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, May 24, 2012, at 8:00
Friday, May 25, 2012, at 1:30
Saturday, May 26, 2012, at 8:00
David robertson Conductor
Emanuel ax Piano
Keys
City
to the
Hindemith
Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Allegro
Turandot: Scherzo
Andantino
March
Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73 (Emperor)
Allegro
Adagio un poco mosso—
Rondo: Allegro
EMANuEl Ax
IntErmIssIon
rachmaninov
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45
Non allegro
Andante con moto (Tempo di valse)
lento assai—Allegro vivace
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is most grateful to Judy Istock, CSO Life Trustee, for
her generous support as lead sponsor of the Keys to the City Piano Festival. The festival
receives additional generous support from The Chicago Community Trust, Dan J. Epstein
Family Foundation, Mr. & Mrs. Paul G. Gignilliat, Joe and Madeleine Glossberg, and the
National Endowment for the Arts.
Media support for the Keys to the City Piano Festival is provided by Chicago Tribune and WFMT.
The CSO gratefully acknowledges Mrs. Arthur Edelstein for her generous support of the
May 25 concert.
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
Paul Hindemith
Born November 16, 1895, Hanau, Germany.
Died December 28, 1963, Frankfurt, Germany.
symphonic metamorphosis on themes by
Carl maria von Weber
I
n March 1940, choreographer and
dancer Léonid Massine wrote to
Paul Hindemith asking if he would
be interested in composing a ballet
based on music by Carl Maria von
Weber. Hindemith had always
taken an unusually serious interest
both in the music of the past and
in the musical heritage of his native
Germany, so paying homage to
Weber naturally appealed to him.
And, perhaps because Hindemith
was in the process of building a new
life for himself in a strange country,
he was particularly taken with the
idea of maintaining his German
musical roots.
A political refugee, Hindemith
had left Germany in 1937, living in Switzerland before moving
to the United States in February
ComPosED
1940–1943
FIrst PErFormanCE
January 20, 1944, New york.
Artur Rodzinski conducting
FIrst Cso
PErFormanCE
July 27, 1944 (Andantino and
March only), Ravinia Festival.
Efrem Kurtz conducting
February 1, 1945, Orchestra
Hall. Hans lange conducting
2
1940, the month before he received
Massine’s request. While he
was in Switzerland, Hindemith
had worked with Massine on
Nobilissima visione, a ballet on the
life of Saint Francis of Assisi based
on the famous frescoes by Giotto
in the church of Santa Croce in
Florence, Italy. For that score,
Hindemith had at first considered
borrowing music from medieval
composers, and, although he gave
up on that idea, the prospect of
writing a new ballet indebted to
Weber, to whom he felt considerably closer, not just in time but in
sensibility as well, was irresistible.
In the spring of 1940, when
Hindemith had a temporary
teaching position at the University
of Buffalo and the dancer was
most rECEnt
Cso PErFormanCE
March 4, 2006,
Orchestra Hall. bernard
Haitink conducting
InstrumEntatIon
two flutes and piccolo, two
oboes and english horn,
two clarinets and bass
clarinet, two bassoons
and contrabassoon, four
horns, two trumpets,
three trombones and
tuba, timpani, tambourine,
snare drum, tenor drum,
tom-toms, bass drum,
triangle, cymbals, tam-tam,
tubular bells, woodblock,
glockenspiel, strings
aPProxImatE
PErFormanCE tImE
21 minutes
Cso rECorDIng
1953. Rafael Kubelík
conducting. Mercury
on tour in the United States, the
two sat down together to discuss
the Weber project. But between
Massine’s invitation and their
meeting, Hindemith went to see
a performance of Massine’s production of the Bacchanale from
Wagner’s Tannhäuser, which he
dismissed as “simply stupid.” When
he learned that Massine wanted
to commission sets and costumes
for the new Weber ballet from
Salvador Dali, whose contribution
to the Bacchanale Hindemith had
particularly hated, the composer
quickly withdrew from the project. In the meantime, however,
Hindemith had already begun
studying Weber’s music and sketching ways to treat his predecessor’s
themes. Three years later, he realized that although he had shelved
the Weber project, he hadn’t
dismissed the composer’s music
from his thoughts, and so he wrote
this Symphonic Metamorphosis
on themes by Weber to fulfill one
of his first American commissions,
from the New York Philharmonic.
