Program
One hunDreD TwenTy-FirST SeASOn
Chicago Symphony orchestra
riccardo muti Music Director
Pierre Boulez helen regenstein Conductor emeritus
Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce green Creative Consultant
Global Sponsor of the CSO
Thursday, April 5, 2012, at 8:00
Friday, April 6, 2012, at 1:30
Saturday, April 7, 2012, at 8:00
Tuesday, April 10, 2012, at 7:30
Charles Dutoit Conductor
John Sharp Cello
Charles Pikler Viola
Nikolai Lugansky Piano
Strauss
Don Quixote, Op. 35
JOhn ShArP
ChArleS Pikler
INtermISSIoN
rachmaninov
Piano Concerto no. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
Allegro ma non tanto
intermezzo
Finale
nikOlAi lugAnSky
These concerts are endowed in part by the Kirkland & Ellis LLP Concert Fund.
The appearance of Nikolai Lugansky is endowed in part by the John Ward Seabury
Distinguished Soloist Fund.
This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
CommeNtS by PhilliP huSCher
richard Strauss
Born June 11, 1864, Munich, Germany.
Died September 8, 1949, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria.
Don Quixote, op. 35
F
ew works of art have been so
plundered through the ages as
Cervantes’s vast and great novel,
Don Quixote. It has been danced,
painted, and it is the subject of
other literary works. (A “sequel”
was published by another writer in
1614, before Cervantes had even
finished his own tale.) Musicians,
too, were fascinated by the
subject—Purcell and Telemann
both wrote suites; Paisiello and
Salieri produced operas, as did
Donizetti and Mendelssohn in the
early nineteenth century. More
recent efforts include Massenet’s
opera Don Quichotte; a puppet
ComPoSeD
1897
FIrSt PerFormaNCe
March 8, 1898, Cologne,
germany
FIrSt CSo
PerFormaNCe
January 6, 1899 (u. S. premiere), Auditorium Theatre.
bruno Steindel and Franz
esser, soloists; Theodore
Thomas conducting
play by Manuel de Falla; and
the Broadway hit, Man of La
Mancha—each of them proving
the indestructibility of Cervantes’s
words. Arguably the most successful of all the musical adaptations is
that by Richard Strauss, written at
the height of his great outpouring
of orchestral tone poems during the last decade of the nineteenth century.
It is hard to imagine men more
different than Cervantes and
Strauss. Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra, born into poverty in 1547,
knew domestic troubles, financial
struggle, and physical hardships all
moSt reCeNt
CSo PerFormaNCeS
May 28, 1991, Orchestra
hall. John Sharp, cello;
Charles Pikler, viola; Daniel
barenboim conducting
July 2, 2005, ravinia
Festival. John Sharp, cello;
Charles Pikler, viola; James
Conlon conducting
CSo reCorDINgS
1959. Antonio Janigro, cello;
Milton Preves, viola; Fritz
reiner conducting. rCA
1991. John Sharp, cello;
Charles Pikler, viola; Daniel
barenboim conducting. erato
2
INStrumeNtatIoN
two flutes and piccolo, two
oboes and english horn, two
clarinets, bass clarinet and
e-flat clarinet, three bassoons and contrabassoon,
six horns, three trumpets,
three trombones, two tubas,
timpani, snare drum, bass
drum, cymbals, triangle,
glockenspiel, tambourine,
wind machine, harp, strings
aPProxImate
PerFormaNCe tIme
40 minutes
his life. He fought many battles—at
home, as a soldier, and as an artist;
his left hand was permanently
maimed in combat; he was captured by pirates and incarcerated
in Algeria; he later worked as a tax
collector and was imprisoned once
again, this time for fraud. It was in
prison, and near the end of his life,
that he began Don Quixote, and
although it was widely read upon
publication in 1605 (part 2 was
published in 1615), Cervantes died
virtually penniless. Three centuries
later, Richard Strauss was born into
a vastly different world; he enjoyed
a carefree, storybook childhood;
married well; and led a charmed
life. His works were acclaimed
early on and made a lot of money.
He spent his days writing music
and playing cards with friends; for
most of his life, he lived in the villa
he built with the royalties from his
opera Salome. During the war, he
simply shut the door.
