have explicit political agendas--were written by the same composer. If we listen to them both side by side, we will begin to get the full picture of this complex man. Shostakovich lived through some extremely trying times but his work has outlived the regime under which it was born; his message has proven to be as universal as any we have heard in the last 100 years.
urns
Shostakovich Centennial Festival
and
Pfizer Global Research and Development
present
Kirov Orchestra
of the Mariinsky Theatre
Valery Gergiev, Music Director and Conductor
UMS Choral Union
Jerry Blackstone, Music Director
Program
Dmitri Shostakovich
Shostakovich
Shostakovich
Friday Evening, March 17, 2006 at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor
Symphony No. 1 in f minor. Op. 10
Allegretto-Allegro Non Troppo
Allegro
Lento-Largo
Allegro Molto
Symphony No. 2 in B Major, Op. 14
Largo-Choral Finale: "My shili, my prosili rab6ty i khleba" UMS Choral Union
INTERMISSION
Symphony No. 10 in e minor. Op. 93
Moderate
Allegro
Allegretto; Lento; Allegretto
Andante; Allegro
41st Performance of the 127th Annual Season
127th Annual Choral Union Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Tonight's performance is sponsored by Pfizer Global Research and Development: Ann Arbor Laboratories. Special thanks to David Canter, Senior Vice President of Pfizer for his continued and generous support of the University Musical Society.
Tonight's Prelude Dinner was sponsored by TIAA-CREF.
Special thanks to Laura Kennedy from the U-M School of Music, for her participation in tonight's Prelude Dinner.
Special thanks to Alan Aldworth and ProQuest Company for their support of the UMS Classical Kids Club.
Media partnership for this performance provided by WGTE 91.3 FM, WDET 101.9 FM, and Observer & Eccentric Newspapers.
Special thanks to Alex Ross, U-M Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies, Marysia Ostafin, U-M School of Music, Laura Kennedy, U-M Department of History, William Rosenberg, U-M Department of Slavic Language and Literature, Herb Eagle, William Zimmerman, and the U-M Department of Political Science for their participa?tion in this residency.
Special thanks to Steven Ball for coordinating tonight's pre-concert music on the Charles Baird Carillon.
Special thanks to Tom Thompson of Tom Thompson Flowers, Ann Arbor, for his generous contribution of floral art for tonight's performance.
The Kirov Orchestra's North American Shostakovich Centennial Celebration is made possible by the support of the White Nights Foundation of America.
Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra record exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon and Philips, labels of Universal Classics Group.
The Kirov Orchestra appears by arrangement with Columbia Artists Management, LLC.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Symphony No. 1 in f minor. Op. 10
Dmitri Shostakovich
Born September 25, 7906 in St. Petersburg
Died August 9, 1975 in Moscow
Most composers, especially in the 20th century, have taken years before they found their own voices. Shostakovich is the great exception: in his Symphony No. 7, completed at the age of 19, many characteristics associated with his mature period are already there, fully formed and expressed with remarkable maturity. In par?ticular, one would think that Shostakovich came by his special combination of sarcasm and dark humor, where one cannot be sure exactly where the grim joke ends and seriousness begins, as the result of considerable life experience. Yet this unmistakable Shostakovichian tone-although it certainly deepened later--is already all there in the First Symphony.
Surely one of the most astonishing gradua?tion pieces in the world history of music conser?vatories, the symphony was a bombshell at the Leningrad premiere, soon followed by perform?ance in Moscow. Within two years, the sympho?ny had reached Western Europe and the US, championed by Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, and Leopold Stokowski. Its world triumph has continued unabated ever since: a discography compiled in 1994 listed no fewer than 45 recordings of the work.
It is not hard to account for this immense popularity: Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 is a work filled with an irresistible energy, with alter?nating moments of high drama, tenderness, and that famous sarcasm. Compared to the music of such contemporaries as Schoenberg or Stravin?sky (both a generation older than Shostakovich), Symphony No. 7 sounds traditional, even con?servative; yet there is plenty of originality in Shostakovich's orchestration and in the way he handles the old symphonic form. At any rate, it was sufficiently new to bewilder Alexander Glazunov, the senior composition professor at the Leningrad Conservatory. Shostakovich's prin?cipal teacher, Maximilian Steinberg, who was Rimsky-Korsakov's son-in-law and successor, was more appreciative. He showed the score to
his colleague, the conductor Nikolai Malko, who proceeded to perform the new work.
The symphony opens with a quizzical little duet for trumpet and bassoon, which contains the two musical motifs later united in the actual main theme, presented in a march-like tempo by the first clarinet. This grotesque march and its spin-offs dominate most of the movement (except for the lyrical, waltz-like second theme for solo flute), but the many unexpected inter?ruptions keep us constantly on the edge of our seats. Only rarely does the entire orchestra play together; Shostakovich prefers small instrumen?tal groups (apparently at pains to avoid a lush Romantic sound), consistently undercutting any tendencies for the music to reach a major cli?max. (It is significant that the first three of the Symphony's four movements have soft endings.)
The second movement, an animated scherzo, shares its basic meter with the first movement but is significantly faster. The piano, silent until now, joins the orchestra with a brilliant solo part. The middle section, in a slower tempo, has an inter?esting metric ambiguity: despite the 34 time sig?nature, the melody really sounds in 44, with only the percussion accompaniment observing the triple meter. In the recapitulation, the melodies of both sections are heard simultaneously. The mys?terious string harmonics at the end seem to con?clude the movement with a question mark.
The tone of the symphony suddenly changes in the third movement. After two light-hearted movements, the oboe solo that opens this "Lento" introduces a much more serious, even tragic mood. The melody is made up entirely of traditional gestures but wanders from key to key in a rather unpredictable way. The theme is con?tinued by a solo cello and is soon repeated by the entire orchestra. A second idea, in a march-like rhythm though extremely slow, is introduced again by the oboe and stirred up to a few meas?ures of fortissimo. (British musicologist Eric Rose-berry has written: "The slow movement and the finale become inextricably bound up with the destiny of a funeral march.") The first theme eventually returns, played by a solo violin instead of the oboe. The movement ends with a faint reminiscence of the second idea, with a muted
trumpet accompanied by a group of solo strings.
A drum roll, starting quietly and getting grad?ually louder and louder, links the slow movement to the finale, in which tragedy and comedy are perhaps the hardest to separate from one anoth?er. A brooding introduction is soon followed by a lively "Allegro" that is, however, fraught with tension and dark sonorities. Before long, the tempo slows down again and the melody we just heard in a full orchestral fortissimo is repeated, expressively and lyrically, by the solo violin and then by the horn. The fast tempo returns in a section culminating in the symphony's most powerful climax. Shostakovich immediately "takes it back," however, with the anticlimax of a mysterious timpani solo and the return of the expressive melody from before (now played by a solo cello, accompanied by solo strings). This melody will dominate proceedings to the end, gradually accelerating and finally erupting in a presto coda that leads to the surprise ending.