Hindemith settled on the idea
of a four-movement symphonic
work, although it is clearly not a
symphony in the classical sense,
but a symphony of variations—a
set of transformations of four
Weber themes. Hindemith didn’t
choose familiar Weber material, but
instead picked lesser—or at least
slighter—pieces that would most
benefit from the kind of “metamorphosis” that he had in mind.
Hindemith begins with an exotic
and noisy Allegro, originally a
piano duet, which gains immeasurably in both color and atmosphere
from the translation for full orchestra. The second-movement scherzo
is drawn from incidental music that
Weber wrote in 1809 for Schiller’s
translation of Carlo Gozzi’s play
Turandot—the same play that, in
the years between Weber’s and
Hindemith’s treatments, served as
the source for Puccini’s last opera.
The vaguely oriental principal
melody itself is one that Weber had
lifted from a collection of “genuine”
Chinese tunes in Jean-Jacques
Rousseau’s Dictionaire de musique.
Like many oriental fantasies by
Western European composers
through the ages, it is colored by
bright and busy percussion.
The third-movement Andantino
is drawn from a set of piano duets
that Weber composed for his
employer’s daughters, the princesses
Maria and Amalia of Württenberg.
A florid flute obbligato is an especially felicitous addition to Weber’s
unassuming theme. Hindemith
closes with a march, also originally
composed for piano duet, which is a
genuine transformation, not just in
sonority and color, but in character as well, that makes Weber’s
solemn Maestoso into a rousing and
exuberant finale.
3
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany.
Died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria.
Piano Concerto no. 5 in E-flat major, op. 73
(Emperor)
I
t’s hard for today’s audiences
to appreciate the audacities of
Beethoven’s final piano concerto,
the one we call the Emperor. For
those who are familiar not only
with this great work, but with any
of the later concertos that took their
cues from Beethoven’s example,
the grand piano flourishes with
which the score begins have little
shock value. Nor does the size and
complexity of the first movement
trouble those who not only have
traveled its many paths before, but
also have come to accept the vast
landscapes of Mahler.
But to those who packed the
Leipzig Gewandhaus in November
1811, this was new music, full of
revelations and surprises. To begin
ComPosED
1809
FIrst PErFormanCE
November 28, 1811, leipzig,
Germany
FIrst Cso
PErFormanCE
February 10, 1900,
Auditorium Theatre. ignace
Paderewski, piano; Theodore
Thomas conducting
most rECEnt
Cso PErFormanCEs
March 14, 2009, Orchestra
Hall. Valentina lisitsa, piano;
James Gaffigan conducting
4
with, Beethoven wasn’t at the
keyboard—this was the only one
of his five piano concertos that he
didn’t personally introduce to the
public. Although it wasn’t common knowledge at the time, by
1811 his deafness was so advanced
(he began to notice symptoms as
early as 1796) that he may have
turned this work over to other
hands rather than admit the difficulties of playing for an audience.
(In 1815, he abandoned work on
sketches for a sixth concerto, in D,
certain that his performing days
were over.)
Beethoven begins with a single
majestic E-flat major chord from
the full orchestra—one of those
sounds so commanding and
July 16, 2010, Ravinia
Festival. Jorge Federico
Osorio, piano; James
Conlon conducting
InstrumEntatIon
two flutes, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons,
two horns, two trumpets,
timpani, strings
aPProxImatE
PErFormanCE tImE
38 minutes
Cso rECorDIngs
1942. Artur Schnabel, piano;
Frederick Stock conducting.
RCA
1961. Van Cliburn, piano;
Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA
1971. Vladimir Ashkenazy,
piano; Georg Solti conducting. london
1983. Alfred brendel, piano;
James levine conducting.
Philips
A 1940 performance with
Joseph Hofmann, piano,
and Hans lange conducting
is included on Chicago
Symphony Orchestra: The
First 100 Years; and a
1966 performance with
Emil Gilels, piano, and
Jean Martinon conducting
is included on From the
Archives, vol. 17.
individual that today, without
hearing another note, we know
what is sure to follow. The 1811
audience, of course, didn’t know
what to expect, and they surely
wouldn’t have predicted the sudden,
cadenza-like eruption from the
soloist that Beethoven gives them.