And yet, Cervantes and Strauss
found their common ground in the
tale of Don Quixote. Strauss knew
little of battle—or windmills, for
that matter—but he was himself
a prodigious dreamer and a great
idealist. And so he understood
something of Don Quixote’s
makeup. And, despite his sheltered life, he was a keen observer
of human nature, and one of his
great strengths was his ability to
denote character in music. In this
work, that talent raised music that
might have been merely picturesque to a work of consequence,
even greatness.
There is, of course, no way
Strauss could convey the richness
of Cervantes’s enormous canvas in
forty minutes of music, even though
his writing is faithful, detailed, and
painstakingly descriptive. Strauss
admits his solution in the subtitle:
Don Quixote
not Tondichtung, or tone poem, as
one would expect in 1897, after
several brilliant works in that form
(Also sprach Zarathustra was composed just the previous year)—but
“Fantastic variations on a theme of
knightly character.” Strauss’s Don
Quixote, then, is not a hasty tour
of the novel, but instead a study
in character—both that of Don
Quixote and his companion Sancho
Panza. And in this way, Strauss
brings Don Quixote brilliantly
and unforgettably to life, if only
for the time it would take to read
the first few of Cervantes’s many
hundred pages. Don Quixote is an
essay in portraiture, as is Strauss’s
subsequent symphonic poem, the
explicitly autobiographical Ein
Heldenleben. (Strauss originally
hoped the two works would be
premiered together, still insisting at the end of his life that they
were companion pieces, each fully
3
understandable only at the side of
the other.)
T
he music begins with Don
Quixote, “a gentleman verging
on fifty,” according to Cervantes,
and, as depicted in Strauss’s music,
a man who is both chivalrous
and courteous. We first find Don
Quixote pouring through his books
on knighthood. As his dreams
begin to take wing, the music soars
and struggles; there are battles
to be won and love to find. (The
oboe introduces the image of the
stunning Dulcinea.) Quixote’s
ideas come faster and grow larger;
Strauss’s music encompasses them
all, creating an amazing musical labyrinth unprecedented in
nineteenth-century music. (His colleague Max Reger said: “It is fabulous what the man writes there!”)
Finally the music halts, just on the
brink of excess, and Quixote, his
mind now aflame, stands before us.
Cervantes’s character, “lean-bodied,
thin-faced, a great early riser, and
a lover of hunting” now speaks
with the voice of a solo cello—it
is one of the richest roles in all
music. Sancho Panza is here, too:
a country bumpkin, who, as played
by solo viola, chatters endlessly
and reveals a passion for tiresome
proverbs—splendid but earthbound
phrases uttered as if they were great
soaring Straussian melodies.
Now come the adventures, a
series of ten variations on these
themes. Variation 1 is the familiar
battle with the windmill. Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza set off
together; Don Quixote attacks
monstrous giants that are, in fact,
4
simply windmills turning in the
breeze. He falls to the ground
with a crash. Sancho Panza
consoles him.
Variation 2: Envisioning a
mighty army behind a cloud of
dust, Don Quixote charges straight
into a flock of sheep, whose bleating is one of the most celebrated
pieces of pictorial orchestral writing
in all music (wind and brass players
flutter-tongue through a succession
of minor seconds). Don Quixote
scatters the flock without incident.
(In the novel, he loses his teeth and
breaks two ribs.)
Variation 3, in Strauss’s words,
presents “Sancho’s conversations,
questions, demands, and proverbs;
Don Quixote’s instructing, appeasings, and promises.” There also is a
long, lyrical speech from Quixote,
filled with dreams of hope and
glory. Sancho Panza tries to restore
reason. Incensed, Quixote sails off
into variation 4, where he attacks
a procession of penitents chanting and carrying a statue of the
Madonna. (He mistakes them for
outlaws abducting a beautiful girl.)
He is knocked to the ground and
lies there prostrate—a loud, low
sustained D in the strings. Sancho
revives him.