The most telling sign of the deep ambiguities in this work is perhaps the wide range of inter?pretations offered by commentators. In particu?lar, American writers tend to emphasize the youthful vigor, the brilliant orchestration, and the humorous touches (especially in the second movement). The Russians, on the other hand, have stressed the dark side of the work. Accord?ing to one musicologist, Mikhail Druskin, the Symphony reflects the suffering of the young composer (who had lost his father at age 16 and had to help support the family despite his own frail health). For his part, Lev Lebedinsky, a long?time friend of the composer, thought that Shostakovich, in Symphony No. 7, "already chal?lenged the forces of evil." Lebedinsky recalled:
I was the first to note that the timpani in the last movement sounds like a depiction of an execution on a scaffold. When I remarked to Dmitri Dmitriyevich, 'You were the first to declare war against Stalin,' he did not deny it. Already, from his early years, Shostakovich understood what was going on in our coun?try and what was to come.
Shostakovich's aunt Nadezhda Galli-Shohat (who had emigrated to the US) recognized in
this symphony many fragments that she had heard her nephew play on the piano as a young boy. But if some moments of Symphony No. 1 reach back to Shostakovich's childhood, others point just as decisively to the future. One partic?ular episode in the finale, which seems to allude to the "Fate" motif from Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung operas, finds a late echo in Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony, which includes a full-fledged quote of the same motif. It is one of several signs indicating that Sympho?ny No. 7 was much on Shostakovich's mind when he wrote what he knew would be his last, almost half a century later.
Symphony No. 2 in B Major, Op. 14
("To October") Shostakovich
The mid-1920s, when Shostakovich was a young man, were exciting times in the newly-formed Soviet Union. After years of revolution followed by a bloody civil war, the country was entering an era of consolidation, and artists felt very much part of the process of building the new country that Lenin, who had died in 1924 and been elevated to the status of a saint, had prophesied. Cultural affairs were in the hands of Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky, an enlightened man who believed that a new society needed new art; therefore, experimentation and innova?tion were encouraged. The 1920s were a hey?day of the avant-garde in Russian painting, literature, theater, and music.
The young Shostakovich was naturally in the middle of this heady scene. He wholeheartedly embraced the harsh dissonances of the "mod?erns" as he embarked on a symphonic poem to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October revolution (1917) that would eventually be re-titled Symphony No. 2.
In this 20-minute, one-movement work, rev?olutionary marches and hymns receive a har?monic setting that is highly chromatic and occasionally verging on atonality. Every string part in the mysterious slow introduction uses a different subdivision of the beat. The ensuing
march is suddenly interrupted by a sarcastic little trio of clarinet, bassoon, and violin which evolves into complete pandemonium before a solemn brass fanfare (and a pleading melody played by the violas in their high register) intro?duces the concluding choral section.
Before the chorus enters, an authentic factory horn is sounded in the orchestra: we know that Shostakovich visited a factory to find a hooter
that was just right for this spot. The chorus sings words by a certain Alexander Bezymensky; Shostakovich was apparently appalled by the poor quality of the verse, which certainly had not been chosen by him. He set it nevertheless, sur?rounding a simple melody with sophisticated orchestral textures to bring the work to its climax with a high 'C in the sopranos duly followed by the heroic declamation of Lenin's name.
Symphony No. 2 in B Major, Op. 14
(Alexander Bezymensky)
My shli, my prosili rab6ty i khleba, Serdtsa byli szhaty tiskami toskl. Zavbdskiye truby tyanulisya k nebu, Kak ruki, bessilnye szhat kulaki.
Strashn6 bylo Imya Nashikh tenybt: Molchanye, Stradanye, Gnyot.
No gr6mche orudi vorvalis v molchanye Slova nashey sk6rbi, slova nashikh muk,
0 Lenin! Ty vykoval vblyu stradanya, Ty vykoval vblyu mozblistykh ruk.
My pbnyali, Lenin, shto nasha sudba
Nbsit
Imya:
Borba.
Borba! Ty vela nas k poslednemu bbyu. Borba! Ty dalA nam pobedu TrudS.
1 etoy pobedy nad gnybtom i tmbyu Niktb ne otnlmet u nas nikogdci.
Pust kSzhdy v borbe budet mblod i khrabr.
Ved imya pobedy--
Oktyabr.
Oktyabr! ?to--sblntsa zhelannovo vestnik. Oktyabr! ?to--volya vosstavshikh vekbv. Oktyabr! ?to--trud, eto radost i pesnya. Oktyabr! ?to--schastye poley i stankbv.
Vot znamya, vot Imya zhivykh pokoleni: Oktyabr, Kommuna, I Lenin.
We came, we begged for work and bread. Our hearts were gripped in the clutches of despair. The factory chimneys rose to the sky Like hands unable to clench their fists.
Terrible were the names of
our chains:
Silence,
Suffering,
Oppression.
But louder than all the instruments of torture, The words of our grief broke the silence; 0 Lenin! You forged the will of the sufferers, You forged the will of the calloused hands.
We understood, Lenin, that our fate
Bore
The name:
Struggle!
Struggle! You led us to the final combat. Struggle! You gave us the victory of Labor. And this victory over oppression and darkness Can never be taken from us.
Let everyone be young and brave in the struggle.
For the name of Victory is--
October.
October! It is the herald of the awaited sun. October! It is the will of rebellious ages. October! It is labor, it is joy and song. October! It is the happiness of the fields and the tools.
This is the banner, this is the name of living
generations:
October,
Commune
And Lenin!
Symphony No. 10 in e minor. Op. 93
Shostakovich
Most sources give the summer of 1953 as the date of composition for the Tenth Symphony. It has been alleged that Stalin's death in March of the same year provided the main impetus for the Symphony, and that the second movement, in particular, is a portrait of the deceased tyrant. Yet according to the recollections of people close to the composer, the symphony may date, at least in part, from 1951. Some of the themes were sketched even earlier, in 1946, for a pro?jected, but in the end unwritten, violin sonata. The matter is important because it raises the question as to how much of the work really owes its existence to Stalin's death. After review?ing the available evidence, cellist-musicologist Elizabeth Wilson has concluded: "Shostakovich had been mulling over this musical material for a long time before it eventually got written down in the Tenth Symphony."
