Program Notes

Unfortunately, Nicola Benedetti will not be able to appear with the TSO on May 31, June 1 and June 3. We are grateful to Augustin Hadelich, who will join the TSO on very short notice to perform the beloved Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major. While we are disappointed that we will not have the pleasure of welcoming Ms. Benedetti at this time, we do hope to collaborate with her in a future season.

Please note that the performance title has been changed to Brahms 2 + Hadelich Plays Beethoven.

Elim Chan, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin

Beethoven
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op.61
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Larghetto
III. Rondo. Allegro

Intermission

Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Adagio non troppo
III. Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)
IV. Allegro con spirito

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897): Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73

Composed 1877

39 min

IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY, the symphony meant Beethoven, and for the composer who took on composing one, the pressure to match Beethoven’s standard could be crippling. No one felt this more keenly than Brahms. He was past 40 before he went public, in 1876, with his First Symphony, a monumental work sufficiently dramatic in its trajectory and elevated in its rhetoric to merit comparison with Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth.

Brahms’s Second Symphony, on first hearing, seems to be a much more relaxed and genial and idyllic affair, and the contrast reflects very different compositional processes. Brahms agonized for more than 15 years over his First Symphony, then composed his Second Symphony astonishingly quickly, between June and mid-October 1877, just a year after the completion of his First.

The Second appears, superficially, to be the sunniest, most relaxed, and genial of Brahms’s four symphonies—his “Pastoral”—though the music throbs with dark undercurrents and is full of ambiguities that may reflect what Brahms called his “severely melancholic” temperament. Much of the first movement flows like a waltz, yet, significantly, the passages that anchor its structure—introduction, development, coda—are profoundly conflicted. The idyllic tone of the opening bars, for instance, is immediately undermined by sombre, skeptical trombones and ominous timpani; later, at the heart of a stormy development, there are some searing dissonances from the trombones. Several motifs introduced at the beginning—especially the three-note motif planted by the cellos and basses in the first bar—serve as the bricks from which the movement is built; indeed, a complex network of thematic relationships binds the whole symphony together.

The Adagio is long, imposing, and intensely passionate; here the melancholy implicit within the first movement is given full voice. The music is frequently ambiguous harmonically, and in the middle of the movement there are two strange transitional passages in which a trombone and other bass instruments intone the three-note motif from the first movement as the strings quake and the woodwinds stammer. The brief third movement is one of those gentle pastorals Brahms liked to write in place of a minuet or scherzo (the trumpets, trombones, tuba, and timpani are silent). The main theme is a stylized country dance, like a Ländler, and the two contrasting (somewhat Bohemian) trio sections are sped-up variations on that theme. (Not coincidentally, Brahms wrote
this symphony in the “cheerful and lovely” countryside of southern Austria.) The finale is optimistic and full of brio; though not without its own dark moments, it provides, at last, the euphoric confirmation that the first movement never attains, and so can be heard as a resolution of the symphony’s many ambiguities.

— Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Elim Chan, conductor

Elim Chan is convinced that conducting is “a marriage between brain, heart and body.” As she goes on to explain, “You need to express music with your hands and to develop a confident and authentic language.” The precision of this young artist’s gestures, combined with the natural plasticity of her way of shaping the music, has been hugely admired not only in North America but also in Europe.

In January 2022, the Boston Classical Review spoke of a “marvel of control and understanding” following her début with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, while her first appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra only a few months later elicited a no less enthusiastic response. The orchestra, cleveland.com enthused, was on top form and “tantalizingly close to ideal.” No other conductor of her generation is as sought after by top-flight orchestras in both North America and Europe; no other can be found working with comparably outstanding soloists.

Born in Hong Kong in 1986, Elim Chan performs an unusually wide-ranging repertory of symphonic works extending from the Classical period to the present day. She has been principal conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra since 2019, having been principal guest conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra since 2018. During the 2022/23 season, the Vienna Musikverein will be devoting a three-part series of concerts to her, profiling her work and including not only her début with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra but also concerts with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie of Bremen. She will additionally be touring Spain with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.

Other highlights of the 2022/23 season include her débuts with the Pittsburgh and San Francisco Symphonies, appearances with the Toronto, Cincinnati, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, and her return to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In Europe, she will be expanding her field of activities with her début with the Orchestre de Paris and concerts with the Oslo Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Deutsches Symphonie -Orchester of Berlin.

Elim Chan studied at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, and at the University of Michigan. In 2014, she was the first female winner of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, enabling her to spend the 2015/16 season as assistant conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra, where she worked closely with Valery Gergiev. For the following season, Elim Chan joined the Dudamel Fellowship Program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She also owes much to the support and encouragement of Bernard Haitink, whose master classes she attended in Lucerne in 2015.

Augustin Hadelich, violin

Augustin Hadelich is one of the great violinists of our time. From Bach to Brahms, Bartók to Adès, he has mastered a wide-ranging and adventurous repertoire. He is often referred to by colleagues as a musician’s musician. Named Musical America’s 2018 “Instrumentalist of the Year”, he is consistently cited worldwide for his phenomenal technique, soulful approach, and insightful interpretations.

Hadelich’s 2020/21 season culminated in performances of the Brahms Violin Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. These were the first performances played by the full ensemble to a live audience in Davies Hall in 15 months. In the summer of 2021, he appeared at the Aspen, Colorado, Grant Park and Verbier Festivals, as well as at Bravo! Vail with the New York Philharmonic. His 2021/22 season started off with a stunning début with the Berlin Philharmonic (Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2) with Gustavo Gimeno on the podium. Shortly thereafter came the European première of a new violin concerto written for him by Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy.

Hadelich has appeared with every major orchestra in North America, including the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Toronto Symphony, as well as throughout Europe, the Far East, and further afield.

Hadelich was the winner of a 2016 GRAMMY® Award—“Best Classical Instrumental Solo”—for his recording of Dutilleux’s Violin Concerto, L’arbre des songes, with the Seattle Symphony under Ludovic Morlot (Seattle Symphony Media). A Warner Classics Artist, his most recent release is a GRAMMY®-nominated double CD of the Six Solo Sonatas and Partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach. One of Germany’s most prestigious newspapers, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, boldly stated: “Augustin Hadelich is one of the most exciting violinists in the world. This album is a total success.” He also has a series of releases on the AVIE label, including a CD of the Violin Concertos by Jean Sibelius and Thomas Adès (Concentric Paths), with Hannu Lintu conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (2014).

Born in Italy, and the son of German parents, Augustin Hadelich is now an American citizen. He holds an Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, where he was a student of Joel Smirnoff. He has recently been appointed to the violin faculty at Yale School of Music. He plays the violin “Leduc, ex-Szeryng” by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù of 1744, generously loaned by a patron through the Tarisio Trust.

Jeff Tyzik, conductor/arranger
Shayna Steele, vocalist
Chester Gregory, vocalist
Michael Lynche, vocalist

Marvin Gaye, Ivy Jo Hunter & William Stevenson
“Dancing in the Street”
as recorded by Martha Reeves

Smokey Robinson
“You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”
as recorded by The Miracles

James Brown, Betty Jean Newsome & Dwight Grant
“It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”
as recorded by James Brown

Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland
“Reach Out I’ll Be There”
as recorded by The Four Tops

Michael Masser & Ronald Norman Miller
“Touch Me in the Morning”
as recorded by Diana Ross

Jimmy George & Louis Pardini
“Just to See Her”
as recorded by Smokey Robinson

Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland
“How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”
as recorded by Marvin Gaye

Nick Ashford & Valerie Simpson
“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”
as recorded by Nick Ashford & Valerie Simpson

Leon Russell
“A Song for You”
as recorded by Donny Hathaway

Stevie Wonder
“Superstition”
as recorded by Stevie Wonder

Intermission

Maurice White & Wayne Lee Vaughn
“Let’s Groove”
as recorded by Earth, Wind & Fire

James Brown
“I Got You (I Feel Good)”
as recorded by James Brown

Smokey Robinson
“My Guy”
as recorded by Mary Wells

Smokey Robinson & Ronald White
“My Girl”
as recorded by The Temptations

Lionel Richie
“Endless Love”
as recorded by Lionel Richie & Diana Ross

Melvin Steals & Mervin Steals
“Could It Be I’m Falling in Love”
as recorded by The Spinners

Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff & Cary Gilbert
“Don’t Leave Me This Way”
as recorded by Thelma Houston

Gary Jackson, Raynard Miner & Carl William Smith
“(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me)
Higher and Higher”
as recorded by Jackie Wilson

Lionel Richie
“All Night Long (All Night)”
as recorded by Lionel Richie

A Schirmer Theatrical/Greenberg Artists co-production

Arrangements by Jeff Tyzik

ALL ARRANGEMENTS LICENSED BY SCHIRMER THEATRICAL, LLC

Creative Team
Robert Thompson, Producer
Jeff Tyzik, Producer & Arranger
Jami Greenberg, Producer & Booking Agent
Alyssa Foster, Producer
Sophie Frankle, Associate Producer

Jeff Tyzik, conductor/arranger

GRAMMY® Award winner Jeff Tyzik is one of America’s most innovative pops conductors, recognized for his brilliant arrangements, original programming, and audience rapport. This is Tyzik’s tenth season as The Dot and Paul Mason Principal Pops Conductor at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and his 29th as Principal Pops Conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. He also serves as Principal Pops Conductor of both the Detroit Symphony and the Oregon Symphony.

Frequently invited as a guest conductor, Tyzik has appeared with the Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras, and with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Royal Scottish National Orchestra. In May 2007, his recording of works by Gershwin with pianist Jon Nakamatsu and the RPO (Harmonia Mundi) stayed in the top ten on the Billboard classical chart for over three months, with Alex Ross of The New Yorker calling it “one of the snappiest Gershwin discs in years.”

Tyzik has collaborated with such diverse artists as Leslie Odom Jr., Megan Hilty, Chris Botti, Matthew Morrison, Wynonna Judd, Sutton Foster, Tony Bennett, Art Garfunkel, Dawn Upshaw, Marilyn Horne, Arturo Sandoval, The Chieftains, Mark O’Connor, Doc Severinsen, and John Pizzarelli in original programs ranging from jazz and classical to Motown, Broadway, film, dance, Latin, and swing. With co-producers Greenberg Artists and Schirmer Theatrical, he has created 20 new pops programs, presented by 150 orchestras in the past five seasons. For more information about Jeff Tyzik, please visit jefftyzik.com.

Chester Gregory, vocalist

Chester Gregory is an award-winning singer and actor. He was last seen starring in Motown: The Musical as Berry Gordy. Broadway credits include Motown: The Musical, Hairspray, Tarzan, Cry-Baby, and Sister Act. Other credits include August Wilson's Fences and Two Trains Running. He has toured nationally with Dreamgirls, Sister Act, and his one-man show The Eve of Jackie Wilson. Chester has received many awards, including the Jeff Award for theatre arts produced in the Chicago area, and a NAACP Theatre Award. He has also been presented with keys to the city in his hometown of Gary, Indiana, and the city of East Chicago, Indiana. He has also been chosen as an Honorary State Representative of Indiana and has received an Honorary Doctorate from his alma mater, Columbia College, Chicago. He is currently producing several projects and recordings. Add him on social media @ChesterGregory and chestergregory.com..com.

Michael Lynche, vocalist

“Big Mike”—as he was known while winning over the hearts of a nation during his season-nine stint on American Idol—has talent so versatile he’s played intimate jazz & blues clubs, 20,000-seat arenas, and opera halls with 100-piece orchestras backing him. A new breed of soul singer with classic influences (traces of Donny Hathaway, Al Green, Luther Vandross, Sam Cooke, and James Brown), Lynche’s undeniable charisma, well-crafted song arrangements, and voice soaked in soul give the big man class all his own. A New York City resident for the last 15-plus years, this Florida native has performed throughout the US as part of the American Idol Live! Tour, released two studio albums, toured as an opening act for Boyz II Men, Lalah Hathaway, Faith Evans, and Lyfe Jennings, and toured the world with his honest storytelling brand of soul music.

Since 2012, Big Mike has been a frequent, featured guest vocalist with Maestro Jeff Tyzik and his hit show Let’s Dance!, performing with orchestras all over the US and Canada, and collaborating with Tyzik on new, sensational, soul-inspired pops concerts including R&B Legends, Kings of Soul, and Dancing in the Street: The Music of Motown, bringing an inspirational story and a searing, soulful, one-of-a-kind voice, and spreading a message of love wherever he goes.

Shayna Steele, vocalist

Shayna Steele’s dynamism, innate talent and natural ability to traverse musical genres, be it in the studio, on stage, or on screen, along with her effortless execution of both soul and jazz, have grabbed the attention of audiences globally.

After appearing on Broadway in Rent, Jesus Christ Superstar, and the original cast of Hairspray. Steele started writing music with partner David Cook in 2002, collaborating on Steele’s eponymous début EP in 2004, including the album’s breakout soul-funk single, “High Yella”. With or without her band, she has since shared the stage with luminaries Ledisi, George Clinton and the Sugarhill Gang, Björkestra, composer/trumpeter Dave Douglas, and Snarky Puppy, and has worked as a sideman with Lizz Wright, Bette Midler, Natasha Bedingfield, John Legend, Matthew Morrison, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Queen Latifah, Dolly Parton, Rihanna, and Kelly Clarkson.

Steele’s sophomore album, RISE (Ropeadope Records, 2015), received rave reviews from both critics and fans alike, followed by Watch Me Fly (Must Have/Membran) in 2019. In her fourth studio album, Gold Dust, set to release in 2023 on Ropeadope Records, Shayna’s creative abilities and original signature sound explode in multiple genres, from Cole Porter to Stevie Nicks to her inspiring original anthem, “Bloodline”. Also in 2023, Shayna will début her solo symphony show, American Diva, with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra led by conductor/composer Jeff Tyzik. Visit shaynasteele.com.

Jader Bignamini, conductor
James Ehnes, violin

Alison Yun-Fei Jiang, RBC Affiliate Composer
Hwa (Flowering)
World Première/TSO Commission

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
I. Allegro moderato
II. Canzonetta: Andante
III. Finale: Allegro vivacissimo

Intermission

Modest Mussorgsky/orch. Maurice Ravel
Pictures at an Exhibition
Promenade
I. Gnomus (The Gnome)
II. Il vecchio castello (The Old Castle)
III. Tuileries
IV. Bydlo (Polish Oxcart)
V. Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells
VI. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle
VII. Limoges (The Market Place)
VIII. Catacombs—Cum mortuis in lingua mortua
IX. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga)
X. The Great Gate of Kiev

Alison Yun-Fei Jiang (b. 1992) RBC Affiliate Composer: Hwa (Flowering)

World Première/TSO Commission
Composed 2023

8 min

IN THE COMPOSER’S WORDS: “Hwa” (華), a Chinese character in my grandmother’s first name, means “flowering.” I have found that women’s names often have close affinities to flowers across cultures—think “Rose” or “Lily” in English, for example. Since Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language in which different tones distinguish different meanings, “Hwa” in the fourth tone also means “painting” (畫).

Hwa is a musical painting and narrative about my grandmother and the women I have known and encountered in life. Inspired by the aesthetics of East Asian brushwork art, I try to create an orchestral “scroll” that unfolds over time with the help of the musicians, where the piece’s initial melodic ideas—the musical “seeds”—germinate, grow, wither, and rebloom in cycles, weaving and transforming into textures, gestures, and rhythms on an orchestral “canvas” as if they are ink lines, dots, and splashes on a piece of brushwork painting or calligraphy. Equally inspired by the concepts of impermanence, transformation, and reincarnation in Buddhism, I draw parallels between the ever-changing musical “seeds” throughout the piece and the transformations of personhood, creating a metaphorical narrative about women’s evolution and life journey with the passage of time. Finally, to honour my grandmother personally, I incorporate lyrical and theatrical elements from the Southern Chinese opera I grew up listening to with her: there are moments in the piece when musicians imitate operatic vocal bends and gestures on their instruments, creating vocalization effects ranging from the intimate to the dramatic.

I dedicate Hwa to my grandmother and all the women in my life who have raised, helped, inspired, and transformed me.

-

Currently based in North York, Ontario, composer/music-maker Alison Yun-Fei Jiang (she/her/they/them) explores the intersections of cultures, genres, people, memories, and emotions in music. By drawing inspirations and influences from her personal life experiences as well as an array of sources such as East Asian aesthetics and philosophies, Chinese opera, natural landscapes, art, film music, popular music, and literature, she creates musical narratives and experiences of a lyrical, dynamic, and storytelling nature.

Alison has collaborated with ensembles and performers such as the National Arts Centre Orchestra,
Esprit Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, JACK Quartet, and Imani Winds. She holds degrees in music from the University of Chicago (PhD), New York University (MM), and Manhattan School of Music (BM). When not “musicking,” Alison enjoys birdwatching, taking very long walks, reading, and grocery shopping in Asian supermarkets.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893): Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35

Composed 1878

33 min

“FROM TODAY I seriously intend to enter into lawful matrimony with anyone at all,” Tchaikovsky wrote to his brother Modest in 1876, “to shut the mouths of all those scum whose opinions I don’t give a damn about.” In July 1877, just 11 months later, he married Antonina Milyukova, eight years his junior, and with whom, he averred, he had nothing in common. The disastrous marriage lasted
two months, and the failed attempt to give his homosexuality the cloak of respectability demanded by Russian society drove him to nervous collapse and attempted suicide.

To recover, he fled to Western Europe, and in Switzerland, the following spring, the inspiration for the Violin Concerto came while he and Russian violinist Joseph Kotek played music together. (Kotek was a former student of Tchaikovsky’s at the Moscow Conservatory, and was the sole witness at the wedding of Tchaikovsky and Milyukova.) “The first movement sprang suddenly into my head,” Tchaikovsky recalled. He completed the concerto in just 11 days, and orchestrated it within two weeks. But at the première, in Vienna, on December 4, 1881, the critic Eduard Hanslick dismissed it as long, tasteless, undiscriminating, pretentious, crude, brutal, coarse, and vulgar. Tchaikovsky, deeply hurt, could recite this review by heart for the rest of his life.

It is difficult to fathom how this of all pieces could invite such invective, for the music is inspired and polished, and its gentleness, charm, and melodic beauty are remarkable. Every principal theme of the first movement is lyrical and intimate; only in the process of extending and intensifying these themes does Tchaikovsky permit a flowering of virtuosity. More than a third of the first movement has passed before we hear an extended statement from the full orchestra, and it doesn’t last long.

There are some striking departures from Classical conventions In the movement: the orchestral introduction begins with a  melody that establishes the lyrical, pastoral tone of the music, then is never heard again; also, the cadenza is placed much earlier than usual, intensifying the return to the first main theme.

The lyricism of the first movement is given fuller voice in the second movement, the Canzonetta (Little Song). It opens with a chorale-like melody in the woodwinds that will return three times—to herald the recapitulation (strings), to make a coda (woodwinds), and to effect a striking transition to the Finale (strings and woodwinds in dialogue). The sombre main theme, introduced by the violin, has a folk- like character, also enhanced by repetition— each four-bar phrase of the theme begins with the same two-bar motif. A new theme in E-flat major creates a brief, sweet diversion in the middle of the movement.

Even in the bustling, dazzling, unpredictable rondo Finale, the lyrical element emerges prominently, even in the soulful and brooding episodes. All of the Finale’s themes, Tchaikovsky acknowledged, have a strong Russian flavour, emphasized by some rustic effects in the scoring—drone basses in the cellos, for instance, and certain features of the solo-violin part (throaty melodies in the low register, portamento, high harmonics) that conjure up the sounds of a peasant fiddle.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881) Orch. Maurice Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition

Composed 1874, orchestrated 1922

32 min

IN 1874, Mussorgsky was often ill and depressed, and plagued by alcoholism. The death of a close friend the year before—the artist and architect Viktor Hartmann—had affected him deeply. In February 1874, Hartmann’s colleagues in St. Petersburg organized a memorial exhibition of his architectural designs, drawings, paintings, and other art works (some of which still survive). After visiting the exhibition, Mussorgsky resolved to “draw in music” the best of his late friend’s pictures in a large-scale work for solo piano, which he completed in June.

Mussorgsky binds the individual pieces together by forging relationships between themes and keys, and by periodically bringing back the opening Promenade, the stately, rhythmically flexible melody that represents the bulky Mussorgsky walking among Hartmann’s pictures. In the first half of the work, the Promenade appears only between sections, but later, in Nos. 8 and 10, the melody is woven into the pieces themselves, as though to suggest Mussorgsky’s growing absorption in the pictures.

Mussorgsky could not abide what he called “musical mathematics”—his term for the grammar, forms, and developmental strategies of Austro-German instrumental music (sonatas, symphonies, concertos). Consequently, for a century, many musicians dismissed Mussorgsky’s music as crude,
amateurish, and illiterate because it defied those canonical rules; yet from that defiance came all that was most distinctive and innovative in his music—directness of  expression; an original, wholly personal idiom; a style that was colourful, picturesque, and insistently Russian; and a willingness to forsake beauty for honesty. His music can be ugly and ungainly where the subject matter demands it. When Mussorgsky died, his friend Rimsky-Korsakov assumed responsibility for preparing editions of his unperformed and unpublished works—including Pictures at an Exhibition. Rimsky-Korsakov substantially recomposed many of Mussorgsky’s works, but his editing of Pictures, as it turned out, was relatively restrained.

Pictures (not surprisingly) attracted the attention of dozens of orchestrators and arrangers as soon as Rimsky-Korsakov’s edition was published, in 1886. Of these, Ravel’s brilliantly virtuosic and opulent orchestration, commissioned in 1920 by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, is the most enduring, and through it, Pictures became a fixture in the standard repertory. In recent years, there has been growing interest in his music in its original form, but there is still room in the repertory for the old, familiar arrangements. Indeed, Ravel’s technicolour orchestration surely qualifies as a masterpiece in its own right.

Pictures includes no actual folk tunes, yet the music is saturated with allusions to the scales, melodies, harmonies, textures, sonorities, expression, and performance practices of folk music, most obviously in the Promenade and in those pieces of explicit ethnic or national character (Russian in Baba Yaga; Polish in the melancholy Bydlo; Italian in The Old Castle, with its gently rocking siciliano rhythm; and Jewish in Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle, with its contrasting rhythms revealing the fractious relationship between a rich and a poor Jew).

Each of the ten pieces has its own story to tell: we hear the awkward movements and pathetic cries of a crippled gnome (Gnomus); the play of children (Tuileries); the ponderous tread of a Polish oxcart (Bydlo); the pecking and shrieking and fluttering of little birds (Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells); the quarrelling of old women (The Market Place); and the gloom and mystery of the catacombs of Paris (Catacombs).

The last two (linked) pieces form a dramatic climax. Baba Yaga is based on Russian fairy tales of a witch who lives in a hut that stands on hen’s legs and rides through the woods in the giant mortar and pestle that she uses to grind the bones of children, and The Great Gate of Kiev was inspired by Hartmann’s highly original design for a grand gate and church for the city of Kiev. Mussorgsky brings together the Promenade melody, a Russian Orthodox hymn (“As you are baptized in Christ”), and evocations of Eastern Orthodox church bells to create a massive and glorious finale.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Jader Bignamini, conductor

Jader Bignamini is Music Director of the Detroit Symphony, leading his second full season in 2022/23, having kicked off his tenure with the launch of DSO Digital Concerts in September 2020, conducting works by Copland, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, and Saint-Georges. This season, he makes débuts with Opéra national de Paris conducting La forza del destino, and with Deutsche Oper Berlin conducting Simon Boccanegra, and with the Pittsburgh and Toronto Symphonies.

Highlights of the 2021/22 season included his début with Canadian Opera Company conducting Gianni Schicchi, and Rigoletto with Oper Frankfurt, as well as concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival, Houston and New Jersey Symphonies, Residentie Orkest in The Hague, and Bern Symphony Orchestra.

In Summer 2021, Bignamini led triumphant performances of Turandot at the Arena di Verona with Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov, as well as a staged production of Rossini’s Stabat Mater at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. Other recent highlights include débuts with the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, and Dutch National Opera; and conducting Madama Butterfly, Luisa Miller, and La forza del destino at Oper Frankfurt, Cavalleria rusticana at Michigan Opera Theatre, La bohème at Santa Fe Opera, and La traviata in Tokyo directed by Sofia Coppola. On the concert stage, he has led the Dallas and Milwaukee Symphonies, Minnesota Orchestra, Slovenian and Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestras, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, and Mannheim National Theater Orchestra.

Bignamini has conducted Manon Lescaut at the Bolshoi, La traviata at Bayerische Staatsoper, Eugene Onegin at Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Turandot at the Teatro Filarmonico, Il trovatore at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera, the opening concert of the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna conducting Carmina Burana; La bohème at the Municipal de São Paulo and La Fenice; L’elisir d’amore in Ancona; Tosca at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna; La forza del destino at the Verdi Festival in Parma; La bohème, Cavalleria rusticana, and El amor brujo at Teatro Filarmonico di Verona; Aida at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera; Madama Butterfly at La Fenice; engagements with Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca, and the MITO Festival conducting Berlioz’s Messe solennelle. He made his concert début at La Scala in 2015.

A native of Crema, Italy, Bignamini studied at the Piacenza Music Conservatory and began his career as a musician (clarinet) with Orchestra Sinfonica La Verdi in Milan, later serving as the group’s resident conductor starting at age of 19, having been appointed by Riccardo Chailly in 2010. When leading an orchestra in symphonic repertoire, he usually conducts without a score, preferring to make direct eye contact with the musicians.

James Ehnes, violin

James Ehnes has established himself as one of the most sought-after musicians on the international stage. Gifted with a rare combination of stunning virtuosity, serene lyricism, and an unfaltering musicality, Ehnes is a favourite guest at the world’s most celebrated concert halls.

Recent orchestral highlights include The Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony, NHK Symphony, and Munich Philharmonic. Throughout the 2022/23 season, Ehnes continues as Artist in Residence with the National Arts Centre of Canada.

Alongside his concerto work, Ehnes maintains a busy recital schedule. He performs regularly at Wigmore Hall (including the complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas in 2019/20, and the complete violin/viola works of Brahms and Schumann in 2021/22), Carnegie Hall, Symphony Center in Chicago, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Ravinia, Montreux, Verbier Festival, Dresden Music Festival, and Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence. A devoted chamber musician, he is the leader of the Ehnes Quartet and the Artistic Director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

Ehnes has an extensive discography and has won many awards for his recordings, including two GRAMMY® Awards, three Gramophone Awards, and 11 JUNO Awards. In 2021, Ehnes was announced as the recipient of the coveted Artist of the Year title in the 2021 Gramophone Awards, which celebrated his recent contributions to the recording industry, including the launch of a new online recital series entitled Recitals from Home, which was released in June 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent closure of concert halls. Ehnes recorded the six Bach Sonatas and Partitas and six Sonatas of Ysaÿe from his home with state-of-the-art recording equipment and released six episodes over the period of two months. These recordings have been met with great critical acclaim by audiences worldwide and Ehnes was described by Le Devoir as being "at the absolute forefront of the streaming evolution".

Ehnes began violin studies at the age of 5, became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin at age 9, and made his orchestra début with l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at age 13. He continued his studies with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music and The Juilliard School, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music upon his graduation in 1997. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Manitoba, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an honorary fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, where he is a Visiting Professor.

Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.

Gustavo Gimeno, conductor
Marc-André Hamelin, piano
Nathalie Forget, ondes Martenot

Olivier Messiaen
Turangalîla-Symphonie
I. Introduction
II. Chant d’amour 1 (Love Song 1)
III. Turangalîla 1
IV. Chant d’amour 2 (Love Song 2)
V. Joie du sang des étoiles (Joy of the Blood of the Stars)
VI. Jardin du sommeil d’amour (Garden of Love’s Sleep)
VII. Turangalîla 2
VIII. Développement de l’amour (Development of Love)
IX. Turangalîla 3
X. Final (Finale)

A TSO Live Recording
No intermission

Audience members are requested to refrain from applause between movements of the symphony, to ensure that all electronic devices are on silent, and to avoid turning program pages while the performance is in progress.

Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992): Turangalîla-Symphonie

Composed 1946–1948

75 min

MESSIAEN FINISHED his ten-movement Turangalîla-Symphonie, a commission from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, which placed no limits on length or instrumentation, in November 1948, a few days before his 40th birthday. Its première by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein the following year was a triumph.

Inspired by the Tristan myth (via Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde), Messiaen explained the title’s derivation from Sanskrit as follows: turanga, meaning “time that runs, like a galloping horse” and “that flows, like sand in an hourglass”; lîla, meaning the “divine action on the cosmos, the play of creation and destruction, and also the spiritual-physical union of love.”

What Messiaen called the work’s “love theme” is featured in all its splendour in the sixth movement, Garden of Love’s Sleep, in the muted strings and solo ondes Martenot, an ethereal voice-like electronic instrument invented in 1927. The tender melody is accompanied by idealized birdsong on the piano.

“The two lovers are immersed in the sleep of love,” wrote Messiaen about this movement. “A landscape has emanated from them. The garden which surrounds them is called ‘Tristan’; the garden which surrounds them is called ‘Isolde’. This garden is full of light and shade, of plants and new flowers, of brightly coloured and melodious birds.... Time flows on, forgotten, the lovers are outside time.”

The “love theme”, by far the most important, is one of four thematic cycles that permeate the symphony. Two others—the “statue theme” (imposing thirds mostly played fortissimo by the trombones) and the “flower theme” (delicate figures in the clarinets, played pianissimo)—are introduced in the first movement. The fourth theme is a chain of chords.

Although the presence of cyclic themes suggests one of the favourite unifying devices of the Romantic era, in Messiaen’s symphony, these recurring themes do not serve as landmarks along the path of forward-moving development. In fact, in Turangalîla (and in Messiaen’s music more generally), one cannot speak of development in the traditional, narrative sense that has characterized much of Western music. The music does not pose a “problem” with which it grapples before inexorably leading to some kind of satisfactory “solution”. Instead, it is more appropriate, as a number of observers have proposed, to describe the unfolding in Turangalîla as a process of accumulation.

This alternate way of generating tension occurs to astonishing effect in the build- up to the climax of the fourth movement, Love Song 2. Individual strands of the musical texture (different rhythms, harmonies, timbres), first heard alone or in groups, are piled up into what one Messiaen scholar calls a “heterophonic mobile.” The climax comes when the 11 layers sound simultaneously— “a quite unprecedented tumult of orchestral voices.” It is this technical process, in part, that makes Messiaen’s orchestra sound so very large, even if it is actually modest in comparison to the size of most symphonies by Mahler.

Another factor that contributes to the big sound is the exceptional variety of instruments the symphony calls for. Besides the other-worldly intimations of the ondes Martenot, embedded into the orchestral texture is a gamelan-like ensemble made up of the glockenspiel, celesta, vibraphone, metallic percussion, and piano. The solo piano part, performed by Messiaen’s second wife, Yvonne Loriod, for the first 40 or so performances—including the TSO’s first recording—demands such virtuosity, including a particularly fierce cadenza at the end of the fifth movement, Joy of the Blood of the Stars, that it almost turns the symphony into a piano concerto.

The Turangalîla-Symphonie could be called a symphonic juggernaut. But Messiaen preferred to think of it in more diminutive terms: as a “love song” and “hymn to joy”. A joy not simple and inconsequential, but “as it may be conceived by someone who has glimpsed it only in the midst of sadness: in other words, a joy that is superhuman, overflowing, blinding, unlimited.”

—Program note by Robert Rival

SEIJI OZAWA, YVONNE LORIOD, AND OLIVIER MESSIAEN, JAPAN, SUMMER 1962

“Messiaen’s fascination with Japanese culture goes back to his honeymoon [in Japan] with his wife Yvonne Loriod in summer 1962,” writes blogger Stephen Jones. “While the young Seiji Ozawa led rehearsals for a performance of Turangalîla [with Loriod], Messiaen, besides sightseeing and birdwatching, bought books and recordings of gagaku [ancient Japanese court music], and attended an evening of koto zither, as well as performances of bunraku, kabuki, and Noh drama. ‘I delighted in the music, the steps, the slowness of the movements, and the extraordinary cries of the tsuzumi [hand-drum],’ Messiaen wrote.”

—FROM STEPHENJONES.BLOG

Turangalîla: A TSO Benchmark

Commissioned from Messiaen by Serge Koussevitsky for his Boston Symphony immediately after the Second World War, Messiaen’s Turangalîla took several years to complete. By the time of completion, Koussevitsky was too frail to conduct the première and that duty fell to his flamboyant protégé Leonard Bernstein. The pianist for that December 2, 1949 performance was Messiaen’s own protégé, Yvonne Loriod, and the ondes Martenot was played by Ginette Martenot, sister of the inventor of that unique electronic instrument.

Loriod and her sister Jeanne would later be featured in an RCA recording of Turangalîla with the Toronto Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, with the composer’s participation. Recorded in 1967 and released the following year, the TSO LP was the first commercial release of the symphony and to this day it is the benchmark against which all others must be measured. In 1994 it was re-issued on CD as part of the RCA NEW BEST 100 line, but only in Japan. A decade later it finally became available in the rest of the world as RCA Victor Red Seal 59418.

—David Olds, The WholeNote, October 2011

Marc-André Hamelin, piano

“A performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” (The New York Times), pianist Marc-André Hamelin brings his unrivalled blend of consummate musicianship and brilliant technique to the great works of the established repertoire, and to his intrepid exploration of the rarities of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. He regularly performs around the globe, in recital and with the leading orchestras and conductors of our time.

Highlights of Hamelin’s 2022/23 season include a vast variety of repertoire performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall (Piano Quintets by Florence Price and Brahms), Berlin Philharmonic and Marek Janowski (Reger’s Piano Concerto), San Diego Symphony and Rafael Payare (Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2), Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Gustavo Gimeno (Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie), Netherlands Philharmonic and Joshua Weilerstein (Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue), and Symphony Nova Scotia and Holly Mathieson (Grieg’s Piano Concerto). Recital appearances take him to Vienna, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Napa Valley, São Paulo, and Bogotá, among other venues across the world.