Hearing from the soloist so early in
a concerto is bold and unconventional, but it’s not without precedent. Mozart tried it once, early in
his career, and Beethoven himself
had begun his previous concerto—
the fourth, in G major—with the
piano alone. But here Beethoven
isn’t striving for novelty; he’s
preparing us for what lies ahead—a
musical argument of unprecedented
breadth and scale between two
protagonists of equal stature.
Only after Beethoven commands our attention with three
emphatic chords, each followed by
long-winded outbursts from the
piano, does he settle down to his
first theme, a heroic tune in E-flat
major. The piano falls silent and
the orchestral exposition sweeps
forward with great energy. This
is an enormous movement, lasting some twenty minutes, and
it’s longer than the following two
movements combined. But for all
the time and space it occupies, it’s
not hard to follow. Beethoven alone
among composers of his generation
knew how to expand the classical
structures he inherited without
upsetting their delicate proportions
or abandoning their inner logic.
The slow movement is in
B major—a remote key, but one
which is familiar from the earliest
digressions of the opening Allegro.
The strings begin with a noble
theme, to which the piano responds
with an eloquent cantilena. Midway
through, the piano has a chain
of trills that rises more than an
octave by half steps, while the
orchestra plays broken chords, as if
stunned by this daring high-wire
act. Finally, there is the celebrated
moment when the strings drop from
B to B-flat, and the piano begins to
putter with the makings of a dazzling new theme, which it suddenly
unleashes without pause to open the
rondo finale. This robust and seemingly tireless music dashes headlong
through a generous sampling of
keys until it collapses just before the
end, leaving only the piano and the
timpani to reach the final bars.
Beethoven’s brilliance wasn’t lost
on the Leipzig audience, who took
it all in and applauded enthusiastically. The critic for the prestigious
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
reported that this was “undoubtedly one of the most original,
imaginative, effective—but also
most difficult—of all existing
concertos”—words that still hold
true today. Beethoven withheld the
important Vienna premiere until
February 1812, perhaps still vainly
hoping that he might be able to
take his place at the keyboard. It
was his student, however, the young
Carl Czerny, who played that night.
The response this time was poor,
perhaps because this grand and
noble work was tacked on to a charity event which consisted largely
of Viennese society ladies in living
tableaux of famous paintings.
5
sergei rachmaninov
Born April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, Russia.
Died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, California.
symphonic Dances, op. 45
A
fter finishing his Third
Symphony in 1936,
Rachmaninov quit composing, discouraged by the lukewarm reception
several of his recent scores had met.
(Only the Rhapsody on a Theme by
Paganini had been well received;
both the Fourth Piano Concerto
and the Variations on a Theme by
Corelli were public failures, and the
Third Symphony was only a modest
success). Rachmaninov was tired
of trying to juggle his careers as a
composer, conductor, and pianist—
and in recent years it seemed that
he was only guaranteed success in
his role as pianist (he was, after
all, one of the greatest of all time).
Perhaps he also had grown weary of
having his music dismissed as oldfashioned and irrelevant—invariably
pitted against the radical work of
Stravinsky and Schoenberg, the two
giants of the day.
ComPosED
1940
FIrst PErFormanCE
January 3, 1941,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
FIrst Cso
PErFormanCE
December 11, 1941,
Orchestra Hall. Frederick
Stock conducting
6
With the outbreak of war in
1939, Rachmaninov and his wife
Natalya left Europe for the last
time and settled in Orchard Point,
an estate he had rented on Long
Island, near his friends Vladimir
and Wanda Horowitz; his former
secretary, Evgeny Somov; and
choreographer Michel Fokine,
who recently had made a popular
ballet of the Paganini Variations.