The longest movement in Symphony No. 10 is the first: a dark and brooding "Moderato" describing a huge arc from piano to pianissimo with a great fortissimo climax in the middle. Two scherzos follow, one cruel and inhuman, the other more relaxed though still often unsettling. There is no independent slow movement, but the lengthy introduction to the finale almost grows into one. The tone of the music lightens in the final "Allegro," but it would probably be an exaggeration to speak of unmitigated joy and tri?umph. Shostakovich modified the characters of each of the traditional symphonic movements to fir his personal emotional world in which pain and joy, fear and laughter are inseparable.
Many of Shostakovich's orchestral and cham?ber works contain extended passages for one instrument only. In the first movement of Sym?phony No. 10 alone, there are a good dozen such passages where a wind instrument, or one of the string sections, carries a long, meandering melody, while the rest of the orchestra is either silent or plays a simple and sparse accompani?ment. These isolated, meditative lines are quite palpable symbols of loneliness. In the course of
the Symphony, the number of such solos gradu?ally decreases as the work slowly abandons the meditative mood of the opening and embraces a more "communal" tone, as expressed by the full orchestral sound heard through much of the finale.
In Testimony, Shostakovich's so-called mem?oirs edited (and in all likelihood, tampered with) by Solomon Volkov, we read that the second movement of the Tenth was intended as a "por?trait of Stalin." It certainly has the character of a cruel caricature, and the figure of Stalin may have embodied many of the negative feelings that found expression here. Yet it is important to realize that this diabolical scherzo has counter?parts in such earlier Shostakovich works as the Sixth and Eighth Symphonies and the Violin Concerto No. 7. It is, in a way, the flipside of the serious first movement--a crude joke we need, maybe, to exorcise tragedy and move on towards a more tranquil state of mind.
The first step in that direction is made in the third-movement "Allegretto," which is jovial and easy-going most of the time, though not impervious to dramatic disruptions. At their first entrance, the woodwinds play Shostakovich's musical monogram, the letters 'D-S-C-H' (derived from the German transliteration of the composer's name, Dmitri Sdiostakowitsch, played as the notes 'D-E-flat-C-B'; in German, 's' or 'es' is the name of the note E-flat, and 'h' is B-natural). Shostakovich used this motif in sev?eral of his works (most extensively in String Quartet No. 8). We must stress, however, that it is not the monogram alone that makes this theme so personal: the poignant rhythm and the powerful orchestration are just as important in giving it is special cachet.
Recently, another revelation was made that has shed entirely new light on this movement. The resounding (and at first unaccompanied) horn call E-A-E-D-A is also a musical cipher, standing for the name Elmira. Elmira Nazirova was a young Azerbaijani pianist and composer; she had studied with Shostakovich who was apparently infatuated with her during the sum?mer of 1953. How did Elmira's name turn into
the horn motif Shostakovich combined the French and German musical nomenclatures to come up with musical equivalents of the name's letters: "E" is 'E'; "L" is "la," which gives 'A'; "Ml" is 'E'; "R" is "re," which gives 'D'; and "A" is 'A'. This may seem contrived, but it is really nothing particularly new. Renaissance composers (for example, Josquin Desprez) had already been fond of such subtle games.
Once we know all this, the movement takes on an entirely new meaning. The motifs of Shostakovich and Elmira are repeated unchanged throughout the entire movement, while the opening theme undergoes numerous transformations. Does this represent two people in the middle of a turbulent world At any rate, the ending of the movement is highly symbolic: the horn plays the Elmira theme one last time, with mute, and the flute and piccolo respond with 'D-S-C-H' in soft staccato (short and sepa?rated) notes.
The last movement begins with a slow unac?companied solo for cellos and basses, just like the first movement. We seem to be back to the brooding, meditative opening of the Symphony. More extended instrumental solos follow, for oboe, flute, and bassoon. The theme of the "Allegro" section is born gradually: first we hear only an ascending perfect fifth, then a little melodic flourish is added, and then suddenly the theme is there, with its rushing scales and excit?ed accompaniment. The joyful melody is inter?rupted by reminiscences of earlier movements:
music from the cruel second-movement scherzo crops up followed by the 'D-S-C-H' theme from the third movement. The recapitulation is pre?ceded by the last lengthy solo, for bassoon play?ing in its low register. In keeping with the general character of the movement which becomes more and more exuberant to the end, this solo is, however, playful rather than medita?tive. The last word belongs to 'D-S-C-H,' pro?claimed loudly by the brass and hammered out by the timpani as we reach the end of this hour-long symphonic journey.
Program notes by Peter Laki.
Please turn to page 43 for complete biogra?phies of Maestro Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra.
Please turn to page 48 for a complete roster of Kirov Orchestra musicians performing on tonight's concert.
P
lease refer to UMS Annals, page P24 of your program, for biographical informa?tion on the UMS Choral Union.