The summer of 2022 included performances at many festivals including Caramoor with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Tanglewood, Domaine Forget, La Jolla, Schubertiade, and Festival International de Piano de La Roque d’Anthéron.

Mr. Hamelin records for Hyperion Records, where his discography spans more than 70 recordings of a broad range of solo, orchestral, and chamber repertoire. In January 2022, the label released a two-disc set of C. P. E. Bach’s sonatas and rondos that received wide critical acclaim, and in June 2022, the two-disc set of William Bolcom’s The Complete Rags.

Mr. Hamelin has composed music throughout his career, with over 30 compositions to his name. The majority of those works, including the Études and Toccata on “L’homme armé” (commissioned by the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition) are published by Edition Peters. Most recently, he premièred his Piano Quintet in August 2022, with the celebrated Dover Quartet at La Jolla Music Society.

Mr. Hamelin makes his home in the Boston area with his wife, Cathy Fuller, a producer and host at Classical WCRB. Born in Montreal, he has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the German Record Critics’ Association, seven JUNO Awards and 11 GRAMMY® nominations, and the 2018 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. In December 2020, he was awarded the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Keyboard Artistry from the Ontario Arts Foundation. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec, and a Member of the Royal Society of Canada.

Nathalie Forget, ondes Martenot

Nathalie Forget was unanimously awarded the First Prize in ondes Martenot at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, where she studied under Valérie Hartmann-Claverie.

She also has master’s degrees in musical philosophy, with a focus on Olivier Messiaen, and in visual arts (photography).

She has played all across Europe, as well as in the United States and Mexico, with leading conductors and ensembles including Hans Zender, Peter Rundel, Ilan Volkov, Daniel Kawka, Simone Young, Sylvain Cambreling, Heinz Holliger, Kent Nagano, Reinbert de Leeuw, Pierre Boulez, Myung-Whun Chung, the London Sinfonietta, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Nederlandse Opera, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the OCBA of Mexico, the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and others. Festival appearances include the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland, the Biennale Bern, the Festival Messiaen au Pays de La Meije, and several appearances at the BBC Proms in London.

She’s an interpreter of major works for ondes (Messiaen, Honegger, Milhaud, Varèse, Murail, Jolivet, Koechlin, Scelsi, and others); she's also very invested in contemporary music, improvisation, and rock music (Ensemble Itinéraire, Les Musiques à Ouïr, Collectif WARN!NG, Faust, Radiohead, Ulan Bator, and others) and in premièring radical new repertoire for the instrument. In addition, she combines ondes Martenot with contemporary art in performances and shows with sculptures, voices, photographs, and projections; she questions the notions of Utopia, vibrant and revealing animalism, love, torture, and indifference.

Her recordings include the DVD of Olivier Messiaen’s opera, Saint François d'Assise, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher and staged by Pierre Audi.

Since 2016, she has been ondes Martenot professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris.

NATHALIE FORGET IN CONVERSATION

Did you find the ondes or did it find you?

I think the ondes probably found me, first. I was very young, quite near Paris, in a really little village. But my first teacher of music there had been a student of Martenot and of Messiaen and in her tiny school there were some ondes Martenot. So I had the ondes in my head, and in my body, and my heart from when I was four or five years old. And then just as quickly forgot it.

I came back to the ondes when I was something like 15, looking for an instrument to put in an art installation—I played piano, but didn't want to use piano because it was already overused in visual arts. And then my father said: “Remember, you wanted to be an ondiste when you were like five years old.” I said, oh, I don't remember that. And he said ‘It's the instrument you are looking for.’ And it all came back to me when I had it in my fingers again, and I have never stopped.

Simon Rivard, conductor*
Trevor Wilson, RBC Resident Conductor**
Samuel Kerr, Guest Conductor***
Eugene Jung, clarinet
Ian Ye, violin (2021/22 TSYO Concerto Competition winners)

Anna Clyne
Masquerade
Canadian Première

Samuel Kerr
Fast Vibe in a Short Machine
World Première

Sergei Prokofiev
Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19
I. Andantino
II. Scherzo: Vivacissimo

Gioachino Rossini
Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra

Intermission

Sergei Rachmaninoff
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45

* Simon Rivard conducts Clyne and Rachmaninoff TSYO is generously supported by
** Trevor Wilson conducts Prokofiev and Rossini
*** TSYO alumnus Samuel Kerr conducts Fast Vibe in a Short Machine

Anna Clyne (b. 1980): Masquerade

Canadian Première
Composed 2013

5 min

COMPOSED IN 2013, Anna Clyne’s Masquerade was premièred that year at the Last Night of the Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop. Clyne dedicated her piece to the “Prommers”—the music lovers who enthusiastically queue for the cheap “standing room” tickets to concerts during the BBC Proms. By turns vigorous and powerful, beautiful and tender, grand and sweeping, Masquerade is a brilliant concert opener. The composer provides the following description of her piece:

“Masquerade draws inspiration from the original mid-18th century promenade concerts held in London’s pleasure gardens. As is true today, these concerts were a place where people from all walks of life mingled to enjoy a wide array of music. Other forms of entertainment ranged from the sedate to the salacious with acrobatics, exotic street entertainers, dancers, fireworks, and masquerades. I am fascinated by the historic and sociological courtship between music and dance. Combined with costumes, masked guises, and elaborate settings, masquerades created an exciting, yet controlled, sense of occasion and celebration. It is this that I wish to evoke in Masquerade.”

“The work derives its material from two melodies. For the main theme, I imagined a chorus welcoming the audience and inviting them into their imaginary world. The second theme, Juice of Barley, is an old English country dance melody and drinking song, which first appeared in John Playford’s 1695 edition of The English Dancing Master.”

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Described as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods” in a profile in The New York Times and as “fearless” by NPR, GRAMMY®-nominated Anna Clyne is one of the most in-demand composers today, working with orchestras, choreographers, filmmakers, and visual artists around the world. Clyne was named the eighth-most performed contemporary composer in the world, and the most performed living female British composer in 2022.

Clyne has been commissioned and presented by the world’s most dynamic and revered arts institutions, including the Barbican, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Los Angeles Philharmonic, MoMA, Philharmonie de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, San Francisco Ballet, and the Sydney Opera House; and her music has opened such events as the Edinburgh International
Festival, the Last Night of the Proms, and the New York Philharmonic’s 2021/22 season. In 2022/23, Clyne serves as Composer-in-Residence with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and
the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra starting in the 2023/24 season. Past residencies include the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Clyne’s music is represented on several labels and her works Prince of Clouds and Night Ferry were nominated for 2015 GRAMMY® Awards.

—Composer bio and note compiled/edited by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Samuel Kerr (b. 2000): Fast Vibe in a Short Machine

World Première
Composed 2022

6 min

IN THE COMPOSER’S WORDS: There are few things more enjoyable to compose than parodic pieces of music. While Fast Vibe in a Short Machine does not fully commit to this designation, its title references John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, and it is overall a highly referential and lovingly irreverent piece.

Great overtures of Wagner, Morawetz, Adams, and even some Beethoven symphonies blend with original fanfares and themes, creating a highly unique mix of new and familiar. This piece is meant to be nothing more or less than a fun, challenging, and original way to get the blood going and kick off a concert.

The piece should not be played too heavily or gruffly, instead maintaining a light and carefree quality. Ensuring that rhythms (especially dotted eighth-sixteenths in 6/8) remain crisp and snappy is essential to the upbeat and driving nature of this overture.

As an alumnus of the 2018/19 TSYO, I have a strong affection for and affinity with the orchestra due to my positive memories of that time. I have dedicated Fast Vibe in a Short Machine to the TSYO; it should be a lot of fun for my fellow percussionists (they get to use many different instruments)!

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Samuel Kerr is a Calgary-born percussionist, pianist, and composer. Currently completing his Advanced Certificate in Performance at the University of Toronto, he holds a Bachelor of Music (Honours) degree in performance from the same institution. A recipient of the Hartenberger
Percussion and Walter Homburger Scholarships at the University of Toronto, he had the honour of being nominated as a Rhodes Scholar by his school in 2021. He joined the National Youth Orchestra of Canada for the summer of 2022, where he was a recipient of an Award of Excellence.

Kerr is also a winner of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra and University of Toronto Winds Concerto Competitions. As a composer, he has received commissions from the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Green Room Sound Collective, and celebrated young performers such as Britton-René Collins, Jacob Valcheff, and Bevis Ng. In his free time, he can be found either exploring the mountains or trying to fit very large instruments into very small cars.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953): Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19 – Mvts. I & II

Composed 1915–1917

14 min

PROKOFIEV BEGAN HIS FIRST VIOLIN CONCERTO in early 1915 but completed it only in the summer of 1917, shortly before the Revolution that would propel him into two decades of self-imposed exile in the West. The première, in Paris, on October 18, 1923, was a failure, for the fashionable Parisians thought the concerto insufficiently “modern.” The music is certainly characteristic of the avant-garde young Prokofiev in some ways (economy of form, expert craftsmanship, bold harmonies, motoric rhythms, irony), but the Parisians had a point: this is at heart a profoundly Romantic piece. It is simple in form, unabashedly melodic, and deeply expressive; the music unfolds naturally, transparently, though is often brilliant and virtuosic, too. Prokofiev noted five basic tendencies (“lines”) in his early work: classical, modern, motoric, lyrical, and “scherzo-ish” (i.e., whimsical, humorous, mocking). All five operate, to varying degrees, in this concerto, though the lyrical receives particular emphasis; indeed, the unconventional three-movement plan (slow, fast, moderate) places the more expansive and lyrical movements in the most dramatically important positions.

The first two of the work’s three movements will be performed on this program. Prokofiev described the opening of the first movement as “meditative,” and marked the solo part here “sognando” (“dreaming”). The violin introduces the main theme over quietly trembling violas, and as the theme unfolds, at a leisurely pace, the orchestral accompaniment becomes increasingly luxuriant. Like many 19th-century slow movements, this movement is in a three-part form (ABA), with musical
tension building through a contrasting middle section and resolving in a reprise of the opening theme. The Scherzo second movement is an utter contrast—short, fast, tart, hard driving, in character nervous and mischievous. The scoring is mercurial, and the violin part brittle and percussive. Where the first movement was warmly and sincerely expressive, the Scherzo is savage and sarcastic—a diabolical dance in which relief is infrequent and brief.

In the finale (which will not be performed on this program), irony is quickly rejected in favour of renewed lyricism. As melodic as the first movement, the finale is even richer, denser, more intensely passionate; it unfolds as a seemingly endless outpouring of melody to which the whole orchestra contributes crucially. Near the end, the opening theme of the first movement unexpectedly returns; the closing pages are radiant, and the concerto ends as it began—dreaming.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868): Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra

Composed c. 1809

13 min

GIOACHINO ROSSINI was the early 19th century’s pre-eminent Italian composer, recognized as such during his lifetime. Within two decades of his working life, he attained a level of wealth, prestige, and fame like none other of his contemporaries, particularly for his operas, which set new benchmarks for the art form. After 1829, with the completion of Guillaume Tell, he retired from composing opera for a myriad of reasons, including ill health. He wrote very little music over the next 20 years, but in the last decade of his life, renewed energy resulted in an outburst of creativity, and Rossini completed over 150 works, mostly piano pieces, but also his Petite messe solennelle. In today’s concert halls, compositions including the latter; the overtures to his operas; and instrumental pieces such as the Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra continue to be frequently performed.

Rossini composed this piece—still one of the most popular virtuosic works for clarinet—when he was 17 years old, while he was studying at Bologna’s Liceo Musicale. While there, he encountered the music of Haydn and Mozart, which he admired, and their elegant Viennese classicism came to influence the few instrumental works he wrote at this time. Meanwhile, his skills as a composer of theatre music were coming to the fore; this work—combining bel canto singing style with thrilling virtuosity—is clear evidence of that. It’s not confirmed whether he revised it before its 1824 publication, but he did rework its main themes as arias for his operas Mosè in Egitto (Moses in Egypt, 1818) and La donna del lago (The Lady of the Lake, 1819).

After a dramatic orchestral “call to attention,” the clarinet enters singing the sweet melody of the introduction (“La pace mia smarrita” from Act II of Mosè in Egitto). It begins quite simply but becomes increasingly ornamented with turns and flourishes as it progresses. After a more virtuosic episode, the clarinet pipes the perky main theme (“Oh quante lagrime” from Act I of La donna del lago). Thereafter follows a series of five variations on the tune, separated by brief orchestral interludes. In variation 1, the melody is in triplets, elegant and flowing, with leaps to high pitches in the second part. The triplets become fluid running scales in variation 2, then dazzling staccato arpeggios and scales in variation 3. Variation 4, in the minor mode, is a soulful rendition of the
theme over gently plucked strings. A dramatic orchestral crescendo then introduces the final variation—an exhilarating dash through more scales and arpeggios. Following a brief cadenza, the clarinet climbs up a rapid scale, reaching its top-most note, after which the orchestra wraps things up with a lively finish.

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943): Symphonic Dances, Op. 45

Composed 1940

33 min

RACHMANINOFF COMPOSED THE SYMPHONIC DANCES in the summer and fall of 1940, having recently fled to the US to escape the escalating war in Europe. His original title for the set was Fantastic Dances, and the three movements once bore descriptive labels: “Noon”, “Twilight”, and “Midnight”. In the end, he gave the work generic titles and refused to explain its meaning. The première was in January of 1941, with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormand. The music was coolly received; few critics showed much interest (one called it “a rehash of old tricks”), and indeed the Symphonic Dances were long misunderstood and neglected.

The work is rhythmically animated (he originally wanted it choreographed as a ballet) and truly symphonic in style, proportions, and sonority, with melodies that could only be Rachmaninoff’s. Yet it is less opulently Romantic than his earlier music: it has the leanness, discrimination, and occasional weirdness typical of his late orchestral style.

The driving first movement unfolds with grim determination. It begins with a grotesque, sarcastic march, which is subjected to intense development before dissolving into a more tranquil middle section, with a long, elegiac melody introduced by an alto saxophone—new to Rachmaninoff’s orchestra. (Some hear Russian folk music here.) The march returns, but the movement ends peacefully, with a quotation from Rachmaninoff’s own First Symphony (a theme derived from Russian church music). That symphony—disastrously premièred in 1897, and long withdrawn—was almost unknown in 1940, so the quotation obviously had some purely personal meaning.

The second movement is a dark valse triste—a heavily stylized parody of the Viennese waltz, at once nostalgic and sarcastic, sensual and sinister. Traditional waltz lilt is compromised by complex, unsettling rhythms; the melodies are bittersweet; strange harmonies create an atmosphere of unease and anxiety; there are touches of the grotesque, like the sneering brass fanfare at the start. The movement builds to an almost hysterical climax only to vanish as if into shadows.

The finale is the shortest but most fantastical movement—dark, morbid, sardonic, full of demonic energy, with pounding strings, ominous brass, and squealing woodwinds. Rachmaninoff draws on two favourite sources of inspiration: chants of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the “Dies irae”, the Gregorian chant for the dead. The middle section is more soulful and lyrical, though melancholy, sometimes eerie. The opening “dance of death” returns and reaches a furious climax, but just before the end, Rachmaninoff introduces the Orthodox chant “Blessed be the Lord”. Again, his meaning seems to have been private (perhaps a recognition of God’s ultimate triumph over death?).

“I thank thee, Lord,” he wrote at the end of his score, and the words were sadly apt, for this would be his last original composition.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Simon Rivard, TSYO Conductor

Simon Rivard is one of the most sought-after conductors on the Canadian music scene. Since 2018, he has been the conductor of the TSYO. In 2022/23, he will début with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre classique de Montréal, and will return to the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Sherbrooke, and the Edmonton Opera in Tosca.

Between 2018 and 2022, he held the title of RBC Resident Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In addition to leading concerts throughout the season, he assisted world-class conductors such as Sir Andrew Davis, Peter Oundjian, Donald Runnicles, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, John Storgårds, Barbara Hannigan, Xian Zhang, and Eun Sun Kim. Since 2019, he has been an Equilibrium Young Artist, as part of Barbara Hannigan’s internationally acclaimed mentorship program for early-career professional musicians. Earlier, in 2018, he was invited to participate in the first Conducting Mentorship Program at the Verbier Festival Academy (Switzerland), and in 2022 was invited to be a coach of the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra.

Since 2020, he has been involved with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, as Associate Conductor (2020–2022) and as Artistic Collaborator (2022–present). As a guest conductor, he recently made his début with Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and, in February 2022, with the Edmonton Opera in Puccini's La bohème, and collaborated with Toronto-based opera company Against the Grain in Holst’s Sāvitri.

Trevor Wilson, RBC Resident Conductor

Appointed TSO RBC Resident Conductor in June 2022, Ottawa-born conductor and composer Trevor Wilson has been praised for his “close rapport with his players” and the “passion and clarity” he brings to performances. In his role at the TSO, he will be mentored by Music Director Gustavo Gimeno, assist incoming guest conductors, and conduct performances throughout the season.

During the 2021/22 season, Wilson participated in the Orchestre Métropolitain’s Orchestral Conducting Academy under the mentorship of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and will assist in performances with the Orchestre Métropolitain during the 2022/23 season.

Wilson has been active in the Ottawa musical community, having conducted performances with the University of Ottawa orchestra and many other local ensembles. In 2017, he co-founded the Ottawa Pops Orchestra, an organization that aims to redefine the concert experience and attract diverse audiences, serving as its Music Director until 2019. He also served as the Assistant Conductor of the National Academy Orchestra of Canada under the late Boris Brott in summer 2019.

Having attended numerous masterclasses and festivals, Wilson has had the opportunity to study under internationally renowned conductors such as David Zinman, Gerard Schwarz, Neil Varon, David Effron, and Markus Stenz, and, in 2018, he performed with the Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok in Budapest, Hungary. He completed his graduate studies in orchestral conducting under Marin Alsop at the Peabody Conservatory, where he also served as Assistant Conductor to the Peabody Choruses.

Eugene Jung, clarinet

Eugene Jung is a clarinetist from Seoul, Korea. He began studying the clarinet at the age of 17. While living in Korea, he was educated under Gi Lee, Inho Kim, Sangwoo Lim, and Minjo Kim. After moving to Toronto at the age of 20, Jung was a member of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra (2021–22), under Maestro Simon Rivard, and is honoured to be given this opportunity to perform Rossini’s Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra with the TSYO thanks to their concerto competition. Jung has also performed in Koerner Hall as a member of Equinox Woodwind Quintet, and as a member of the Royal Conservatory Orchestra under the batons of Tania Miller, Earl Lee, and Joshua Weilerstein. He held a solo recital in Mazzoleni Hall at the Royal Conservatory in 2022, and will be holding another this May.

He has attended many master classes, performing for such accomplished clarinetists as Ricardo Morales, Mark Nuccio, Michele Zukovsky, Laura Ardan, and Céleste Zewald. In previous summers, Jung attended the Korea Clarinet Ensemble Festival (2017) and Jeonju Vivace Summer Festival (2018). He is currently completing his Bachelor’s degree in music performance at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School, under Joaquin Valdepenãs, with a full scholarship from the Price Family Endowment Fund, thanks to the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Price.

Ian Ye, violin

Ian Ye is an 18-year-old violinist from Toronto studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists under Barry Shiffman and Conrad Chow. Ian has appeared as a soloist with the Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra, North York Concert Orchestra, and Burlington Symphony Orchestra, performing in notable venues including Koerner Hall, the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto, and more. Winner of the concerto competition at the Taylor Academy, Ian performed as a soloist in Koerner Hall with a professional orchestra consisting of faculty and members of the Royal Conservatory Orchestra.

Ian has received numerous awards, notably winning the Open, Diploma, and Level 10 Upper Strings Provincial Class at the Ontario Music Festivals Association. As an orchestral musician, Ian is concertmaster of the Academy Chamber Orchestra at the Royal Conservatory of Music, co-concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, and a violinist in the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.

Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra

Simon Rivard, TSYO Conductor

For nearly 50 seasons, since its founding under the direction of Victor Feldbrill in 1974, the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra (TSYO) has been dedicated to providing a high-level orchestral experience for talented young musicians aged 22 and under. The tuition-free TSYO program delivers a unique, powerful, and life-enriching opportunity that encourages significant achievement, regardless of participants’ chosen career paths. The TSYO is closely affiliated with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO): TSO musicians serve as coaches through the season, TSO guest artists lead TSYO masterclasses, and the TSYO performs annually with the TSO in a side-by-side concert.

Roster

Violins 

Anna Maria Moubayed
Annika Kho
Brandon Ling
Charlotte Fong
Cynthia Ding
David Duan
Eric Lin
Grace Zhao
Hoi Ching Sung
Ian Fong
Ian Ye
Joelle Crigger
Joshua Lin
June-Kyo Kim
Junia Friesen
Merdeka Korunovski
Nathan Lau
Nicolas Wojtarowicz
Richard Xiong
Riverlynn Lee
Siyeon (Sally) Ahn
Sophia Wang
Tina Sievers
Zoe Lai-Yi Clarke

Violas 

Adria (Yat-Hei) Lai
Angelina Sievers
Daniel Hughes
Lucas Chen
Marija Ivicevic
Mobin Naeini
Omiyo Hossain
Ruby Jackson 
Sofia Moniz
Timothy Maksimenko

Cellos 

Charlie Montgomery-Seto
Chloe Liang
Claire Chu Wang
Emma Tian
Ethan Hyo Jeon
Fay Wang
Jayden Kwon 
Mario Rodriguez McMillan
Matthew Buczkowski
Noah Clarke

Double Basses 

Dean Chen
Emma Chen
Emma Drevnig
Evan Grandage
Evita Lalonde
Nivedita Motiram
Saidy Kim
Wang-Hin (Marcus) Chan

Flutes/Piccolo 

Tyler Evans-Knott
Xudong (Ray) Zheng
Yelin Youn

Oboes 

Aidan Taylor
Chelyn Yoo
Clara Aristanto

Clarinets 

Andrew Neagoe
Jerry Han
Sarah Darragh

Bassoons 

Abigail Minor
Cian Bryson
Kelton Hopper

Horns 

Christopher Fan
Ethan Chialtas
Julia Fowell
Sarah Bell
Taylor Krause

Trumpets 

Andrew Mendis
Elias Doyle
Jayang Kim
Justin Ko

Trombones 

Ethan Whitlow
Ilan Mendel

Bass Trombone 

Ian Tong

Tuba 

Umberto Quattrociocchi

Percussion 

Amiel Lawrence Ang
Daniel Kuhn
Kelsey Choi
Matthew Magocsi
Thomas Carli

Harp 

Chloe Yip
Weiqi (Vicky) Chen

Piano

Irene Huang

STAFF

Ivy Pan, TSYO Manager & Community Assistant 
Nicole Balm, Senior Director of Education & Community Engagement
Pierre Rivard, Education Manager
Angela Sanchez, Education & Community Engagement Coordinator

FACULTY 

Simon Rivard, 
TSYO CONDUCTOR

TSYO Conductor generously supported by the Toronto Symphony Volunteer Committee

Trevor Wilson
RBC RESIDENT CONDUCTOR

Shane Kim
Violin Coach
TSO Violin

Peter Seminovs
Associate Violin Coach
TSO Violin

Theresa Rudolph
Viola Coach
TSO Assistant Principal Viola

Joseph Johnson
Cello Coach
TSO Principal Cello

Tim Dawson
Double Bass Coach
TSO Double Bass

Miles Jaques
Woodwind Coach
TSO Acting Associate Principal Clarinet

Nicholas Hartman
Brass Coach
TSO Horn

Joseph Kelly
Percussion Coach
TSO Percussion/Assistant Principal Timpani

Fabien Gabel, conductor
Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello

Camille Pépin
Laniakea
North American Première

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Andante Cantabile for Cello and String Orchestra, Op. 11

Intermission

Igor Stravinsky
Le Chant du rossignol (The Song of the Nightingale)

Maurice Ravel
Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé
I. Lever du jour
II. Pantomime
III. Danse générale

Camille Pépin (b. 1990): Laniakea

North American Première
Composed 2019

13 min

ACCORDING TO THE COMPOSER, Laniakea, meaning “immeasurable celestial paradise” in Hawaiian, was inspired by the supercluster of galaxies of the same name discovered in 2014 by astrophysicist Hélène Courtois. “Inside this supercluster, the galaxies are in motion and converge—at a crazy speed of 630 km/s—towards a single point called the Great Attractor,” Pépin notes. “Immensity,
movement, speed, light...were the words that guided me.... I wanted to find musical resonances in this fascinating world of the infinitely large.”

Pépin’s “cosmic fresco” consists of three episodes framed by an introduction and a coda. It opens powerfully and majestically, with a brass theme, bells sounding over a timpani roll, and a “wall of sound” in the strings. Woodwinds melt gradually into the strings, and the brass theme becomes softer and softer, eventually dissolving.

The first episode evokes “luminous particles trying to break through this immense sky”—a “motif of oboe, glockenspiel, and high strings,” against a reverberating backdrop of vibraphone and woodwinds, is intensified by a swirling and repetitive rhythmic motif in the violas, echoed in the bells and horns, followed by “a beguiling theme in the cellos that is passed to the violins, then violas.” The rhythmic pattern dies away and the material becomes increasingly nebulous, as it transitions into the second episode.

In this “darker part,” Pépin explains, “I wanted to express the mystery of the Great Attractor.... Weightless clusters become thicker and richer. The material ends up rumbling as it gives birth to a floating, hazy, and more lyrical passage.” Trumpets then evoke the introduction’s brass theme, “like the tail of a shooting star that still shines after its passage.”

“The last episode is a luminous and festive cosmic dance,” travelling rhythmically between groups, “like a dizzying, hypnotic ballet of stars moving at mind-blowing speeds,” culminating in a flamboyant climax, with a final “pas de deux d’étoiles” igniting into a great crescendo of light, after which a sudden drum roll reminds us of the immensity and power of “the celestial paradise.” In the distance, the light gradually fades.

—Composer bio and note compiled/edited by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

One of France’s rapidly rising composers of her generation, Camille Pépin writes music that is at the crossroads of French impressionism and American repetitive music. Her distinctive sound world finds its inspiration in nature or painting, and her art of colour is expressed equally through the science of orchestration and poetic imagination.

Her music is regularly played by major orchestras worldwide. She has won prizes such as the Île de créations competition and the Sacem Prize in 2015, as well as a prize from the Académie des beaux-arts in 2017. The following year, she was named one of “30 Éclaireurs” in Vanity Fair magazine. In 2020, she was Composer of the Year at Victoires de la musique classique, and was made Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2022.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893): Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33

Composed 1876

18 min

TCHAIKOVSKY ADORED THE COURTLY MUSIC of the 18th century, in particular the elegant rococo style of Mozart. “I not only like Mozart, I idolize him,” he wrote. “He captivates, delights and warms me. It is my profound conviction that Mozart is the culminating point of musical beauty. It is thanks to him that I devoted my life to music.”

He paid homage to his idol in several ways, most directly through Mozartiana (1887), an orchestral suite transcribed from the earlier composer’s piano and choral pieces. Another means was the creation of works that reflect and stylize Mozart’s musical world. Among this latter group are the luxurious Serenade for Strings (1880), and this charming set of variations for cello and small orchestra. Prior to the variations, his most recent creation had been Francesca da Rimini, a stormy symphonic fantasia inspired by Dante’s poem The Divine Comedy, and while he was composing the variations, he was also striving to create a viable scenario for an operatic setting of Shakespeare’s Othello. The opera came to nothing. The variations may have provided a diversion from the frustrations of labouring over it, as well as a cool, emotionally detached counterweight to the Dante piece.

He created it, presumably on commission, for German-born cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen (1848–1890), a faculty colleague at the Imperial Conservatory in Moscow who had participated in the premières of Tchaikovsky’s three string quartets. Fitzenhagen then took it upon himself to “improve” the variations, with Tchaikovsky initially accepting the cellist’s advice on modifications to the solo part. Fitzenhagen’s contributions didn’t end there, however. In the autumn of 1877, Tchaikovsky left Russia to recover from his disastrous marriage, and during his prolonged absence, Fitzenhagen shuffled the order of the variations, eliminated completely the last (and most difficult) of them, and replaced it with the original variation 4. Tchaikovsky long held ambivalent feelings toward Fitzenhagen’s revisions, but eventually he wearied of the affair. Upon receiving news that Fitzenhagen was dying, as reported by one of his pupils, he cried out, “The devil take it! Let it stand as it is!”

The brief introduction establishes both the gentle, refined mood and the transparency of the chamber orchestra scoring. The soloist introduces the relaxed and winsome theme—and rarely gets a breather after doing so. The theme is an original Tchaikovsky creation that author Paul Serotsky has described as a “drawing room march.” The variations rarely stray far from it, transmuting it into, among other things, a nostalgic waltz (variation 3) and a sorrowful lament (variation 7).

—Program note by Don Anderson

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893): Andante Cantabile for Cello and String Orchestra, Op. 11

Composed 1871 & 1888

7 min

IF THIS NEXT WORK leaves you feeling as though you have heard its melancholic strains before, you are probably right. It exists in countless arrangements—in the same way a heart-rending solo line in jazz can be carried by any instrument over a supportive backline. Search the work on the internet and you will find dozens if not hundreds of instrumental permutations.

The story goes that Tchaikovsky found the Andante Cantabile’s melody in 1869, whistled by a house painter (some say house carpenter) while staying at his sister’s house in Kamenka (Kamianka), in what is now the Donetsk region of Ukraine—a place to which he would return for solace and inspiration repeatedly over the course of the next 20 years. The whistler’s tune was from an old folk song, “Vanya sat on the divan”, well known during the 1870s; the words of its refrain are “Vanya sat on the divan, pouring out a glass of rum” (certainly not the first occasion on which that particular dark potion has fuelled outpourings of feeling, from the maudlin to the profoundly emotional).

In the same way Tchaikovsky returned to Kamenka repeatedly for solace, one can imagine him similarly returning to this beautiful melody. He arranged it almost immediately, as No. 47 in his collection of 50 Russian Folk Songs for piano four hands (1868–69). Soon after, it returns as the second movement of his String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11 (1871). Another story, widely quoted: the quartet was performed at a tribute concert for Leo Tolstoy, with Tchaikovsky in attendance, and, according to the composer, “Tolstoy, sitting next to me and listening to the Andante of my First Quartet, burst into tears.”

Tchaikovsky’s own arrangement of the Andante Cantabile for cello and string orchestra dates to early 1888 for a performance by Anatoly Brandukov in Paris in February 1888. Brandukov had been a student at the Moscow Conservatory in the cello class of Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, and in Tchaikovsky’s harmony and instrumentation classes. Tchaikovsky’s arrangement closely follows Fitzenhagen’s transcription of the movement for solo cello with piano, published in Moscow in 1872.

Short as it is, the Andante Cantabile comes at the listener in emotional waves. Listen, for example, to the cello’s moment of hesitation—hanging onto a single note about two minutes in—before the piece elides into its second subject, over an accompaniment that tiptoes its way in and out of that middle section as though reluctant to intrude. Listen also for that rarest of commodities in the music of any age—a refusal to abandon the work’s prevailing emotion in favour of a wisecrack or big finish.

—Program note by David Perlman

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971): Le Chant du rossignol (The Song of the Nightingale)

Composed 1917

21 min

ADAPTED BY STRAVINSKY FROM LE ROSSIGNOL, his 1914 opera, Le Chant du rossignol is highly
episodic, scrambling the opera’s thematic material across 24 marked sections. The opera, itself a curiosity in Stravinsky’s oeuvre, is a short, eclectic three-act work—already more a series of tableaux than a narrative. The opera had its première in Paris, on May 26, 1914; three weeks later, it was performed in London. It was not a success in either place, not even a succès de scandale, as The Rite of Spring had been the year before, and has never found its way into the standard repertory.

For one thing, it is just 45 minutes long, requiring a companion piece on an operatic double bill. But what could you pair it with? It is expensive, requiring many singers and costumes, and three lavish sets. So, at Serge Diaghilev’s suggestion, Stravinsky trimmed and telescoped it into a 20-minute ballet, cutting the vocal parts, and revising the orchestration. Even this condensed version proved more popular in concert than on stage, and Stravinsky took to calling it a “poème symphonique”, published it as such, and later claimed that he had meant it as such all along.

The libretto/storyline of both versions loosely follows a popular fable by Hans Christian Andersen. The setting is the imperial court of China, where word of Nightingale’s incomparably beautiful song reaches the emperor who orders the bird brought to the court. Nightingale agrees, comes to the palace, offers up a song that moves the emperor to tears, and is rewarded Program 2 – About the Music with a place at court—until a magnificently jewelled mechanical nightingale (a gift from the Emperor of Japan) arrives on the scene, usurping Nightingale’s place. Nightingale flies away, offended.

Many years later, the emperor lies gravely ill, calling for music as ghosts of his past torment him, and Death, personified, comes calling. Nightingale flies in at his window and sings. Death, enthralled, asks the bird to sing again. Nightingale will only agree if Death allows the emperor to live, and the proverbial happy ending ensues.

Like the fable, the opera and the ballet/ symphonic poem can be interpreted as parables: nature versus artifice; spontaneous and unfettered expression versus convention and routine. Parables were not high on Stravinsky’s own list of priorities for the work, but he brilliantly realizes, musically,
the basic dichotomy of the fable: the warmth and beauty of nature versus the brittleness, coldness, and affectation of the palace. The real bird sings deeply felt operatic coloratura—undulating, irregular, chromatic— to a warm, rich accompaniment. The mechanical nightingale, on the other hand, produces a more diatonic and regulated melody, to a lean, tick-tocky backing that is dry, angular, and “objective”—ironically more like the later, neoclassical Stravinsky who loved player pianos and even declared, in an interview, “I prefer a music box to a nightingale.”

