YUJA WANG
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CONCERT PROGRAM
Edvard Grieg
Suite No. 1 from Peer Gynt, Op. 46
I. Morning Mood
II. Åse’s Death
III. Anitra’s Dance
IV. In the Hall of the Mountain King
Béla Bartók
Piano Concerto No. 3
I. Allegretto
II. Adagio religioso – Poco più mosso – Tempo I
III. Allegro vivace
Thursday, October 13, 2016
8:00pm
Saturday, October 15, 2016
8:00pm
Krzysztof Urbański
conductor
Yuja Wang
piano
Intermission
Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95
“From the New World”
I. Adagio – Allegro molto
II. Largo
III. Scherzo: Molto vivace
IV. Allegro con fuoco
Peter
Oundjian
Music
Director
Yuja Wang, one of Toronto’s favourite soloists, returns for this colourful concert
under the baton of Krzysztof Urbański. Bartók wrote his exceptional Third Piano
Concerto as a gift for his wife. His first two concertos for piano are typical
of his earlier style, strongly rhythmic, spiced with dissonance, angular and
unpredictable. In this work, he turned towards a much more lyrical, and even
lush, language. From the shimmering opening to the thrilling finale, it is a true
delight. The concert opens with Grieg’s very famous first suite from Peer Gynt, a
witty and colourful set of pieces so recognizable they need no introduction. And
the concert concludes with Dvořák’s most popular work, the great “New World”
Symphony. Magnificent, dynamic, and richly tuneful, it’s the work of a master at
the height of his abilities. It may be hard to imagine the Czech Dvořák living and
working in Manhattan, but he truly loved America, and absorbed the atmosphere
and excitement of the New World completely.
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THE DETAILS
Edvard Grieg
Suite No. 1 from Peer Gynt, Op. 46
13
min
Born: Bergen, Norway, Jun 15, 1843
Died: Bergen, Norway, Sep 4, 1907
Composed: 1875; Suite No. 1, 1888
Including music as an integral and enriching
element of theatrical plays is an honoured
tradition that stretches back several centuries.
Among the most distinguished composers who
have found inspiration in writing such scores are
Purcell (numerous examples), Mozart (Thamos,
King of Egypt), Haydn (The Absent-Minded Man,
recast as Symphony No. 60), Beethoven (Egmont),
Mendelssohn (A Midsummer Night’s Dream),
Tchaikovsky (Hamlet), and Sibelius (The Tempest).
Peer Gynt was originally a verse drama that
Henrik Ibsen, the foremost Norwegian author
of the day, wrote in 1867. The title character is a
wild, selfish young man whose far-flung, often
fantastic adventures lead to his becoming a
caring human being. Ibsen decided to adapt it
for the stage in 1874. Following local tradition,
it would naturally have been expected that the
production would include extensive incidental
music. Ibsen invited Grieg, the country’s
foremost composer, to provide it, and sent him
a detailed outline of how he saw the music’s
role. Grieg hesitated but eventually accepted
the invitation. He completed the score in
September, 1875. The first production, staged
on a lavish scale in Oslo in 1876, scored an
enormous success. This was due, in no small
part, to Grieg’s colourful, evocative music. His
extensive score includes preludes, interludes,
dances, songs, and choruses.
He fashioned two orchestral concert suites from
the full score, the first of which (1888) has long
been one of his most popular compositions. Its
success came at a time when his self-confidence
needed just such a boost. It begins with a
poetic description of sunrise over the Sahara
desert. A moving elegy for strings depicts the
death of Åse, Peer’s long-suffering mother.
“Anitra’s Dance” offers a delicate portrait of a
lovely Bedouin’s daughter whom Peter meets
in Africa. Grieg scored it for the imaginative
combination of muted strings plus triangle. The
suite concludes with “In the Hall of the Mountain
King”. Riding a growing wave of volume and
animation, it accompanies a group of evil trolls
as they angrily pursue Peer through their magical
underground kingdom.
Program note by Don Anderson
Peer Gynt and his mother Åse, as portrayed by Henrik Klaussen
and Sofie Parelius in the 1876 Oslo production.
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Béla Bartók
Piano Concerto No. 3
23
min
Born: Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary, Mar 25, 1881
Died: New York City, New York, USA, Sep 26, 1945
Composed: 1945
In the fall of 1940, Bartók left war-torn Europe
and settled in New York. His first years in America
were financially difficult and creatively dry, and
he was already suffering from the leukemia that
would eventually kill him. In the summer of 1945,
his finances improved and his illness seemingly
under control, he worked intensely on his
Third Piano Concerto. But in August, his health
declined again, though he kept working as long
as he could. He died on September 26, leaving
the piano concerto finished except for the last
seventeen bars, which his friend and pupil Tibor
Serly later completed.
The Third Piano Concerto is a beautiful,
ingratiating work—lucid, melodious, (mostly)
consonant, and modestly proportioned. In terms
of pianistic technique, it is lighter in texture and
FOR DITTA
Bartók wrote the Third
Piano Concerto as a
surprise birthday gift for
his wife Ditta PásztoryBartók. He hoped,
poignantly, that it would serve as a vehicle
in which she could earn some money
in concerts after his death, which he
must have known was soon to come.
Ditta would play the concerto only a few
times; it was György Sándor who gave the
première on February 8, 1946.
less forbidding than the knuckle-busting Second,
though by no means easy. The orchestration is
refined and transparent, with brass and percussion
used sparingly though to great effect. The outer
movements are set in Classical forms, the outlines
of which are made clear to the ear. The first
movement has two main themes: the first evokes
the verbunkos—a Hungarian slow dance of (in
Bartók’s words) “heroic, march-like character”;
the second marked “scherzando”. The finale—also
another kind of stylized Hungarian dance—is a
rondo with two big contrasting episodes, in which
Bartók shows off his impressive command of
traditional techniques of counterpoint.