UMS Choral Union
Jerry Blackstone, Conductor and Musical Director
Jason Harris, Assistant Conductor
Steven Lorenz, Assistant Conductor
Jean Schneider, Accompanist
Kathleen Operhall, Chorus Manager
Nancy K. Paul, Librarian
Donald Bryant, Conductor Emeritus
Soprano I
Claudia Arno
Kathryn Borden
Ann Marie Borders
Jamie Bott
Tekla Bude
Ann K. Burke
Sandra E. Burke
Susan F. Campbell
Marie Ankenbruck Davis
Julie Eastin
Rene Forsythe
Jennifer Freese
Kathleen Gage
Keiko Goto
Christine Kapusky
Kyoung Kim
Allison Lamanna
Kathleen Licari
Meredith Lovelace
Toni Marie Micik
Kamilah Neighbors
Nancy K. Paul
Margaret Dearden Petersen
Julie Pierce
Mili Reisner
Rachel Ridenour
Kira Rose
Vera Sacharin
Jennifer Wagner Sobocinski
Elizabeth Starr
Jennifer Tomko
Margie Warrick
Barbara J. Weathers
Mary Wigton
Linda Kaye Woodman
Karen Woollams
Soprano II
Rebecca Benton Mary Bowman Debra Joy Brabenec Carol Callan Young Cho Cheryl Clarkson Joy Coilman Carrie Deierlein Bonnie DeLong Catherine Dupuis Carol Bearss Fedewa Etsuko Isaka Nancy Kyro Loretta Lovalvo Melissa Hope Marin Linda Selig Marshall Marie Morrison Ulrike Peters Nichols Ann Orwtn
Ann Payne
Sara Peth
Holly Preston
Dana Rossiter
Mary A. Schieve
Sue Ellen Straub
DeAnn Teff
Virginia A. Thorne-Herrmann
Jane VanSteenis
Catherine Wadhams
Barbara Hertz Wallgren
Dr. Rachelle Barcus Warren
Laura Wilcox
Kathleen A. Young
Alto I
Olga Astapova Dody Blackstone Katherine Brokaw Kathryn Drenning Norma Freeman Adriane Fung Siri Gottlieb Heather Kaye Katherine Klykylo Jan Leventer Jean Leverich Carolyn Loh Marilyn Meeker Carol Milstein Caroline E. Mohai Catherine P. Morgan, O.P. Mary Morse Deidre Myers Tracy Parron Joy Schroeder Cindy Shindledecker Rhonda Sizemore Jari Smith
Katherine R. Spindler Ruth A. Theobald Barbara Trevethan Barbara Tritten Rebecca Wiseman
Alto II
Paula Allison-England Meredith Ammons Leslie Austin Carol Barnhart Ellen Bryan Anna Chung Alison Cohen Joan Cooper Marilyn A. Finkbeiner Grace K. Gheen Kat Hagedorn Allison Halerz
Nancy Heaton Lynn E. Heberlein Josephine Kasa-Vubu Jessica Lehr Cynthia Lunan Frances Lyman Karla K. Manson Patricia Kaiser McCloud Jennifer McFarlane-Harris Beth McNally Kathleen Operhall Connie Pagedas Beverly N. Slater Gail Beck Stevens Cheryl Utiger Alice VanWambeke Iris Wei Sandra K. Wiley
Tenor I
Adam D. Bonarek Timothy J. Dombrowski Steven Fudge Dan Gotkin Arthur Gulick Jason Harris Steve Heath Eiki Isomura J. Derek Jackson Mark A. Krempski Robert MacGregor David Meitzler Nicholas J. Pharris Daniel Schad David Tang Elizabeth Sklar
Tenor II
Nicholas Edwin John W. Etsweiler III Roy Glover Michael J. Gordon Matthew Gray Bob Klaffke Richard A. Marsh AT. Miller Tom Peterson Carl Smith Joshua Smith Jim Van Bochove
Bass I
David Bowen Michael Coster John Dryden Kenneth A. Freeman Andrew Hartley Timothy Krohn Chris Lees Mark Latham Craig LeMoyne George Lindquist Lawrence Lohr Steven Lorenz Charles Lovelace William Malone Joseph D. McCadden Stephen Merino Michael Pratt Daniel R. Ruge David Sandusky Donald Sizemore Rodney Smith John Paul Stephens Robert Stevenson William Stevenson Steve Telian Thomas L. Trevethan Jesse Turner
Bass II
Sam Baetzel William Baxter Harry Bowen Jeff Clevenger Don Faber H. Halladay Flynn James Head Rod Little Gerald Miller Edward Morris Clinton Smith Jeff Spindler Robert Stawski Michael Steelman Terril 0. Tompkins John F. Van Bolt James Wessel Walker Norman Weber Donald Williams
Shostakovich Centennial Festival
and the
Maxine and Stuart
Frankel Foundation
present
Kirov Orchestra
of the Mariinsky Theatre
Valery Gergiev, Music Director and Conductor
Program
Dmitri Shostakovich
Shostakovich
Sunday Evening, March 19, 2006 at 7:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor
Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Op. 70
Allegro
Moderato
Presto
Largo
Allegretto-Allegro
INTERMISSION
Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60
Allegretto
Moderato
Adagio; Moderato risoluto
Allegro non troppo
42nd Performance of the 127th Annual Season
127th Annual Choral Union Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Tonight's performance is supported by the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation. Special thanks to Stuart and Maxine Frankel for their generous support of UMS.
Tonight's Prelude Dinner was sponsored by TIAA-CREF.
Special thanks to Laura Kennedy from the U-M School of Music, for her participation in tonight's Prelude Dinner.
Special thanks to Alan Aldworth and ProQuest Company for their support of the UMS Classical Kids Club.
Media partnership for this performance provided by WGTE 91.3 FM, WDET 101.9 FM, and Observer & Eccentric Newspapers.
Special thanks to Alex Ross, U-M Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies, Marysia Ostafin, U-M School of Music, Laura Kennedy, U-M Department of History, William Rosenberg, U-M Department of Slavic Language and Literature, Herb Eagle, William Zimmerman, and the U-M Department of Political Science for their participa?tion in this residency.
Special thanks to Steven Ball for coordinating tonight's pre-concert music on the Charles Baird Carillon.
Special thanks to Tom Thompson of Tom Thompson Flowers, Ann Arbor, for his generous contribution of floral art for tonight's performance.
The Kirov Orchestra's North American Shostakovich Centennial Celebration is made possible by the support of the White Nights Foundation of America.
Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra record exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon and Philips, labels of Universal Classics Group.
The Kirov Orchestra appears by arrangement with Columbia Artists Management, LLC.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Op. 70
Dmitri Shostakovich
Born September 25, 1906 in St. Petersburg
Died August 9, 1975 in Moscow
Does a symphony number nine always have to be a Ninth Symphony In 1945, this question was debated in the highest artistic and political circles in Moscow and Leningrad. Some mem?bers of those circles were plainly disappointed when Dmitri Shostakovich, the greatest sym?phonic composer in the Soviet Union, failed to deliver the monumental choral work a la Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 they felt they had every right to expect after the end of World War II. A grandiose "Ode to Joy" in honor of the vic?torious Red Army seemed to be in order (and maybe on order, too). Yet Shostakovich was unable or unwilling (or possibly both) to write such a piece. The words of Testimony definitely have a ring of truth here: "I couldn't write an apotheosis to Stalin. I just couldn't." And we know that he did try, but the solemn choral Ninth never quite got off the ground.
Instead, we now have a Ninth that is cheerful to the point of sounding comical and--this is what the official critics couldn't swallow--on the verge of sarcasm. Was it really sarcasm If so, what did that sarcasm mean Is the Sym?phony about having fun, or is it making fun of something or someone Could there be a tragic "subtext" lurking underneath the humorous surface, as one Russian critic suggested, com?paring Shostakovich to Charlie Chaplin in Mod?ern Times There are no answers to any of these questions, but Shostakovich must have utterly enjoyed having the whole world guessing at his intentions.
What critics didn't seem to realize--viewing the work exclusively in relation to the year 1945 in which it was written--was the extent to which Shostakovich was reconnecting here with the style of his own Symphony No. 1, composed almost 20 years earlier. Not since that youthful work had Shostakovich's music combined play?fulness and irony in quite the same way. Maybe there is a deeper symbolism in the fact that,
with the renewal of hope at war's end, a "reju?venated" composer was revisiting the emotion?al landscapes of his early days.