Sancho Panza now falls asleep—
attentive listeners may catch his
first snores—while Don Quixote
begins an extended rhapsody on
knighthood, crowned by a vision of
Dulcinea (variation 5). There is no
action—only moonlight, the sound
of the night wind coming up, and
the music of dreams. Variation 6
comes as a rude awakening, with
the image of Dulcinea shattered
by a loud, common girl playing
castanets. In variation 7, Quixote
and Sancho sit blindfolded, astride
a toy horse, while the sound of
great, rushing winds argue that
they are, in fact, airborne. (The
wind machine contributes a marvelous special effect here, as it does
in works as disparate as Daphnis
and Chloe and Vaughan Williams’s
Sinfonia antartica.)
Variation 8: The two get into
a boat at the shore near dangerous water—Strauss writes a rocky
barcarolle—where giant mill
wheels eventually capsize their
craft. The two men emerge—
drenched, dripping, and shaking
(large pizzicato drops)—and offer
a hushed prayer of thanks for
their lives. In variation 9, Quixote
attacks two unaccompanied bassoons, mistaking them for a pair of
Benedictine monks riding mules,
and then fights one last battle
(variation 10) with the Knight of
the White Moon—a seriously onesided fight, with the solo cello pitted against the full winds and brass,
before beginning his pathetic,
heartbreaking journey home. In
the finale, Don Quixote takes to
his bed, reflecting on the madness
of his adventures and the wisdom
and folly of both his dreams and his
defeats. He dies over his cello.
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5
Sergei rachmaninov
Born April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, Russia.
Died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, California.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, op. 30
A
lthough Rachmaninov’s music
is sometimes confused with
the treacly romanticism of the
Hollywood soundtracks it once
inspired, Rachmaninov himself was
a serious and aristocratic artist. He
was one of the greatest pianists in
history—an astonishing virtuoso in
the heroic tradition of Liszt—but
there was nothing flashy about his
stage manner. Rachmaninov was
surprisingly somber and remote
for a crowd-pleasing superstar. He
rarely smiled or courted the audience, and even his close-cropped
haircut, of a kind that is ubiquitous
today but was highly suspect at the
time (like that of a convict, as the
Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin
said) suggested a stern presence.
(Chaliapin also scolded him for
his curt, peremptory bows.) Much
ComPoSeD
1909
FIrSt PerFormaNCe
november 28, 1909, new
york City. The composer
as soloist
FIrSt CSo
PerFormaNCe
January 23, 1920, Orchestra
hall. The composer
as soloist; Frederick
Stock conducting
6
later, Stravinsky called him “a sixand-a-half-foot-tall scowl.”
Rachmaninov would have
become famous if he had done
nothing but concertize. But his
true aspiration was to become
a composer. At the Moscow
Conservatory, his teacher Nikolai
Zverev encouraged him to stick to
the piano instead of writing music,
but Rachmaninov tried his hand at
composing some piano pieces and
an orchestral scherzo, and he even
started an opera, Esmerelda. Unable
to choose between composition
and performance, Rachmaninov
ultimately decided to pursue both,
eventually becoming a fine conductor as well. In 1889, the year he and
Zverev parted ways, he sketched
and abandoned a piano concerto,
but the one he began the following
Later CSo PerFormaNCeS wIth the
ComPoSer aS SoLoISt
January 14 and 15, 1932,
Orchestra hall. Frederick
Stock conducting
moSt reCeNt
CSo PerFormaNCe
October 21, 2008, Orchestra
hall. yefim bronfman, piano;
neeme Järvi conducting
aPProxImate
PerFormaNCe tIme
44 minutes
INStrumeNtatIoN
solo piano, two flutes, two
oboes, two clarinets, two
bassoons, four horns, two
trumpets, three trombones
and tuba, timpani, side
drum, cymbals, bass
drum, strings
CSo reCorDINg
1967. Alexis weissenberg,
piano; georges Prêtre
conducting. rCA
year is his first major work—his
op. 1. This is the score that made
his name as a composer, and it was
completed in a rush of passion and
elation, with Rachmaninov working from five in the morning until
eight in the evening and scoring the
last two movements in just two and
a half days. It would be ten years,
however, before Rachmaninov
would finish his Second Piano
Concerto, which quickly became
his greatest hit and his calling card.
He played it with the Chicago
Symphony when he made his debut
in Orchestra Hall, on December 3,
1909—the first of his eight appearances with the Orchestra.