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937): Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé

Composed 1913

17 min

THE BALLET DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ, inspired by a famous pastoral romance by the Greek writer Longus, was Ravel’s most ambitious work for the stage. The composer himself considered it (along with the ballet Ma mère l’Oye) his most important work; Stravinsky called it “one of the most beautiful products in all of French music.” The ballet was commissioned in 1909 by the great Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev, who was in Paris for the début season of his Ballets Russes. (Other major European composers—Debussy and Strauss, later Prokofiev and Poulenc, and above all Stravinsky—wrote important works for the Ballets Russes, which was a potent force in early-20th-century music.)

Ravel laboured hard for three years before completing Daphnis et Chloé; it “left me in pitiful condition,” he said in a letter. After many delays, the première was given in Paris, by Diaghilev’s company, on June 8, 1912, with the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky in the role of Daphnis. Ravel extracted two suites from the score—the first in 1911, before the ballet was even complete, and the second, the more popular of the two, in 1913.

The scenario of Daphnis et Chloé is in three tableaux: Suite No. 1 covers the first two tableaux, in which the hero and heroine find their love for each other threatened, first by rival suitors and then by pirates, who abduct Chloé. The three selections of Suite No. 2, played without a break, give us the highlights of the third and final tableau—picking up after shepherds, with the help of the god Pan, have rescued Chloé. In the first selection (Lever du jour), Daphnis is awakened at dawn, and the lovers are reunited. Ravel’s shimmering music unforgettably depicts a sunrise accompanied
by birdsong and the murmur of springs; a great melody wells up from the bottom of the orchestra and, at length, swells to an emotional climax as the lovers fall into each other’s arms. In the second selection (Pantomime), the lovers dance in honour of the love of Pan and Syrinx; tender, sensuous string chords form a backdrop to piquant and flashy solos in the woodwinds. The final selection (Danse générale) depicts the joyous tumult with which the drama ends and is one of Ravel’s most brilliant and virtuosic orchestral pieces—rousing, rhythmically furious, and audaciously orchestrated.

Ravel called Daphnis et Chloé a “symphonie chorégraphique”, stressing that it is “constructed symphonically according to a very strict tonal scheme by means of a few motifs; their development assures the work’s symphonic homogeneity.” Most listeners, it is safe to say, admire other elements of the music: beautiful melodies, lush harmonies, rhythmic momentum, a Straussian gift for tone-painting, and, above all, the orchestration. Ravel’s handling of a huge orchestra augmented by more than a dozen percussion instruments marks him as one of music’s most ingenious and innovative orchestrators.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Fabien Gabel, conductor

Fabien Gabel has established an international career of the highest calibre, appearing with orchestras such as London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Minnesota Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, San Francisco Symphony, Tonkünstler- Orchester, Oslo Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Praised for his dynamic style and sensitive approach to the score, he is best known for his eclectic repertoire choices ranging from core symphonic works to new music to championing lesser-known composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Gabel’s 2022/23 season includes a number of highly anticipated débuts, beginning with the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, followed by the Wiener Symphoniker, and Opéra de Paris, leading Calixto Beito’s production of Carmen, while, in North America, he makes his débuts with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Baltimore. The season also includes return appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Tonkünstler-Orchester in Vienna, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony, Stavanger Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, and West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

Also in Paris, in the current season, he embarks upon a large-scale project to record the music for Abel Gance’s 1927 epic silent film Napoléon with the Orchestre National de France and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, in a production that will appear in cinemas, for online streaming, and in live performances.

Fabien Gabel performs with soloists such as Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Bertrand Chamayou, Seong-Jin Cho, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Gidon Kremer, Augustin Hadelich, Simone Lamsma, Daniel Lozakovich, Christian Tetzlaff, Gautier Capuçon, Daniel Müeller-Schott, Johannes Moser, Håkan Hardenberger, and Emmanuel Pahud, and with singers such as Measha Brueggergosman, Natalie Dessay, Petra Lang, Jennifer Larmore, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Danielle de Niese, and Michael Schade.

Having attracted international attention in 2004 as the winner of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, Fabien Gabel was assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (2004–2006). He was music director of Orchestre symphonique de Québec (2012–2021) and Orchestre Français des Jeunes (2017–2021).

Born in Paris to a family of accomplished musicians, Fabien Gabel began playing the trumpet at the age of 6 and honed his skills at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. He played with various Parisian orchestras under prominent conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, and Bernard Haitink before embarking on his conducting career.

Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello

Curiosity, diversity, and a firm focus on the music itself characterize the artistic work of Jean-Guihen Queyras. Whether on stage or on record, he is an artist dedicated completely and passionately to the music, committed to reflecting the clear, undistorted essence of the score, with the inner motivations of composer, performer, and audience all in tune with one another. He learned this interpretative approach from Pierre Boulez, whose Ensemble intercontemporain he established a long artistic partnership with. This, alongside a flawless technique and a clear, engaging tone, shapes Jean-Guihen Queyras’s approach to every performance. 

His approaches to early music—as in his collaborations with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin—and to contemporary music are equally thorough. He has given world premières of works by, among others, Ivan Fedele, Gilbert Amy, Bruno Mantovani, Michael Jarrell, Johannes Maria Staud, Thomas Larcher, and Tristan Murail. Conducted by the composer, he recorded Peter Eötvös’s Cello Concerto to mark Eötvös’s 70th birthday in November 2014.

Queyras was a founding member of the Arcanto Quartet and forms a celebrated trio with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov, who is also, alongside Alexandre Tharaud, a regular accompanist. The versatility in his music-making has led to many concert halls, festivals, and orchestras inviting Queyras to be Artist in Residence, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Vredenburg in Utrecht, De Bijloke in Ghent, the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, and Wigmore Hall in London. He also often appears with renowned orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester, and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, working with conductors such as Iván Fischer, Philippe Herreweghe, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, François-Xavier Roth, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Sir Roger Norrington. 

Queyras’s discography is impressive. His recordings of cello concertos by Edward Elgar, Antonín Dvořák, Philippe Schoeller, and Gilbert Amy have been released to critical acclaim. He has recorded the complete Schumann Piano Trios with Faust and Melnikov, and, at the same time, the Schumann Cello Concerto with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under Pablo Heras-Casado. The recording THRACE – Sunday Morning Sessions explores, in collaboration with the Chemirani brothers and Sokratis Sinopoulos, the intersections of contemporary music, improvisation, and Mediterranean traditions. Two highly acclaimed recordings in 2018 feature works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Antonio Vivaldi.

Queyras holds a professorship at the Freiburg University of Music and is Artistic Director of the Rencontres Musicales de Haute-Provence festival in Forcalquier. He plays a 1696 instrument by Gioffredo Cappa, made available to him by the Mécénat Musical Société Générale. 

Friday, April 28, 2023 at 6:15pm
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra Chamber Soloists
Eight Cellos: A Pre-concert Performance

TSO 2022/23 Spotlight Artist Jean-Guihen Queyras has designed an intriguing half hour of
music for eight cellos to be performed in Roy Thomson Hall ahead of the evening’s concert.
Performers will include Queyras, Principal Cellist Joseph Johnson, three of the newest
members of the TSO cello section, and three members of the Toronto Symphony Youth
Orchestra (on the eve of the final performance of the TSYO’s 49th season).

Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613)
Tristis est anima mea (6 min)

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
Klid/Waldesruhe (Silent Woods) (7 min)

Burt Bacharach (1928–2023)
South American Getaway (6 min)

Giovanni Sollima (b. 1962)
Marcia (3 min)

Jean-Guihen Queyras
Joseph Johnson, TSO Principal Cellist
Song Hee Lee, Oleksander Mycyk
& Lucia Ticho (TSO)
Matthew Buczkowski, Ethan Hyo Jeon
& Mario Rodriquez McMillan (TSYO)

Avi Avital, leader & mandolin

Antonio Vivaldi/arr. Avi Avital
Mandolin Concerto in D Major, RV 93
I. Allegro giusto
II. Largo
III. Allegro

Johann Sebastian Bach/arr. Avi Avital
Violin Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1056R
I. [Moderato]
II. Largo
III. Presto

Avner Dorman
Mandolin Concerto

Intermission

Antonio Vivaldi/arr. Avi Avital
Mandolin Concerto in C Major, RV 425
I. Allegro
II. Largo
III. Allegro

Johann Sebastian Bach/arr. Avi Avital
Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041
I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante
III. Allegro assai

Sulkhan Tsintsadze/arr. Avi Avital
Six Miniatures on Georgian Folk Themes

Béla Bartók/arr. Avi Avital
Román népi táncok (Romanian Folk Dances)

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741): Mandolin Concerto in D Major, RV 93

Composed 1730–1731

8 min

WE MIGHT THINK we invented the “remote work” model in the 21st century, but in the 1730s, Antonio Vivaldi’s contract allowed for him to travel and send his compositions back to Venice. He was concertizing around Europe with two violin soloists when he composed this piece and two others featuring lute, the Trio Sonatas for violin and lute in G minor and C major, all dedicated to a lute-playing Bohemian, Count Johann Joseph von Wrtby. Today they are often played on modern
guitar, or on mandolin as Avi Avital does in this program.

Just one of Vivaldi’s over 500 concertos is for lute, one for solo mandolin, and one for a pair of solo mandolins, so it’s no surprise that players of either instrument borrow the pieces conceived for the other. In this case, the music was first presented as a chamber concerto for lute, two solo violins, and continuo—not properly a solo concerto with orchestra or even a concerto grosso—so in
orchestral performances such as this, violin sections take on the solo violin parts.

It is worth noting that the lute persisted in mid-18th-century musical life as both an accompanying or continuo instrument and as a solo, recreational instrument. Yet, in this concerto, Vivaldi has given the lute a treble, melodic role with arpeggiated chords and singing lines that make it well suited for transfer to the mandolin. The concerto’s sprightly first movement plays with a three-note motif; it is in rounded binary form with brief manipulations of material and excursions into different keys in the second section. The slow movement features a lilting solo melody with the violins providing a shimmering halo of support; it concludes with a spirited gigue.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) arr. Avi Avital: Violin Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1056R

Composed between 1730 & 1738

9 min

ARRANGING THE MUSIC of J.S. Bach for alternate instrumentation, in this case the mandolin, is a tradition that can be traced back to the master himself. In the case of this work, the music has been reworked and repurposed multiple times by Bach and others. The original score for the violin concerto we know as J.S. Bach’s BWV 1056 was lost, so modern scholars reconstructed it from a concerto for harpsichord believed to be its own transcription—a sort of reverse-engineering of the material. In addition, audiences might recognize the second movement as originally arranged by Bach for oboe in his cantata “Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe” (“I stand with one foot in the grave”), BWV 156 from 1729.

During the first movement’s orchestral ritornello, the soloist breaks away for brief solo turns—an unusual opening gambit. While it’s typical to pit soloist against ensemble, Bach creates additional tension by setting the two off rhythmically as well; the ensemble plays in duple time, and the soloist almost exclusively in triplets. The Largo central movement begins with chant-like unison from the ensemble before the soloist spins a sombre, aria-like melody that explores both low and high registers. The work finishes with a contrastingly light dance complete with beguiling syncopations.

—Program notes by Stephanie Conn

Avner Dorman (b. 1975): Mandolin Concerto

Composed 2005

17 min

AVNER DORMAN WRITES: One of my favorite things as a composer is to discover and explore new instruments. When Avi Avital approached me to write a concerto for him, my acquaintance with the mandolin was fairly limited. I had used it in chamber pieces only twice before, and did not know most of the repertoire for the instrument. As I got to know the instrument better, I discovered its diverse sonic and expressive possibilities.

The concerto’s main conflicts are between sound and silence and between motion and stasis. One of the things that inspired me to deal with these opposites is the mandolin’s most basic technique—the tremolo, which is the rapid repetition of notes. The tremolo embodies both motion and stasis. The rapid movement provides momentum, while the pitches stay the same.

The concerto can be divided into three main sections that are played attacca:

1. A slow meditative movement with occasional dynamic outbursts. The tremolo and silences accumulate energy which is released in fast kinetic outbursts. The main motifs of the piece are introduced, all of which are based on the minor and major second.

2. A fast dance-like movement that accumulates energy leading to a culmination at its end. The tremolo is slowed down becoming a relentless repetition in the bass—like a heartbeat. The fast movement is constructed much like a Baroque Concerto and a Concerto Grosso. The solo and tutti alternate frequently and in many instances instruments from the orchestra join the mandolin as additional soloists.

3. Recapitulation of the opening movement. After the energy is depleted, all that is left for the ending is to delve deeper into the meditation of the opening movement and concentrate on a pure melody and an underlying heartbeat.

I would like to thank Avi Avital for his dedication and commitment throughout the process of creating this piece: for many hours of experimenting with unusual techniques; for introducing me to the mandolin’s vast repertoire, including Baroque mandolin, Russian folk music, bluegrass, Indian music, Brazilian jazz and avant-garde; and for performing the piece with depth and virtuosity.

Born in Israel, Avner Dorman won the country’s prestigious Prime Minister’s Award for his Ellef Symphony when he was just 25. He has a doctorate in composition from The Juilliard School under John Corigliano, and is Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Gettysburg College. Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Chailly, Pinchas Zukerman, Gil Shaham, and Hilary Hahn are among the musicians who have championed his music, which is known especially for its technical demands, complex rhythms, and orchestral colours.

Avi Avital premièred this piece in December 2006; his subsequent recording with Andrew Cyr and the Metropolis Ensemble earned him a 2007 GRAMMY® nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist, the first-ever nomination of a mandolin player in this category.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741): Mandolin Concerto in C Major, RV 425

Composed 1725

11 min

THIS PIECE IS ONE OF VIVALDI’S better-known and loved concertos, its renown kindled by recordings but also its inclusion in scores for films by François Truffaut, Wes Anderson, and others. When Vivaldi wrote this brief work in 1725, the mandolin was far from being relegated to simple folk-song accompaniment; like the lute, it was an instrument suitable for a gentleman’s recreation, as it was for one of Vivaldi’s patrons, Guido Bentivoglio d’Aragona of Ferrara. Mandolin was also one of the so-called “exotic” instruments played at the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage and conservatory for girls in Venice renowned for its high musical standard, at which Vivaldi famously taught. Vivaldi wrote just two concertos for mandolin—this one and another for a pair of mandolin soloists—but he also used it in compositions when a delicate, transparent sound was needed, such
as in the aria “Transit aetas” from his opera Juditha triumphans.

This mandolin concerto was created by Vivaldi in the same period as his Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) and displays some of the same variety of colour and invention but less inherent drama. Like Vivaldi’s D-major lute concerto (played in the first half of this program), it eschews the chordal work so often given to mandolin and instead demands a melodic virtuosity from the soloist, which has won it a place as an important work for the instrument. The work has a delicacy, beginning in a kind of stealth mode that metes out increasing tension in rhythm, relying less on the interplay between soloist and ensemble than other concertos such as the D-major concerto for lute (here, mandolin). Indeed, throughout this concerto, the ensemble is more like supporting accompaniment, and in the central, slow movement, the mandolin is almost a cappella, with the orchestra providing only raindrop-like pizzicati. The final movement drives with light but insistent propulsion toward a conclusion that comes all too soon.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) arr. Avi Avital: Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041

Composed between 1717 & 1723

19 min

A WEIGHTIER WORK than Bach’s G-minor violin concerto, BWV 1056R, this A-minor concerto, BWV 1041, also has a more straightforward history. While working for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen between 1717 and 1723, Bach composed orchestral and chamber music, much of which was inspired by the Prince’s abilities on keyboards, violin, and viola da gamba. This concerto, however, was likely written for Cöthen’s star violinist Johann Spiess.

It displays much influence of Vivaldi and the Italian concerto style of the day, with its alternating between soloist and ensemble in the manner of a concerto grosso (which pits a small solo ensemble against the larger orchestra). Cleverly, Bach reworks some material from the opening bars of the first movement for the concerto’s finale.

—Program notes by Stephanie Conn

Sulkhan Tsintsadze (1925–1991) arr. Avi Avital: Six Miniatures on Georgian Folk Themes

Composed 1945–1955

12 min

JUST AS THE SOVIET UNION’S official imagery portrayed heroic workers with gleaming machines and happy peasants, its favoured music arose from, or was inspired by, the idyllic life of “the folk.” But disseminating a people’s music naturally supports their sense of nation and unique identity, and is especially important to minority societies. For this reason, Sulkhan Tsintsadze’s intricate arrangements of Georgian folk songs hold an important place in Georgian history and culture, and in the nation’s imagination.

Trained in Tbilisi, Georgia, and at Moscow’s conservatory, Tsintsadze is remembered for his synthesizing of folk music and 20th-century European compositional idioms to create a Georgian classical music—although outside Georgia he might be better known for his 12 string quartets. Among his national honours are the People’s Artist of Georgia (1961) and People’s Artist of the USSR (1987).

Tsintsadze composed several cycles of miniatures on Georgian folk themes for string quartet (in 1945, 1950, and 1955), and in this suite are six of those, arranged here for orchestra with mandolin soloist. Staying close to his source, Tsintsadze’s composition presents a juxtaposition of traditional and original material and draws on his experience as a film composer, using a fresh and
accessible style. Mstkhemsuri (Shepherd’s Dance) presents the evocation of a country-bagpipe drone played by the cello; the drone element returns in the fight song, Sachidao, heard again in the cello’s double-stops. Song intertwines sustained notes, Indi Mindi is a fast-paced dance, while Suliko is a more gentle, lilting waltz with accompaniment. The set concludes with a Dance Tune that incorporates rapid triplets.

Béla Bartók (1881–1945) arr. Avi Avital: Román népi táncok (Romanian Folk Dances)

Composed 1917

7 min

ALTHOUGH REMEMBERED mainly for his compositions, Béla Bartók distinguished himself as a classical pianist and earned much of his living playing and teaching. His true passion, however, was finding, collecting, and transcribing traditional music. He believed that the musical culture of the rural better represented a nation than that of the urban. Brahms’s and Liszt’s Hungarian pieces were somewhat romanticized versions of Romani (Roma) music. Bartók, however, was closer
to his sources; he travelled the countryside, often with fellow composer and scholar Zoltán Kodály, collecting music with an Edison phonograph from Hungarian, Romanian, Slovakian, Serbian, and Croatian communities. He eventually collected and transcribed over 3,500 Romanian folk tunes alone.

Bartók based his popular Román népi táncok on melodies he heard played on flute by a shepherd in Transylvania. He initially composed it for piano, then, two years later, reworked it for small ensemble. Later still, Zoltán Székely adapted it for violin and piano. Much of the original music is in modes other than the major or minor; for example, the first movement is A Dorian, the fourth A Phrygian, the fifth D Lydian. For this reason, early editions did not include key signatures.

Like the Six Miniatures on Georgian Folk Themes, there are six of these Romanian Folk Dances, also in miniature, and with each movement evoking a local dance. The first, titled Jocul cu bâtă (Stick Dance), is a solo dance for a young man, which involves some high kicks; the second is titled Brâul
(Sash Dance) and, as the title suggests, uses a belt or sash; in the third, Pe loc (In One Spot), dancers stamp their feet while remaining stationary; the fourth, Buciumeana (Dance from Bucsum), is a hornpipe painted with the musical colour of the Middle East; Poarga românească (Romanian Polka), the penultimate, is a children’s dance with shifting metres; and the finale, Mărunțel (Fast Dance), is a couple’s dance with swift, neat steps.

—Program notes by Stephanie Conn

Avi Avital’s Kerman Mandolin

ABOUT 30 YEARS AGO [early ‘90s] Israeli luthier Arik Kerman established a fund to encourage
outstanding mandolin players who passed an entrance test to play classical music, by giving them
the loan of an instrument for two years or more. Among these were Jacob Reuven, Alon Sariel, and
Avi Avital. Reuven’s website has an interview (excerpted below) with the normally reclusive Kerman:

Your mandolins have a great sound. Is it because the mandolin is bigger? Because of the double board? Or because of the type of wood? Do you know in advance what sound a mandolin will have? Do you control the sound?

It is not the size that gives a big sound, and not the double board either; acoustics is a complicated and wild thing. The type of wood is a primary parameter that affects the color of the sound. Everything else—the sound strength, its length, etc.—is in the hands of the builder. I can say that in my mandolin I can slightly change the sound while testing the instrument after it is finished—very small changes, which affect the feel of the player.

What led you into the world of mandolin building?

I started building musical instruments after I met a violinist master who agreed to take me to his studio as a student. But the violin has not changed much since Stradivari and I was not satisfied with that, I wanted to give in to the imagination, to create, to develop. Already in the construction of the first mandolins I changed, changed and changed it again. The experiment itself fascinated me. Violinists who visited the studio called me Arik the ripper. On the second try I had a breakthrough—a mandolin with a “big sound”—a beautiful and strong sound.

Do musicians have the ability to influence the construction of instruments?

Musicians love to explore a new mandolin and it is important for me to examine the mandolin before lacquering, so that I can make changes if necessary, even to open the instrument. There is a difference in sound between a pre-lacquered mandolin and a finished mandolin. When testing a new mandolin, the sound changes and develops within half an hour of playing, provided the player is able to play it to its full potential on all the strings.

Avi Avital, leader & mandolin

A pioneering artist and the first mandolin soloist to be nominated for a classical GRAMMY®, Avi Avital has been compared to Andrés Segovia for his championship of his instrument and to Jascha Heifetz for his incredible virtuosity. Passionate and “explosively charismatic” (The New York Times) in live performance, he is a driving force behind the reinvigoration of the mandolin repertory.

Highlights of the 2022/23 season see performances of Jennifer Higdon, Anna Clyne, and Giovanni Sollima Mandolin Concertos commissioned for Avital, alongside tours with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Il Giardino Armonico with Giovanni Antonini, B’Rock Orchestra, and Arcangelo, duo recitals with Ksenija Sidorova (accordion), Olga Pashchenko (harpsichord/fortepiano), and Omer Klein (piano), and a tour of Australia with cellist Giovanni Sollima. Avital launches his new venture, the Between Worlds Ensemble, with a three-part residency at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. The ensemble was formed to explore different genres, cultures, and musical worlds focusing on different geographical regions and, in its first year, will feature traditional, classical, and folk music from the Iberian Peninsula, the Black Sea, and Italy.

Avital’s recent engagements include the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre national de Lyon, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Israel Philharmonic, and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

Avital has commissioned over 100 works for the mandolin including concertos for mandolin and orchestra. He collaborates with musicians across many genres and has been Artist-in-Residence/Portrait Artist at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Bozar in Brussels, and Dortmund Konzerthaus Dortmund (in a “Zeitinsel”), and he will be Artist-in-Residence at the Bodenseefestival in 2023. He is a regular presence at major festivals such as Aspen, Hollywood Bowl, Salzburg,
Tanglewood, Spoleto, Ravenna, MISA in Shanghai, Cheltenham, Verbier, Lucerne, Bad Kissingen, Rheingau, Gstaad, and Tsinandali.

Avital is an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist. His sixth album for the label, Art of the Mandolin, was released in 2020 to outstanding international reviews. This followed recordings of solo Bach (2019); Avital Meets Avital (2017) with oud player/bassist Omer Avital; the ECHO Klassik Award–winning Vivaldi (2015); an album of Avital’s own transcriptions of Bach concertos; and Between Worlds (2014), a cross-generic chamber collection exploring the nexus between classical and traditional music.

Born in Be’er-Sheva in southern Israel, Avital began learning the mandolin at the age of 8 and later studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and the Conservatorio Cesare Pollini in Padua with Ugo Orlandi. He plays a mandolin made by Israeli luthier Arik Kerman.

Steven Reineke, conductor
Capathia Jenkins, vocalist
Tony DeSare, vocalist & piano

John Kander & Fred Ebb/arr. Bill Elliott
“New York, New York”

Steve Allen/arr. Wendell Smith
“This Could Be the Start of Something Big”

Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II/arr. Nelson Riddle
“All the Things You Are”

George Gershwin & Ira Gershwin
“Fascinating Rhythm” from Lady Be Good

Jimmy Van Heusen & Sammy Cahn/arr. Billy May
“Come Fly with Me”

Jule Styne, Betty Comden & Adolph Green/arr. Fred Barton
“Just in Time” from Bells Are Ringing

Matty Malneck & Johnny Mercer/arr. Frank DeVol
“Goody Goody”

Louis Prima/arr. Wayne Dyess
“Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)”

Frank Loesser/arr. Daryl McKenzie
“Luck Be a Lady” from Guys and Dolls

Cole Porter/arr. Tony DeSare & Tedd Firth
“Night and Day” from Gay Divorce

Intermission

Ray Charles/arr. Tedd Firth
“Hallelujah I Love Her So”

Tony DeSare/arr. Tony DeSare
“Paris Always Will Have You”

Al Hoffman, Walter Kent & Mann Curtis/arr. Tony DeSare
“I’m Gonna Live till I Die”

Irving Berlin/arr. Jerry Sheppard
“Let’s Face the Music and Dance” from Follow the Fleet

Various/arr. Tony DeSare
Fitzgerald Medley
“They Can’t Take That Away from Me”
“Love Is Here to Stay”
“Moon River”
“How High the Moon”
“Fly Me to the Moon”
“That’s Life”

Van Alexander & Ella Fitzgerald/arr. Neal Hefti
“A-Tisket, A-Tasket”

Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler/arr. Billy May
“Get Happy” from Summer Stock

Jacques Revaux & Paul Anka/arr. Tony DeSare
“My Way”

Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler/arr. Nelson Riddle
“I’ve Got the World on a String”

Various/arr. Tedd Firth
Sinatra Medley
“I’ve Got You under My Skin”
“I Get a Kick Out of You”
“Summer Wind”
“New York, New York”

Frank & Ella: The Concert That Wasn’t

NOT MANY PEOPLE at a Pops concert titled “Frank & Ella” will be asking “Frank and Ella who?” or why pairing them makes sense. Their careers ran parallel. Sinatra was born in 1915, Fitzgerald in 1917. New York, NY, was in both of their DNA. Frank sang at Carnegie Hall for the first time in 1944; Ella in 1947. They worked with dozens of the same musicians and arrangers; played the same venues; and recorded many of the same songs. They both had the “household name” status that network television conferred from the mid-to-late 1950s through the 1960s. You’d expect there to have been some iconic joint recording along the way, but it didn’t happen, and even joint appearances were few and far between.

Two dates during that period offer a glimpse into the vibrant scene they shared. April 25, 1956 was Ella Fitzgerald’s first appearance on The Steve Allen Show, right at the time the show was transitioning from late-night local New York TV into The Tonight Show on the full NBC network. “This Could Be the Start of Something Big”, written by Steve Allen, was the show’s theme for as long as Allen was host. Sinatra’s first appearance on the show was also in 1956, but he was stricken with laryngitis, and could only watch while Allen, hilariously, lip-synched to Sinatra’s recording of “A Foggy Day”. Fitzgerald would return to the show six more times between 1963 and 1976. Sinatra became a frequent guest, including guest-hosting the show in 1977. TV show appearances followed for Fitzgerald in a steady stream—Nat King Cole, Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, Dinah Shore, Jo Stafford, and also, twice, on The Frank Sinatra Show, in 1958 and 1959.

Those two appearances likely paved the way for a fleeting live appearance together. The date was January 19, 1961, and the event was US President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural gala, produced by Sinatra. Performers included Nat King Cole, Harry Belafonte, Ethel Merman, Gene Kelly, Jimmy Durante, and Helen Traubel. Fitzgerald sang “Give Me the Simple Life”. Sinatra weighed in with “You Make Me Feel So Young”.

Perhaps the most compelling argument in favour of them performing and recording together in a major way was the top arrangers, Quincy Jones and Nelson Riddle, with whom they both worked. Riddle arranged eight albums for Fitzgerald, commencing with Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book in 1959, and more than 20 Sinatra albums between 1954 and 1966, along with a handful of TV specials between 1954 and 1966. And yet, despite all this, one primary thing, among a host of systemic others, kept them apart—the implacable territoriality of the rival record labels they were signed to (Verve and later Atlantic for Fitzgerald; Reprise and Capitol for Sinatra). All the more reason, then, to sit back and enjoy this concert, imagining what might have been.

—Program note by David Perlman

Steven Reineke, conductor

Steven Reineke has established himself as one of North America’s leading conductors of popular music. Along with his role as Principal Pops Conductor of the TSO, Reineke is music director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. He is also principal pops conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and principal pops conductor of the Houston Symphony. Reineke is a frequent guest conductor with The Philadelphia Orchestra, and his extensive North American conducting appearances include Atlanta, Cincinnati, Edmonton, and San Francisco.

On stage, Reineke has created programs and collaborated with a range of leading artists from the worlds of hip-hop, Broadway, television, and rock, including Cynthia Erivo, Common, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Sutton Foster, Megan Hilty, Cheyenne Jackson, Wayne Brady, Peter Frampton, and Ben Folds, among others. In 2017, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered featured Reineke leading the National Symphony Orchestra performing live music excerpts between news segments—a first in the show’s 45-year history. In 2018, Reineke led the National Symphony Orchestra with hip-hop legend Nas performing his seminal album Illmatic on PBS’s Great Performances. As the creator of more than 100 orchestral arrangements for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Reineke has had his work performed worldwide and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings on the Telarc label. His symphonic works Celebration Fanfare, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Casey at the Bat are performed frequently. His Sun Valley Festival Fanfare was used to commemorate the Sun Valley Summer Symphony pavilion, and his Festival Te Deum and Swans Island Sojourn were débuted by the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras.

His numerous wind ensemble compositions are published by the C.L. Barnhouse Company and are performed by concert bands worldwide.

Capathia Jenkins, vocalist

Capathia Jenkins grapples with two duelling passions, each with a strong grip—acting and music—yet she refuses to choose, approaching a song the same way she approaches a script, looking for the nuances, the secret, hidden within the notes or text.

This Brooklyn-born-and-raised actress made her Broadway début in The Civil War, where she created the role of Harriet Jackson, and most recently starred there as Medda in the hit Disney production of Newsies. Other notable appearances include the Off-Broadway 2000 revival of Godspell (her stirring rendition of “Turn Back, O Man” can still be heard on the original cast recording), the role of The Washing Machine in Caroline, or Change (which she created), and the title role in Joan Sorkin’s (mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award.

An equally active concert artist, Ms. Jenkins has appeared with orchestras around the world, including The Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and Pittsburgh Symphony (with Marvin Hamlisch), and with major orchestras across the US and Canada, as well as in Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, and Cuba. TV credits include 30 Rock, The Practice, Law & Order: SVU, and The Sopranos, and she can be heard on the film soundtracks of Nine, Chicago, and Legally Blonde 2.

Tony DeSare, vocalist & piano

Tony DeSare’s infectious joy, wry playfulness, and robust musicality had him named Rising Star Male Vocalist in DownBeat magazine, and he has lived up to this distinction by winning critical and popular acclaim for his concert performances throughout North America and abroad. From jazz clubs to Carnegie Hall to Las Vegas, and headlining major symphony orchestras, DeSare has brought his fresh take on old-school class around the globe.

DeSare has been a featured guest artist with more than 100 symphony orchestras including The Cleveland Orchestra, The New York Pops, the San Francisco Symphony, the Houston Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony. With four top-ten Billboard jazz albums under his belt, he has been featured on the CBS Early Show, NPR, and A Prairie Home Companion; has had his music posted by social-media celebrity juggernaut George Takei; and has collaborated with YouTube supergroup Postmodern Jukebox.

Along with his critically acclaimed turns as a singer/pianist, DeSare is also an award-winning composer. What sets him apart is his ability to write original material that sounds fresh and contemporary, swinging and sensual, while paying homage to the Great American Songbook. He maintains a strong presence on social media and continues to release his "song diaries", recordings from his home studio that started in 2020 and now number in the hundreds, many available on all platforms and playlists.

John Storgårds, conductor
Leila Josefowicz, violin

Joonas Kokkonen
Music for String Orchestra
III. Adagio religioso
North American Première

Helen Grime
Violin Concerto
Canadian Première

Intermission

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp Minor
Part I
1. Trauermarsch (Funeral march)
2. Stürmisch bewegt, mit größter Vehemenz
(Moving stormily, with the greatest vehemence)
Part II
3. Scherzo: Kräftig, nicht zu schnell (Strong, not too fast)
Part III
4. Adagietto: Sehr langsam (Very slow)
5. Rondo – Finale: Allegro

Joonas Kokkonen (1921–1996): “Adagio religioso” from Music for String Orchestra

North American Première
Composed 1956–1957

8 min

JOONAS KUKKONEN was one of Finland’s most important musical figures in the 20th century. After studying piano, counterpoint, and harmony at the Sibelius Academy, and musicology at the University of Helsinki, he was active as a composer and professor. He also had a notable career as an administrator, taking on leadership roles at organizations such as the Society of Finnish Composers and the Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras. In doing so, he sought to raise the status of Finnish classical music and music education, and thus was instrumental in the development of Finnish cultural life during the post-war period.

Although Kokkonen was not very prolific as a composer, many of his works—which encompass chamber music (including a piano quintet and three string quartets), orchestral works (among them four symphonies and a cello concerto), solo vocal pieces, and one opera (The Last Temptations)—are considered important to the repertoire of Finnish music. In addition to Jean Sibelius, his major musical influences were J.S. Bach and Béla Bartók.

Adagio religioso is the third movement of Music for String Orchestra—the first orchestral work Kokkonen completed. Several scholars have remarked on the significance of this piece as the culmination of the composer’s first aesthetic phase, in which his works are characterized by neoclassical elements, while pointing ahead to his second period, when he wrote twelve-tone works. It was also the start of his distinctive application of a rigorous symphonic process, in which he strove to achieve organic unity by developing the entire work from a limited set of motifs and harmonies. This Adagio religioso was the first of several other similar slow movements of sacred character that would become a signature of his music through to his late period.