Another possible model may have been the First Symphony of Shostakovich's great rival Prokofiev, the famous "Classical" Symphony. Like that work, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9 begins by masquerading as a Haydn symphony, but it destroys that appearance much faster and more drastically than Prokofiev had done back in 1917. Shostakovich follows his Haydnesque first theme with a hilariously simple second idea con?sisting of only a few notes and introduced by the piccolo against an "oom-pah" accompani?ment evoking circus music. Like Haydn (and Prokofiev), Shostakovich repeats the entire exposition of the first movement--a gesture that unmistakably belongs to the 18th century. And even though the circus theme undergoes a rather dramatic development in the middle of the movement, the recapitulation is again uproariously and irreverently funny.
The second movement is much more serious: it begins with a quiet and introspective clarinet solo that evolves into an intimate chamber-music episode for woodwinds. A second idea, for strings, is somewhat menacing, but the opening melody returns, played by the flute and later by the piccolo. The ending is like a dream-one of Shostakovich's most romantic moments.
Next comes a scherzo, as one might expect. The melody skips merrily from key to key, and the orchestration is particularly witty: the wood?winds begin all by themselves, then the strings, and, later, the brass instruments assume the leading role. Almost imperceptibly, the mood darkens and the scherzo takes on a more and more dramatic character, until an ominous brass signal announces a somber "Largo," the only truly tragic moment in the work. The solo bas?soon delivers a recitative-like solo whose charac?teristic descending fourths recall the main theme of the second movement. It sounds like a solemn speech, perhaps a funeral oration in memory of the war victims. Then, the same solo bassoon suddenly turns around and begins a playful new melody: the finale is underway. Its
rhythm suggests a dance, but the melody, with its many tonally ambiguous half-steps, is not exactly jubilant in character. The ambiguity con?tinues as the cheerful march rhythms are com?bined with a melody that refuses to give up those half-steps suggesting "tragic" minor tonalities. Eventually, after a tremendous crescendo, the music reaches E-flat Major as the main theme is played by the full orchestra. From here, it is a triumphant procession to the end, yet its members sound more like circus clowns than the soldiers of the heroic Red Army. Was Shostakovich desecrating this moment of national glory Or was he merely letting his hair down and celebrating peace in the company of fun-loving friends with a bottle of good vodka, instead of visualizing an Army parade and an official, cche-ridden speech by Comrade Stalin In the end, we might as well accept the fact that Shostakovich took a break from the grandiose rhetoric of his Seventh and Eighth Symphonies (he would return to them in Sym?phony No. 10). The difference with those works is not that Symphony No. 9 is cheerful all the way; we have seen that it has its serious, even tragic moments. Rather, it conveys its message in a different style. That style stems in part from Shostakovich's earlier style, as mentioned above. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, it also has some paral?lels with that light-hearted neo-classicism that many of Shostakovich's more fortunate contem?poraries, from Stravinsky to Milhaud and Poulenc, had also been practicing, each in his own way, in the West, where they didn't have to fear that their stylistic choices might have politi?cal consequences.
Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60
("Leningrad") Shostakovich
Shostakovich began work on his Symphony No. 7 about four weeks after Hitler's troupes invad?ed the Soviet Union. He worked at a feverish speed and finished the 30-minute first move?ment in about a month. (He had had plans for a
new symphony even before the German attack, but we will never know how the music would have turned out had history not intervened.) The second and third movements were written after the blockade had begun, while Shostakovich was serving on the fire-fighting brigade at the Leningrad Conservatory. He frequently had to interrupt his work to escort his family to the bomb shelter during air raids. Many people in Leningrad knew that Shostakovich was working on a new symphony even as food was becom?ing extremely scarce in the city and were grati?fied to know that art was still alive in spite of everything. (A 1965 book about this difficult period bears the title But the Muses Were Not Silent.)
At the end of September, Shostakovich and his family were evacuated from the besieged city. They were flown to Moscow and, two weeks later, traveled to the city of Kuibyshev on the Volga River by train--a 600-mile journey that, amidst the wartime chaos, took a whole week. Shostakovich remained in Kuibyshev for a year and a half; in the spring of 1943 he moved to Moscow. After the war, he never lived in Leningrad again.
It was almost inevitable that the "Leningrad" Symphony should be thoroughly politicized both in the Soviet Union and abroad: the Soviets made political capital of what they decided was a paean to the heroism of the people of Leningrad during the "Great Patriotic War." At the same time, the Symphony became a major sensation in the West. The adventure-filled story of how the manuscript reached the US was itself made into a movie: the score was microfilmed near Moscow, flown to Teheran, driven from their to Cairo, and finally flown to New York via Casablanca. A whole crew of photographers worked for 10 days to create paper prints of the 252-page score from which conductors could work and parts could be made. Some of the most prominent music directors in the US, including Serge Koussevitzky, Artur Rodzinski, and Leopold Stokowski, vied for the jus primae noctis (the right to the first night), to quote Nicolas Slonimsky's irreverent expression from
an article in the Musical Quarterly (October 1942). The race was finally won by Arturo Toscanini.
Shostakovich was variously described in the press as the new Beethoven and the new Berlioz. Toscanini's NBC broadcast was referred to in Newsweek as "the premiere of the year;" Time Magazine carried a drawing of the com?poser wearing a fire-helmet on its July 20, 1942 cover with the caption: "Fireman Shostakovich--Amid bombs bursting in Leningrad he heard the chords of victory." It was clear that war propaganda helped to promote the symphony in ways quite unheard of in the annals of music.
Yet the most significant early performance of the work was probably the one given in besieged Leningrad. Overcoming difficulties beyond description, conductor Karl Eliasberg assembled an orchestra of starving, exhausted musicians and played the work on August 9, 1942. This concert was itself a propaganda ploy by Stalin, intended to show that the city of Leningrad could never be defeated. But to those in the audience, this hardly mattered at the time. Every seat in the hall was filled, and many members of the audience wept openly. As Solomon Volkov writes in St. Petersburg: A Cul?tural History (The Free Press, 1995): "Leningraders wept for their fate and that of their city, slowly dying in the grip of the most ruthless blockade of the 20th century."
A composer who was very close to me once said: "I never ask myself what music to write, only what music wants to be written by me." What music "wanted to be written" under these dramatic circumstances First of all, it was absolutely crucial for Shostakovich to be imme?diately understood by the masses whose des?tinies were so inextricably linked to his own. He went out of his way to write simply, with melodies built on scales and a great deal of sym?metrical, foursquare rhythms. He also needed to portray tragedy and turmoil but also offer com?fort and hold out hope for healing and a better future. Accessibility and optimism were, of course, qualities for which the Soviet authorities
were constantly taking composers to task, and several times during his career, Shostakovich ran afoul of the Party apparatchiks on those very points. But this time, the composer could sin?cerely and honestly identify with the official requirements.
