Johannes Debus conducts the Royal Conservatory Orchestra and Bee Ungar
Friday, February 10, 2017 at 8:00 pm
This is the 692nd concert in Koerner Hall
Johannes Debus, conductor
Bee Ungar, bassoon
Royal Conservatory Orchestra
PROGRAM
John Burge: Snowdrift
Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 97 in C Major, Hob.I:97
I.
Adagio – Vivace
II.
Adagio ma non troppo
III.
Menuetto: Allegretto
IV.
Finale: Presto assai
INTERMISSION
Heitor Villa-Lobos: Ciranda das sete notas, fantasy for bassoon and string orchestra
(Bee Ungar, bassoon)
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 82
I.
Tempo molto moderato - Allegro moderato
II.
Andante mosso, quasi allegretto
III.
Allegro molto
John Burge
Born in Dryden, Ontario, January 2, 1961
Snowdrift (1996)
This single-movement tone poem for full orchestra is one of a series of works exploring the Canadian identity by
Kingston-based composer John Burge. Upper Canada Fiddle Suite for string orchestra, Rocky Mountain Overture for
silver band or full orchestra, and The Canadian Shield for orchestra are others. Burge, born in Dryden, Ontario, has
been Professor, Music Theory and Composition at Queen’s University for many years. After a shimmering, crystalline
opening, Snowdrift soon begins to layer dense orchestral textures on top of pulsing chords, rising and falling scale
patterns with varying rhythms, repeated chords, and note patterns. “On a descriptive level, the work musically
conveys the title’s image in two ways,” Burge says, “the limitation of the work’s pitch content to the white notes of the
piano and the compositional reliance on a slowly evolving orchestral texture. And, at a much deeper level, the work
appears to be typically Canadian: resourceful in spite of externally imposed constraints, expressive but not overbearing, calm.”
Joseph Haydn
Born in Rohrau, Austria, March 31, 1732; died in Vienna, Austria, May 31, 1809
Symphony No. 97 in C Major, Hob.I:97 (1792)
Haydn found himself in the right place at the right time when he was invited to make two extended visits to London in
the early 1790s. What he found was a vibrant city, economically prosperous, the centre for world trade, with a highly
educated leisured class eager to hear the latest new music from Europe’s most celebrated composer. London was
four times the size of Vienna – which Haydn had been visiting regularly as the Esterházy court, where he had served
for nearly 30 years, rotated between the Habsburg capital city and its nearby estates in Eisenstadt and Esterháza.
The attractions of the British capital were many. The press regularly reported on concerts as both major artistic and
social events in the calendar. “A new composition from such a man as Haydn is a great event in the history of music,”
wrote the Morning Herald in 1792, the year the much fêted Austrian completed his Symphony No. 97. Audiences of
around 500 heard the first performances of the majority of 12 “London” symphonies (Nos. 93-104) Haydn composed
while resident composer for a series of concerts at the Hanover Square Rooms. Symphony No. 97 was the sixth of
the series and the last of six presented in the triumphant first season of subscription concerts.
The orchestra that impresario and leader Salomon made available to Haydn was large: the customary
strings, pairs of woodwinds (without clarinets), timpani, and the trumpets that Haydn only occasionally could call on
back home at the Esterházy court. Here he puts the rich sonorities to use in a manner that would appeal to the
English. After an elegant, quiet introduction, the music of the opening Vivace is confident, probing as it ventures to
strange pitches and keys, assertive with prominent drums, and full of surprises – in the word of Haydn scholar H.C.
Robbins Landon, ‘festive.’ For all its forthrightness, though, there are subtleties, as in the way Haydn weaves
elements of his calm opening into the exuberant first theme and waltz-like second. The slow movement is a set of
three variations, with the two sections of the theme sometimes repeated with varied orchestration, sometimes not –
Haydn keeps us guessing. The repeated sections of the grandly resonant third movement minuet are similarly fully
written out and varied with exceptional detail. They enclose a trio which has the flavour of a rustic Viennese waltz.
The finale is a Haydn comedy, sparkling and dashing in its humour, certain of being repeated by popular demand at
the three or four May 1792 concerts in the British capital where it was first performed.
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 5, 1887; died there, November 17, 1959
Ciranda das sete notas, fantasy for bassoon and string orchestra (1933)
Seven years before composing this short fantasy for bassoon and strings, Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos
wrote a collection of 16 Cirandas for piano. In Brazil, a ciranda is a children’s round dance, similar to the British Ringa-ring o' roses rhyme and game, and other similar traditional pastimes with origins in Europe. Here the opening
seven notes of the C major scale, heard at the very beginning on the strings, form the thematic basis of the entire
piece. They are passed from instrument to instrument in the musical fabric, developed, and heard in the bass as a
ground, anchoring musical development above. The score is coloured by Brazilian folk music and gives the last word,
with humour, to the bassoon.