Kokkonen intended for Music for String Orchestra to be played by the string section of a large symphony orchestra rather than a smaller chamber orchestra, and he takes full advantage of the instruments’ lush sonority to create a profound movement of searing spiritual intensity. It opens with the ensemble intoning the main motif: a three-chord “cell”, with the upper voice outlining a rising third then falling a step, colourfully harmonized and hymn-like. A solo violin responds with a
single note. The motif is repeated; solo violin answers with two notes. Once again, the motif sounds and, this time, the solo violin elaborates further, somewhat sorrowfully, in conversation with the rest of the strings. A variation of the motif emerges, chant-like and processional, as the solo violin muses quietly above. The original motif then reasserts itself, now triggering an expansive outpouring achieved through melodic counterpoint weaving a sumptuous harmonic tapestry. It reaches a climax of passionate reverence from which it climbs down gradually, leading into a recall of the chant-like motif. Like a nostalgic reflection, the main motif returns, after which the movement closes ethereally on a consolatory major chord.

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Helen Grime (b. 1981): Violin Concerto

Canadian Première
Composed 2016

22 min

GRIME’S VIOLIN CONCERTO was inspired after several collaborations with the violinist Malin Broman, she says. “I was immediately struck by the ferocity, power, and passion in her playing.
At turns she is able to play with a sort of wild abandon but also with great tenderness, sensitivity and with many different colours. I knew when we started talking about the piece some years back, that I wanted to highlight and showcase these striking, opposing qualities.” “Towards the beginning of the writing process,” she continues, “I sent Malin various fragments of material and many of these are used in the concerto. These initial sketches actually became the basis for the piece’s central section and everything else sprang from this. In one continuous movement, the piece falls into three main sections but features extensive dreamlike interlinking passages that connect them.”

Since the concerto’s world première in December 2016 by Broman and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Harding, violinist Leila Josefowicz has become a significant champion of the work, having recently given national premières of it in various places, including in the US with conductor John Storgårds, who also leads the Canadian Première tonight.

Grime’s Violin Concerto exemplifies several key features of her compositional style; “I’ve always been drawn to melody and long lines,” she says, as well as “rich, expressive harmonies,” which create sound worlds that vacillate between the “almost romantic [and] the austere.” Inspired by “creating and balancing different layers in music, sometimes highly contrasted and sometimes related and subtly different,” the concerto exhibits “violent, virtuosic music covering the whole range of the violin... contrasted with more delicate and reflective filigree material that features oscillating natural harmonic passages and searching melodies.”

—Program note and composer bio compiled/edited by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

The music of Helen Grime has been performed by leading orchestras around the world, among them the London Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie- Orchester Berlin, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Her music frequently draws inspiration from related art forms such as painting (Two Eardley Pictures, Three Whistler Miniatures), sculpture (Woven Space), and literature
(A Cold Spring, Near Midnight, Limina), and has won praise in equal measure for the craftsmanship of its construction and the urgency of its telling.

Grime was a Legal and General Junior Fellow at the Royal College of Music from 2007 to 2009. Between 2011 and 2015, she was Associate Composer with the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, and in 2016 was appointed Composer in Residence at Wigmore Hall in London. She was Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London, between 2010 and 2017, and is currently Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2020 UK New Year Honours List for services to music.

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp Minor

Composed 1901–1903

70 min

IN HIS FIFTH SYMPHONY, Mahler returned to “absolute” symphonic music that did not rely on descriptive titles or tone-painting. Still, one senses some “inner” program or poetic idea behind it. In February 1901, Mahler suffered a near-fatal illness, and it is tempting to infer that this darkened his musical thoughts during the following summer, when he composed the symphony’s opening Trauermarsch (Funeral march).

The five movements are arranged symmetrically: two polar-opposite, slow-fast pairs framing a central Scherzo. Part I is a profound two-act tragedy in which every effort to dispel the prevailing grief and torment fails; Part III is genial almost to the point of incongruity. Part II, the Scherzo, hints at both the anguish of Part I and the resolution of the finale.

The Trauermarsch features two ideas based on the dotted rhythms traditionally associated with funeral marches. Grim, ceremonial fanfares (trumpet) lead to a long, mournful “song of sorrow” in the strings. Along the way, two long episodes greatly intensify the atmosphere of mourning. The second movement (Moving stormily, with the greatest vehemence) revisits the life-and-death struggles of the Trauermarsch in an even more unstable setting, forever being wrenched in new directions, surging up furiously only to collapse in exhaustion. The despairing coda peters away into ghostly sighs and a quiet final tap of the timpani.

The astonishingly novel Scherzo is explicitly Austrian in character, offering dances both rustic and urbane: the opening theme is a homely Ländler, with a fugato appended; later the violins introduce a slower, gentler Viennese waltz. All three ideas crop up unpredictably, invading each other’s territory, ceaselessly varied, fragmented, and distorted, often in dense, harmonically unstable counterpoint—a series of innocent dances eventually becoming a savage Dance of Death.

The tender Adagietto is a kind of “song without words”: in the fall of 1901, Mahler sent the score to Alma Schindler, with whom he had recently fallen in love (they married in March 1902). Contemplative and yearning, the Adagietto introduces a new “tone of voice” into the symphony, underscored by Mahler’s discreet scoring for strings and harp.

The finale is far more ambitious and powerful than its modest title, Rondo, suggests. It opens with a menu of motifs that will subsequently be developed. The main theme (horns) is pastoral; the secondary theme is a gracious, dancing variant of a motif from the Adagietto. Throughout, these themes alternate with dense, fugue-like episodes. Mahler happened to be studying the music of Bach around this time, and the ostentatious displays of academic counterpoint in these episodes suggest that he was having some fun at the expense of those lofty professors who had once questioned his command of counterpoint. Near the end of this good- natured movement, a chorale melody hinted at in the second movement reappears in an affirmative blaze of brass—after which
the work comes quickly to a close with a final display of contrapuntal ingenuity, and a few bars of what sounds suspiciously like raucous laughter.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

John Storgårds, conductor

John Storgårds is a prominent Finnish conductor and violin virtuoso, renowned for his creative programming and refined yet dynamic performances. He currently serves as the Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the Principal Guest Conductor of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. He is also the Artistic Director of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra, a position he has held for over 25 years, where he has gained critical acclaim for the ensemble’s adventurous performances and award-winning recordings.

Storgårds has conducted some of the world’s leading orchestras, including, among others, the Berliner Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Münchner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and London Philharmonic Orchestra as well as all major Nordic orchestras including the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was Chief Conductor from 2008 to 2015. He has collaborated with esteemed soloists such as Yefim Bronfman, Kirill Gerstein, Gil Shaham, Soile Isokoski, and Anne Sofie von Otter, to name a few. His vast repertoire includes all symphonies by Sibelius, Nielsen, Bruckner, Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Schumann, including the Finnish premières of Schumann’s only opera, Genoveva, and the early “Zwickau” Symphony, and world premières of Sibelius’s Suite for Violin and String Orchestra, Op. 117, and the Late Fragments. As soloist, he gave the Finnish première of Schumann’s own violin transcription of the Cello Concerto, as well as the Violin Sonata No. 3.

Storgårds is also known for his embrace of contemporary repertoire, frequently performing world premières and having many works dedicated to him, including Per Nørgård’s Symphony No. 8 and Kaija Saariaho’s Nocturne for Solo Violin. He conducted the world première production of Sebastian Fagerlund’s Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata) at the Finnish National Opera, which was a finalist at the 2018 International Opera Awards and was revived in autumn 2019. Storgårds’s award-winning discography includes recordings of works by Schumann, Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn, as well as rarities by Holmboe and Vasks. He has released two cycles of symphonies by Sibelius and Nielsen, which received critical acclaim, and he has also recorded works by George Antheil, Mahler, and Hans Abrahamsen. Storgårds received the Finnish State Prize for Music in 2002 and the Pro Finlandia Prize in 2012.

Storgårds studied violin with Chaim Taub and served as concertmaster of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen before studying conducting with Jorma Panula and Eri Klas. With his dual career as a conductor and violinist, Storgårds brings a unique perspective to his performances, and his passion for music is evident in his engaging and inspiring interpretations.

Leila Josefowicz, violin

Leila Josefowicz’s passionate and enthusiastic advocacy of contemporary violin music is reflected in her diverse programs. A favourite of living composers, Josefowicz has premièred many concertos, including those by Colin Matthews, Luca Francesconi, John Adams, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Following summer performances at Sun Valley Music Festival and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Josefowicz’s 2022/23 season began with a return to Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra with Susanna Mälkki, and the Austrian première of Matthias Pintscher’s Assonanza with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The 2022/23 season also sees the introduction of Helen Grime’s Violin Concerto into Josefowicz’s repertoire, with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and—as part of a special triple bill of three contemporary concerti by Hartmann, Adès, and Grime—Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Dalia Stasevska. Highlights of recent seasons include working with Berliner Philharmoniker, Tonhalle- Orchester Zürich, Royal Concertgebouworkest, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Oslo Philharmonic, Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, working with conductors such as Matthias Pintscher, John Storgårds, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Louis Langrée, Hannu Lintu, and John Adams.

Josefowicz enjoyed a close working relationship with the late Oliver Knussen, performing various concerti together over 30 times, including his Violin Concerto. Other premières have included John Adams’s Scheherazade.2 with the New York Philharmonic, Luca Francesconi’s Duende. The Dark Notes with Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Steven Mackey’s Beautiful Passing with BBC Philharmonic.

Alongside pianist John Novacek, with whom she has enjoyed a close collaboration since 1985, Josefowicz has performed recitals at world-renowned venues such as New York’s Zankel Hall and Park Avenue Armory; Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress; and London’s Wigmore Hall. This season, their collaboration continues with recitals in Italy, Spain, Canada, and the US.

Josefowicz has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Philips/ Universal, and Warner Classics, and was featured on Touch Press’s acclaimed iPad app, The Orchestra. Her latest recording, released in 2019, features Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Violin Concerto with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu. She has previously received nominations for GRAMMY® Awards for her recordings of Scheherazade.2 with St. Louis Symphony, and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer.

In recognition of her outstanding achievement and excellence
in music, she won the 2018 Avery Fisher Prize and was awarded a
prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2008, joining prominent scientists,
writers, and musicians who have made unique contributions to
contemporary life.

Gustavo Gimeno, conductor
Juan Manuel Cañizares, guitar
Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra
(side by side with the TSO in El amor brujo)
Simon Rivard, TSYO conductor

Francisco Coll
Aqua Cinerea
Canadian Première

Henri Dutilleux
Symphony No. 1
I. Passacaille
II. Scherzo molto vivace
III. Intermezzo
IV. Finale, con variazioni

Intermission

Manuel de Falla/comp. Gustavo Gimeno
Selections from El amor brujo
I. Introducción y escena (Introduction & Scene)
II. En la cueva (In the Cave)
III. El aparecido (The Apparition)
IV. Danza del terror (Dance of Terror)
V. El círculo mágico (The Magic Circle)
VI. Pantomima (Pantomime)
VII. Danza ritual del fuego (Ritual Fire Dance)

Joaquín Rodrigo
Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra
I. Allegro con spirito
II. Adagio
III. Allegro gentile

Maurice Ravel
Boléro

Francisco Coll (b. 1985): Aqua Cinerea

Canadian Première
Composed 2006; revised 2019

10 min

AQUA CINEREA is Francisco Coll’s “opus 1”, the first work he wrote at age 19 when he was studying in his hometown of Valencia. As the work’s program note from Coll’s publisher, Faber Music, describes, the piece’s “ambiguously poetic title, evoking ash-grey water or perhaps even the image of ash falling as rain, is the composer’s own creation.”

“That Coll’s op. 1 should be scored for orchestra, his most-beloved medium, seems fitting,” it continues. “Indeed, many of the characteristics that we now associate with this composer’s mature voice—a tendency to extremes, a fluidity of formal thinking, sudden moments of rhythmic excitement, and a brooding sensuality—are all to be found within its concentrated ten-minute span. Coll’s work is unconventional in a formal sense, felt intuitively rather than planned-out in advance, and its treatment of musical line reflects a strong preoccupation (which continues to this day) with the great polyphonic composers of the Renaissance.”

“Aqua Cinerea was premiered in 2007 by Cristóbal Soler and Orquesta Filarmónica de la Universitat de València, and was pivotal to Coll achieving his first recognition as an artist. When an opportunity to revisit the work presented itself in 2019, Coll realised that all its transitional material was superfluous. He decisively cut these out of the score, preserving the rest very much as he first heard it, with all its colour, mystery, and rawness.”

—Program note and composer bio compiled/edited by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Francisco Coll is described as a composer who “pushes music to extremes” and whose “vivid, often unsettling” works contain “surreal juxtapositions, febrile energy, and echoes of flamenco.” His work has received the advocacy of some of the world’s leading orchestras and ensembles, including the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg (OPL), LA Phil New Music Group, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, and Ensemble Modern. His music has been heard at festivals from Aldeburgh, Aix, and Aspen to the BBC Proms, Verbier, and Tanglewood.

Born in Valencia, Coll studied at the Valencia and Madrid Conservatoires before moving to London to work privately with Thomas Adès as, to date, his only pupil, and with Richard Baker at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. In 2019, he became the first composer to receive an International Classical Music Award (ICMA).

As Music Director of the OPL and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO), Gustavo Gimeno has become one of Coll’s strongest supporters. In 2016, he led the première of the composer’s Mural with the OPL. The OPL also co-commissioned a Violin Concerto (2019) by Coll for violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, which is featured, along with Aqua Cinerea, on an orchestral portrait disc from the OPL and Gimeno on Pentatone, released in 2021. In June 2022, the TSO with Gimeno performed the World Première of Coll’s Elysian, a co-commission with Orquesta de València. The TSO will also give the North American Première of Coll’s Ciudad sin sueño, another co-commission, in February 2024.

Henri Dutilleux (1916–2013): Symphony No. 1

Composed 1951

31 min

HENRI DUTILLEUX, who died in 2013 at age 97, was one of those 20th-century composers who received considerable respect from his peers but never quite made it into classical music’s mainstream, in part because of his individualism and reserve. Paul Griffiths, critic for The New York Times, called him a “moderate modernist”, because he pushed beyond traditional tonality as a descendant of Ravel and Debussy but believed serialists like Pierre Boulez had gone too far.

Never especially prolific, something for which he chided himself, the French composer wrote primarily for the orchestra. Among his best-known works is Tout un monde lointain... (A Whole Distant World...), an atmospheric 1967–70 cello concerto he created for Mstislav Rostropovich. It has gone on to be recorded and performed by other notable soloists and has become something of a staple for the instrument. In 2012, New York Philharmonic musicians chose Dutilleux as the inaugural recipient of the orchestra’s Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music, a $200,000 composer award bestowed every two years.

Written in 1951, when Dutilleux was 35, the Symphony No. 1 was his first full-scale orchestral work. It exhibits many of the traits associated with the composer, including ever-changing textures, inventive harmonies, and brilliant colours. Although written in a classical four-movement form, the half-hour work has a free-flowing, spontaneous feel and a rhythmic verve propelled by an array of percussion, including glockenspiel, vibraphone, and xylophone.

Interestingly, the first movement is a Passacaille (French for “passacaglia”), a form that dates back to the baroque era and consists of a series of variations over a bass line or ostinato. Other 20th-century composers, Anton Webern and Benjamin Britten among them, also made use of this technique. Dutilleux’s distinctive take consists of 35 variations on a motif introduced in the first four bars by the double basses.

The second-movement Scherzo, a thrillingly propulsive tour de force, builds to an explosive climax with its tittering flutes, insistent strings, pounding timpani, and booming brass. It gives way to the slow, reflective if unsettled Intermezzo, with a spare, vaguely dissonant soundscape marked in part by the other-worldly vibraphone and gravelly utterances of the bass clarinet. This third movement employs a technique known as a “reverse variation,” in which the theme only emerges in full after a series of variations.

After a big, dramatic opening, punctuated by outbursts of percussion, including the gong and bass drum, the sprawling, kaleidoscopic, sometimes manic Finale thunders forward with a driving rhythmic kineticism and sometimes disorienting Post-Impressionist harmonies. Eventually, though, this longest of the symphony’s four movements, following a few earlier lyrical respites, begins to calm and finally settles into a quiet, satisfying resolution with poignant oboe and violin solos.

—Program note by Kyle MacMillan

Manuel de Falla (1876–1946) compiled by Gustavo Gimeno: Selections from El amor brujo

Composed 1914 & 1915

15 min

EL AMOR BRUJO (Love, the Magician) is a ballet by Manuel de Falla to a libretto by María de la O Lejárraga García (1874–1974), a Spanish feminist writer, dramatist, translator, and politician, who collaborated closely and extensively with her husband, Gregorio Martínez Sierra; for years the libretto was in fact attributed to him. The two of them came into contact with Manuel de Falla in Paris in 1913 at the request of Falla’s fellow Spanish composer Joaquín Turina who, like Falla, had gone to Paris to study and had become inspired by the music of Debussy and Ravel.

After Falla returned to Madrid, he, Lejárraga, and Sierra collaborated on various projects. For El amor brujo, Falla would play fragments of the score, and Lejárraga would then evoke the emotions of the fragments in words and action. Initially conceived as a gitanería (gypsy piece) for Pastora Imperio, a well-known dancer then at the peak of her popularity, the first version for voice and chamber orchestra was largely unsuccessful. Falla then transformed it into a ballet, retaining three songs for mezzo- soprano (not included in the selections for this performance).

El amor brujo is the story of an Andalusian gypsy woman called Candela. The plot is as convoluted as any opera, but thankfully without the mandatory opera seria unhappy ending. The object of Candela’s current affection is a man named Carmelo, but the ghost of her previous husband continues to haunt her, and she dances every night with the spectre (“Danza del terror”), to the scorn of the whole village.

As the plot thickens, Candela discovers that the ghost that haunts her had, in real life, been unfaithful to her. The “other woman,” Lucía, was not only complicit in his infidelity, but was also, as we discover, the cause of his death. Candela and Carmelo get advice that a ritual dance is necessary to cast the ghost off (“Danza ritual del fuego”), but, no such luck, the ghost will not let go of Candela’s soul. Candela then tricks Lucía into showing up (hinting that she will hook Lucía up with Carmelo). Right on cue, Lucía turns up as the nightly dance begins. Candela slips away from the ghost, and instead Lucía is taken away by her dead lover (“Danza del juego de amor”). Dawn breaks with Candela and Carmelo free to enjoy their love.

All details of plot aside, the work is distinctly folkloric in colour, and contains moments of great originality. The Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra’s audiences have already had the opportunity to hear the work this season, at the TSYO Winter Concert held February 25, at George Weston Recital Hall. In this annual TSO/TSYO side-by-side performance, we get to hear it on a scale that befits its beauty and sweep.

—Program note by David Perlman

Joaquín Rodrigo (1901–1999): Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra

Composed 1939

22 min

BLIND FROM THE AGE OF 3, Joaquín Rodrigo was catapulted to fame, in his late 30s, by the Concierto de Aranjuez, perhaps the most famous concerto, for any instrument, composed in the 20th century. Completed in 1939, around the end of the devastating, three-year-long Spanish Civil War, there seems not a trace of that conflict in this sunny work. Its première in Barcelona, in November of 1940, was a huge success, and the concerto quickly became a bona fide international sensation.

The composer’s wife, the Turkish pianist Victoria Kamhi de Rodrigo, discussed the origins of the concerto in her memoir, Hand in Hand with Joaquín Rodrigo: My Life at the Maestro’s Side. The work, she explains, takes its title from a famous royal site 50 kilometres from Madrid, on the road to Andalusia. “Its author, by placing it in a given location, Aranjuez, wanted to indicate a time: the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, the Courts of Carlos IV and Fernando VII—a subtly stylized atmosphere of majas and toreros, of Spanish sounds returning from America.”

In the concerto, Rodrigo applied a Spanish idiom to a neoclassical conception, with a light touch, ornamenting it with tunefulness, rhythmic dynamism, and orchestral colour, more than by formal ingenuity. The scoring, however, is audacious, considering that the solo instrument, the guitar, is relatively gentle in sonority. The full orchestra is used rarely, and generally with great sensitivity and discrimination— as an “instrumentarium” from which various smaller ensembles can be drawn. The result Program 1 – About the Music is orchestral writing that is busy, colourful, and scintillating, but also wonderfully transparent and pointillistic.

The propulsive first movement opens with quiet, strummed chords, establishing the rhythms and cross-rhythms that give the music its distinctively Spanish, flamenco-like character. The rhythmic momentum sweeps the music along, behind the two expansive melodies that form the basis for the musical development.

The long, melancholy second movement is often likened to a saeta—a Holy Week devotional song associated with all-night religious processions in Seville. For Kamhi de Rodrigo, it was also “an evocation of the happy days of our honeymoon, when we walked in the park at Aranjuez, and at
the same time, it was a love song.” This movement, too, opens with strummed guitar chords, in a minor key, establishing a deep, mournful sonority. The famous principal melody is given out first by the English horn, then taken up by the guitar. Indeed, much of the movement has the guitar set in dialogue with other solo instruments—English horn, bassoon, oboe, trumpet. A long guitar cadenza spurs the orchestra to a fortissimo climax, but the movement ultimately ends quietly, with a sweet, last-minute turn to the major mode.

The finale, according to Kamhi de Rodrigo, evokes “a courtly dance.” The persistent shifts between 2/4 and 3/4 metres set up cross-rhythms even more pronounced than those of the first movement. The rhythmic momentum and the brilliant scoring make for a finale of unrestrained high spirits, though, like the first movement, it finishes with a quiet, charming “throw-away” ending.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937): Boléro

Composed 1928

14 min

BOLÉRO WAS PREMIÈRED AS A BALLET in Paris on November 22, 1928, danced by the Ida Rubinstein Company and conducted by Walther Straram. Earlier that year, dancer Ida Rubinstein had commissioned a new ballet score from Ravel, and he had planned to answer her request with orchestrations of piano music by a composer he admired—the Spaniard Isaac Albéniz. Discovering that the transcription rights had already been spoken for, he decided instead to create an original work with Spanish flavouring. Oddly enough for someone well-versed in Spanish music, he chose as the title a form that bears little relation to the music—the traditional folk dance, the boléro, is a lively step. When friends pointed this out to him, he shrugged and replied, “It’s not important.”

He also used the opportunity to conduct a musical experiment. As he put it, the score would be “uniform throughout in its melody, harmony and rhythm, the latter being tapped out continuously on the drum. The only element of variety is supplied by the orchestral crescendo.” Instrumental colouring plays a major role as well, an area in which Ravel had attained supreme mastery.

His suggestions for the ballet’s setting and choreography involved a factory, a group of workers, and an amorous, eventually murderous rendezvous between one of the women, her jealous lover, and a toreador. Instead, choreographer Bronislava Nijinska set it in a Spanish inn. A woman (Rubinstein) dances alone atop a table surrounded by men. As her steps grow more and more animated, her observers become increasingly excited, eventually pounding the table in rhythm to the music. At the climax, knives are drawn and a brawl breaks out.

After its first, wildly successful ballet performance, Boléro quickly won popularity in the concert hall as well. The whole affair surprised Ravel and also embarrassed him. As composer Arthur Honegger recalled: “Ravel said to me, in that serious, objective manner which was characteristic of him: ‘I’ve written only one masterpiece, Boléro. Unfortunately, there’s no music in it.’”

As to the latter assertion, countless audiences have begged to differ. It may not be wise to hear Boléro too often, but, when everything falls into place, it has the power to mesmerize the senses and quicken the pulse.

—Program note by Don Anderson

Juan Manuel Cañizares, guitar

Guitarist and composer Cañizares is arguably one of the most important and influential flamenco artists worldwide, and he is equally comfortable with classical repertoire and his own compositions.

Cañizares’s career spans over four decades, and he is the first and only flamenco guitarist to have been invited to perform with the Berliner Philharmoniker—along with whom he played the Concierto de Aranjuez under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle in Madrid’s Teatro Real. He has collaborated with the main orchestras worldwide, including Staatskapelle Dresden, NHK Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, and others.

Cañizares has won many prestigious awards, including Premio Nacional de Guitarra (1982), Premio de la Música (2008), Premio Flamenco Hoy (2000, 2011, 2013), and Premio MIN best flamenco album (2019).

For ten years, Cañizares was a close collaborator of Paco de Lucía, and he has also worked with many other leading artists—Enrique Morente, Camarón de la Isla, Joan Manuel Serrat, Alejandro Sanz, Mauricio Sotelo, Leo Brouwer, John Paul Jones, and Peter Gabriel, among others.

Cañizares’s work as a composer includes works for the Spanish National Ballet Company, the music for the Spanish National Artistic Swimming Team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and soundtracks for several movies, including La Lola se va a los puertos with Rocío Jurado and Paco Rabal, and Flamenco and La Jota by Carlos Saura. He has participated in over 100 albums and has published 15 albums as a main artist.

For their special relevance, his three symphonic compositions are worth mentioning: Al-Andalus, a flamenco concerto for guitar and orchestra (commissioned by the OCNE 2016), Concierto Mediterráneo to the memory of Joaquín Rodrigo (commissioned by the OBC 2018), and the Concierto Mozárabe for guitar and orchestra (commissioned for the 40th anniversary of the Cordoba Guitar Festival).

Al-Andalus was dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía and was premièred in the National Auditorium of Madrid under the direction of Josep Pons. In the words of the renowned composer and critic Tomás Marco: “The work was received with universal public acclaim.”

Besides his career as an interpreter, Cañizares spends a great deal of his time investigating and teaching flamenco. Since 2003, he has taught flamenco guitar at the prestigious Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) and he also gives master classes both in Spain and internationally.

Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra

Simon Rivard, TSYO Conductor

For nearly 50 seasons, since its founding under the direction of Victor Feldbrill in 1974, the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra (TSYO) has been dedicated to providing a high-level orchestral experience for talented young musicians aged 22 and under. The tuition-free TSYO program delivers a unique, powerful, and life-enriching opportunity that encourages significant achievement, regardless of participants’ chosen career paths. The TSYO is closely affiliated with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO): TSO musicians serve as coaches through the season, TSO guest artists lead TSYO masterclasses, and the TSYO performs annually with the TSO in a side-by-side concert.

Roster

Violins 

Anna Maria Moubayed
Annika Kho
Brandon Ling
Charlotte Fong
Cynthia Ding
David Duan
Eric Lin
Grace Zhao
Hoi Ching Sung
Ian Fong
Ian Ye
Joelle Crigger
Joshua Lin
June-Kyo Kim
Junia Friesen
Merdeka Korunovski
Nathan Lau
Nicolas Wojtarowicz
Richard Xiong
Riverlynn Lee
Siyeon (Sally) Ahn
Sophia Wang
Tina Sievers
Zoe Lai-Yi Clarke

Violas 

Adria (Yat-Hei) Lai
Angelina Sievers
Daniel Hughes
Lucas Chen
Marija Ivicevic
Mobin Naeini
Omiyo Hossain
Ruby Jackson 
Sofia Moniz
Timothy Maksimenko

Cellos 

Charlie Montgomery-Seto
Chloe Liang
Claire Chu Wang
Emma Tian
Ethan Hyo Jeon
Fay Wang
Jayden Kwon 
Mario Rodriguez McMillan
Matthew Buczkowski
Noah Clarke

Double Basses 

Dean Chen
Emma Chen
Emma Drevnig
Evan Grandage
Evita Lalonde
Nivedita Motiram
Saidy Kim
Wang-Hin (Marcus) Chan

Flutes/Piccolo 

Tyler Evans-Knott
Xudong (Ray) Zheng
Yelin Youn

Oboes 

Aidan Taylor
Chelyn Yoo
Clara Aristanto

Clarinets 

Andrew Neagoe
Jerry Han
Sarah Darragh

Bassoons 

Abigail Minor
Cian Bryson
Kelton Hopper

Horns 

Christopher Fan
Ethan Chialtas
Julia Fowell
Sarah Bell
Taylor Krause

Trumpets 

Andrew Mendis
Elias Doyle
Jayang Kim
Justin Ko

Trombones 

Ethan Whitlow
Ilan Mendel

Bass Trombone 

Ian Tong

Tuba 

Umberto Quattrociocchi

Percussion 

Amiel Lawrence Ang
Daniel Kuhn
Kelsey Choi
Matthew Magocsi
Thomas Carli

Harp 

Chloe Yip
Weiqi (Vicky) Chen

Piano

Irene Huang

STAFF

Ivy Pan, TSYO Manager & Community Assistant 
Nicole Balm, Senior Director of Education & Community Engagement
Pierre Rivard, Education Manager
Angela Sanchez, Education & Community Engagement Coordinator

FACULTY 

Simon Rivard, 
TSYO CONDUCTOR

TSYO Conductor generously supported by the Toronto Symphony Volunteer Committee

Trevor Wilson
RBC RESIDENT CONDUCTOR

Shane Kim
Violin Coach
TSO Violin

Peter Seminovs
Associate Violin Coach
TSO Violin

Theresa Rudolph
Viola Coach
TSO Assistant Principal Viola

Joseph Johnson
Cello Coach
TSO Principal Cello

Tim Dawson
Double Bass Coach
TSO Double Bass

Miles Jaques
Woodwind Coach
TSO Acting Associate Principal Clarinet

Nicholas Hartman
Brass Coach
TSO Horn

Joseph Kelly
Percussion Coach
TSO Percussion/Assistant Principal Timpani

Gustavo Gimeno, conductor
Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello

Brian Harman
Madrigal: Celebration Prelude
TSO100 Commission/World Première

Robert Schumann
Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129
I. Nicht zu schnell (Not too fast)
II. Langsam (Slowly)
III. Sehr lebhaft (Very lively)

Intermission

György Ligeti
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
I. = 40
II. (Lo stesso tempo) = 40

Iman Habibi
Jeder Baum spricht

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67
I. Allegro con brio
II. Andante con moto
III. Scherzo: Allegro
IV. Allegro – Presto

Brian Harman (b. 1981): Madrigal: Celebration Prelude 

TSO100 Commission/World Première
Composed 2022

3 min

In the composer’s words: The Toronto Symphony Orchestra was very important in my development as a composer, and so I’m thrilled to help celebrate their 100th Anniversary. In high school, before I even considered a career as a composer, I regularly commuted from the suburbs to hear the TSO perform all different kinds of music from the cheapest seats in Roy Thomson Hall. These concerts fuelled my passion for classical music of all eras, and taught me so much about orchestration.

In my recent compositions, I have been interested in the quotation and manipulation of diverse musical sources, including both classical and pop music. For this Prelude, I chose to pay homage to a Baroque song for soprano and continuo entitled “Tradimento”, by Barbara Strozzi. “Tradimento” is part of a collection of songs that was published about 360 years ago.

Barbara Strozzi was a composer and virtuoso singer during the 17th century. She wrote mostly secular music, which inspired the title for this piece. Despite not receiving any patronages, and despite low income from her publications, she was one of the most prolific composers of the Baroque period. Her exploration of harmony was daring for its time, and was an inspiration for my work.

Madrigal pays homage to this expressive piece of vocal music about love and betrayal. I take Strozzi’s rich musical material and stretch it, turn it upside down, speed it up, obsess on it, slow it down, exaggerate it, and overall celebrate Strozzi’s wonderful creativity.

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Brian Harman is a composer based in Toronto, Canada. He received his Doctor of Music degree in composition from McGill University in 2012. His mentors include Larysa Kuzmenko, Georges Aperghis, Denys Bouliane, Chan Ka Nin, and Brian Cherney. Brian’s music is frequently inspired by extra-musical ideas such as technology, architecture, dance, and concepts of ritual. He has had various works released on the Redshift and Centrediscs labels, and served as President of the Canadian League of Composers from 2013 to 2016.

While he has also worked with voices and opera, Brian’s most significant compositions have been for large instrumental ensembles. His orchestral work Supposed Spaces was selected to be part of Canada’s 2013 submission to the ISCM’s World New Music Days, and Dialectics, for wind ensemble, brought him to Japan for the Tokyo Kosei

Wind Orchestra Composition Competition. I hit my head and everything changed was also recently commissioned by Toronto’s Esprit Orchestra.

DEDICATION

“I reverently consecrate this first work, which I, as a woman, all too ardently send forth into the light, to the august name of Your Highness, so that under your Oak of Gold it may rest secure from the lightening bolts of slander prepared for it.”

—Barbara Strozzi to Vittoria della Rovere, duchess of Tuscany, in the dedication to Opus 1: barbarastrozzi.com

Robert Schumann (1810–1856): Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129 

Composed 1850

23 min

In the autumn of 1850, Robert and Clara Schumann moved from Dresden to Düsseldorf, where he took up his new position as General Director of Music. One almost immediate product of the move was his “Rhenish” Symphony, No. 3, composed in just over a month in November/December that year and premièred in Düsseldorf early in the new year.

Another work from this fertile time was this concerto, also composed with typical speed. Far from typical, though, was how long it took for the work to be performed. Seeking to improve and polish it, Schumann went over it with several prominent cellists, and as late as 1854, the year it was published, he was still tinkering with details, beset by doubt. Clara had no such doubts, writing in her diary in 1851: “The flight, the freshness and humour, and the highly interesting interweaving of cello and orchestra are, indeed, wholly ravishing!” Even after publication, it took a further six years (two years after his death) for its first public performance. 

It is a beautiful, poetic work, created almost as much with the orchestra in mind as the solo instrument. Schumann himself referred to it as a “konzertstück” (concert piece). It continues two of Schumann’s favoured procedures: the entire piece is performed as a single, uninterrupted whole; and the opening utterances are used as points of departure for lyrical and rhapsodic extensions, as well as the root of all the themes throughout the piece. 

It opens with a brief, gentle orchestral prelude, followed by a lyrical cello theme. A second subject, equally romantic, follows. The movement gains its sense of drama and conflict from the development of these ideas and their interaction with the orchestral theme heard at the start. 

Unusually, there is no solo cadenza at the end of the movement. Instead a quiet transitional passage leads into the slow section, where pizzicato strings introduce a haunting, dream-like song without words, with the theme heard in the opening never far in the background. It is music perfectly suited to the expressive side of the cello’s personality. 