Without a doubt, the most famous segment of the symphony is the one depicting the approaching Nazis; by far the simplest and most accessible of all its themes, it occurs after a con?fident C-Major opening and a dream-like, ethe?real section in G Major that suggests a peaceful idyll. Then, the march begins, pianissimo at first, and repeated in identical fashion no fewer than 11 times, in a gradual crescendo that inevitably invited comparisons with Ravel's Bolero. Shostakovich commented: "Idle critics will no doubt reproach me for imitating Ravel's Bolero. Well, let them, for this is how I hear the war."
The identical repeats were not the only extraordinary feature of this section. Another was the intentional triviality of the theme repeated (many have noted the resemblance to the "Maxim" song from Lehar's The Merry Widow). British critic Hugh Ottaway wrote that this innocent-looking little melody almost made the Nazi hordes look like "paper tigers." I think, to the contrary, that the very vacuity of the theme qualifies it as a parody of an imaginary march the Nazis (or whoever the evil forces are) might have sung. If this is true, the parody of this passage in the fourth movement of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is the parody of a paro?dy, although Bart6k may not have realized that.
After reaching a monumental climax, the war theme gradually dissolves and the idyllic initial materials return. (The lyrical bassoon solo has been interpreted as a dirge for those who died in the war.) Ultimately, all that remains of the war theme is a distant and quite harmless echo at the movement's close.
At first, Shostakovich intended to have this movement stand by itself as a symphonic poem. When he changed his plans and wrote three more movements to complete the classical sym?phony scheme, he faced the obvious problem of where to go after such a strong opening.
According to his own words, the two middle movements were meant to "ease the tension" and the finale to portray "victory." Yet the case is more complex: the middle movements are far from tension-free and the finale reaches victory in a rather circuitous way. Taken as a group, movements 2 to 4 take a step back after the first movement's mighty "peace-war-peace" sequence, and offer lyrical meditations with occasional dramatic interruptions. The former are often expressed by long instrumental solos, mainly for members of the woodwind family; the latter are characterized by faster tempos, ostinato rhythms and jarring dissonances, as in the middle sections of both the second and the third movements.
The second movement seems literally to "take a step back" even in its tonality: b minor, a half-step down from the first movement's C Major. It starts out as a gentle allegretto, with long melodic lines unfolding over a characteris?tic rhythmic accompaniment. Yet the shrill sound of the piccolo clarinet is the harbinger of new conflicts: the middle section, in the words of commentator Robert Dearling, is "full of the most appallingly harrowing devices." A modi?fied recapitulation follows. The main theme, played by the solo oboe at the beginning of the movement, is now given to the bass clarinet. The extreme low register lends an eerie quality to this eminently lyrical melody.
The third movement is, in Shostakovich's words, the "dramatic center of the whole work." It may have been "Our Country's Wide Spaces" according to the official program, yet it was (and is) widely perceived as a lament for the victims of the war. After a few introductory wind chords, the violins in unison (with almost no accompaniment) make a solemn proclamation. If the tone of the second movement was set by a great oboe solo, this time it is the flute that plays the role of principal soloist. Its slowly unfolding melody eventually leads to a middle section in which the specters break loose again: a passionate string melody evolves into a highly agitated dramatic statement that eventually subsides to prepare the return of the quiet and
solemn music we heard earlier.
The finale, as Ottaway observes, "is by no means the barn-storming type of movement that a vision of victory might seem to suggest." Shostakovich's optimism is not the cheap social?ist realist variety promoted by the authorities. An enigmatic opening and an extended stormy pas?sage, contradicting the idea of victory with its ostensibly tragic c-minor tonality, are followed by a lengthy section in a relatively slow tempo ("Moderato"), another possible song of mourn?ing for the victims. The triumphant conclusion arrives only at the very end, with the recapitula?tion of the first movement's opening C-Major theme. Now at last the triumph is complete, with no holds barred, as the majestic fanfares take over the entire orchestra in a penetrating triple fortissimo.
Program notes by Peter Laki.
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alery Gergiev is internationally recog?nized as one of the most outstanding musical figures of his generation. His inspired leadership as Artistic and General Direc?tor of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he oversees the Kirov Orchestra, Ballet, and Opera, has brought universal acclaim to this legendary institution. Together with the Kirov Opera and Orchestra, Maestro Gergiev has toured extensively in 45 countries in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.
Principal Conductor Designate of the London Symphony beginning in January 2007, he is also the Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Phil?harmonic, Principal Guest Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, and Founder and Artistic Director of "Stars of the White Nights" Festival in St. Petersburg, the Moscow Easter Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival, and the Mikkeli International Festival in Finland. Maestro Gergiev guest conducts a select number of orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Born in Moscow to Ossetian parents, Maestro
Gergiev studied conducting with llya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory. At age 24, he was the winner of the Herbert von Karajan Conductors Competition in Berlin. He made his Kirov Opera debut in 1978 with War and Peace and was appointed Artistic Director and Principal Conduc?tor in 1988. In 2003 he celebrated his 50th birth?day, his 25th anniversary with the Mariinsky Theatre, and oversaw a considerable portion of
the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg festivities by producing an unprecedented three-month "Stars of the White Nights" Festival. In the same year he conducted both Season Opening Galas of the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall Sea?son, the latter with the Kirov Orchestra.
In the 0405 season, Valery Gergiev initiated a worldwide series of charity concerts entitled Beslan: Music for Life. Under Maestro Gergiev's direction, concerts were held in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Rome, and Moscow. Further highlights included a 17-city Kirov Orchestra tour of North America with a three-concert res?idency at Carnegie Hall. In November of 2005, Valery Gergiev and the legendary French com?poser and conductor Pierre Boulez conducted the Kirov Orchestra on the stage of Palais Gar-nier. Opera National de Paris for a Mariinsky Theatre Gala.
This month, Maestro Gergiev begins a seven-concert series at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Cen?ter New York of the complete symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich to celebrate the composer's centenary. This festival includes both the Rotter?dam Philharmonic and the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre as well as tour appear?ances across the US including a five-concert series at the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Shostakovich Celebration will continue with concerts in London with the London Symphony, the Kirov Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmon?ic, and the Vienna Philharmonic. In the "Stars of the White Nights" Festival this summer, he will share the 15 Shostakovich symphonies and the Kirov Orchestra podium with conductors Christoph Eschenbach, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Paavo Jarvi, Maris Jansons, Maxim Shostakovich, and Riccardo Muti.