In the spare, hymn-like opening of the second
movement, Bartók was clearly paying homage
to the famous “Heiliger Dankgesang” (“Holy
Song of Thanks”) from Beethoven’s late String
Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132, and in doing so
he was surely alluding to his own health, for
Beethoven had composed that movement, in
1825, after recovering from a serious illness.
The tempo marking is Adagio religioso, and as
the movement unfolds, the string polyphony
is interrupted by chorale-like phrases in the
piano part. The faster section in the middle
of the movement, with its crisp snatches of
melody over a strangely rustling backdrop of
string tremolos and piano figuration, is based
on authentic bird songs that Bartók jotted down
during a stay, that last summer, at a sanatorium
in North Carolina.
Program note by Kevin Bazzana
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THE DETAILS
Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 “From the New World”
40
min
Born: Nelahozeves, Austrian Empire, Sep 8, 1841
Died: Praha, Austro-Hungarian Empire, May 1, 1904
Composed: 1893
One of Dvořák’s duties as the director of the
National Conservatory of Music of America
(1892–1895) was to instill a passion for musical
nationalism in his students, to which end he
began exploring America’s indigenous music.
Dvořák put his ideas into practice in an explicitly
American work: his Ninth Symphony, to which
he gave the title “From the New World”. He
began sketching themes as early as December
1892, completed the whole symphony on May
24, 1893, and attended the public première on
December 16. Highly publicized, the première
was the most sensational success of Dvořák’s
career; each movement was applauded, and
he had to rise to acknowledge especially
tumultuous cheers after the Largo. Soon the
symphony was being performed elsewhere in
the United States and all over Europe.
“AMERICAN” MUSIC
Dvořák insisted that he quoted no genuine
African-American or Indian melodies in
the Ninth Symphony, but only sought to
imitate American folk music. His goal was
popular appeal, not ethnomusicological
authenticity. His themes do sound
American, though; for instance, the slow,
lyrical melodies that appear in all four
movements allude to spirituals like “Swing
low, sweet chariot”. (In 1922, one of
Dvořák’s pupils created an ersatz spiritual,
“Goin’ Home”, from the English-horn
theme of the Largo.)
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The emotional centrepiece of the “New World”
Symphony is certainly the Largo, which,
despite its fame, still sounds fresh and original.
Its pastoral and elegiac tone and almost
heartbreaking poignancy evoke unforgettably
America’s vast, desolate prairies, in which
Dvořák found not only beauty but also sadness,
even despair. Throughout the Largo, Dvořák’s
orchestration offers one extraordinary texture
and sonority after another—right up to the very
last chord, which is scored, to astonishing effect,
for divided double basses alone.
The four movements of the “New World”
Symphony are tied together by cyclical
recurrences of themes. The two main themes
of the first movement—the upward-thrusting
theme (horns) that begins the Allegro molto and
the later, spiritual-like melody (solo flute)—are
recalled in the movements that follow. In the
second movement, both themes are placed
in counterpoint with the Largo’s own theme
in a striking fortissimo climax; in the third
movement, the themes from the first movement
appear in the transition between sections and,
most notably, in the coda. In the stormy finale,
which develops its own severe new theme
(horns and trumpets), melodies from all three
previous movements are recalled at the end
of the development section, and saturate the
coda, to the point that the finale becomes a
kind of synthesis or grand summation of the
whole symphony.
Program note by Kevin Bazzana
THE ARTISTS
Krzysztof Urbański
conductor
Krzysztof Urbański made his TSO début in March, 2015.
“That he is no mere flashy wunderkind of the baton was
shown by the freshly invigorated playing he drew from
the C[hicago Symphony Orchestra],” stated the Chicago
Tribune when describing conductor Krzysztof Urbański,
the Music Director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra,
Chief Conductor and Artistic Leader of Trondheim Symfoniorkester, and Principal
Guest Conductor of NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester. He is the 2015 recipient of the
prestigious Leonard Bernstein Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival. Highlights of his
2016/17 season include his début with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
and reinvitations to the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra,
Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Wiener Symphoniker, among others. He will also tour
Japan with the Elbphilharmonie Orchester and soloists Alice Sara Ott and Sayaka Shoji.
This season sees the release of two discs recorded with NDR Elbphilharmonie
Orchester: Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 for Outhere and Chopin small pieces for piano
and orchestra with Jan Lisiecki for Deutsche Grammophon, and Martinů’s Cello
Concerto No. 1 recorded for Sony with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sol Gabetta.
Yuja Wang
piano
Yuja Wang made her TSO début in October, 2007.
“Hers is a nonchalant, brilliant keyboard virtuosity that
would have made…even the fabled Horowitz jealous,”
Los Angeles Times, July 2015. Critical superlatives and
audience ovations have followed Yuja Wang’s dazzling
career. The Beijing-born pianist, celebrated for her
charismatic artistry and captivating stage presence, is, in 2016/17, Artist-in-Residence
at both China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) and Stockholm’s
Konserthus. Her forthcoming schedule embraces a strikingly broad range of repertoire,
from Chopin and Shostakovich to Ravel and Schubert; Bartók’s three piano concertos
stand as focal points throughout her 2016/17 season.
Yuja Wang was born into a musical family in Beijing. After childhood piano studies in
China, she received advanced training in Canada and at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute
of Music under Gary Graffman. Her international breakthrough came in 2007 when
she replaced Martha Argerich as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Two
years later she signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and has
since established her place among the world’s leading artists with a succession of
critically acclaimed performances and recordings.
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