In the passage that links the slow movement to the finale, Schumann recalls the concerto’s prelude, with its three opening chords that lead into the opening cello solo. The last section is the most outgoing portion of the concerto, and its most humorous. The concerto’s only cadenza comes near the end. In a bold, innovative step, the composer has the cadenza performed by the soloist accompanied by the orchestra, rather than only by the soloist. Following the cadenza, soloist and orchestra race merrily to the concluding bars.

—Program note by Don Anderson

György Ligeti (1923–2006): Concerto for Cello and Orchestra 

Composed 1966

16 min

Ligeti is all about disrupting time—about jump cuts, freezes, random samplings, fast forwards. In the first movement of the Cello Concerto, Ligeti respects the tonal symphonic ideal of music that moves steadily and powerfully from beginning to end, but he gets there by other means—in particular, in this case, by so reducing his material that each new note becomes an important necessary event, and by enforcing these harmonic occasions through dynamic changes that are typically either very gradual or else quite sudden. 

The music emerges from silence as a middle-register E on the solo cello marked pppppppp. Slowly the note grows in strength and alters in instrumental colouring for more than a minute and a half before another note, the F above, is established. Then further notes are added, still all within the narrow range of a fifth (D–A), until the pitch space abruptly opens out with a Bb spread across five octaves on the strings. The remaining notes of the chromatic scale are brought into play, and the movement ends with the cello climbing up a ladder of high harmonics, perched six octaves above the double bass, with nothing in between.

For Ligeti, this conclusion is an image of “being alone and lost,” and there is a corresponding image at the end of the second movement, where the cello is left by itself with a “whisper cadenza”. In other ways too, he has suggested, the two movements are related: they are “based on the same blueprint…musical seeds that are sown in the first movement come to full flowering in the second.” What were single notes now become particular kinds of motion: the basic model of the trill can be stretched out and differentiated to produce shapely linear unfolding, or pressed and contained to make mechanical repetition. To adapt a couple of other Ligeti titles, the cloud of the first movement is reinterpreted as a system of melodies and clocks.

In both movements, the cello is only the most active member of an orchestra of soloists. “The whole texture of the music,” Ligeti has remarked, “is constructed in a concerto-like manner,” a two-movement slow-fast pattern, in an uncanny combination of necessity and magic, mechanism and spontaneity. 

—Program note by Paul Griffiths

Editor’s note: This program note has been excerpted from the liner notes to a 1992 Deutsche Grammophon recording of Pierre Boulez conducting the Ensemble intercontemporain in Ligeti’s Cello, Piano, and Violin Concertos. Tonight’s concert soloist, Jean-Guihen Queyras, is the soloist in the Cello Concerto on this disc. Program note © 1994, Paul Griffiths.

Iman Habibi (b. 1985): Jeder Baum spricht 

Composed 2020

5 min

In the composer’s words: Commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra in celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Jeder Baum spricht is an unsettling rhapsodic reflection on the climate catastrophe, and is written in dialogue with Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. The piece shifts focus rapidly, and attempts to achieve its goal time and time again, through different means, only to be faced with similar obstacles.

Like much of Beethoven’s music, this piece accompanies an unspecific narrative and imagery, and offers a vision of hope towards the end—one that I hope can drive our collective will towards immediate impactful change. Beethoven perceived nature as an image of the divine, if not divinity itself. “Jeder Baum spricht durch dich” (every tree speaks through you) is a phrase I encountered in his writings, leading me to wonder how Beethoven, clearly an activist himself, would have responded to today’s environmental crisis.

Given that both the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were likely, at least in some capacity, inspired by nature, I am hoping that Jeder Baum spricht can allow us to listen to these monumental works with a renewed perspective: that is, in light of the climate crisis we live in, and the havoc we continue to wreak on the nature that inspired these classic masterpieces.

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Iman Habibi, DMA (Michigan), is an Iranian-Canadian composer and pianist, and a founding member of the piano duo ensemble Piano Pinnacle. Hailed as “a giant in talent” (the Penticton Herald), Dr. Habibi has been commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and has collaborated with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, JACK Quartet, Chiara String Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, and Calidore String Quartet. He has been programmed by Carnegie Hall, the Marilyn Horne Foundation, New York Festival of Song, the Canadian Opera Company, and Tapestry Opera, among others. 

His awards include being named an Azrieli Music Prize laureate in 2022 and multiple SOCAN Foundation Awards, the International Composers’ Award at the Esoterics’ POLYPHONOS (2012), the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Artist in Music (2011), and the Brehm Prize in Choral Composition (2016), as well as numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario and BC Arts Councils.

ImanHabibi.com

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 

Composed 1807–1808

36 min

The Fifth Symphony may be the most familiar opus in all of classical music, and today it is a struggle to recapture the astonishment with which it was received in Beethoven’s day, or to appreciate how replete with novelties—how radical—it was. In a review of the Fifth Symphony published in 1810, E. T. A. Hoffmann wrote that Beethoven “unlocks the marvellous realm of the infinite,” and “surrenders himself to the inexpressible.” It was a pathetic work, in the old sense of the word—impassioned, full of emotion and pathos. This was no mere pleasant half hour for an early-19th-century audience accustomed to regarding a symphony as public entertainment, but an elevated, edifying, sometimes disturbing, ultimately uplifting musical drama. As Hoffmann noted, a symphony could be philosophical and metaphysical—and reveal a composer’s whole world view.

In all four movements, Beethoven plays fast and loose with Classical conventions, yet his forms are as logical and organic as they are unpredictable. Note, for instance, his near-obsessive developing of the famous da-da-da-daaah four-note motif with which the piece begins (“Thus Fate knocks at the door!” he supposedly described it.) The result is a dense, driven first movement in which tension accumulates steadily and finally explodes in furious convulsions.

The ingenuity of the Fifth extends beyond the individual movements to the structure of the whole: the four movements form a unified cycle in which the confident finale, in radiant C major, is eventually heard as the goal to which the work’s stormy opening bars aspire, resolving and transcending the musical argument of the previous movements. Militaristic episodes in the march-like slow movement look ahead to it, and it is linked back directly to the third movement with a tense, dramatically charged transition. He also inserts a ghostly recollection of the third movement in the middle of the finale, casting a momentary shadow over the prevailing mood.

The massive, often clangorous scoring of the Fifth owed much to “public” music of the French Revolution and to the operas of Gluck, often evoking band music, especially in the finale, which employs several instruments associated with the military: piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombone. It is perhaps no coincidence that, by the time the symphony was completed, in the spring of 1808, Austria was at war with Napoleon’s France, and the music often strikes a militaristic note that surely reflected the patriotic sentiments then sweeping through German-speaking lands.

The Fifth had its première as part of a long, all-Beethoven program, conducted by the composer on December 22, 1808, in a freezing-cold hall and inadequately rehearsed. The concert ran for four hours, and, not surprisingly, the music had a mixed reception. Posterity, to say the least, has been kinder to it.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello

These performances mark TSO Spotlight Artist Jean-Guihen Queyras’s TSO début.

He will return April 26, 28, & 29 with Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme.

Curiosity, diversity, and a firm focus on the music itself characterize the artistic work of Jean-Guihen Queyras. Whether on stage or on record, he is an artist dedicated completely and passionately to the music, committed to reflecting the clear, undistorted essence of the score, with the inner motivations of composer, performer, and audience all in tune with one another. He learned this interpretative approach from Pierre Boulez, whose Ensemble intercontemporain he established a long artistic partnership with. This, alongside a flawless technique and a clear, engaging tone, shapes Jean-Guihen Queyras’s approach to every performance. 

His approaches to early music—as in his collaborations with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin—and to contemporary music are equally thorough. He has given world premières of works by, among others, Ivan Fedele, Gilbert Amy, Bruno Mantovani, Michael Jarrell, Johannes Maria Staud, Thomas Larcher, and Tristan Murail. Conducted by the composer, he recorded Peter Eötvös’s Cello Concerto to mark Eötvös’s 70th birthday in November 2014.

Queyras was a founding member of the Arcanto Quartet and forms a celebrated trio with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov, who is also, alongside Alexandre Tharaud, a regular accompanist. The versatility in his music-making has led to many concert halls, festivals, and orchestras inviting Queyras to be Artist in Residence, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Vredenburg in Utrecht, De Bijloke in Ghent, the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, and Wigmore Hall in London. He also often appears with renowned orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester, and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, working with conductors such as Iván Fischer, Philippe Herreweghe, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, François-Xavier Roth, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Sir Roger Norrington. 

Queyras’s discography is impressive. His recordings of cello concertos by Edward Elgar, Antonín Dvořák, Philippe Schoeller, and Gilbert Amy have been released to critical acclaim. He has recorded the complete Schumann Piano Trios with Faust and Melnikov, and, at the same time, the Schumann Cello Concerto with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under Pablo Heras-Casado. The recording THRACE – Sunday Morning Sessions explores, in collaboration with the Chemirani brothers and Sokratis Sinopoulos, the intersections of contemporary music, improvisation, and Mediterranean traditions. Two highly acclaimed recordings in 2018 feature works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Antonio Vivaldi.

Queyras holds a professorship at the Freiburg University of Music and is Artistic Director of the Rencontres Musicales de Haute-Provence festival in Forcalquier. He plays a 1696 instrument by Gioffredo Cappa, made available to him by the Mécénat Musical Société Générale. 

RELAXED PERFORMANCE 

Saturday,
March 25, 2023
11:00am

Relaxed Performances are designed specifically for people with autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, sensory and communication disorders, learning disabilities, or dementia, or anyone who wants a more relaxed concert experience.

Gimeno Conducts Beethoven 5 Relaxed Performance

Gustavo Gimeno, conductor
Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello

Robert Schumann
Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129
I. Nicht zu schnell (Not too fast)
II. Langsam (Slowly)
III. Sehr lebhaft (Very lively)

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67
I. Allegro con brio
II. Andante con moto
III. Scherzo: Allegro
IV. Allegro – Presto

If you need to move, make some noise, move to the back of the theatre, or take a break in the quiet room, you are welcome to. Please visit the lobby if you’d like to borrow a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, or if you find the performance too bright or too loud. There, you can also pick up a fact sheet that describes each piece of music that the Orchestra will perform today, or scan the QR code below.

Gustavo Gimeno’s appearances are generously supported by Susan Brenninkmeyer in memory of Hans Brenninkmeyer.

Relaxed Performances are generously supported by:
Francine & Bob Barrett
Doris Chan
Equitable Life of Canada
J.P. Bickell Foundation
The Hope Charitable Foundation
Waugh Family Foundation
Anonymous (1)

Lucas Waldin, conductor
Yannick Bisson, host
Jonny Harris, host

Murdoch Mysteries—Murder in F Major
with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra

Robert Carli/orch. Christopher Mayo
Main Theme from Murdoch Mysteries

Robert Carli
The World of Murdoch

Robert Carli
Scoring Murdoch Mysteries: "Flying Plane Sequence"

Antonín Dvořák
Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, No. 8

Robert Carli
Scoring Murdoch Mysteries: "The Accident"

Robert Carli
Unlucky in Love

Otto Nicolai
Overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor

Scott Joplin & Irving Berlin/arr. Robert Wendel
The Original Ragtime Band

Intermission

Henry Wood/arr. George Zalva
"Rule, Britannia!" from Fantasia on British Sea Songs

Robert Carli
Murdoch Mysteries: "Murder in F Major"

About the Concert

The creative partnership that led to this evening’s performance was envisioned years ago by Shaftesbury Chairman & President Christina Jennings, who recognized that there was a crossover audience of orchestral music lovers and Murdoch Mysteries fans. Following pandemicrelated delays, the time to move ahead with this exciting collaboration presented itself, and the creative teams at
the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Shaftesbury, and Murdoch Mysteries worked closely to weave elements of the TSO’s past into the episode, creating a compelling story that reflects the rich history of both early-20th-century Toronto and the early days of the Orchestra. Composer Robert Carli wrote two versions of the episode’s score—one for the TV broadcast and another for this concert, which marks the very first time a primetime television show will première a new, never-before-seen episode in front of a live audience with the accompaniment of a full orchestra. We hope you enjoy “Murder in F Major”.

Episode Synopsis

Murdoch, Ogden, Brackenreid and Margaret are at a reception to celebrate the formation of
Toronto’s new symphony orchestra. Unfortunately, the festivities are shortlived when the maestro, Victor Serrano, is found strangled in his office. Murdoch’s investigation reveals the victim was
keeping a mistress, a secret that apparently wasn’t exactly hidden from his wife. Meanwhile, one of the musicians joining the orchestra, violinist Herbert Block, is a long-ago paramour of Ogden’s. Upon seeing her again, and despite the fact she’s married to Murdoch—and to the detective’s disdain—Block’s passion is rekindled and he lavishes her with unsolicited gifts and attention.

Production Credits

Kristjan Bergey, Technical Director
Simon Miminis, Music Editor
Becca Pellet, Music preparation and Additional
Orchestration
Chris Mayo, Additional Orchestration
Jeremy Mimnaugh, Video Programming

Robert Carli, composer

Robert Carli is a composer, performer and producer. His music has received numerous industry awards and nominations, including, 5 Gemini Awards and 4 Canadian Screen Awards Canadian, and Canadian Folk Music Producer or The Year.

He is completing his 16th season of Shaftesbury Films’ Murdoch Mysteries (CBC), and is about to embark on a new season of the Paramount+ series Skymed. Last fall, he was nominated with
co-composer Lora Bidner for the inaugural Children's and Family Emmy Awards for their score for Ruby and the Well, which began shooting its fourth season earlier this year.

Other credits include scoring the critically-acclaimed documentary Toxic Beauty, Wynonna Earp for SyFy (US), Frankie Drake Mysteries (CBC), Ken Finkleman’s The Education of William
Bowman, and zombie-film pioneer George A Romero's final movie Survival of the Dead.

Rob is also a diverse performer, appearing frequently as saxophonist with various ensembles, including The Toronto Symphony Orchestra, The National Ballet of Canada and National Arts Centre Orchestra. He has taught saxophone at the University of Toronto since 1998.

Lucas Waldin, conductor

Lucas Waldin has delighted audiences across North America with his dynamic and versatile conducting. He has collaborated with some of today’s most exciting artists including Carly Rae Jepsen, Ben Folds, the Canadian Brass, and Buffy Sainte-Marie, along with conducting presentations such as Disney in Concert, Blue Planet Live, Cirque de la Symphony, and the groundbreaking symphonic début of R&B duo Dvsn as part of the global Red Bull Music Festival.

Waldin has been a guest conductor throughout the US and Canada, including with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Grant Park Festival Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Vancouver Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, and the Toronto Symphony.

Resident Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra since 2009, Waldin was subsequently appointed Artist-in-Residence and Community Ambassador—the first such position in North America. He appeared with the ESO over 150 times and conducted in Carnegie Hall during the orchestra’s participation in the 2012 Spring for Music festival. In recognition, he was awarded the Jean-Marie Beaudet Award in Orchestra Conducting, and a Citation Award from the City of Edmonton for outstanding achievements in arts and culture.

A native of Toronto, Canada, Waldin holds degrees in flute and conducting from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Yannick Bisson, host

Yannick Bisson is best known to global audiences for his long-running role as ‘Detective William Murdoch’ on Canada’s most watched drama, Murdoch Mysteries, which is currently filming its 16th Season. With over 60 film and TV credits to his name, Bisson is a multiple award-winning actor, recently starring in films: Anything for Jackson, Another Wolfcop, Casino Jack and Year By The Sea. In 2015 he won the CSA for Best Host in a Pre-School, Children's or Youth Program. In 2016, Bisson won the inaugural CSA Fan Choice Award and in 2017, Bisson was honoured with the ACTRA Award of Excellence for his outstanding contributions to the industry. He can also be found behind the camera directing on such upcoming projects as Baking All The Way for Lifetime.

A dedicated humanitarian who has made meaningful connections to several philanthropic organizations, Bisson is involved with Artists for Peace and Justice, which funds a middle and high school in Haiti; Boost for Kids and Childhood Cancer Canada. A Montreal-native currently residing in Toronto and Los Angeles, Bisson is married to author and producer, Shantelle Bisson, and raising three daughters, Brianna, Dominique and Mikaela.

Jonny Harris, host

Born and raised in Pouch Cove, Newfoundland, Jonny Harris has appeared regularly at The Halifax Comedy Festival, The Winnipeg Comedy Festival, and on CBC Radio’s The Debaters. He has appeared as both a stand-up and sketch comic at Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival. He has been a staff writer for the award-winning This Hour has 22 Minutes and was a contributing writer and star of Mary Walsh’s Hatching, Matching and Dispatching. Jonny is a member of St. John’s sketch comedy troupe ‘The Dance Party of Newfoundland’, winners of the 2007 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival’s ‘Best of the Fest’ award. Harris did a more dramatic turn for the dark indie film Grown Up Movie Star, with which he attended the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. His stand-up special for Comedy Now! earned a Canadian Screen Award nomination.

He currently plays Constable George Crabtree on CBC’s Murdoch Mysteries, for which he has garnered two Gemini nominations and a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Dramatic Series. He also is a writer, producer and host for CBC’s Still Standing, for which he has won 8 Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Host in a Factual Program/Series in 2017 and 2019. The show started airing its eighth season in the winter of 2023.

Dedication

One week after my sister Nathalie’s murder in September 2015, my wife and I met with Daphne Burt and Stefani Truant at the NAC Orchestra to discuss the development of a new musical work that would both commemorate Nathalie and address the worldwide epidemic of gender-based violence. They, along with Alexander Shelley, have championed Songs for Murdered Sisters from the very beginning. I am indebted to them and the entire team at NACO for making this vision a reality. 

For years, I found myself feeling numb about Nathalie’s murder—it was something too shocking to comprehend. But since receiving Margaret’s haunting words and then Jake’s gorgeous music, I have shed countless tears. The words and music, in their own separate ways and woven together, have opened a portal to my heart, connecting me to complicated emotions that had lain dormant. This work has provided meaning for me, transforming my grief into something palpable.

I hope these songs awaken the hearts of those who may not yet recognize this epidemic. If this work can motivate someone to do their part, take action, and perhaps save someone from a similar plight, then I may truly hope to honour my sister’s memory. Please visit songsformurderedsisters.com to see how you can help.

This song cycle is dedicated to Nathalie Warmerdam, Carol Culleton, and Anastasia Kuzyk—and the countless sisters who have been taken over the years.

—Joshua Hopkins

NACO: Heggie & Atwood + Brahms 

Alexander Shelley, conductor
Joshua Hopkins, baritone
National Arts Centre Orchestra, guest orchestra

Emilie Mayer
Faust-Overture, Op. 46

Jake Heggie/text by Margaret Atwood
Songs for Murdered Sisters
NACO Co-commission 
I. Empty Chair
II. Enchantment
III. Anger
IV. Dream
V. Bird Soul
VI. Lost
VII. Rage
VIII. Coda: Song

Intermission

Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Andante moderato
III. Allegro giocoso
IV. Allegro energico e passionato

A Work Jointly Commissioned by Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Houston Grand Opera.

Piano and Voice Premiere [March 8, 2022] at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.

Orchestra and Voice Premiere [February 9-10, 2023] in Southam Hall, at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada.

Poems by Margaret Atwood © (Based on the original poems by Margaret Atwood © Margaret Atwood 2020).

Margaret Atwood’s poem Songs for Murdered Sisters is from the collection Dearly, published by HarperCollins US, Penguin Random House UK and Penguin Random House Canada. Dearly is published in French by Editions Robert Laffont.

The score for Songs for Murdered Sisters is published by Bent Pen Music, Inc. (“Bent P Music” BMI) Represented by Bill Holab Music (www.billholabmusic.com) All rights reserved.

On behalf of the NAC Orchestra, a very warm welcome to tonight’s concert, in which we juxtapose a daring and powerfully emotional symphony from 1885 with a profound and beautiful new commission from our own time.

Brahms’s Fourth (and final) Symphony is, as is so often the case with this extraordinary composer, a stunning example of formal precision and efficiency leading to blistering emotional impact. It underscores how our sense of beauty is so inextricably linked with underlying structural rigour—at once intensely human, but constantly operating on a parallel, more veiled, metaphysical plane. It is a privilege to conduct a work like this.

It is a similar privilege to tonight be premièring a new work by Jake Heggie and Margaret Atwood. Commissioning and performing new music stands at the heart of what we do at Canada’s National Arts Centre and this piece demonstrates the power and importance of this medium as a conduit for the stories and experiences of our time. 

Joshua Hopkins’s prefatory words effectively introduce Songs for Murdered Sisters. I would like to add only this: we are indebted to him for his trust, for asking us to walk alongside him on this journey, and for finding some means of translating a senseless, brutal act into a work of art that might move, awaken, and transform. 

Thank you for being with us.

Alexander Shelley, Music Director 
NAC Orchestra

Emilie Mayer (1812–1883): Faust-Overture, Op. 46 

Published 1880

12 min

Many concertgoers can cite Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann as representative women composers of the 19th century. Another name to add to this list is that of Emilie Mayer, whose lifespan almost exactly matched that of Wagner. Mayer was born in a small town in the extreme northeast of Germany, went to neighbouring Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) to study with Carl Loewe, and in 1847 moved to Berlin to study with Adolf Bernhard Marx and Wilhelm Wieprecht.

Her music was played and published throughout her lifetime, though often at her own expense. What sets Mayer apart from most other women composers of the time is the sheer size and breadth of her catalogue: eight symphonies, 15 concert overtures, 12 cello sonatas, nine violin sonatas, seven piano trios, an opera, songs, piano music, and more. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians calls her “the most prolific German woman composer of the Romantic period.” Following her death, Mayer’s music fell into obscurity; only in recent years has some of it resurfaced and been recorded.

Mayer’s Faust-Overture was published in Stettin. In mood and style it much resembles Schumann’s Manfred Overture, whose subject is a restless, troubled soul. The slow introduction (Adagio) probably is meant to depict Faust alone in his study. The score’s sole programmatic indication comes near the end, where the words “Sie ist gerettet” ("She [Margaret] is saved") appear at the point where the music moves from B minor to B major. Formally, the main Allegro section of the overture is laid out in modified sonata form, with a first subject in the minor mode and a secondary one in the major. The coda returns to the minor mode up to the point where Margaret is “saved,” where B major once again prevails to the triumphant end.

—Program note by Robert Markow

Jake Heggie/text by Margaret Atwood: Songs for Murdered Sisters 

Composed 2021

25 min

On September 22, 2015, three women in Renfrew County, Ontario, were murdered in their respective homes by a man with whom each had had a relationship. One of the victims of this shocking crime spree, now recognized as one of the worst cases of domestic violence in Canadian history, was Nathalie Warmerdam, beloved sister of baritone Joshua Hopkins.

In grappling with his grief, Hopkins conceived of the song cycle that became Songs for Murdered Sisters, co-commissioned for Hopkins by the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Houston Grand Opera. It was released first as a film, with the Houston Grand Opera, and then as an album with the composer at the piano. The work’s orchestral première was two nights ago in the National Arts Centre’s Southam Hall in Ottawa.

Composer Jake Heggie describes the interweave of the words and music in the eight songs:

“In Empty Chair, fragile harmonies bring to mind a music box now silenced—a warmth and presence now flown—nothing left now, just emptiness and air. In Enchantment the music swirls and sparkles with imagination and wit as the singer tries to imagine her absence as something magical and mysterious, but is ultimately haunted and pulled back to reality. In Anger, stark, timeless, dark chords grow louder as his sister innocently opens the door to the ‘red anger’ of the man who murdered her. In Dream, a melancholy, distant tune is suspended in a cloud of delicate harmonies as the singer dreams about his sister, both of them young, until she tells him she has to go, and truth once again comes crashing in. 

“In Bird Soul he looks to the sky for answers as to where his sister’s soul might be. The music evokes bird song as it sparkles, dips and soars, echoing the emotional quest. In Lost he contemplates the countless women murdered by angry, jealous, fearful men over thousands of years. ‘So many sisters lost’—the chords echo this timeless sorrowful repetition. Rage follows, with a haunted wind seeming to sigh through the brass, percussion, and the lowest strings of the harp, nearly boiling over as the singer contemplates killing the man who killed her, then suddenly blossoming and flowing with new warmth and beauty when he wonders if the ghost of his sister might ask ‘Would you instead forgive?’ Coda: Song then offers a simple tune that brings comfort as the singer realizes that when he breathes and sings, his sister is with him. He hums. The air vibrates. The eternal ohm.”

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Composer Jake Heggie (b. 1961) is “arguably the world’s most popular 21st-century opera and art song composer” (The Wall Street Journal). He is best known for his opera Dead Man Walking, described as “the most celebrated American opera of the 21st century” (Chicago Tribune), and widely acclaimed for Moby-Dick, It’s a Wonderful Life, Three Decembers, Two Remain, and If I Were You. He is currently at work on his tenth full-length opera, Intelligence, with Jawole Zollar and Gene Scheer. The operas and his nearly 300 art songs have been performed extensively on five continents, championed by some of the world’s most beloved artists.

Songs for Murdered Sisters

Margaret Atwood

I. Empty Chair

Who was my sister
Is now an empty chair

Is no longer,
Is no longer there

She is now emptiness
She is now air

II. Enchantment

If this were a story
I was telling my sister

A troll from the mountain
Would have stolen her

Or else a twisted magician
Turned her to stone

Or locked her in a tower
Or hidden her deep inside a golden flower

I would have to travel
West of the moon, east of the sun

To find the answer;
I’d speak the charm

And she’d be standing there
Alive and happy, come to no harm

But this is not a story.
Not that kind of story….

III.  Anger

Anger is red
The colour of spilled blood

He was all anger,
The man you tried to love

You opened the door
And death was standing there

Red death, red anger
Anger at you

For being so alive
And not destroyed by fear

What do you want? you said.
Red was the answer.

IV. Dream

When I sleep you appear
I am a child then
And you are young and still my sister

And it is summer;
I don’t know the future,
Not in my dream

I’m going away, you tell me
On a long journey.
I have to go away.

No, stay, I call to you
As you grow smaller:
Stay here with me and play!

But suddenly I’m older
And it’s cold and moonless
And it is winter…

V. Bird Soul

If birds are human souls
What bird are you?
A spring bird with a joyful song?
A high flyer?

Are you an evening bird
Watching the moon
Singing Alone, Alone,
Singing Dead Too Soon?

Are you an owl,
Soft-feathered predator?
Are you hunting, restlessly hunting
The soul of your murderer?

I know you are not a bird,
Though I know you’ve flown
So far, so far away..
I need you to be somewhere…

VI. Lost

So many sisters lost
So many lost sisters

Over the years, thousands of years
So many sent away

Too soon into the night
By men who thought they had the right

Rage and hatred
Jealousy and fear

So many sisters killed
Over the years, thousands of years

Killed by fearful men
Who wanted to be taller

Over the years, thousands of years
So many sisters lost

So many tears

VII.  Rage

I was too late,
Too late to save you.

I feel the rage and pain
In my own fingers,

In my own hands
I feel the red command

To kill the man who killed you:
That would be only fair:

Him stopped, him nevermore,
In fragments on the floor,

Him shattered.
Why should he still be here

And not you?
Is that what you wish me to do,

Ghost of my sister?
Or would you let him live?

Would you instead forgive?

VIII.  Coda: Song

If you were a song
What song would you be?

Would you be the voice that sings,
Would you be the music?

When I am singing this song for you
You are not empty air

You are here,
One breath and then another:

You are here with me…

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 50 books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the Maddaddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number-one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry in a decade, followed in 2022 with Burning Questions, a selection of essays from 2004 to 2021. Her next collection of short stories, Old Babes in the Wood, will be published in March 2023. Atwood has won numerous awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright, and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897): Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98 

Composed 1884 & 1885

43 min

Austrian critic and Brahms champion Eduard Hanslick first heard the opening movement of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 as a piano arrangement performed by the composer and a friend and memorably commented, “I feel I’ve just been beaten up by two terribly intelligent people.” To be sure, the Fourth Symphony is highly intellectual: creatively synthesizing Classical four-movement structure, Baroque music processes, and the Romantic era’s harmonic language and principles of motivic development and unity. At the same time, it is passionate, encompassing anguish and tender warmth within its tightly wrought fusion of form and technique.

Brahms wrote the Fourth over two summers, in 1884 and 1885. On October 25, 1885, he conducted the Meiningen Court Orchestra in the première and on tour across Germany and the Netherlands. Since then, the work has been considered the crowning achievement of Brahms’s symphonic output.

A defining feature of the Symphony is the near-constant use of thematic variation. In the E-minor first movement, the opening melody—a descending sequence of falling and rising motifs—undergoes varied treatment throughout. Similarly, a woodwind fanfare, which precedes a soaring second theme in the cellos and French horns, combines with a sinewy motif in the strings to dramatic effect at the beginning of the recapitulation.

The E-major Andante moderato features three themes in the first half of the movement that are reprised in the second half, having undergone both development and emotional intensification. Listen for the stern second theme building to a forceful climax, after which the third theme, played “sweetly” before, now soars to passionate heights. 

The third movement is a stirring dance in C major consisting of two melodies—the first vigorous and stamping, the second graceful and delicate. Variation technique is then directly in the spotlight for the E-minor finale, in the form of a Baroque passacaglia spinning out 30 variations, in seven sections, on an eight-note theme— Brahms’s adaptation of the rising bass line from J.S. Bach’s Cantata No. 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich (For Thee, O Lord, I long). Woodwinds and brass present the theme. Variations 1 to 3 lead into a noble, impassioned melody (variation 4), which receives increasingly energetic treatment in variations 5 to 9. Variations 10 and 11 bring us to the movement’s quiet centre. Solo flute, clarinet, oboe, and trombones maintain that quiet through variations 12 to 15. The original theme then bursts in again. From variations 17 to 21, the tension mounts, peaking with rushing strings at variation 21. Variations 22 to 26 explore triplet patterns; 27 to 30, “descending thirds” (referencing the first movement’s opening melody). At the start of the coda, the original theme makes its final appearance, now urgent and intense. After reaching a final climax, the music relentlessly drives forward to the end.

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Alexander Shelley, conductor

Alexander Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s NAC Orchestra in September 2015. The ensemble has since been praised as being “transformed…hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen) and Shelley’s programming credited for turning the orchestra into “one of the more audacious in North America” (Maclean’s).

Shelley is a champion of Canadian creation; recent hallmarks include multimedia projects Life Reflected and UNDISRUPTED, and three major new ballets in partnership with NAC Dance for ENCOUNT3RS. He is passionate about arts education and nurturing the next generation of musicians. He is an Ambassador for Ottawa’s OrKidstra, a charitable social-development program that teaches children life skills through making music together.

Alexander Shelley is also the Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In the spring of 2019, he led the NAC Orchestra on its critically acclaimed 50th Anniversary European Tour, and, in 2017, he led the Orchestra in a tour across Canada, celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary. Most recently, he led the Orchestra in its first performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 30 years.

He has made six recordings with the NAC Orchestra, including the JUNO-nominated New Worlds, Life Reflected, ENCOUNT3RS, The Bounds of Our Dreams, Darlings of the Muses, and Lyrical Echoes, all with Montreal label Analekta.

Joshua Hopkins, baritone

Known as one of the finest singer-actors of his generation, JUNO Award–winning and GRAMMY®-nominated Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins has been hailed by Opera Today as having “a glistening, malleable baritone of exceptional beauty, and the technique to exploit its full range of expressive possibilities from comic bluster to melting beauty.” Having established himself as a prominent leading artist throughout the US and Canada, Hopkins appears regularly at The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Washington National Opera, amongst many others. On the concert platform, he has appeared with many orchestras in North America, including the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony.

Profoundly committed to the art of song, Hopkins's first recital disc, Let Beauty Awake, features songs of Barber, Bowles, Glick, and Vaughan Williams on the ATMA Classique label. He has won numerous awards and distinctions including, most recently, a JUNO Award for his portrayal of Athanaël in the Chandos recording of Massenet’s Thaïs in concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.

Joshua Hopkins's most personal work, Songs for Murdered Sisters, is a song cycle by composer Jake Heggie and author Margaret Atwood, conceived by Hopkins in remembrance of his sister, Nathalie Warmerdam. joshuahopkins.com

National Arts Centre Orchestra

Alexander Shelley, Music Director
John Storgårds, Principal Guest Conductor
Jack Everly, Principal Pops Conductor 
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, Principal Youth Conductor and Creative Partner
Pinchas Zukerman, Conductor Emeritus

First Violins

Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster)
Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster)
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster)
Jeremy Mastrangelo
Marjolaine Lambert
Emily Westell
Manuela Milani
Emily Kruspe
Erica Miller*
Martine Dubé*
Renée London*
Oleg Chelpanov*

Second Violins

Mintje van Lier (principal)
Winston Webber
(assistant principal)
Leah Roseman
Carissa Klopoushak
Frédéric Moisan
Zhengdong Liang
Karoly Sziladi
Mark Friedman
Edvard Skerjanc**
Andréa Armijo Fortin*
Heather Schnarr*

Violas

Jethro Marks (principal)
David Marks (associate principal)
David Goldblatt (assistant principal)
David Thies-Thompson
Paul Casey
Tovin Allers*
Sonya Probst*

Cellos

Rachel Mercer (principal)
Julia MacLaine (assistant principal)**
Timothy McCoy
Leah Wyber
Marc-André Riberdy
Karen Kang*
Desiree Abbey*
Daniel Parker*

Double basses

Joel Quarrington (guest principal)* 
Max Cardilli (assistant principal)
Vincent Gendron
Marjolaine Fournier
Paul Mach*
Hilda Cowie**

Flutes

Joanna G'froerer (principal)
Stephanie Morin 

Oboes

Charles Hamann (principal)
Anna Petersen 

English Horn

Anna Petersen

Clarinets

Kimball Sykes (principal)
Sean Rice 

Bassoons

Darren Hicks (principal)
Vincent Parizeau

Horns

Lawrence Vine (principal)
Julie Fauteux (associate principal)
Elizabeth Simpson
Lauren Anker
Louis-Pierre Bergeron

Trumpets

Karen Donnelly (principal)
Steven van Gulik 

Trombones

Peter Sullivan (guest principal)*
Colin Traquair

Tuba

Chris Lee (principal)

Timpani

Michael Kemp (guest principal)* 

Percussion

Jonathan Wade
Louis Pino* 

Harp

Angela Schwarzkopf*

Principal Librarian

Nancy Elbeck 

Assistant Librarian

Corey Rempel

Personnel Manager

Meiko Lydall

Assistant Personnel Manager

Laurie Shannon

*Additional musicians
**On Leave

National Arts Centre Orchestra

Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra is a world-class ensemble of outstanding classical musicians from across Canada and around the world, under the inspiring leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley. Formed in 1969, the NAC Orchestra gives over 100 performances a year in Ottawa, and across Canada and the globe, working with diverse artists of international renown, and reaching a wide audience through livestreams, recordings, and extensive education outreach.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Orchestra and Alexander Shelley were active in online teaching and in concert livestreams, enthusiastically championing the work of young Canadian artists, and the music of diverse composers from Canada and abroad.