The Kirov Opera's appearances in North America will include its annual appearance at the Kennedy Center and presentations of the Mariinsky Theatre's production of Richard Wag?ner's Ring in the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Costa Mesa, California in 2006 and in the Metropolitan Opera House in July 2007.
Maestro Gergiev is the recipient of many international awards, including the Dmitri Shostakovich Award; the Golden Mask Award, the most prestigious theater prize in Russia; the People's Artist of Russia, the country's highest cultural award; the World Economic Forum's Crystal Award; and the EastWest Institute's 25th Anniversary Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his leadership and passionate service to humanity. He has been awarded the 2006 Polar Music Prize of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, the art world's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. In July 2006 Maestro Gergiev will be presented with the Herbert von Karajan Prize for outstanding living musicians.
Valery Gergiev has recorded exclusively for Universal on the Philips Decca and Deutsche Grammophon labels since 1989. His vast discog-raphy includes numerous Russian operas per?formed by the Kirov Opera, a cycle of
Valery Gergiev
Shostakovich "War Symphonies" (Nos. 4-9) with the Kirov and Rotterdam Orchestras, and Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, and Mussorgsky Sym?phonies with the Vienna Philharmonic.
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he Kirov Orchestra (also known as the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra) enjoys a long and distinguished history as one of the oldest musical institutions in Russia. Found?ed in the 18th century during the reign of Peter the Great, it was known before the revolution as the Russian Imperial Opera Orchestra. Housed in St. Petersburg's famed Mariinsky Theatre (named after Maria, the wife of Tsar Alexander II) since 1860, the Orchestra entered its true "golden age" during the second half of the 19th century under the musical direction of Eduard Napravnik (1839-1916). Napravnik sin?gle-handedly ruled the Imperial Theatre for more than half a century (from 1863-1916) and under his leadership, the Mariinsky Orchestra was recognized as one of the finest in Europe. He also trained a generation of outstanding conductors, developing what came to be known as the "Russian school" of conducting.
The Mariinsky Theatre was also the birth?place of numerous operas and ballets that are regarded as masterpieces of the 19th and 20th century. The Theatre was home to world pre?miere performances of major works by Russian composers Glinka, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Rim-sky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Rach-maninov, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky. Peter llyich Tchaikovsky was closely associated with the Mariinsky Theatre, not only conducting the orchestra but also premiering his Symphony No. 5 there.
Throughout its history, the Mariinsky Theatre has also presented works by Europe's leading opera composers, including the world premiere of Verdi's La forza del destine Wagner was a favorite at the Mariinsky Theatre, where his operas were frequently performed from the 19th century through the early-20th century. The Mariinsky Orchestra also gave the first Russ?ian performances of Richard Strauss's Elektra,
Salome, and Der Rosenkavalier, and Berg's Wozzeck--in a production that took place two years after its world premiere in Berlin and 20 years before its premiere in Vienna.
By 1917 the Orchestra's name had changed to the Royal Imperial Theatre Orchestra, and was regarded as St. Petersburg's leading symphony orchestra. Numerous internationally renowned conductors have led the Orchestra, among them Hans von Bulow, Felix Mottl, Felix Weingartner, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Otto Nikisch, Willem Mengelberg, Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, and Erich Kleiber.
Renamed the Kirov Opera during the Soviet era, the orchestra continued to maintain its high artistic standards under the leadership of Evgeni Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov. In 1988, Valery Gergiev was elected artistic director of the opera company and in 1996 the Russian Government appointed him Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre. Soon after the city of Leningrad was renamed St. Petersburg, the Kirov Theatre reverted to its original title of the Mariinsky Theatre, home to the Kirov Opera, the Kirov Ballet, and the Kirov Orchestra.
Under the leadership of Valery Gergiev, the Mariinsky Theatre has forged important rela?tionships with the world's greatest opera hous?es, among them the Metropolitan Opera House, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the San Francisco Opera, the Theatre Chatelet in Paris, and La Scala in Milan. Besides extensive touring with the opera and ballet companies, the Orchestra has performed internationally and has become one of the world's most outstanding ensembles. The success of the Orchestra's con?tinual touring has earned them the reputation of what one journalist referred to as "the world's first global orchestra."
In 1998, the Orchestra made its debut tour of China, a historic first, with a performance in the Great Hall in Beijing, broadcast to 50 million people in the presence of President Jiang Zemin. It was the first time in 40 years that a Russian orchestra had played in China. Under the baton of Valery Gergiev, the Orchestra has recorded exclusively for Phillips Classics since 1989.
UMS ARCHIVES
This weekend's two concerts by the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg, Rus?sia) under the direction of Valery Gergiev mark both the Orchestra's and the Maestro's fifth and sixth appearances under UMS auspices. They made their collective UMS debuts in Hill Auditorium in November 1992.
UMS's Shostakovich Centennial Festival (conceived by Maestro Gergiev) casts an interesting light on UMS's own history with the performance of Shostakovich symphonies. Of Shostakovich's 15 symphonies which span the years 1924-1971, 11 symphonies will be performed as part of this two-season festival concluding with the final three installments in October 2006. Of the 11 sym?phonies to be performed, eight have been performed during the course of UMS's history.
Symphony No. 1 in f minor. Op. 10 (1924-25) Centennial Festival: Friday, March 17, 2006
This is the 10th UMS presentation of Symphony No. 7 going all the way back to March 1935 when it was first performed by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by the eminent Polish conductor Artur Rodzinski. Two months earlier, in January 1935, Rodzinski had conducted the US premiere of Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of Mtzensk.
Symphony No. 2 in B Major, Op. 14 ("To October") (1927) Centennial Festival: Friday, March 17, 2006
Symphony No. 2 has previously never been presented as part of a UMS program.
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 20 ("The First of May") (1929)
Symphony No. 3 is not included in this Centennial Festival and it has never been presented as part
of a UMS program.
Symphony No. 4 in c minor. Op. 43 (1935-36)
Symphony No. 4 is not included in this Centennial Festival. It has been presented twice on UMS programs, the first time in October 1989 in a concert by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conduct?ed by Gunther Herbig.
Symphony No. 5 in d minor. Op. 47 (1937)
Symphony No. 5 is not included in this Centennial Festival but has been presented 10 times over the course of UMS history. This frequency is not surprising as Symphony No. 5, along with No. 1, were the first Shostakovich symphonies to find their way into the standard repertoire of US orches?tras. The first UMS presentation of No. 5 was in December 1940 (three years after its premiere in Leningrad) on a concert given by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by the celebrated Russian conductor and champion of new music, Serge Koussevitzky. Another performance of spe?cial note was given in November 1962 by the very forces that gave the world premiere of the work: the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Eugen Mravinsky. The concert was presented, as the program stated, "as part of the Cultural Exchange Program maintained by the Governments of the United States and the U.S.S.R.".