Although Chicago didn’t
get to hear it that year, by then
Rachmaninov had written a third
piano concerto, tailor-made for his
first North American tour in late
1909. Rachmaninov introduced the
work in New York on November
28, with Walter Damrosch and the
New York Symphony. He played it
there again in January, with Gustav
Mahler conducting the New York
Philharmonic (only weeks after
Mahler’s own First Symphony, in
its American premiere, was a flop).
Rachmaninov was bowled over
by Mahler’s meticulous rehearsal
method—“the accompaniment,”
Rachmaninov recalled, “which is
rather complicated, had been practiced to the point of perfection”—
by his attention to detail, and by
his refusal to stop working until
he was satisfied (rehearsal ran an
hour overtime). The New York Times
thought Rachmaninov’s playing
occasionally lacked brilliance, but
that “the orchestral accompaniment
was outstanding.” The New York
Herald, somewhat half-heartedly,
called the work one of the “most
interesting piano concertos of
recent years,” but noted that “its
great length and extreme difficulties bar it from performances by any
but pianists of exceptional technical
powers”—an assessment that still
holds today. (Rachmaninov played
the concerto when he appeared
with the Chicago Symphony for the
second time, in January 1920.)
Although in 1909, Rachmaninov
was known as one of the great
piano virtuosos, he began his new
concerto not with solo fireworks,
but with almost Mozartean clarity
and understatement—a discreet
accompaniment to which the
piano adds a quiet, simple melody
in bare octaves. It’s as plain and
haunting as chant, and although
Rachmaninov told musicologist
Joseph Yasser that the theme came
to him “ready-made,” Yasser wasn’t
surprised when he later discovered a
strikingly similar Russian liturgical
melody. Rachmaninov said that
he thought of the piano theme as
a kind of song, and he took pains
to find an accompaniment “that
would not muffle this singing.”
(He was understandably delighted
with the care Mahler lavished on
the orchestral part.) As the movement progresses, both melody and
accompaniment are explored and
developed at length, as is a lyrical
second theme. The climax of the
movement is the magnificent solo
cadenza, as long and tough as any
in the repertory, which takes the
place of a formal recapitulation.
(The piano writing is so symphonic,
7
© 2012 Chicago Symphony Orchestra
8
complex, and multifaceted that we
barely notice that the orchestra has
temporarily dropped out.)
In the middle-movement
Intermezzo—a curiously
“light” title for music so big and
involved—the piano’s entrance is
both unmistakable and disruptive,
for it takes control with its first
phrase and leads the music in new
directions (eventually settling in
D-flat, an unexpected destination for a concerto in D minor).
A “new” waltz theme, introduced
by the clarinet and bassoon over
fancy piano filigree, is a cleverly
disguised version—almost note for
note—of the concerto’s monastic
opening melody.
The finale, which begins fully
formed while the Intermezzo is still
finishing up, is the kind of virtuoso
tour de force Rachmaninov’s fans
expected in 1909 and courageous
pianists still love delivering today.
It’s also richly inventive, with a
fantastic, playful scherzando (in
E-flat!) as a mid-movement diversion. The ending, predictably, is
designed to test the limits of virtuosity and bring down the house.
T
hroughout Rachmaninov’s life,
it was fashionable—if not, in
fact, honorable in progressive music
circles—to disparage his music.
Rachmaninov had always worried
that by splitting his time between
playing the piano, conducting, and
composing, he had spread himself
too thin. “I have chased three
hares,” he once said. “Can I be
certain that I have captured one?”
For many years, Rachmaninov’s
stature as a pianist was undisputed.
But by the time of his death in 1943
(he appeared with the Chicago
Symphony for the last time just
six weeks before he died), he had
been written off as an old-fashioned
composer—hopelessly sentimental,
out of touch, and irrelevant. As
Virgil Thomson told the young
playwright Edward Albee in 1948,
“It is really extraordinary, after all,
that a composer so famous should
have enjoyed so little the esteem of
his fellow composers.” The sacrosanct Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians, in its fifth edition,
concluded its dismal appraisal of
his output: “The enormous popular
success some few of Rachmaninov’s
works had in his lifetime is not
likely to last and musicians never
regarded it with much favor.” But in
the past few years, his star has been
on the rise. Now, as Rachmaninov
always hoped, it is his music and
not his piano playing that keeps his
name alive.
Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.