The Orchestra breaks boundaries with its regular commissions of new creations including the critically acclaimed Life Reflected (2016) and UNDISRUPTED (2021). Its commissions and recordings have won JUNO Awards, Canada’s highest honour in music, for best new classical compositions in 2018 and 2019. The Orchestra has a rich touring history, including its long-awaited return to Carnegie Hall in April 2022, and in recent years has travelled to the UK, to Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and China, and across Canada.

White Ribbon Campaign

White Ribbon calls on all men and boys to be allies in ending gender-based violence and promoting gender equality. We invite you to take the White Ribbon pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about all forms of gender-based violence, and find out how you can make a difference.

NAC Acknowledgements

The National Arts Centre Foundation would like to thank Mark Motors Group, Official Car of the NAC Orchestra, and the Janice & Earle O’Born Fund for Artistic Excellence. The NAC Orchestra Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., O.N.L., LL.D (hc).

Sir Andrew Davis, conductor
Louis Lortie, piano

Alban Berg/orch. Sir Andrew Davis
Piano Sonata, Op. 1

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro assai

Intermission

Sergei Rachmaninoff/orch. Rachmaninoff
Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14

Sergei Rachmaninoff
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45
I. Non allegro
II. Andante con moto (Tempo di valse)
III. Lento assai – Allegro vivace

The February 24 performance is generously supported by the Estate of Thomas Charles Logan.

The February 25 performance is generously supported by the Holdbest Foundation.

The TSO Chamber Soloists 

Louis Lortie, piano (special guest)
Clare Semes, violin
Yolanda Bruno, violin
Rémi Pelletier, viola
Emmanuelle Beaulieu Bergeron, cello

Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:45pm in Roy Thomson Hall

Alban Berg (1885–1935)
Piano Sonata, Op. 1

Anton von Webern (1883–1945)
Langsamer Satz

Alban Berg (1885–1935) orch. Sir Andrew Davis: Piano Sonata, Op. 1 

Composed 1909

12 min

Alban Berg’s Piano Sonata, Op. 1, started life as one of a series of ten or so practice pieces that he composed while studying with Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna between 1904 and 1911. He had come to Schoenberg in the autumn of 1904, at first, to take lessons in counterpoint and harmony, then, from autumn 1907, to receive instruction in composition. According to Berg biographer Hans Ferdinand Redlich (quoted in the preface to the G. Henle Verlag publication of the urtext of the sonata), Berg originally intended it to be “a multi-movement work, followed by a slow movement and a finale. But for a long time he lacked any useful ideas.” Berg later recalled Schoenberg’s response: “Well then, you’ve said all there was to say.” Appropriately enough, it was the only one of the practice pieces to which Berg gave an opus number—perhaps an indication that Berg himself saw it as a rite of passage, marking the end of his apprenticeship.

As a solo-piano sonata it has stood the test of time, recorded by Canadian piano greats Glenn Gould and Marc-André Hamelin among others. Orchestrated, it takes on a new life. “Berg’s lush, hyper-Romantic early Piano Sonata is an emotional macrocosm in miniature,” is how BBC Radio 3 describes it, in the programming announcement for a February 2022 concert broadcast live from London’s Barbican Centre, celebrating “50 years of collaboration between the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Laureate Sir Andrew Davis.” (That concert, incidentally, featured three of the four works on tonight’s program—the Berg sonata in Davis’s orchestration, and the same two works by Rachmaninoff.)

The Davis orchestration was not the first. In 2005, the TSO, led by Peter Oundjian, performed a 1984 version by Dutch composer Theo Verbey. But, as Davis observes in the liner notes to the 2022 Chandos-released recording of the February 2022 concert, “earlier versions had not really evoked the Viennese sound world of Mahler, Schoenberg, Zemlinsky, and Schreker that Berg inhabited at that time.”

As mentioned previously, the work is not in classical sonata form. As the Wikipedia entry on the sonata succinctly describes it: “It consists of a single movement, centred in the key of B minor but making frequent use of chromaticism, whole-tone scales, and wandering key centres, giving the tonality a very unstable feel, which only resolves in the final few bars. [It] also relies heavily on Schoenberg's idea of ‘developing variation’, [where] all aspects of a composition [derive] from a single idea. In this case, much of the composition can be traced back to the two opening gestures.”

—Program note by David S. Perlman

“Together with his primary teacher Arnold Schönberg and Anton Webern, Alban Berg belongs to the Second Viennese School, which defined musical advancement through atonality and the twelve-tone technique. Berg’s pupil Theodore Adorno once said, ‘Whoever is seriously trying to comprehend Berg’s music should closely apply themselves to the eleven-page piano sonata’. It is tempting to enlarge upon this statement: Whoever is trying to get to grips with New Music will not be able to avoid Berg’s opus 1.” 

—G. Henle Verlag, music publisher

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791): Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488 

Composed 1784–1786

27 min

Mozart was one of the greatest—if not the greatest—of all composers of concertos, which is an ability that requires several skills.

One is a complete understanding of instruments’ technical capabilities, not only on the part of the featured concerto soloist but also every member of the accompanying orchestra. Does the solo instrument sound more effective in some parts of its range than others? Does it blend better with strings or with woodwinds? Can it play loud enough to be heard together with an orchestra that includes trombones? How long can it hold a note? Can it articulate many short notes at a fast tempo—and so on.

On another, perhaps more elusive front, a composer must truly get inside the solo instrument’s expressive personality. What sorts of themes suit its tone colour? Is it more effective at communicating low or high spirits? In what kinds of music will it sound out of place?

From early on (he composed the insightful Bassoon Concerto, K. 191, when he was 18), Mozart demonstrated that meeting all these challenges came naturally to him. It didn’t matter what the solo instrument was (he composed outstanding concertos for piano, violin, viola, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and harp) or whether he played it professionally—the result was always eloquent and supremely natural.

He also developed another ability that is vital to the effective creation of both concertos and operas: a profound grasp of how to create effective dialogue between music makers, be they singers in an opera, or a concerto soloist and the accompanying orchestra. By the time he composed the concerto you will hear on this program, he had honed all these abilities to a diamond-bright lustre.

Even by his standards, the winter and spring of 1785/86 was a period of amazing creative activity. In addition to this Piano Concerto, he composed two others (the jovial, expansive No. 22 and the defiant, poignant No. 24); a one-act stage farce, The Impresario; the Masonic Funeral Music; a host of brief chamber, solo, and vocal works; and his masterpiece of comic opera, The Marriage of Figaro. 

This concerto opens in leisurely fashion, with the orchestra presenting the movement’s principal materials. The soloist then treats them with a winning mixture of elegance and delicious flights of fancy. With only the briefest of digressions, the mood of the opening movement is utterly contented. The atmosphere changes radically in the Adagio slow movement, one of Mozart’s most poignant creations. The piano leads off, introducing a main theme in the rhythm of a siciliano (a dance in slow 6/8 or 12/8 time, not amenable to passionate outbursts). Just the same, Mozart sets forth the depths of his despair in most telling fashion. The finale that follows then brings back the sun, more welcome than ever in the wake of the dark Adagio.

—Program note by Don Anderson

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) orch. Rachmaninoff: Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14

Composed 1915

7 min

Unlike Alban Berg’s Piano Sonata, performed earlier in this concert, Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise was orchestrated by the composer himself almost at the same time as the version for piano and voice/solo instrument. Conventional wisdom has it that Rachmaninoff decided to orchestrate it for soloist plus orchestra right after hearing it in recital for the first time. To the contrary, the official première of Vocalise took place, with orchestra, in Moscow in January 1916, performed by soprano Antonina Nezhdanova for whom Rachmaninoff had composed the work. There is also evidence that Serge Koussevitzky, who conducted the January 1916 concert, had previewed it in a December 1915 concert. As G. Henle Verlag describes it in their urtext edition of the work, “Koussevitzky, who was also a legendary double-bass virtuoso, played it in an instrumental arrangement for double bass and orchestra…most certainly with the approval of the composer who was close to Koussevitzky.” Rachmaninoff himself may even have given Koussevitzky the idea: at the end of a social evening at the Koussevitzky home early in September 1915, Rachmaninoff played the work, still underway, on the piano. 

The title of the work is a clue to its infinite adaptability. As originally conceived, it contains no words. It is to be sung, Rachmaninoff stipulated, using only one vowel of the singer’s choosing. It was not a large step from there to substitute solo instruments for the vox humana vocal line. From Koussevitzky’s double bass to Nezhdanova’s soprano, and on, there are arrangements for just about every instrument in the string, winds, and brass sections of the orchestra. There are also arrangements for choir and orchestra, jazz ensemble, organ, guitar, saxophone, theremin, electronic instruments, and cello with voice (Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma). In the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s own archive, the first listed appearance of the work is perhaps the most intriguing: a 1947 Pops concert, with Ettore Mazzoleni conducting, and John Sebastian, harmonica, listed as soloist. (A close second would be a 1981 performance conducted by Danish-American comedian, pianist, and conductor Victor Borge.) 

In the orchestral arrangement you will hear in this concert, there is no soloist. Instead, if past practice here is anything to go by (most recently in 2012), the vocal line will very likely dwell with the first violins. 

—Program note by David S. Perlman

“Of the four most famous opera singers born in 1873—Nezhdanova, Enrico Caruso, Leo Slezak and Feodor Chaliapin—Antonina Nezhdanova was the longest-lived as well as having the longest career, giving her last performance in 1943 and surviving to the age of 77. She was also known in the West only through her recordings. But what recordings! Her voice was so full of overtones that even with the restrictive frequency range of acoustic recordings, one could hear it ring out and reverberate as if they were made with a microphone.”

—Nimbus Records

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943): Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 

Composed 1940

33 min

Rachmaninoff composed the Symphonic Dances in the summer and fall of 1940, having recently fled to the US to escape the escalating war in Europe. His original title for the set was Fantastic Dances, and the three movements once bore descriptive labels: “Noon”, “Twilight”, and “Midnight”. In the end, he gave the work generic titles and refused to explain its meaning. The première was in January of 1941, with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormand. The music was coolly received; few critics showed much interest (one called it “a rehash of old tricks”), and indeed the Symphonic Dances were long misunderstood and neglected.

The work is rhythmically animated (he originally wanted it choreographed as a ballet) and truly symphonic in style, proportions, and sonority, with melodies that could only be Rachmaninoff’s. Yet it is less opulently Romantic than his earlier music: it has the leanness, discrimination, and occasional weirdness typical of his late orchestral style.

The driving first movement unfolds with grim determination. It begins with a grotesque, sarcastic march, which is subjected to intense development before dissolving into a more tranquil middle section, with a long, elegiac melody introduced by an alto saxophone—new to Rachmaninoff’s orchestra. (Some hear Russian folk music here.) The march returns, but the movement ends peacefully, with a quotation from Rachmaninoff’s own First Symphony (a theme derived from Russian church music). That symphony—disastrously premièred in 1897, and long withdrawn—was almost unknown in 1940, so the quotation obviously had some purely personal meaning.

The second movement is a dark valse triste—a heavily stylized parody of the Viennese waltz, at once nostalgic and sarcastic, sensual and sinister. Traditional waltz lilt is compromised by complex, unsettling rhythms; the melodies are bittersweet; strange harmonies create an atmosphere of unease and anxiety; there are touches of the grotesque, like the sneering brass fanfare at the start. The movement builds to an almost hysterical climax only to vanish as if into shadows.

The finale is the shortest but most fantastical movement—dark, morbid, sardonic, full of demonic energy, with pounding strings, ominous brass, and squealing woodwinds. Rachmaninoff draws on two favourite sources of inspiration: chants of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the “Dies irae”, the Gregorian chant for the dead. The middle section is more soulful and lyrical, though melancholy, sometimes eerie. The opening “dance of death” returns and reaches a furious climax, but just before the end, Rachmaninoff introduces the Orthodox chant “Blessed be the Lord”. Again, his meaning seems to have been private (perhaps a recognition of God’s ultimate triumph over death?). 

“I thank thee, Lord,” he wrote at the end of his score, and the words were sadly apt, for this would be his last original composition. 

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Sir Andrew Davis made his TSO début in 1974, and was appointed as the Orchestra’s sixth Music Director in 1975, a position he held until 1988, returning as Interim Artistic Director from 2017 to 2020, during the search for a Music Director to succeed Peter Oundjian.

Louis Lortie made his TSO début on January 10, 1978, at age 18, with Andrew Davis conducting, in the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1, just before they embarked together on the TSO’s groundbreaking 1978 trip to China, with Lortie performing the same work on tour. 

Those early concerts mark the beginning of a chain of TSO performances by the two artists together (16 engagements between 1979 and 2019), including a reprise of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in May 2015—in a concert marking Sir Andrew’s 40-year association with the Orchestra.

Sir Andrew Davis, conductor

In a career spanning more than 40 years, Maestro Davis has been the artistic leader at several of the most distinguished operatic and symphonic institutions. He served as music director and principal conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago (2000 to 2021), and as chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (2013 to 2019). Other appointments have included the BBC Symphony Orchestra (conductor laureate and chief conductor from 1991 to 2004), Glyndebourne Festival Opera (music director from 1988 to 2000), and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Conductor Laureate and Principal Conductor from 1975 to 1988), where he also served as Interim Artistic Director for two seasons, from 2018 to 2020. He also holds the honorary title of conductor emeritus from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Sir Andrew has led performances at many leading opera houses, including The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Bayreuth Festival, and the major companies of Munich, Paris, San Francisco, and Santa Fe. In addition, he has appeared with virtually every internationally prominent orchestra, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and all the major British orchestras.

In the 2022/23 season, Sir Andrew conducts his own adaptation of Handel’s Messiah with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The season also sees a return to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he leads a production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. Other engagements include the Minnesota Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Detroit Opera.

A vast and award-winning discography documents Sir Andrew’s artistry. Last year saw the release of his recording of Berg: Violin Concerto/Three Pieces for Orchestra with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which includes Sir Andrew’s orchestrations of Berg’s Piano Sonata, Op. 1, and Passacaglia, as well as his recording of orchestral works of Carl Vine with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (nominated for an ARIA Award for Best Classical Album). Other recent titles including the works of Berlioz, Bliss, Elgar (winner of the 2018 Diapason d’Or de l’Année-Musique Symphonique), Finzi, Goossens, Grainger, Delius, Ives, Holst, Handel (nominated for a GRAMMY® in 2018 for Best Choral Performance), Massenet (winner of the 2021 JUNO Award for Best Classical Album: Vocal or Choral), and York Bowen (nominated for a GRAMMY® in 2012 for Best Orchestral Performance). Sir Andrew currently records for Chandos Records, where he has been an exclusive artist since 2009.

In 1992, Maestro Davis was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and in 1999, he was designated a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours List.

Louis Lortie, piano

For over three decades, French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has continued to build a reputation as one of the world’s most versatile pianists, across a broad spectrum of repertoire, with his performances and award-winning recordings attesting to his remarkable musical range.

Lortie has established long-term partnerships with European orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, and Dresden Philharmonic; and with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony in the US. In Canada, he regularly performs with the major orchestras in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Destinations further afield include Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Adelaide, Sydney, and São Paulo. Regular partnerships with conductors include, among others, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Edward Gardner, Sir Andrew Davis, Jaap van Zweden, Simone Young, Antoni Wit, and Thierry Fischer.

In recital and chamber music, Louis Lortie appears in the world’s most prestigious concert halls and festivals, including Wigmore Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris, Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Hall, the Beethovenfest Bonn, and Liszt Festival Raiding. Recent special projects have included performances of Liszt’s complete Années de pèlerinage in one evening, and a complete Beethoven sonata cycle filmed at Salle Bourgie in Montreal and broadcast on medici.tv. The Lortie-Mercier Duo (with fellow pianist Hélène Mercier) continues to shed new light on the repertoire for four hands and two pianos, both in the concert hall and on several best-selling recordings.

Lortie’s 30-year relationship with Chandos Records has produced a catalogue of over 45 recordings on the label, from Mozart to Stravinsky, including a complete Beethoven sonata cycle and the complete Liszt Années de pèlerinage, named as one of the top ten recordings of 2012 by The New Yorker. With Hélène Mercier, he has recorded The Carnival of the Animals, Vaughan Williams’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Rachmaninoff’s complete works for two pianos, and, just released, four-hands and two-piano works by Debussy.

Master in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel of Brussels from 2017 until 2022, Lortie continues to mentor exceptional pianists through series including a Beethoven/Liszt symphony cycle at Wigmore Hall, and a Scriabin Marathon at the LacMus Festival and Bolzano Festival Bozen in 2022. Another Beethoven/Liszt symphony series is scheduled for the Dresden International Festival in 2023.

During his formative years in Montreal, Lortie studied with Yvonne Hubert (a pupil of the legendary Alfred Cortot), then with Beethoven specialist Dieter Weber in Vienna, and subsequently with Schnabel disciple Leon Fleisher.

Louis Lortie is co-founder and Artistic Director of the LacMus International Festival on Lake Como, taking place annually every July since 2017.

Brent Havens, conductor
MiG Ayesa, vocalist

George Cintron, guitar
Justin Avery, keyboards
Dan Clemens, bass
Powell Randolph, drums

Queen/arr. Brent Havens
Windborne’s The Music of Queen – Act 1

Intermission

Queen/arr. Brent Havens
Windborne’s The Music of Queen – Act 2

Selections to be announced from the stage.

The March 7 performance is generously supported by the Estate of Dr. Janet Hyer.
The March 8 8pm performance is sponsored by the Intercontinental Hotel

The Music of Queen: A Rock Symphony

Windborne's The Music of Queen, is designed to extend the listening experience of Queen’s exceptional tunes, bridging the gulf between rock ’n’ roll and classical music. As performed by a full rock band and vocals, amplified by an orchestra, The Music of Queen captures Queen’s distinct sound while presenting some familiar and lots of new musical colours.  

As with previous Windborne shows that merge different groups with an orchestra, arranger Brent Havens understands that fans here will also want to hear the original, familiar elements of the music. “The band is reproducing what Queen did live, as closely as possible,” Havens says, “ and then having an orchestra behind the band gives the music richness, a whole new feel, a whole different sense of texture, while still preserving the wonderful music that Queen originally produced.”

Heightened by rock concert lighting, the symphonic/rock hybrid has met with riotous approval from performers and audiences alike. “Many classical musicians enjoy the change of pace,” Havens says. “So many of them grew up with this music much like we did. They may not have studied it to the extent that my musicians have studied it, but they are certainly familiar with the music. After all, who can avoid hearing ‘We Will Rock You’ at sporting events, on TV shows, and even in the supermarket?”

Brent Havens, conductor/arranger

Born in Cincinnati, OH, Berklee-trained arranger/conductor Brent Havens has written music for orchestras, feature films, and virtually every kind of television show. His TV work includes movies for networks such as ABC, CBS, and ABC Family Channel Network; commercials; sports music for networks such as ESPN; and even cartoons. Havens has also worked with The Doobie Brothers and the Milwaukee Symphony, arranging and conducting the combined group for Harley Davidson’s 100th Anniversary Birthday Party Finale attended by over 150,000 fans. He has worked with some of the world’s greatest orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic and the BBC Concert Orchestra in London, the CBSO in Birmingham, England, the Malaysian Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Fort Worth Symphony, the Nashville Symphony, Orchestra of Opera North in Leeds, England, and countless others.

Havens recently completed the score for the film Quo Vadis, a Premier Pictures remake of the 1956 gladiator film. In 2013, he worked with the Baltimore Symphony and the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens to arrange and produce the music for the Thanksgiving Day halftime show in a game between the Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers, adapting both classical music and rock songs into a single four-minute show. Havens is Arranger/Guest Conductor for all of the symphonic rock programs for Windborne Music.

MiG Ayesa, vocalist

MiG started his career in Australia in the musical Buddy. He was then chosen to join the London cast including a Royal Variety Performance for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. MiG’s other West End credits include We Will Rock You, Rent, Thriller Live, and Seasons of Larson. His Broadway credits include Burn the Floor and Rock of Ages, which he also joined on the first US National Tour, and in the Philippines. Back in Australia, his credits include Grease, Cinderella, Aladdin, West Side Story, Rent, Fame, The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and a UK and Australian tour of The Music of Queen: Rock and Symphonic Spectacular. He reprised the role of Galileo for the tenth-anniversary world arena tour of We Will Rock You as well as headlining his own one-man show MiG Rocks the Boat.

In the Philippines, MiG played Robert Kincaid in the first international production of The Bridges of Madison County, and starred with Lea Salonga and Tanya Manalang for the major concert event Curtains Up, and in his own concert celebrating Shangri-La’s 25th Anniversary. A finalist in the global hit TV show Rock Star: INXS, MiG released his self-titled début album through Decca/Universal, and was an original cast member of Handel’s Messiah Rocks: A Joyful Noise. As well as releasing his second album, More Than Ever, MiG has also written “United as One” for his own fundraising and awareness campaign for the victims of Philippine floods.

The program notes are written by Rena Roussin, Musicologist-in-Residence.

A resounding success at both its 1846 premiere in Birmingham, England, and at its revised London premiere in 1847, Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah has remained a beloved staple of English-language choral repertoire ever since. Having experienced earlier success with his 1836 oratorio Paulus, which depicted the life of St. Paul, Mendelssohn was eager to next explore an Old Testament topic, and chose to focus on the life of the prophet Elijah. The oratorio’s libretto, by Julius Schubring (with English translation by William Bartholomew), fuses direct Biblical quotations together with paraphrases and free text that expand upon events from numerous sections of the Old Testament, particularly the 1 and 2 Book of Kings.

Mendelssohn was deeply hesitant to publicly discuss his personal religious beliefs, yet given the centrality and influence of the prophet Elijah’s story to both Jewish and Christian traditions, Mendelssohn’s choice of oratorio topic seems especially fitting. The grandson of Jewish Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and originally raised areligious, Felix was baptized a Protestant at the age of 7 with the rest of his siblings. While the composer practiced Christianity throughout his life, he nevertheless remained demonstrably proud of his Jewish heritage and of his grandfather’s intellectual legacy. While Mendelssohn’s exact beliefs and intentions surrounding his choice of topic cannot be known, it is worth noting that he took an active role in collaborating with Schubring about how Elijah’s story ought to be told. He openly rejected Schubring’s suggestion that the final chorus invoke Christ and the teachings of the New Testament, and frequently requested that the librettist prioritize dramatic action over excessive moments of stasis, contemplation, and moral reflection.

A keen student of music history, Mendelssohn was enamored with sacred music of the Baroque period, particularly the well-known oratorios of Handel and the sacred choral works of a then-obscure Baroque composer from Leipzig named Johann Sebastian Bach. Indeed, Mendelssohn was partly responsible for the nineteenth-century revival of German interest in Bach’s work, as Mendelssohn organized and conducted an 1829 performance of the Saint Matthew Passion in Berlin – the first performance of the work to have occurred after Bach’s death. Yet beyond mere interest, both Bach’s and Handel’s work in sacred choral music demonstrably influenced Mendelssohn’s work on the oratorio, Bach’s influence looming large in Mendelssohn’s earlier Paulus, while the influence of Handel’s choruses is heard more readily in Elijah. In many ways, Mendelssohn fused tradition and innovation into his oratorios, firmly grounding his musical work in the musical lyricism and harmonic language of the Romantic Era, while also invoking the larger history of German sacred choral music. In its bringing together of tradition and innovation, Elijah encapsulates – in some ways, is perhaps even in some ways about –  musical history and highlights of the oratorio as a genre, which may well be a factor in its enduring popularity among audiences and musicians alike.

Elijah is also a work that reflects critically on and poses challenges to the history and conventions of the oratorio. Originally sung in churches to replace operas during the Lenten season, oratorios have always balanced a thin line between the world of opera and sacred music. While Elijah certainly features stunning chorales and arias that provide the moments of reflection and divine contemplation the oratorio is meant to foster, the work is equally invested in – even foregrounds – dramatic action. Oratorio historian Howard E. Smither has suggested that Elijah, with its minimal narration, abundant musical-dramatic dialogue between characters, , and prioritizing of action over stasis and moralizing, functions as the opera that Mendelssohn never got to write.

However, for all its musical and dramatic choices that suggest the stuff of opera – shouting crowds, a vengeful Queen, and a flaming chariot among them – Elijah is grounded in a profoundly spiritual, devotional ethos. Mendelssohn’s musical characterizes Elijah, as nineteenth-century critic Otto Jahn observed, to humanize and make tangible the prophet’s faith. Gone, Jahn notes, is the Old Testament “man of iron who, with unwavering courage, challenges the king…with flaming words, knowing no danger.” Instead, Mendelssohn depicts the prophet as a man of piety, capable of righteous anger, yet most predominantly characterized by “firmness in his faith that God hears him when he prays to him.” Mendelssohn’s score takes care to embed Elijah’s traits of “warm and deep feeling, of a sincere and powerful heart.”* At the same time, the work as a whole, through its choruses and words, professes timeless spiritual values, stressing the worth of endurance and perseverance, the importance of hope amid despair.

In these challenging times, what a profoundly necessary story.

*The English translation of Jahn’s remarks on Elijah belongs to Susan Gillespie, and is published in Mendelssohn and His World.

Dalia Stasevska, conductor
Sergei Babayan, piano

Andrea Tarrodi
Paradisfåglar II (Birds of Paradise II)

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23

I. Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso
II. Andantino semplice
III. Allegro con fuoco

Intermission

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 
Symphony No. 6 in B Minor,
Op. 74 “Pathétique”

I. Adagio – Allegro non troppo
II. Allegro con grazia
III. Allegro molto vivace
IV. Finale: Adagio lamentoso

Andrea Tarrodi (b. 1981): Paradisfåglar II (Birds of Paradise II) 

Composed 2013

8 min

In a 2019 interview for The Irish Times, Tarrodi noted that her idea of a “musical heaven” was to have “an orchestra of my own in a really large auditorium.” Indeed, she prefers writing for orchestra, because of the broad range of sounds and timbres that are available to her. Moreover, her compositions are shaped by her synesthesia, an ability to link various notes and chords with different colours. “I approach music from a visual perspective,” she explained in a 2020 Classical Music profile. “I do sketches and drawings of the shape of the music before I write it and then always do a painting or illustration on the scores when I complete them.” 

Tarrodi originally conceived Paradisfåglar (Birds of Paradise) for string orchestra in 2008, when it was premièred by Musica Vitae. In 2013, the Västerås Sinfonietta commissioned this full-orchestra version, and have since recorded it. The piece was inspired by the BBC Planet Earth series hosted by Sir David Attenborough, notably the “Jungles” episode, in which the birds of paradise, with their strikingly colourful plumage and elaborate mating rituals, are featured. 

It unfolds like a journey of discovery, opening with a quiet introduction evoking the sonic atmosphere of a tropical forest. Layers of orchestral timbre swell to a peak with boisterous calls, after which the music culminates on a grand chord. A warm, lyrical episode follows, conveying wonderment at the glorious colours of these birds. An extended section of bird calls follows, by various orchestral instruments using extended playing techniques. The shimmering introduction returns, and an expansive melody emerges. Bird calls echo overtop, then, gradually, the sounds recede into the distance and fade into silence.

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Over the past decade, Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi has gained attention and renown for her orchestral works, which have been performed worldwide, including at Royal Albert Hall (for the BBC Proms in 2017), the Berliner Philharmonie, the Wiener Musikverein, and London’s Barbican Centre. Her music has also been represented several times at the Baltic Sea Festival. She was the Composer in Residence with Sveriges Radio (Radio Sweden) between 2011 and 2013, a residence that included commissions from the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir. The winner of many awards, she was the first female Swedish composer to have a work premièred at the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms in 2020.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893): Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23 

Composed 1873

36 min

On Christmas Eve, 1874, Tchaikovsky played through his First Piano Concerto for a colleague on the staff of the Moscow Conservatory, Nikolay Rubinstein, who listened through all three movements, then pronounced the new work to be trite, vulgar, awkward, occasionally derivative, thoroughly unplayable, and, “save two or three pages,” worthless. Tchaikovsky was mortified and stormed out of the room in silence, but refused to change a note—and he was right. Since its première, in Boston, in October 1875, with Hans von Bülow at the piano, the concerto has been one of the most popular in the repertoire. Even Rubinstein was eventually won over to it.

Tchaikovsky’s First is a prime example of the Romantic concerto: the solo part is extravagantly virtuosic, at once lyric and heroic; and the interplay of solo and orchestral forces is colourful, dramatic, and sometimes confrontational. The orchestral part, too, is virtuosic: the scoring of the slow movement, especially, is of uncommon sensitivity and imagination. The sweet main theme is introduced in the flute on a delicate cushion of pizzicato strings and, as the movement unfolds, enchanting piano textures are set against vibrant, often unexpected orchestral sonorities reminiscent of the best ballet music. This from a man who claimed not to like the sound of piano with orchestra.

Like many popular works by Tchaikovsky, this concerto has met with its share of condescension, yet the music is often fresh and original. For instance, the soloist is introduced in an exciting and altogether exceptional way, in a grandiose opening Andante that is wholly self-contained, stands outside the main key of the piece, and features a big melody that is never heard again. Each movement includes one borrowed theme: the galloping first Allegro theme of the first movement and the fiery opening theme of the finale are both based on Ukrainian folk songs, while the whirling waltz in the middle of the slow movement (accompanied by a piano that seems to be chasing its own tail) quotes a popular French tune of the day, “Il faut s’amuser et rire”. Tchaikovsky contributes memorable tunes of his own, too, and in the outer movements, he forges powerful and richly variegated musical dramas.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893): Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 “Pathétique”

Composed 1893

50 min

Tchaikovsky fought a lifelong battle against his belief that he was the victim of a cold, implacable Fate, and the final three of his six symphonies depict intensely his struggle against these fears. He won some degree of victory in the Fourth and Fifth. But in the Sixth, his final and greatest work (which could be taken as his last will and testament), destiny reigns supreme. Nine days after the première, he was dead. 

According to his brother, Modest, on the day after the première, the composer was still searching for an appropriate title for the piece. Modest suggested “pathétique”, a French word of Greek origin that is commonly used in Russian. The composer inscribed this immediately on the score.

The symphony opens with a slow, mournful introduction, including a short motif—a descending scale—that recurs throughout the symphony, perhaps, without too great a stretch of the imagination, symbolic in its downward-moving nature, of the cold and implacable force that Tchaikovsky felt ruled his life. The expansive exposition section then contrasts a restless first subject with a consoling second, after which the explosive start of the development heralds many pages of mounting anguish, crowned by a passage of slow, stern grandeur, where the trombones and tuba sound like nothing so much as funeral orators. 

The next movement, a waltz, at first seems to promise a graceful contrast. But with five beats to the bar instead of the usual three, the mood is thrown off kilter, with disturbing, bittersweet results. 

The third movement begins as a dynamic, Mendelssohnian scherzo. Gathering momentum, it appears to become a blazing march of triumph, sweeping all before it, and, in Tchaikovsky’s own day, drawing cheers from his audience. Yet this is not the only possible way of looking at it. David Brown, the author of an authoritative biography of Tchaikovsky, comments: “This march is, in fact, a deeply ironic, bitter conception—a desperate bid for happiness so prolonged and vehement that it confirms not only the desperation of the search, but also its futility.”

The symphony’s slow, anguished Finale confirms this view. Despite repeated protests, resignation becomes complete. A quiet stroke on the tam-tam announces fate’s victory; the music sinks back into the dark depths of the orchestra where it began.

—Program note by Don Anderson

Dalia Stasevska, conductor

Dalia Stasevska’s charismatic and dynamic musicianship has established her as a conductor of exceptional versatility. Chief Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the International Sibelius Festival, she also holds the post of Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She has made several appearances at the BBC Proms and is set to make several high-profile débuts around Europe and North America, including this Toronto Symphony Orchestra appearance. 

In autumn 2022, Stasevska embarked on a six-concert tour performing for BBC Proms Japan with soloists Sol Gabetta, Nicola Benedetti, and Roderick Williams. In spring 2023, she and the BBC Symphony Orchestra will collaborate on a project with Grégoire Pont at the Barbican Centre entitled “Our Precious Planet”. Performing works of living composers is a core part of her programming, and, with the Lahti Symphony, she has presented works by Missy Mazzoli, Andrew Norman, and Thomas Adès, among others. Recent highlights include appearances with the Baltimore and Seattle Symphonies, and Orchestre national de France, returns to the Oslo Philharmonic and NAC Orchestra, and the opening of the Tongyeong Festival. 

A passionate opera conductor, Stasevska débuts at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera this season with a revival of the iconic Peter Halls production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In previous seasons, she returned to the Finnish National Opera and Ballet to conduct a double bill of Poulenc’s La voix humaine and Weill’s songs with Karita Mattila, and to Norske Opera to conduct Madama Butterfly and Lucia di Lammermoor. Other appearances include Don Giovanni with Kungliga Operan in Stockholm, directed by Ole Anders Tandberg, Eugene Onegin at the Opéra de Toulon, The Cunning Little Vixen with Finnish National Opera, and Sebastian Fagerlund’s Höstsonaten at the 2018 Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, featuring Anne Sofie von Otter.