Symphony No. 6 in b minor. Op. 54 (1939) Centennial Festival: Friday, October 20, 2006
This will be the fourth UMS presentation of Symphony No. 6. The first was given in January 1986 by the Krakow Philharmonic conducted by Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki.
Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60 ("Leningrad") (1941) Centennial Festival: Sunday, March 19, 2006
This is the fourth UMS presentation of Symphony No. 7. As with Symphony No. 5, the first UMS performance was given by Shostakovich-champion Serge Koussevitzky conducting his Boston Sym?phony Orchestra in Hill Auditorium in December 1942. This first Ann Arbor performance was given only nine months after its premiere in KuybTshev (now Samara) on the Volga River, the city to which Shostakovich had been evacuated while the war raged in Leningrad. Symphony No. 7 was given 62 public performances in the US during the 194243 season as the work became a symbol of resistance against Nazism.
Symphony No. 8 in c minor. Op. 65 (1943) Centennial Festival: Sunday, October 22, 2006
This will be the first performance of Symphony No. 8 on a UMS program.
Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Op. 70 (1945) Centennial Festival: Sunday, March 19, 2006
This is the third UMS presentation of Symphony No. 9. It was first performed under UMS auspices in 1994 by the Oslo Philharmonic conducted by Mariss Jansons.
Symphony No. 10 in e minor. Op. 93 (1953) Centennial Festival: Friday, March 17, 2006
This is the eighth UMS presentation of Symphony No. 10. Again, its first Ann Arbor performance was of special note: a concert conducted by Dmitri Mitropoulos given by the Philharmonic Sym?phony Orchestra of New York (known to us today as the New York Philharmonic) given in Hill Auditorium in May 1955. This concert was given only 18 months after the symphony had its pre?miere in Leningrad.
Symphony No. 11 in g minor. Op. 103 ("The Year 1905") (1957) Centennial Festival: Friday, October 20, 2006
Symphony No. 7 7 has never been presented as part of a UMS program.
Symphony No. 12 in d minor. Op. 112 ("The Year 1917") (1960-61) Centennial Festival: Saturday, October 21, 2006
Symphony No. 12 has never been presented as part of a UMS program.
Symphony No. 13, Op. 113 ("Babi Yar") (1962) Centennial Festival: Sunday, October 22, 2006
This is the second UMS presentation of the "Babi Yar" Symphony. It was first performed under UMS auspices in October 1999 as the opening concert of the UMS Choral Union Series in Hill by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Men of the UMS Choral Union, The Estonian National Male Choir, and bass-baritone Sergei Leiferkus under the direction of Neeme Jarvi.
Symphony No. 14, Op. 135 (1969)
Centennial Festival: Saturday, October 21, 2006
Symphony No. 14 has never been presented as part of a UMS program.
Symphony No. 15 in A Major, Op. 141 (1971)
Symphony No. 15 is not included in this Centennial Festival and it has never been presented as
part of a UMS program.
Kirov Orchestra
of the Mariinsky Theatre
Valery Gergiev, Music Director and Conductor
First Violin
llya Konovalov,
Guest Principal Kirill Terentiev, Principal Leonid Veksler, Principal Elena Berdnikova Tatiana Frenkel Mikhail Rikhter Khristian Artamonov Anton Kozmin Vsevolod Vasilyev Boris Vasilyev Nina Pirogova Lolita Silvian Anna Glukhova Irina Sukhorukova Mikhail Tatarnikov Victoria Kakicheva
Second Violin
Zumrad llyeva, Principal Georgy Shirokov, Principal Maria Safarova Zhanna Abdulaeva Erdan Ergaliev Tatiana Moroz Svetlana Zhuravkova Marchel Bezhenaru Sergey Letyagin Mark Kogan Mikhail Zagorodnuk Natalia Kopachanu Nadezda Prudnikova Alexey Krasheninnikov
Viola
Yury Afonkin, Principal Vladimir Litvinov Oleg Larionov Lina Golovina Karine Barsegian Ekaterina Stupnikova Andrey Petushkov Alexey Klyuev Svetlana Sadovaya Leonid Lobach Olga Neverova Vartan Gnoro
Cello
Zenon Zalitsaylo, Principal Mikhail Slavin, Principal Oleg Sendetsky Alexander Ponomarenko Nikolay Vasilyev Vitaly Naydich Tamara Sakar Oksana Moroz Natalia Baykova Sarkis Ginosyan Ekaterina Travkina
Double Bass
Kirill Karikov, Principal Vladimir Shostak, Principal Igor Eliseev Alexander Alexeev Denis Kashin Sergey Trafimovich Evgeny Mamontov Demyan Gorodnichin
Flute
Valentin Cherenkov Denis Lupachev Nikolay Mokhov Margarita Maystrova Oleg Mikhailovsky Aglaya Ulianova
Oboe
Alexander Trushkov Sergey Bliznetsov Pavel Kundyanok llya Ilin
Clarinet
Ivan Tersky Viktor Kulyk Dmitry Kharitonov Anatoly Shoka Yury Zyuriaev Ivan Stolbov
Bassoon
Igor Gorbunov Rodion Tolmachev Valentin Kapustin Alexander Sharykin
Horn
Dmitry Vorontsov Igor Prokofyev Stanislav Tses Stanislav Avik Alexey Pozin Vladislav Kuznetsov Yury Akimkin Valery Papyrin
Trumpet
Vasily Kan Konstantin Baryshev Gennady Nikonov Sergey Kryuchkov Vitaly Zaitsev Alexander Smirnov
Trombone
Andrey Smirnov Igor lakovlev Fedor Arkhipov Mikhail Seliverstov Nikolai Timofeev Alexander Ponomarev
Tuba
Nikolay Slepnev Boris Dzhioev
Percussion
Andrey Khotin Yury Alexeev Mikhail Peskov Vladislav Ivanov Igor Udalov Evgeny Zhikalov Arseny Shuplyakov
Harp
Elizaveta Alexandrova Liudmila Rokhlina
Piano
Valeriya Rumyantseva
Orchestra Manager
Vladimir Ivanov
Stage Hands
Andrey Romanov Victor Belyashin
Tour Direction
Columbia Artists Management, LLC R. Douglas Sheldon, Senior Vice President Karen Kloster, Tour Coordinator Elizabeth E. Torres, Program Manager
Tour Management
Ann Woodruff, Tour Manager Valerie-Tessa Chermiset, Hotel Advance Bernard Muller, Conductor Driver Maria Keith, Backstage Manager
Travel Arrangements
Maestro Travel & Touring, Hotels Sintec-Tur, Air and Cargo