Jean Sibelius
Born in Hämeenlinna, Finland, December 8, 1865; died in Järvenpää, Finland, September 20, 1957
Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 82 (1914-19)
On the evening of his 50th birthday, December 8, 1915, Sibelius conducted the Helsinki Municipal Orchestra in the
premiere of his Fifth Symphony. It was a heroic, uplifting score; its music powerful and festive. The day had been
declared a national holiday for the Finns, marking a milestone in the life of Sibelius, their national hero. But the Fifth
Symphony itself was far from the masterpiece we know today. Ahead lay two major re-writes – “practically composed
anew,” Sibelius said by the time the final version was complete, five years after he first began work on the piece. The
music grows organically from the noble horn motif with which the first movement opens. It is a questioning theme that
ends inconclusively, in mid-sentence. But within its uneven contours lies an argument that occupies the entire
symphony and haunts every measure. Sibelius gradually unravels the dissonances contained in the theme, only
resolving them in the widely separated, affirmative chords that bring the work to its conclusion. The opening
movement unfolds the latent energy of the theme, gradually working towards a radiant reprise on full brass, even
more noble than the opening. Before it ends, the tempo appears to quicken and, in one of the masterstrokes of the
work, the musical argument evolves into a dance. In the period between the first (four-movement) and final (threemovement) versions of the work, Sibelius wove his opening movement and scherzo into a single, organic whole. Its
new direction now seems inevitable as we listen, as does the fugal treatment of the motifs and thrilling, blazing
conclusion.
The excitement of the opening movement is stabilized with the theme and variations that follow. It is a
fascinating, almost hypnotic unfolding of a curious, five-note theme. Beneath an outer appearance of calm and order,
the music has an inner feeling of restlessness and unease. A slowly swaying bass line twice gives us a glimpse of a
theme to come. The strings buzz excitedly. Then we hear the theme in its full glory in the finale, tolling in bell-like
leaping thirds on two pairs of horns. This glorious theme has been likened to Thor swinging his hammer. Certainly, by
the end, the noble theme has been solidly hammered in metal in as affirmative an ending as that of any symphony.
- Program notes © 2017 Keith Horner
Johannes Debus
Conductor
Music Director of the Canadian Opera Company, Johannes Debus graduated from the Hamburg Conservatoire
before being engaged as répétiteur and, subsequently, Kapellmeister by Frankfurt Opera.
In 2015-16, Mr. Debus made his debuts with the Houston Symphony, the San Diego Symphony, and
Komische Oper, Berlin, and returned to Frankfurt Opera and to the Blossom Festival with the Cleveland Orchestra.
He conducts regularly at Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Staatsoper unter den Linden Berlin, and Frankfurt Opera,
and has appeared in new productions at English National Opera and Opéra National de Lyon.
At home both in contemporary music and the core repertoire, he has collaborated with internationallyacclaimed ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, and Musikfabrik.
As a guest conductor, he has appeared at several international festivals such as the Biennale di Venezia, Bregenz
and Schwetzingen Festivals, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Lincoln Center Festival, Ruhrtriennale, Suntory Summer
Festival, and Spoleto Festival.
In 2010, Johannes Debus was invited to replace James Levine in a performance of Mozart’s Die Entführung
aus dem Serail at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was subsequently invited to replace Sir
Colin Davis in works by Mozart and Haydn in four subscription concerts, marking his Symphony Hall debut. He made
his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival in the summer of 2012, with the Toronto
Symphony Orchestra in January 2013, and with the Philharmonia in London.
Bee Ungar
Bassoon
Currently pursuing their Artist’s Diploma at The Glenn Gould School, bassoonist Bee Ungar holds a Bachelor of
Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where they studied with Frank Morelli of the Orpheus Chamber
Orchestra. As a winner of concerto competitions at both schools, Bee has been featured as soloist in Borden Hall of
the Manhattan School of Music and Mazzoleni Concert Hall of The Royal Conservatory. Before coming to Toronto,
Bee appeared as a member of numerous Carnegie Hall-based ensembles, including the New York String Orchestra
Seminar and New York Youth Symphony. In their orchestral career, Bee has been fortunate to play under the batons
of Leonard Slatkin, James DePreist, Kurt Masur, Leon Fleisher, and Jaime Laredo, and has accompanied soloists
such as Yefim Bronfman, Augustin Hadelich, and David Coucheron. As a chamber musician, Bee has given
performances in collaboration with Ransom Wilson, William Purvis, Steve Taylor, and the New York City-based wind
quintet, Windscape. Bee’s summer studies have included residencies at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the
National Orchestral Institute, The Banff Centre, and the Bowdoin International Music Festival.
Royal Conservatory Orchestra
Joaquin Valdepeñas, Resident Conductor
The Royal Conservatory Orchestra (RCO), part of the Temerty Orchestral Program, is widely regarded as an
outstanding ensemble and one of the best training orchestras in North America. The Conservatory’s orchestral
students gain critical performance experience in the acoustically renowned Koerner Hall, as well as invaluable
musical insights by being led by such distinguished conductors as Gábor Takács-Nagy, Johannes Debus, Bramwell
Tovey, and Tito Muñoz this season; past guest conductors have included Sir Roger Norrington, Peter Oundjian, Leon
Fleisher, Mario Bernardi, Richard Bradshaw, Ivars Taurins, Julian Kuerti, Tania Miller, Nathan Brock, Uri Mayer, and
Lior Shambadal. The RCO ensures that instrumental students in the Performance Diploma Program and the Artist
Diploma Program of The Glenn Gould School graduate with extensive orchestral performance experience.
Additionally, at least two winners of The Glenn Gould School Concerto Competition have the opportunity to appear
each year as soloists with the RCO. Graduates of the RCO have joined the ranks of the greatest orchestras in the
world, including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the BBC Orchestra, the
Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, Tafelmusik, the Hallé Orchestra of Manchester, the Hong
Kong Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and Leipzig Gewandhaus. The RCO has been invited to
perform at the Isabel Bader Performing Arts Centre in Kingston this season, has been heard on CBC Radio, and has
toured China during the 2004-05 season.