Stasevska originally studied as a violinist and composer at the Tampere Conservatoire, and violin, viola, and conducting at the Sibelius Academy. As a conductor, her teachers include Jorma Panula and Leif Segerstam. She was bestowed the Order of Princess Olga, third class, by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in October 2020 for her significant personal contribution to the development of international cooperation, strengthening the prestige of Ukraine internationally, and the popularization of its historical and cultural heritage. In December 2018, she had the honour of conducting the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Stockholm. Stasevska was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Conductor Award in 2020.

Sergei Babayan, piano

Sergei Babayan is one of the leading pianists of our time. Hailed for his emotional intensity, bold energy, and remarkable levels of colour, Sergei Babayan brings a deep understanding and insight to an exceptionally diverse repertoire. Le Figaro has praised his “unequaled touch, perfectly harmonious phrasing and breathtaking virtuosity.” Le Devoir from Montreal put it simply: “Sergei Babayan is a genius. Period.”

Sergei Babayan has collaborated with such conductors as Sir Antonio Pappano, David Robertson, Neeme Järvi, Rafael Payare, Thomas Dausgaard, Tugan Sokhiev, and Dima Slobodeniouk. Over the years, Babayan has performed with Valery Gergiev numerous times to great critical acclaim, including appearances at the Barbican Centre with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Théâtre des Champs-Elyseés in Paris, the Salzburg Festival, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival, where Babayan was artist-in-residence.

In recent seasons, Mr. Babayan’s schedule has included concert performances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, and Verbier Festival Orchestra, among others. Sergei Babayan regularly performs at many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Maison de la Radio in Paris, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Alte Oper Frankfurt, and the Zurich Tonhalle. He has appeared at major festivals including La Roque d’Anthéron, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, and Verbier Festival. At Konzerthaus Dortmund, Sergei Babayan was a Curating Artist. 

Sergei Babayan is a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist; his latest release, Rachmaninoff (DG 2020), was hailed by the international press as a groundbreaking recording and received numerous awards including BBC Recording of the Month and Choc Classica. His previous DG release of his own transcriptions, for two pianos, of works by Sergei Prokofiev, with Martha Argerich as his partner (Prokofiev for Two; DG 2018), was praised by reviewers as “the CD one has waited for” (Le Devoir), and an “electrifying duo that leaves the listener in consternation” (Pianiste). 

Born in Armenia into a musical family, Babayan began his studies there with Georgy Saradjev and continued at the Moscow Conservatory with Mikhail Pletnev, Vera Gornostayeva, and Lev Naumov. Following his first trip outside of the USSR in 1989, he won consecutive first prizes in several major international competitions including the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Hamamatsu Piano Competition, and the Scottish International Piano Competition. An American citizen, he lives in New York City.

Simon Rivard, TSYO Conductor

Johannes Brahms
Tragic Overture, Op. 81

María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir
Oceans

Paul Hindemith
Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes
by Carl Maria von Weber

I. Allegro
II. Turandot: Scherzo
III. Andantino
IV. Marsch

Intermission

Béla Bartók
Concerto for Orchestra

I. Introduzione. Andante non troppo – Allegro vivace
II. Presentando le coppie. Allegro scherzando
III. Elegia. Andante non troppo
IV. Intermezzo interrotto. Allegretto
V. Finale. Presto

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897): Tragic Overture, Op. 81

Composed 1880

15 min

Brahms composed his only two overtures in the same summer, at Bad Ischl, an Austrian resort. The Academic Festival Overture, written for the University of Breslau in gratitude for their offer of an honorary doctorate, was completed first, though the Tragic Overture, composed immediately afterward, was the first to be performed in public.

According to Brahms, composing the Academic Festival Overture “seduced” him into tackling a second one, and the two works form a neat, contrasting pair.

The former, as the biographer Jan Swafford writes, is “the most thoroughly unbuttoned of Brahms’s works,” a colourful, high-spirited potpourri of student songs. The Tragic Overture is dark, solemn, tense, and emotionally fraught. Its plentiful themes and motifs are intensively worked out to create an organic whole. 

The title Tragic Overture was generic enough that Brahms could avoid allying himself with the descriptive overtures and symphonic poems of more avant-garde contemporaries like Liszt. Still, the music is dramatic enough to suggest that he had some kind of programmatic idea in mind when he conceived it. Such an idea might help explain the overture’s unorthodox form, especially the slow march in the middle, where one would expect a conventional development.

The overture has, for instance, been interpreted as a portrait of human defiance in the face of destiny, and it does bear a family resemblance to Fate-themed works like Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and Beethoven’s Fifth. The writer and critic Max Kalbeck, Brahms’s friend and biographer, believed that the Tragic Overture was once intended to be used in a Viennese production of Goethe’s Faust (which was planned but never mounted), and it is suggestive that Brahms drew, in the overture, on sketches he had made in the late 1860s while working on the Alto Rhapsody, a work inspired by Goethe.

In any event, Brahms denied that any particular narrative lay behind the Tragic Overture. And to be sure, there is more to this music than gloom and pathos and angst. There are moments of passionate, yearning lyricism, too; of determination; and perhaps even of pride—even if, admittedly, the closing pages offer nothing quite like hope.

—Program note by Don Anderson

María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (b.1980): Oceans

Composed 2018

11 min

Oceans is a gripping orchestral tone poem that seems to be more than just about evoking the myriad qualities of our planet’s most significant feature. As music writer Steve Smith described in the liner notes to the work’s recording: “Oceans, with its gently gliding movement and ravishing plays of light and colour, conjures visions of the natural world. But there’s also something ineffably human, emotional, and personal in its cinematic swells and haunting suspensions.” 

Emerging from a very quiet, ethereal introduction, Oceans builds gradually, with melodic fragments played by various instruments surfacing periodically from the sonic expanse created by the rest of the orchestra. It culminates in a climax, occurring about two-thirds into the piece, that seems heavy with emotional ambivalence. A strong mixture of awe, anger, and melancholy, it has the quality of a personal statement “in tones” on the work’s central inspiration: “the current state of the world’s oceans, particularly the discarded plastic items floating around, forming large, never-perishing islands of toys and household items of bygone times.”.

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir graduated as a violinist from the Reykjavik College of music in 2000, and with a Bachelor's degree in composition from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2007. Since 1999, she has performed and recorded as a member of the band aniima, which has collaborated with various artists, including the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós from 2000 to 2008. Sigfúsdóttir has composed music for orchestras, ensembles of various sizes, choirs, choreography, and films. Many of her works have been performed internationally; several of them, including Clockworking, Sleeping Pendulum, Aequora, Spirals, Loom, and Oceans, have also been recorded and released internationally on the US label Sono Luminus. Loom was on the Top 25 list of best classical music tracks of 2018 in The New York Times. The GRAMMY®-nominated album Concurrence, which includes Oceans, performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, was on the Top 25 list of best classical music albums of 2019 in The New York Times.

Paul Hindemith (1895–1963): Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber

Composed 1940–1943

20 min

The young Hindemith stood at the forefront of the German avant-garde. The mature composer saw himself above all as a practical artist, as Bach and Handel had been two centuries before, creating, without apology, specific pieces for specific occasions, and for the pleasure of professional and amateur musicians alike.

In 1938, Hindemith and celebrated choreographer Léonide Massine had collaborated on a successful ballet, Nobilissima visione (Noblest of Visions). After Hindemith’s relocation from Germany to the US in February 1940, they pursued other ideas, among them a ballet to be adapted from little-known piano duets by German composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826)—music that Hindemith and his wife, Gertrude, had played at home with great delight. 

Hindemith completed two movements of the Weber score by March 31, 1940, and passed them to Massine who dismissed them: what Hindemith was doing with the music was “too personal,” he said. Hindemith set the score aside until 1943, when he was asked by his publisher for a big, colourful orchestral work of the type that American audiences relished. 

Symphonic Metamorphosis remains one of Hindemith’s most frequently performed scores. Virtuoso orchestration and an injection of abundant good humour “metamorphose” the source material’s straightforward appeal into robust, mid-20th-century musical language. 

The first movement is a hearty Allegro, based on a movement, marked “in Hungarian style,” from Weber’s Eight Pieces for Piano Four Hands, Op. 60 (1818). Hindemith gives it an aptly flamboyant treatment, with numerous Romany-style flourishes in the strings, emphatically underpinned by brass and percussion; these are delicately reduced for the middle section, then reinstated in full heft in the coda. 

The point of departure for the imaginative Scherzo is a theme that Weber had used in 1809 in his incidental music for Turandot, Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi’s exotic drama set in China. Flute and piccolo take turns introducing the theme; an elaborately scored set of variations bedecked with trills follows, building to a grand, ringing climax; and a cheerfully clamorous fugal version of the theme follows in the brass, before a moment of inscrutable introspection brings the movement to an end. 

Next comes a gently melancholy, siciliano-like Andantino, inspired by a Romanze in Weber’s Six Easy Little Pieces for Piano Four Hands, Op. 3 (1809). Wind instruments take turns in the spotlight during the outer panels; the strings come warmly and expressively to the fore in the middle section.

The finale contains another major transformation. The Weber original is a sombre funeral march from the Op. 60 duet collection containing a brief appearance of a noble, major-key hunt theme. Hindemith gives both themes equal play, and the final word to the second, thus shifting the piece’s nature from tragic to triumphant.

—Program note by Don Anderson

Béla Bartók (1881–1945): Concerto for Orchestra

Composed 1944

35 min

In his American exile, Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was plagued by financial troubles, anxiety, and failing health, but was energized by a commission, in 1943, from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. He composed the Concerto for Orchestra quickly, between August and October, at a private sanatorium in the Adirondacks, and, at its première in Boston, on December 1, 1944, it won considerable acclaim.

Though accessible and popular, the concerto is by no means reactionary or domesticated. Balancing tradition and experiment, tonality and atonality, art music and folk music, order and chaos, this pluralistic music summarizes Bartók’s whole creative development. It is shot through with the sounds and practices of the folk music (not just Hungarian, or even European) that Bartók had spent 40 years studying, but is also a veritable catalogue of early modernism, including neoclassicism. The Classical forms and outbursts of Baroque-like fugue in the outer movements are a good example. 

The overall structure is that of an arch: the first and fifth movements are in sonata form; the second and fourth are lighter, intermezzo–like; and the third, the Elegia, which Bartók called a “lugubrious death-song,” is the emotional core. Throughout, the scoring updates the 18th-century concerto grosso or symphonie concertante: pervasive interplay of temporarily deputized soloists (or small groups of soloists) with fuller orchestral textures.

In the middle movements, Bartók plays with episodic forms. The ironic second movement, Presentando le coppie (Game of Couples), offers a chain of five dances, each featuring a pair of instruments (bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes, and trumpets). After a short brass chorale, the chain is reprised, more elaborately scored. The dour Elegia (based on the opening of the Introduzione) is another “chain,” this time of emotionally troubled—at its climax, profoundly anguished—themes, the whole bracketed by misty, impressionistic “night music.” The fourth movement is a beautiful, poignant serenade briefly interrupted by shrill, shrieking, vulgar music from what sounds like a drunken street band, and may be a rare example of Bartókian program music—note the braying trombones and the caustic parody of a tune from Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony.

The Finale, with its horn calls, wild Rumanian dances, and bagpipe-like drones, is sometimes delirious and comic but ultimately rousing. Bartók saw it, in contrast to the “stern” Introduzione, as a “life-assertion.”

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Simon Rivard, TSYO Conductor

Simon Rivard is one of the most sought-after conductors on the Canadian music scene. Since 2018, he has been the conductor of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. In 2022/23, he will make his début with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre classique de Montréal. In addition, he will conduct the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Sherbrooke, and the Edmonton Opera in Puccini’s Tosca. 

Between 2018 and 2022, he held the title of RBC Resident Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. At the TSO, he was mentored by Music Director Gustavo Gimeno. In addition to leading concerts throughout the season, he has been assisting world-class conductors such as Sir Andrew Davis, Peter Oundjian, Donald Runnicles, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, John Storgårds, Barbara Hannigan, Xian Zhang, and Eun Sun Kim. Since 2019, he has been an Equilibrium Young Artist, as part of Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan’s internationally acclaimed mentorship program for early career professional musicians. 

Rivard is also an excellent choral conductor. Since 2020, he has been involved with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Canada’s largest choral organization, where he has served as Associate Conductor (2020–2022), and as Artistic Collaborator (2022–present). As a guest conductor, he has conducted orchestras in North America and Europe. He recently made his début with Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Orchestre symphonique Sherbrooke, and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. In February 2022, he made his début at the Edmonton Opera in Puccini’s La bohème. He also recently collaborated with the celebrated Toronto-based opera company Against the Grain Theatre in Holst’s Sāvitri.

In 2018, he was invited to participate in the first Conducting Mentorship Program at the Verbier Festival Academy (Switzerland), at the conclusion of which he was awarded a special prize. In 2022, he was invited by the Verbier Festival to be a coach of the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra. In 2017/18, he served as Resident Conductor of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra (Ontario, Canada). In 2017, he stepped in for Jean-Philippe Tremblay as Interim Music Director of the Orchestre de la francophonie.

Gustavo Gimeno, conductor
Lauren Fagan, soprano
Stephanie Wake-Edwards, mezzo-soprano
Michael Colvin, tenor
Elliot Madore, baritone
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
Jean-Sébastien Vallée, Artistic Director 

George Frideric Handel
Messiah

Part One

Intermission

Part Two

Part Three

George Frideric Handel (1685–1759): Messiah

Composed 1741

The English oratorio, of which Messiah is arguably the greatest and certainly the most popular specimen, was a genre that Handel single-handedly invented when his fortunes as an operatic impresario declined in London through the 1730s. The new genre emerged fully formed with his 1732 London revival of Esther—which he had composed around 1718 as a short, masque-like entertainment—recast as a big, three-act concert work for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, blending elements of contemporary Italian opera with the choral style of his own English anthems. Beginning especially with Saul and Israel in Egypt in 1739, oratorio supplanted opera as Handel’s principal musical occupation, and remained so for the last 20 years of his life.

In 1741, the same year in which he presented his last Italian opera in London, Handel was invited to produce a season in Dublin, and, that summer, he composed Messiah. Its rapid composition, completed in a little over three weeks, has become the stuff of legend, though it was not really remarkable by Handel’s standards. The libretto was compiled by Charles Jennens, an eccentric but well-connected Englishman (and a fan of Handel’s since the 1720s) with a passion for literature and music. The première of Messiah was at a benefit concert, in collaboration with the Charitable Musical Society, for the “Relief of the Prisoners in the several Gaols, and for the Support of Mercer’s Hospital in Stephen’s-street, and of the Charitable Infirmary on the Inns Quay.”

Handel introduced Messiah to London in March 1743, though not before weathering some controversy—a musical setting of a religious subject intended for public entertainment outside the church was deemed by certain authorities to be an improper conflation of sacred and secular. Objections were short lived, however, and Messiah quickly assumed its familiar place (in the English-speaking world especially) as one of Handel’s most beloved works. From 1749, he performed it annually until his death, under his own auspices in the spring to close his theatrical season, then shortly thereafter for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital. (Given the popularity of performing Messiah at Christmas time, it is interesting to note that Handel’s own performances were invariably around Easter.)

After Handel’s death in 1759, the popularity of Messiah continued to spread. By the end of the 18th century—at a time when there was almost no market for “ancient music” (meaning any music not brand new)—Messiah was being performed and admired throughout Europe, and was also being adapted to accommodate changing tastes: with choruses and orchestras much larger than those used by Handel, in updated arrangements (Mozart reworked it for a classical orchestra in 1789), and, as amateur choirs became increasingly popular through the 19th century, in massed-choir performances. Since about 1950, there has been an effort to restore the more intimate performance practices of Handel’s day, but Messiah still retains an unrivalled position in mainstream choral repertoire and the popular imagination—one of few works that can claim a continuous performance history through to the present day.

The Handel oratorio, to quote one contemporary definition, is “a musical Drama, whose Subject must be Scriptural, and in which the Solemnity of Church-Musick is agreeably united with the most pleasing Airs of the Stage.” In many ways, Messiah is typical of the genre—in its reliance on operatic recitative and aria, for instance, and its basic structure of three large “acts” divided into smaller, quasi-operatic “scenes” usually culminating in a chorus. But Messiah also differs from Handel’s other oratorios in three significant ways. 

First, it deals directly with the life of Christ—not something audiences were accustomed to seeing in an English theatre. Second, the text includes no rhymed or metrical verse, only relatively short units of prose. Third, the text is a narrative, not a drama, told by a single narrative voice, though that voice is shared among solo and choral forces. The story is not dramatized but observed. Part One deals with Biblical prophecies of the Saviour, realized in the incarnation of Christ; Part Two deals with Christ’s Passion and the triumph of the Second Coming; and Part Three comments on Christ’s role as Saviour.

There is no one definitive Messiah; even the original Dublin Messiah counts as only one among many authentic versions. For years, beginning with the 1743 London performances, Handel tinkered with the score and fiddled with the orchestration, too. Originally scored for a relatively small, non-theatrical ensemble (trumpets, drums, strings, and continuo, with no horns or woodwinds), from at least 1745, he took to strengthening the orchestration, first with oboes and bassoons, later with horns. And so there are almost as many authentic versions of Messiah as there were Handel performances of it—a situation that has become even more  complicated over the succeeding centuries, in the hands of other performers, conductors, arrangers, and editors. In reality, any version of Messiah is merely one choice from among a plethora of legitimate options.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

A CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE HISTORY

April 13, 1742

Over 700 patrons showed up at Neal’s Musick Hall, Fishamble Street, Dublin. Due to the expected crowding, men were asked to “leave their swords at home, and women to refrain from wearing hoop skirts.” In the words of one enthusiastic critic: “The sublime, the grand and the tender, adapted to the most elevated and moving words, conspired to transport and charm the ravished heart and ear.” Handel conducted from the organ.

December 17, 1857 

John Carter conducted the Sacred Harmonic Choir of Toronto, which he founded, in the first performance of the work in Upper Canada. Carter was the organist from 1856 to 78 at Cathedral Church of St. James. 

June 14, 1894

First concert in a five-concert festival to inaugurate the then 3,500-seat “Massey Music Hall”. The event featured Handel‘s Messiah performed by a 500-member chorus with the 70-member Grand Festival Orchestra conducted by Frederick Torrington.

December 1932

Start of a 90-year tradition: the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, first performed Handel’s Messiah, under the choir’s second conductor, Herbert A. Fricker, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

1952, 1987 & 2015

TMC and TSO recorded Messiah three times: In 1952, Sir Ernest MacMillan with soloists Lois Marshall, Mary Palmateer, John Vickers, and James Milligan; in 1987, Sir Andrew Davis with soloists Kathleen Battle, Florence Quivar, John Aler, and Samuel Ramey; and in 2015, Sir Andrew again, with soloists Erin Wall, Elizabeth DeShong, Andrew Staples, and John Relyea.

Lauren Fagan, soprano

Lauren Fagan has developed into one of today’s most accomplished sopranos, admired by international critics for her “glossy, commanding sound” and “magnificent dramatic power.” A former member of the prestigious Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Australian soprano represented her country in the 2019 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. In the 2022/23 season, Fagan makes her much anticipated Australian operatic début, singing her acclaimed interpretation of Violetta in La traviata for State Opera South Australia. She performs the role of Margarita Xirgu in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar for Scottish Opera, and returns to Glyndebourne Festival to sing Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, conducted by Dalia Stasevska. 

In concert, Fagan reprises the role of Avis in Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Robin Ticciati, following performances this past season at Glyndebourne Festival, and makes her Canadian début as the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Music Director Gustavo Gimeno. In recent seasons, Fagan débuted Beethoven’s “Ah! perfido” with Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Simone Young, followed by Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under Dane Lam, and has performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Symphoniker Hamburg under Eivind Gullberg Jensen and Oslo Philharmonic under Klaus Mäkelä.

Stephanie Wake-Edwards, mezzo-soprano

Stephanie Wake-Edwards was awarded a special recital in Marc Minkowski’s Concours Bordeaux Médoc Lyrique in 2018 and joined the Royal Opera House Covent Garden’s Jette Parker Young Artist Programme in 2019. Highlights there include her performance as Anna in the filmed production of Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins and Flora in Verdi’s La traviata.

She made her début as Third Noble Orphan in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at the Glyndebourne Festival, returning in 2023 to sing Ino in Handel’s Semele. She has recently sung Handel’s Messiah on the Glyndebourne Tour and Third Nymph in Dvořák’s Rusalka for Garsington Opera, made her début at the Grafenegg Festival performing Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater with Fabio Biondi, and given a recital at the Opéra National de Bordeaux.

2022/23 highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall and Oxford Lieder Festival; Messiah with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires; and her début at both Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, and English National Opera.

Stephanie graduated from the University of York with a BA in sociology with social psychology, followed by a master’s degree in vocal studies at the Royal Academy of Music. She is an Associate of the RAM and represented England in the 2021 Cardiff Singer of the World competition.

Michael Colvin, tenor

Hailed in Opera News as possessing “one of the most beautiful lyric tenor instruments around,” Irish-Canadian tenor Michael Colvin has appeared to critical acclaim on some of the most prestigious opera and concert stages throughout Canada, the US, the UK, and Europe. His 2022/23 season sees returns to the Opéra National de Paris for a double appearance as Monostatos in Robert Carsen’s Die Zauberflöte and Spoleta (Tosca) under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel; the Salzburg Festival as Bardolfo (Falstaff); and the Canadian Opera Company for Le nozze di Figaro and Salome. 

Looking ahead to future seasons, Colvin makes an anticipated company début with Teatro alla Scala in one of his signature roles—Bob Boles in Robert Carsen’s new production of Peter Grimes, conducted by Simone Young—and a further début at the Teatro Real. Recent concert engagements include Oedipus Rex at the Edinburgh International Festival; Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde for Louisville Orchestra; Handel’s Messiah with National Arts Centre Orchestra and Seattle Symphony; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec; and Verdi’s Requiem for the Elora Festival. 

Elliot Madore, bass-baritone

Hailed by The New York Times for his “robust singing” and Opera News for his “exquisite vocal beauty,” GRAMMY® Award–winning Canadian baritone Elliot Madore has established himself as an international artist in demand at the leading opera houses and orchestras of the world. The 2022/23 season sees his return to the Los Angeles Philharmonic to sing Ramón in a semi-staged production of John Adam’s’ Girls of the Golden West, as well as his much anticipated début with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra to sing Messiah under the direction of Music Director Gustavo Gimeno. 

Mr. Madore also sings the baritone soloist in Carmina Burana in a special co-presentation by the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Ballet, as well as with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä, the New World Symphony conducted by Patrick Dupré Quigley, and the Oregon Symphony conducted by Leo Hussain. Mr. Madore also makes his début with the Kalamazoo Symphony in Brahms’s A German Requiem. This season, Mr. Madore also continues his position as a performing Associate Professor of Voice with the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music faculty.

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

Jean-Sébastien Vallée, Artistic Director

Named as TMC’s Artistic Director in May 2021 following an international search, Maestro Dr. Jean-Sébastien Vallée is an internationally recognized conductor, scholar, and pedagogue. In addition to his artistic leadership of the TMC, he is Associate Professor of Music, Director of Choral Studies, and Coordinator of the Ensembles & Conducting Area at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. Ensembles under his direction have toured throughout Europe and North America, and Maestro Vallée’s work has been broadcast internationally and can be heard on several recordings.

The Choir

The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (TMChoir) is proud to be one of Canada’s oldest, largest, and best-known choral organizations. The Choir presented its first concert on January 15, 1895, as part of Massey Hall’s inaugural season, and has been a leader in choral music in Canada ever since, commissioning works by Canadian composers, and presenting world and Canadian premières. The Choir also regularly performs and records with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In May 2021, Jean-Sébastien Vallée was named as Artistic Director, only the ninth conductor in TMChoir’s 128-year history.

Through its performances, educational programs, and community engagement, TMChoir aspires to introduce its audiences to choral masterworks from the past and present—making both renowned and lesser-known pieces available, accessible, and inspirational to all.

The TMChoir includes 24 professional singers and over 100 auditioned and experienced volunteer choristers and choral apprentices. Auditions for new members are held in the spring and fall.

Our smaller professional ensemble, the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers (TMSingers) was created to deliver more intimate, nimble repertoire in a variety of non-traditional venues, traversing the line between concert and experience, and showcasing the individual expression of professional soloists. 

TMChoir members for these performances

Soprano 

Catherine Alberti 
Tia Andriani 
Ann-Marie Barrett-Tandy
Jocelyn Belfer
Lesley Emma Bouza*
Louise Boyden 
Leslie Bradshaw 
Marlo Burks 
Hannah Carty 
Joanne Chapin* 
Amy Chen 
Laureen Choi 
Emily Dotzlaw 
Janet Eide 
Kim Finkelstein 
Leslie Finlay 
Louise Zacharias Friesen 
Marina Galeano 
Kaveri Gandhi 
Rebecca Genge* 
Pat M. Irwin 
Alysha Ladha 
Jisue Lee 
Claire Luc 
Marlene Lynds 
Teresa Mahon* 
Sachiko Marshall 
Cathy Minnaar 
Camila Mussa 
Emily Parker* 
Alison Price 
Olivia Pryce-Digby 
Mary Ridgley 
Heather Rowe 
Roxana Samson 
Alessia Signorella 
Jaclyn Siou 
Chong Tan
Joanne Tang 
Jennie Worden 
Sophya Yumakulov

Alto 

Jane Agossta 
Marlo Alcock 
Renée Ardiente 
Julia Barber* 
Frances Chan 
Rebecca Claborn* 
Kristin Crawford 
Avis Devine 
Adrienne Eastwood 
Kirsten Fielding* 
Ruxandra Filip 
Manda Fischer 
Gillian Grant 
Marilyn Isaac
Stewart Sue Kim
Claudia Lemcke*
Alison Massam 
Hilary McCrimmon 
Ryan McDonald* 
Heather McGrath 
Jennifer McGraw 
Bethany Jo Mikelait
Annie Odom 
Parnian Parvin 
Pamela Psarianos 
Alison Roy* 
Yara Rubb 
Namratha Sridevi 
Jan Szot 
Jennifer Ujimoto 
Kiley Venables 
Patti Vipond 
Emma Willemsma 
Tarquin Wongkee 
Susan Worthington 
Virginia Wright 
YuYang Wu 
Mitzi Wolfe Zohar 

Tenor 

Jacob Abrahamse* 
Mitch Aldrich* 
Rafael Avila Sam Broverman 
Thomas Burton* 
Karel Cantelar 
Ramos Michael Clipperton 
Peter DeRoche 
Omar Flores 
John Gladwell 
Nicholas Gough* 
Nathan Gritter* 
Alejandro Guerrero 
Jamie Hillman* 
Valdis Jevtejevs* 
Clement Kam 
Francis Lam 
Eric Lee 
Walter Mahabir* 
Michaelangelo Masangkay 
Timothy McPhail 
Daniel Meeks 
Nicholas Nicolaidis* 
Neil Payne 
Christopher Wenman

Bass 

Neil Aronoff* 
Jeffrey Baker 
Dan Bevan-Baker* 
Hernan Botero 
Tony Churchill 
Matthew Conte 
Scott Crocker 
Steven Foster 
Paul Genyk-Berezowsky* 
Kieran Kane* 
John Lemke 
Matt Lozinski 
Colin Mackey* 
Joseph McGowan IV 
Magnus Mee 
Paul Oros* 
David Peer 
David B. Powell 
Milovan Prelevic 
Seymour Stern 
Chia-An (Victor) Tung 
Sean van Wyk 
Jonah Wall 
Paul Winkelmans* 
Eric Yang 
Isaiah Yankech 
David Yung* 
Bruce Yungblut 

*TMSingers

Messiah

George Frideric Handel

Compiled by Charles Jennens from the Authorised (King James) Version of the Bible, published in 1611

Part One

SINFONIA (OVERTURE)

ACCOMPAGNATO (accompanied)—TENOR

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplish’d, that her iniquity is pardon’d. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:1–3)

AIR—TENOR

Ev’ry valley shall be exalted, and ev’ry mountain and hill made low,
the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah 40:4)

CHORUS

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. (Isaiah 40:5)

ACCOMPAGNATO—BASS

Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts: Yet once, a little while, and 
I will shake the heav’ns and the earth, the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come. (Haggai 2:6–7) The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, ev’n the messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight
in: behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. (Malachi 3:1)

AIR—MEZZO-SOPRANO

But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire. (Malachi 3:2)

CHORUS

And He shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. (Malachi 3:3)

RECITATIVE—MEZZO-SOPRANO

Behold! A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, (Isaiah 7:14)
And shall call His name Emmanuel: “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23)

AIR—MEZZO-SOPRANO AND CHORUS

O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah: Behold your God! (Isaiah 40:9) Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. (Isaiah 60:1)

ACCOMPAGNATO—BASS

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness
the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall
be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and
kings to the brightness of thy rising. (Isaiah 60:2–3)

AIR—BASS

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. And
they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them
hath the light shined. (Isaiah 9:2)

CHORUS

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His Name shall be
called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting
Father, The Prince of Peace! (Isaiah 9:6)

PIFA (PASTORAL SYMPHONY)

RECITATIVE—SOPRANO

There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. (Luke 2:8)

ACCOMPAGNATO—SOPRANO

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone ’round about them, and they were sore afraid. (Luke 2:9) And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heav’nly Host praising God, and saying: (Luke 2:13)

CHORUS

Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, good will toward men! (Luke 2:14)

AIR—SOPRANO

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King cometh unto thee. He is the righteous Saviour, and He shall speak peace unto the heathen. (Zechariah 9:9–10)

RECITATIVE—MEZZO-SOPRANO

Then shall the eyes of the blind be open’d, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing. (Isaiah 35:5–6)

DUET—SOPRANO/MEZZO-SOPRANO

He shall feed His flock like a shepherd, and He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:11) Come unto Him all ye that labour, come unto Him that are heavy laden, and He will give you rest. Take His yoke upon you, and learn of Him, for He is meek and lowly of heart,
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. (Matthew 11:28–29)

CHORUS

His yoke is easy, and his burthen is light. (Matthew 11:30)

Intermission

CHORUS

Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1:29)

AIR—MEZZO-SOPRANO

He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3)

CHORUS

Surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. (Isaiah 53:4–5)
And with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned ev’ry one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

ACCOMPAGNATO—TENOR

All they that see Him laugh Him to scorn, they shoot out their lips, and shake their heads, saying: (Psalm 22:7)

CHORUS

He trusted in God that He would deliver Him; let Him deliver Him,
if He delight in Him. (Psalm 22:8)

ACCOMPAGNATO—TENOR

Thy rebuke hath broken His heart; He is full of heaviness. He looked for some to have pity on Him, but there was no man, neither found He any to comfort Him. (Psalm 69:20)

AIR—TENOR

Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow. (Lamentations 1:12)

ACCOMPAGNATO—SOPRANO

He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgressions of Thy people was He stricken. (Isaiah 53:8)

AIR—SOPRANO

But Thou didst not leave His soul in Hell; nor didst Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption. (Psalm 16:10)

CHORUS

Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty in battle. The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory. (Psalm 24:7–10)

AIR—SOPRANO

How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things. (Isaiah 52:7; Romans 10:15)

​​AIR—BASS

Why do the nations so furiously rage together, why do the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. (Psalm 2:1–2)

​​CHORUS

Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their yokes from us. (Psalm 2:3)

RECITATIVE—TENOR

He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn; the Lord shall have them in derision. (Psalm 2:4)

AIR—TENOR

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. (Psalm 2:9)

CHORUS

Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. (Revelation 19:6) The Kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord and
of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 11:15) King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. (Revelation 19:16)

Part Three

AIR—SOPRANO

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and tho’ worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. (Job 19:25–26) For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep. (1 Corinthians 15:20)

CHORUS

Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:21–22)

ACCOMPAGNATO—BASS

Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be chang’d, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. (1 Corinthians 15:51–52)

AIR—BASS

The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be rais’d incorruptible, and we shall be chang’d. (1 Corinthians 15:52)

CHORUS

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by His blood, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Blessing and honour, glory and pow’r be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen. (Revelation 5:9, 12–14)

Sheku Kanneh-Mason Plays Elgar

Peter Oundjian, conductor
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

Gary Kulesha
Fourth Symphony
World Première/TSO Co-commission
Movement I + II
Movement III
Movement IV

Intermission

Edward Elgar
Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85
I. Adagio – Moderato
II. Lento – Allegro molto
III. Adagio
IV. Allegro – Moderato – Allegro, ma non troppo

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958): Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis 

Composed 1910

15 min

English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams conducted the première of his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis in Gloucester Cathedral on September 6, 1910—the year it was composed. He had begun tapping into his country’s rich vein of folk song and the magnificent heritage of its Tudor-era music as early as 1903, and the warmth, spirituality, and humour of these sources played a significant role in his development of “a musical style at once highly personal and deeply English,” as the Encyclopædia Britannica describes it.

Thomas Tallis (c.1505–1585) was one of Tudor England’s most celebrated musicians. In 1567, he contributed eight themes to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s hymn book, known as the Metrical Psalter. When Vaughan Williams helped edit a new version of the English Hymnal in 1906, he used the opportunity to restore to circulation the third of Tallis’s melodies from the earlier collection, using one of them as the tune for the text that begins, “When rising from the bed of death.” The intimacy and grandeur of this lovely theme, set in the antique Phrygian church mode, rather than the more common major or minor, moved him to compose a piece based upon it—this Fantasia—which expands and intensifies the theme’s inherent qualities.

The work’s highly successful première at the 1910 Three Choirs Festival laid the groundwork of Vaughan Williams’s international reputation; the première of A Sea Symphony, one month later, consolidated it. He would go on to revise and shorten the Fantasia twice before it was published in 1920.