Throughout the summer of 1940,
Rachmaninov was busy preparing
for his upcoming concert tour—he
regularly practiced every day from
early morning until eleven at
night—and, for the first time in
years, he found that he couldn’t
resist the urge to compose. On
August 21 he wrote to Eugene
Ormandy, who had conducted
some of Rachmaninov’s greatest
successes with the Philadelphia
Orchestra, “Last week I finished
most rECEnt
Cso PErFormanCEs
October 5, 2004,
Orchestra Hall. Charles
Dutoit conducting
July 10, 2008, Ravinia
Festival. leonard
Slatkin conducting
InstrumEntatIon
two flutes and piccolo, two
oboes and english horn, two
clarinets and bass clarinet,
alto saxophone, two bassoons and contrabassoon,
four horns, three trumpets,
three trombones and tuba,
timpani, triangle, tambourine, cymbals, bass drum,
tam-tam, glockenspiel,
xylophone, snare drum,
chimes, harp, piano, strings
aPProxImatE
PErFormanCE tImE
35 minutes
a new symphonic piece, which I
naturally want to give first to you
and your orchestra. It is called
Fantastic Dances. I shall now begin
the orchestration.” Even with his
impending tour, Rachmaninov
managed to complete the scoring
that October. By then the dances
had become symphonic rather than
fantastic, and he also had given
up his original idea to identify
the three movements as midday,
twilight, and midnight. (“It should
have been called just Dances,” he
told a newspaper reporter, “but
I was afraid people would think
I had written dance music for
jazz orchestra.”)
Before Ormandy even had
a chance to see the score,
Rachmaninov played through
parts of it at the piano for Fokine,
hoping that he would want to
collaborate on another ballet—this
was a set of dances, after all—and
repeat the international success of
their Paganini project. Fokine was
enthusiastic—“it seemed to me
appropriate and beautiful,” he wrote
to Rachmaninov, after hearing the
music—but his death, in August
1942, robbed the composer of both
a friend and another hit ballet.
The Philadelphia premiere was
well received, but a subsequent
performance in New York was
panned. Rachmaninov was hurt
that Ormandy didn’t appear
interested in recording the new
work, even though he had made
best-selling records of practically all
his previous orchestral pieces. The
Symphonic Dances turned out to
be his last score, and Rachmaninov
died believing that it would never
find the kind of popularity his
earlier music had so easily won.
(Although Rachmaninov had spent
long periods of time in the United
States since 1918, the Symphonic
Dances is the only score he composed in this country—earlier, he
regularly wrote, on breaks from
concert tours, in his villa near
Lucerne.) But in recent years, the
Conductor Eugene Ormandy
score has become a favorite of
orchestras and audiences alike—
Rachmaninov’s star is once again
on the rise.
The first dance has an extended
solo for saxophone, an instrument for which Rachmaninov
had never written before. (He
consulted with his friend, the
Broadway orchestrator Robert
Russell Bennett, who was amazed
that, when the composer played the
score for him, “he sang, whistled,
stamped, rolled his chords, and
otherwise conducted himself not as
one would expect of so great and
impeccable a piano virtuoso.”) He
also got advice on string bowings
7
© 2012 Chicago Symphony Orchestra
8
from no less an artist than Fritz
Kreisler. (At the first rehearsal,
when Ormandy remarked on their
difficulty, Rachmaninov said,
“Fritz did those for me,” knowing
he need say no more.) In the coda
of the first dance, Rachmaninov
privately quotes the opening theme
of his First Symphony, which was
the greatest failure of his career
(after its disastrous premiere in
1897, Rachmaninov wrote nothing for three years). Rachmaninov
knew that only he would catch
the reference, because he had long
since destroyed the score, hoping to erase painful memories
along with the music itself. But
shortly after his death, a copy of
a two-piano arrangement, and
then a set of orchestra parts,
turned up in Leningrad, bringing
Rachmaninov’s secret quotation
to light.
The second movement is a melancholy waltz (in 6/8 time) that only
turns more anxious and wistful as
it progresses. The finale quotes the
chant of the Russian Orthodox
liturgy as well as the Gregorian
melody of the Dies irae from the
Mass for the Dead. It also recycles
part of his All-Night Vigil, an a cappella choral work dating from 1915,
but this is no secret quotation, for
Rachmaninov writes the original
text, “Alliluya,” in the score at that
point. Perhaps guessing that this
would be his final work—“It must
have been my last spark,” he said at
the time—Rachmaninov wrote at
the end of his manuscript, “I thank
thee, Lord.”
Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.