Reflecting Vaughan Williams’s studies with master orchestrator Maurice Ravel two years earlier, the Fantasia is richly and ingeniously scored for three strings groups: solo quartet and two orchestras of different sizes. His wife Ursula wrote, “With the Norman grandeur of Gloucester Cathedral in mind and the strange quality of the resonance of stone, the ‘echo’ idea of three different groups of instruments was well judged. It seemed that his early love for architecture and his historical knowledge were so deeply assimilated that they were translated and absorbed into the line of the music.” 

Having been in excellent health, Vaughan Williams died suddenly in the early hours of August 26, 1958, at Hanover Terrace, aged 85. Two days later, after a private funeral at Golders Green, he was cremated. On September 19, at a crowded memorial service, his ashes were interred near the burial plots of Henry Purcell and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford in the north choir aisle of Westminster Abbey. The Fantasia was among the music at the service. 

—Program note by Don Anderson

Gary Kulesha (b. 1954): Fourth Symphony

World Première/TSO100 Commission
Composed 2021-2022

22 min

The composer writes: My Fourth Symphony was written roughly 15 years after my Third Symphony. It is in four movements, but the first two are combined. There are breaks between the end of Movement I + II and Movement III, and between the end of Movement III and Movement IV. 

The Symphony opens with the chord that dominates the entire work. A solo bassoon sings a melody that gets passed through the orchestra. After a small climax, the high strings alone play the second subject. These two melodies provide the material for much of the rest of the work.

As the first movement comes to a climax, there is a short acceleration into the second movement, a scherzo that moves between brutality and sly elegance. The main climax of the scherzo leads to a recapitulation of the main idea of the first movement, this time in a duet between the bassoon and the piccolo.

The third movement opens with a quirky duet between oboe and English horn, music which appears at key points in the movement. A solo trumpet plays a soaring, lyrical, quasi-improvised passage over held strings. The movement moves inexorably towards a climax, and dies away.

The final movement opens with a short series of slow chords, followed immediately by the main part, marked “Steady and relentless” in the score. A very long tune dominates this movement, but the materials of the first and second movements continue to evolve beside it. After a long build, the music returns to the opening chord of the entire work, triumphantly sweeping away everything that has come before.

—

Gary Kulesha is one of Canada’s most active and most visible musicians. Although principally a composer, with music commissioned, performed, and recorded by musicians and ensembles all over the world, he is also active as both a pianist and a teacher.

Following Composer in Residence appointments at the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995), in September 1995, he was appointed Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, where his duties include composing, conducting, and advising on repertoire. 

In 1998, the TSO premièred his Symphony for two conductors and orchestra, with Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Kulesha conducting. In 2005, the TSO premièred his Second Symphony, conducted by Oliver Knussen. And in May 2007, the National Arts Centre Orchestra premièred his Third Symphony, conducted by Roberto Minczuk.

Mr. Kulesha was the Artistic Director of the Composers’ Orchestra from 1987 to 2004, when he stepped down in favour of three young composers. His conducting activities are extensive, guest conducting frequently with several major orchestras throughout Canada, and recording for broadcast and disc. He was one of the chief architects of the Massey Hall New Music Festival, which ran for seven years (1995–2002). 

Mr. Kulesha is on the full-time faculty of the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto and lives in Toronto with his wife, composer Larysa Kuzmenko.

Edward Elgar (1857–1934): Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85 

Composed 1918-1919

26 min

Edward Elgar composed his Cello Concerto from late 1918 through the first half of 1919. In November 1918, shortly before Armistice Day, Elgar wrote, “I do not feel drawn to write peace music somehow,” because “the whole atmosphere is too full of complexities.” Those complexities are palpable in the Cello Concerto, which channels Elgar’s wartime despair and disillusion. It is an introspective, deeply personal work, in places a cry from the heart, though it is never self-indulgent or sentimental. It is an essay in a lean, economical, sometimes austere brand of Romanticism. Elgar calls for a large orchestra, but employs it with such discrimination that the cello is always set in relief; often, he suggests the intimacy of chamber music. 

Through thematic and emotional cross-references, the unique four-movement plan forms a coherent drama. The opening is daring: a sparsely accompanied recitative for the cello, the very first phrase of which encapsulates the basic mood of the whole concerto. The movement is set in a simple three-part form and in the middle section, a new, sweeter theme is introduced. The second movement, which follows without a break, is the equivalent of a scherzo—but at first the music seems uncertain how to proceed. At times the music is comical (as in the closing bars), but overall it is too conflicted, too tense and restless to count as playful.

The slow movement features a reduced orchestra (just clarinets, bassoons, and two horns with strings), though at no cost to the music’s passion or its richness of texture. The finale promises something more aggressive, though, after just eight bars in this vein, it too gives way to a cello recitative and cadenza. (It is crucial to the overall emotional effect of the concerto that all three fast movements must “escape” from a despondent opening recitative.) The movement is set in a free rondo form, the harmonic idiom is austere, and the principal theme is a sort of grim march. Near the end, the quick tempo is abandoned for—yet again—recitative, the most passionate one we have yet heard. The concerto ends as it began; Elgar permits no magical, last-minute reprieve from his bleak post-war vision.

—Program Note by Kevin Bazzana

Peter Oundjian, conductor

Recognized as a masterful and dynamic presence in the conducting world, Peter Oundjian has developed a multi-faceted portfolio as a conductor, violinist, professor, and artistic advisor. He has been celebrated for his musicality, his engaging personality, and having an eye toward collaboration, innovative programming, leadership, and training with students. Strengthening his ties to Colorado, Oundjian is now Principal Conductor of the Colorado Symphony in addition to Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival, which successfully pivoted to a virtual format during the pandemic summers of 2020 and 2021.

Now carrying the title Conductor Emeritus, Oundjian spent 14-years as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony, serving as a major creative force for the City of Toronto. His tenure was marked by a reimagining of the TSO’s programming, international stature, audience development, touring, and a number of outstanding recordings, garnering a GRAMMY® nomination in 2018 and a JUNO Award for Vaughan Williams’s orchestral works in 2019. He led the Orchestra on several international tours to Europe and the US, conducting the first performance by a North American orchestra at Reykjavik’s Harpa Hall in 2014. 

From 2012 to 2018, Oundjian served as Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, during which time he implemented the kind of collaborative programming that has become a staple of his directorship. Oundjian led the RSNO on several international tours, including to North America and China, and on a European festival tour with performances at the Bregenz Festival and the Dresden Festival as well as in Innsbruck, Bergamo, Ljubljana, and other cities. His final appearance with the orchestra as their Music Director was at the 2018 BBC Proms where he conducted Britten’s epic War Requiem.

Highlights of past seasons include appearances with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; the Iceland Symphony and the Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis, Baltimore, Dallas, Seattle, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras. With the onset of worldwide concert cancellations, support for students at Yale and Juilliard became a priority. In the 2022/23 season, Oundjian will conduct the opening weekend of the Atlanta Symphony, followed by return engagements with the Baltimore, Indianapolis, Dallas, Colorado, and Toronto Symphonies, as well as a visit to the New World Symphony. 

Oundjian has been a visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Music since 1981, and, in 2013, was awarded the school’s Sanford Medal for Distinguished Service to Music. A dedicated educator, Oundjian regularly conducts the Yale, Juilliard, Curtis, and New World Symphony Orchestras.

An outstanding violinist, Oundjian spent 14 years as the first violinist for the renowned Tokyo String Quartet before he turned his energy toward conducting.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello

Sheku Kanneh-Mason initially garnered renown as the winner of the 2016 BBC Young Musician competition, the first Black musician to take the title. He became a household name in 2018 after performing at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Windsor Castle, his performance having been greeted with universal excitement after being watched by nearly two billion people globally. He has subsequently released two chart-topping albums on the Decca Classics label, Inspiration in 2018 and Elgar in 2020. The latter reached the UK Top 10, making him the first cellist in history to do so.

Kanneh-Mason has made débuts with orchestras such as the Seattle Symphony, the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Forthcoming highlights include performances with The Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Barcelona Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, and London Philharmonic Orchestras.

In recital, he has performed at illustrious venues and festivals: at London’s Wigmore Hall, Zurich’s Tonhalle, Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Florence’s Teatro della Pergola, Barcelona’s L’Auditori, Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, and New York’s Carnegie Hall; and at the Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Verbier, Lucerne, and Aldeburgh Festivals, and Festival de Saint-Denis. Upcoming engagements include appearances at London’s Barbican Hall, Berliner Philharmonie, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and tours of North America, Italy, South Korea, and China.

Since his début in 2017, Sheku Kanneh-Mason has performed every summer at the BBC Proms, including a breathtaking 2020 recital performance with his sister Isata to an empty auditorium due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the lockdown, in spring 2020, Sheku and his siblings performed in twice-weekly live streams from their family home in Nottingham to audiences of hundreds of thousands around the globe. He has performed at the BAFTA Awards ceremony twice, in 2017 and 2018, was the winner of Best Classical Artist at the Global Awards in 2020 and 2021 (the latter as part of the Kanneh-Mason family), and received the 2020 Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artists Award.

A graduate of London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Hannah Roberts, Sheku was appointed in May 2022 as the Academy’s first Menuhin Visiting Professor of Performance Mentoring.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List. He plays a Matteo Goffriller cello from 1700, which is on indefinite loan to him.

Gustavo Gimeno, conductor
María Dueñas, violin

Samy Moussa 
Symphony No. 2
TSO Commission

Édouard Lalo
Symphonie espagnole for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 21
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Scherzando: Allegro molto
III. Intermezzo: Allegretto non troppo
IV. Andante
V. Rondo: Allegro

Intermission

Sergei Prokofiev/comp. Gustavo Gimeno
Suite from Romeo and Juliet
I. Montagues and Capulets
II. The Young Juliet
III. Dance
IV. Masques
V. Romeo and Juliet Balcony Scene 
VI. Death of Tybalt 
VII. Romeo and Juliet before Parting
VIII. Romeo at the Grave of Juliet
IX. The Death of Juliet

Gustavo Gimeno’s appearances are generously supported by Susan Brenninkmeyer in memory of Hans Brenninkmeyer.

Samy Moussa (b. 1984): Symphony No. 2 

Toronto Symphony Orchestra Commission
Composed 2022

21 min

The world première of Samy Moussa’s Symphony No. 2, dedicated to Gustavo Gimeno, was one of the high points of his year-long 2021/22 residency as the TSO’s first Spotlight Artist—an appointment that provided unprecedented access to the Orchestra’s artistic resources. “One interesting thing about the piece is the instrumentation,” the Montreal-born, Berlin-based Moussa said at the time. “The TSO allowed me anything I wanted for the commission, which was wonderful, both for things I wanted to do and wanted not to do. As well, composing for the TSO, whatever I had in mind I knew they could do. And this was liberating for me.” 

And the things he didn’t want? “For one thing, no trombones,” he said. “For two reasons: to break the habit of relying on particular instruments for a certain kind of power, and, because my next project is a trombone concerto, I wanted to allow myself to yearn for the trombone!” 

Trumpets are also replaced, by flugelhorns; and a euphonium has been added to the usual roster of symphonic instruments. As he explained: “I wanted to create a new brass section sound. Unlike trumpets and trombones, flugelhorns have a conical bore; euphonium and tuba are conical bore instruments too. And for percussion I also wanted a grouped sound, so only pitched instruments—no bass drum, triangle, cymbals or gongs. Instead, marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, crotales, glockenspiel. That was very important for my aesthetic of the piece.” 

The 20-minute score is divided into three movements, but the music never stops except for a very small moment near the end. “Watch for the chorale in the brass at the start. It comes back more than once, and of course at the end.” 

—Program note by David S. Perlman

Moussa’s distinctiveness as a composer is marked by limpid approaches to harmony and form, resulting in a stream of ever-changing and uniquely vivid sound worlds, and a succession of performances by such wide-ranging ensembles as the Vienna Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas and Houston Symphony Orchestras, London Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, DSO, l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. 

His catalogue of published compositions (40 at last count) ranges from opera and oratorio to solo. Among these compositions are a dozen pieces for orchestra alone, and a further six for orchestra and soloist. Works underway in his composition diary include commissions for the Dutch National Opera & Ballet Amsterdam, and a flute concerto for Emmanuel Pahud. The aforementioned concerto for trombone and orchestra is scheduled for an April 14, 2023 première with the Orchestre national de Lyon, with Jörgen van Rijen, trombone).

Also an accomplished conductor, Moussa has performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Opera, and Haydn Orchestra. Engagements this season include performances with Musikkollegium Winterthur and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Édouard Lalo (1823–1892): Symphonie espagnole for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 21 

Composed 1874

32 min

Édouard Lalo belongs to a group of composers widely known for a single work—in his case, this spectacular showpiece for violin and orchestra. Coming of age as a composer during a period when French musical tastes of the day favoured lightness and grace over depth and seriousness, and preferred vocal music over the purely instrumental kind, he was greeted with indifference for so long that he gave up composing completely during the 1860s and early 1870s. 

Inspiration to resume came largely from violinist Pablo de Sarasate, Spanish-born but a resident of Paris since the age of 11. Lalo, whose own Spanish ancestry harkened back to the 15th century, composed a largely forgotten Violin Concerto in F Major for Sarasate in 1874, after which they immediately began work together on the Symphonie espagnole, which Sarasate premièred in Paris. It was an instant success, at home and abroad, launching a trend—French music that pays tribute to Spain: Bizet’s opera Carmen (which débuted less than a month later), Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole, Alborada del gracioso, and Boléro, and Debussy’s Ibéria.

The work has many of the characteristics of a typical 19th-century concerto, but Lalo chose to call it a symphony, rather than a concerto or a suite, because of the number of movements. “Artistically, a title means nothing, but commercially, a tainted, discredited title is never a good thing,” Lalo wryly observed. “I kept the title because it conveyed my thought—that is to say, a violin solo soaring above the rigid form of an old symphony.” 

The first movement is the most traditionally symphonic of the four original movements (the Intermezzo was added later). A brief orchestral introduction sets up the first entry of the soloist. The rhythm of a fiery Spanish dance then establishes itself. The second theme brings a taste of melancholy without slowing the music down at all. The second movement is a lively, playful, almost waltz-like scherzo, in which the spicy flavour of Spanish folk style becomes stronger. The delicate orchestral textures include pizzicato (plucked) strings, cleverly imitating the sound of a Spanish guitar. 

The Intermezzo that follows was left out of most concert performances for 60 years. (There is a 1933 Victor recording of Yehudi Menuhin, then 17 years old, with the Paris Symphony under Georges Enesco.) In the right soloist’s hands, it provides a compelling narrative bridge between the playful scherzo and the movements that follow.

The fourth movement opens with a serious, almost hymn-like theme in the orchestra, which the soloist takes up and carries forward with ever-increasing passion, before a relaxing calmness is reasserted. In the finale that follows, the full virtuosic flair of the piece is unleashed—slowly at first, but ultimately outdoing the previous movements for catchy tunes, lavish colour, wit, spectacular solo fiddling, and sheer, joyful energy. 

—Program note by Don Anderson

Artistically, a title means nothing, but commercially, a tainted, discredited title is never a good thing. ­—Édouard Lalo 

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) comp. Gustavo Gimeno: Suite from Romeo and Juliet

Composed 1934–1940

43 min

Over the centuries, at least 60 composers have written music directly inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a handful of which still receive regular performances, including Vincenzo Bellini’s opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues, 1830); Charles Gounod’s five-act Roméo et Juliette (1864); and Hector Berlioz’s “symphonic drama” Roméo et Juliette (1839). Thirty years after Berlioz, a young Tchaikovsky side-stepped the thorny question of how to set Shakespeare’s words to music by creating a strictly orchestral setting.

Tchaikovsky’s three great ballet scores—Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker—came later, inspiring many latter-day Soviet practitioners, none more so than Prokofiev (whose early efforts were motor-driven exercises in conscious modernity). With The Prodigal Son (1929), he began moving toward a warmer approach, and, in 1934, the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Company (later renamed the Kirov) commissioned him to compose a Romeo and Juliet ballet. 

Prokofiev and the company’s director, Sergei Radlov, spent months working on the scenario, including, at one point, attempting to give it a happy ending. “The reasons for this particular bit of barbarism were purely choreographic,” Prokofiev recalled. “Live people can dance, but the dying can hardly be expected to dance in bed.”

The project’s path to fruition was fraught. Newly installed company management at the Kirov had doubts about Shakespeare as ballet, and withdrew. Prokofiev then struck a deal with Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre and completed the score in five months, only to have the Bolshoi directors also dismiss it as “unsuitable for dancing.” 

Undaunted (and in hope of having a calling card for the full ballet), Prokofiev arranged from it a set of ten piano transcriptions and two orchestral suites (a third followed in 1946), which were warmly received. In 1939, the Kirov agreed to mount the production, but two weeks before the scheduled première, the company’s dancers and musicians, accustomed to virtually plotless divertissements set to loud music, rebelled, voting to cancel the production, “to avoid a scandal.” 

Despite these, and other, complications, the production’s début on January 11, 1940, was a triumph: the music was instantly hailed as a masterpiece. As the Kirov’s star choreographer, Leonid Lavrovsky, described it: “Prokofiev developed the principles of symphonism in ballet music. He was one of the first Soviet composers to bring to the ballet stage genuine human emotions and full-blooded musical images. The boldness of his musical treatment…served to turn the performance into a dramatic entity.”

For the three individual suites Prokofiev compiled while the full ballet was in limbo, he cherry-picked movements from the full ballet score, with concert logic taking precedence over dramatic sense. The suite you will hear in this performance draws from all three suites, thereby re-establishing the throughline and emotional power of the magnificent full score.

—Program note by Don Anderson

María Dueñas, violin

Spanish violinist María Dueñas beguiles audiences with the breathtaking array of colours she draws from her instrument. Her technical prowess, artistic maturity, and bold interpretations have inspired rave reviews, captivated competition juries, and secured invitations to appear with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors.

María Dueñas studies with world-renowned violin teacher Boris Kuschnir at the Music and Arts University of Vienna. Born in Granada in 2002, she was accepted at the Conservatory in her hometown at the age of 7. In 2014, she won a scholarship to study abroad and went to Dresden, where she was soon spotted by conductor Marek Janowsky, at whose invitation she would later make her début as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony. Two years later, she and her family moved to Austria, following the recommendation of her mentor Vladimir Spivakov. A multi-faceted musician, she is also fond of composing and wrote her own cadenzas for the violin concertos of Mozart and Beethoven.

Following an array of first prizes at various prestigious international competitions, María Dueñas created a stir at the 2021 Menuhin Violin Competition, where she won not only the first prize and audience prize, but also a global online following. Since then, she has been in high demand worldwide and has performed with many major orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, Dresdner Philharmonie, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony Orchestra, under conductors such as Marek Janowski, Manfred Honeck, Vladimir Spivakov, Vassily Sinaisky, Gustavo Gimeno, and Michael Sanderling.

In August 2021, she made her début with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl, and joined them again in May 2022 to give the world première of Gabriela Ortiz’s violin concerto, Altar de Cuerda, which she has since also performed in Boston and at Carnegie Hall in New York. Her tour with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Gustavo Gimeno is a highlight of the 2022/23 season.

María Dueñas has recently signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Her début album, featuring Beethoven’s Violin Concerto together with Wiener Symphoniker and Manfred Honeck, will be released in May 2023. She plays on a Nicolò Gagliano violin kindly loaned from Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, and on the Stradivari “Camposelice” of 1710, on generous loan from Nippon Music Foundation.

These performances mark María Dueñas’s TSO début.

Gustavo Gimeno, conductor
María Dueñas, violin

Samy Moussa
Symphony No. 2
TSO Commission

Max Bruch
Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26
I. Prelude: Allegro moderato
II. Adagio
III. Finale: Allegro energico

Intermission

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64
I. Andante – Allegro con anima
II. Andante cantabile con alcuna licenza
III. Valse: Allegro moderato
IV. Finale: Andante maestoso – Allegro vivace

Gustavo Gimeno's appearances are generously supported by Susan Brenninkmeyer, in memory of Hans Brenninkmeyer.

Samy Moussa (b. 1984): Symphony No. 2 

Toronto Symphony Orchestra Commission
Composed 2022

21 min

The world première of Samy Moussa’s Symphony No. 2, dedicated to Gustavo Gimeno, was one of the high points of his year-long 2021/22 residency as the TSO’s first Spotlight Artist—an appointment that provided unprecedented access to the Orchestra’s artistic resources. “One interesting thing about the piece is the instrumentation,” the Montreal-born, Berlin-based Moussa said at the time. “The TSO allowed me anything I wanted for the commission, which was wonderful, both for things I wanted to do and wanted not to do. As well, composing for the TSO, whatever I had in mind I knew they could do. And this was liberating for me.” 

And the things he didn’t want? “For one thing, no trombones,” he said. “For two reasons: to break the habit of relying on particular instruments for a certain kind of power, and, because my next project is a trombone concerto, I wanted to allow myself to yearn for the trombone!” 

Trumpets are also replaced, by flugelhorns; and a euphonium has been added to the usual roster of symphonic instruments. As he explained: “I wanted to create a new brass section sound. Unlike trumpets and trombones, flugelhorns have a conical bore; euphonium and tuba are conical bore instruments too. And for percussion I also wanted a grouped sound, so only pitched instruments—no bass drum, triangle, cymbals or gongs. Instead, marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, crotales, glockenspiel. That was very important for my aesthetic of the piece.” 

The 20-minute score is divided into three movements, but the music never stops except for a very small moment near the end. “Watch for the chorale in the brass at the start. It comes back more than once, and of course at the end.” 

—Program note by David S. Perlman

Moussa’s distinctiveness as a composer is marked by limpid approaches to harmony and form, resulting in a stream of ever-changing and uniquely vivid sound worlds, and a succession of performances by such wide-ranging ensembles as the Vienna Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas and Houston Symphony Orchestras, London Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, DSO, l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

His catalogue of published compositions (40 at last count) ranges from opera and oratorio to solo. Among these compositions are a dozen pieces for orchestra alone, and a further six for orchestra and soloist. Works underway in his composition diary include commissions for the Dutch National Opera & Ballet Amsterdam, and a flute concerto for Emmanuel Pahud. The aforementioned concerto for trombone and orchestra is scheduled for an April 14, 2023 première with the Orchestre national de Lyon, with Jörgen van Rijen, trombone).

Also an accomplished conductor, Moussa has performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Opera, and Haydn Orchestra. Engagements this season include performances with Musikkollegium Winterthur and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Max Bruch (1838–1920): Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26 

Composed 1864–1866

30 min

No one could accuse Bruch of laziness. In addition to composing three operas, three symphonies, several oratorios, more than 40 additional pieces for chorus, and numerous works in other forms, he worked extensively as a teacher and conductor. He held major posts in Liverpool, Breslau, and Berlin, and undertook guest conducting engagements that brought him as far afield as North America.

Regarding long-term achievement, not one of the above-mentioned pieces has gained a foothold in the standard repertoire. The sifting process of time has left just a trio of Bruch’s works to warm themselves in the sun—two of his nine works for violin and orchestra, Concerto No. 1 and Scottish Fantasy, plus his Kol Nidrei for cello.

The reasons for the concerto’s esteem are crystal clear. It is a compact work that combines the dramatic, the lyrical, and the virtuosic in perfect balance. It also demonstrates Bruch’s deep understanding of the violin. He once stated that the instrument “can sing a melody better than a piano, and melody is the soul of music.”

Although this concerto—his most enduringly popular composition—sounds smooth and effortless, it followed a difficult course to its final form. It won a favourable reception at its first public performance, but it still left Bruch unsatisfied. Seeking advice on how to improve it, he consulted with the widely respected Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim who gave him a long, detailed evaluation. Relieved by this expert counsel, Bruch dedicated the concerto to Joachim. The début of the revised edition drew a warm response from audience and composer alike.

Bruch titled the concerto’s opening section Prelude, suggesting that it serves primarily as an introduction to the more important second movement, the Adagio. The Prelude opens in an air of quiet, brooding melancholy before breaking out into a full-blown and impassioned allegro. It builds up to two major climaxes before dying away in emotional exhaustion. Bruch then segues without pause into the heartfelt central Adagio, which begins in a prayer-like atmosphere, then gradually gains both in activity and expressiveness. It features some of the most beautiful writing in the entire literature for violin.

Bruch concludes the concerto with a propulsive, gypsy-flavoured finale, anticipating the last movement of the concerto that Johannes Brahms wrote ten years later—a work also dedicated to, and premièred by, Joseph Joachim. The second theme has a noble contour, more elevated than heroic. It’s definitely a dance but, in keeping with the concerto’s overall character, it’s still a rather serious one until a final accelerando hurtles the concerto across the finish line.

—Program note by Don Anderson

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893): Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64

Composed 1888

46 min

Despite the international fame that Tchaikovsky’s music won during his lifetime, he remained an emotionally fragile, intensely self-doubting artist, with much of his inner life, positive and negative aspects alike, played out in his music.

In his Symphony No. 4 (1878), his sense of himself as the victim of a cold, heartless fate manifests itself in a recurring theme, a harsh brass fanfare. Ten years passed before he composed his next symphony, by which time the international successes that his music had won in the interim had placed him in a more positive frame of mind: the idea of fate still dogged him, but according to a programmatic sketch of the Fifth Symphony, fate had evolved into providence, a somewhat less hostile governor of life.

He conducted the Fifth Symphony’s first two performances himself, then another in Prague shortly thereafter. Audiences loved it, but the press reacted with hostility. The critical barbs initially devastated him, but a further performance in Hamburg firmly erased his pessimistic feelings.

Like its predecessor, the Fifth Symphony is founded upon a recurring melody representative of the composer’s current philosophical outlook. Reflecting his overall lightening in attitude, the new providence theme is less intimidating than its fatalistic counterpart in Symphony No. 4. Introduced quietly in the clarinets, it undergoes a gradual, increasingly positive transformation in an opening movement that contrasts restlessness with yearning.

A passionate love-idyll follows in the second movement, which commences with a ravishing theme introduced by solo horn and a more wistful idea first played by solo oboe. Both melodies grow in fervour as this expansive movement unfolds, with its raptures twice interrupted by the providence theme, the second time with particularly devastating impact. The movement that follows is a typically elegant Tchaikovsky waltz, based on a popular song he heard being sung by a boy in the street during a visit to Florence, Italy. The sole blemish on its courtly surface comes in a brief, almost casual appearance of the providence theme—a cloud across the sun—just before the end of the movement.

Providence reappears, transformed and almost benign, in the slow introduction to the Finale, where it is heard in a major key for the first time. The movement is one of Tchaikovsky’s most joyous and energetic, strongly coloured with the hearty flavours and dancing rhythms of Russian folk music. Brass fanfares and a thunderous timpani roll herald a pause for breath, after which  the symphony’s overarching theme stands radiantly transfigured in a sturdy processional, before a whirlwind coda brings the symphony home.

—Program note by Don Anderson

Gustavo Gimeno, Music Director

Gustavo Gimeno’s TSO début was on February 21, 2018, in a program featuring Johannes Moser in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, Ligeti’s Concert Românesc, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4.

He was appointed Music Director Designate in November 2019, but his first appearance as Music Director wasn’t until November 2021 when he conducted works by Joan Tower, Dvořák, Steve Reich (in which Gimeno also made his TSO soloist début playing percussion!), Stravinsky, and Morawetz.

Gustavo Gimeno’s tenure as the tenth Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra began in 2020/21. Since his appointment, he has reinvigorated the artistic profile of the Orchestra, engaged with musicians and audiences alike, and brought performances of familiar works as well as some of today’s freshest sounds. In leading the TSO through the pandemic and into this vibrant 100th-anniversary celebration, he has overseen renewed community engagement, and sown the seeds for an ambitious program of commissioning new works from emerging and established composers.

During the 2022/23 season, Gimeno and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra continue to celebrate the Orchestra’s Centennial with major symphonic works including Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Gimeno will share the stage with, among other soloists, Yo-Yo Ma, Yuja Wang, Yefim Bronfman, and Jean-Guihen Queyras. He and the Orchestra will also embark on the first tour of their partnership, including a concert at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, a return visit to Carnegie Hall, and the Orchestra’s début at Chicago’s Symphony Center.

This season, Gimeno and the TSO will make their first commercial recording, memorializing Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie, with pianist Marc-André Hamelin and ondes Martenot player Nathalie Forget, for the Harmonia Mundi label. This builds on Gimeno’s relationship with the label, for whom he has recorded Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Stravinsky’s ballets The Firebird and Apollon musagète with Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg.

Gimeno has held the position of Music Director with Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg since 2015, and will become Music Director of Teatro Real in Madrid in 2025/26—he currently serves as their Music Director Designate. As an opera conductor, he has conducted at great houses such as the Liceu Opera Barcelona; Opernhaus Zürich; Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia; and Teatro Real, Madrid. He is also much sought-after as a symphonic guest conductor worldwide: débuts in 2022/23 include Staatskapelle Berlin and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Gimeno is also regularly reinvited to the Royal Concertgebouworkest, and touring projects have included concerts as far afield as Japan and Taiwan. 

María Dueñas, violin

María Dueñas made her TSO début performing Edourd Lalo's Symphonie espagnole at Roy Thomson  Hall on February 8 and 9 this year, as well as on the TSO's just-completed whirlwind tour to Ottawa, New York, and Chicago.

Spanish violinist María Dueñas beguiles audiences with the breathtaking array of colours she draws from her instrument. Her technical prowess, artistic maturity, and bold interpretations have inspired rave reviews, captivated competition juries, and secured invitations to appear with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors.

María Dueñas studies with world-renowned violin teacher Boris Kuschnir at the Music and Arts University of Vienna. Born in Granada in 2002, she was accepted at the Conservatory in her hometown at the age of 7. In 2014, she won a scholarship to study abroad and went to Dresden, where she was soon spotted by conductor Marek Janowsky, at whose invitation she would later make her début as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony. Two years later, she and her family moved to Austria, following the recommendation of her mentor Vladimir Spivakov. A multi-faceted musician, she is also fond of composing and wrote her own cadenzas for the violin concertos of Mozart and Beethoven.

Following an array of first prizes at various prestigious international competitions, María Dueñas created a stir at the 2021 Menuhin Violin Competition, where she won not only the first prize and audience prize, but also a global online following. Since then, she has been in high demand worldwide and has performed with many major orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, Dresdner Philharmonie, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony Orchestra, under conductors such as Marek Janowski, Manfred Honeck, Vladimir Spivakov, Vassily Sinaisky, Gustavo Gimeno, and Michael Sanderling.

In August 2021, she made her début with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl, and joined them again in May 2022 to give the world première of Gabriela Ortiz’s violin concerto, Altar de Cuerda, which she has since also performed in Boston and at Carnegie Hall in New York. Her tour with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Gustavo Gimeno is a highlight of the 2022/23 season.

María Dueñas has recently signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Her début album, featuring Beethoven’s Violin Concerto together with Wiener Symphoniker and Manfred Honeck, will be released in May 2023. She plays on a Nicolò Gagliano violin kindly loaned from Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, and on the Stradivari “Camposelice” of 1710, on generous loan from Nippon Music Foundation.

Kerem Hasan, conductor
Jeffrey Beecher, double bass

Benjamin Britten
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a
I. Dawn
II. Sunday Morning
III. Moonlight
IV. Storm

Missy Mazzoli
Dark with Excessive Bright

Intermission

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385 “Haffner”
I. Allegro con spirito
II. Andante
III. Menuetto
IV. Presto

Benjamin Britten
Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20
I. Lacrymosa
II. Dies irae
III. Requiem aeternam

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976): Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a 

Composed 1945

16 min

Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft, on the Suffolk coast of north-east England, and died in Aldeburgh, 23 miles south as the crow flies. His journey between the two was, however, more circuitous. As conscientious objectors, Britten and his life companion, tenor Peter Pears, spent the early years of the Second World War in the United States. In 1941, an article in the BBC periodical The Listener drew Britten’s attention to the poetry of George Crabbe, and, in The Borough, Crabbe’s 1810 collection of poems about life in the fishing villages of Suffolk, Britten found the doomed fisherman Peter Grimes. “I also suddenly realized where I belonged and what I lacked,” he recalled many years later. “I had become without roots.”

Waiting for safe passage back across the North Atlantic, Pears and Britten attended a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance of Britten’s powerfully dramatic Sinfonia da Requiem. Impressed, BSO conductor Serge Koussevitzky asked Britten why he hadn’t written a full opera. Britten told him the Crabbe/Grimes idea, and Koussevitzky secured $1,000 for the project from the Koussevitsky Foundation established to honour his recently deceased wife, Natalie, asking Britten to dedicate the opera to her. Britten and Pears were well underway moulding Crabbe’s material into stageworthy form by the time they arrived back in England, after which Britten’s chosen librettist, Montagu Slater, set to work. Peter Grimes had its June 1945 première at Sadler’s Wells Opera Company just 30 days after the end of the war in Western Europe.

Crabbe’s Peter Grimes is a sadistic villain—an alcoholic fisherman who abuses his apprentices. Not so in the opera. “[As conscientious objectors,] a central feeling for us was that of the individual against the crowd,” Britten wrote, “which led us to make Grimes a character of vision and conflict, the tortured idealist he is, rather than the villain he was in Crabbe.” The score brims over with memorable themes, nowhere more crucially than in the orchestral interludes that bridge the opera’s scenes. Britten edited and re-sequenced four of them, brief impressionist tone poems, portraying the moods of the sea, into this concert suite. 

Dawn separates the opera’s prologue from Act I. The sea seems at peace with itself, yet harbours a sense of disturbing events to come. Sunday Morning is the prelude to Act II. The mood is boisterous, with horns for church bells, as the sun sparkles on rippling waves. Once again, dark undercurrents flow beneath the surface. Moonlight gently introduces Act III. The town and harbour lie tranquil during a warm summer night. Flutes and harp paint glints of reflected moonlight. Last comes Storm, which in the opera separates the two scenes of Act I. Grimes has just decided to turn his back on his true element, the sea, and the sea reacts in brutal, graphically scored protest.

—Program note by Don Anderson

CRABBE'S GRIMES

“He built a mud-wall'd hovel, where he kept
His various wealth, and there he oft-times slept;
But no success could please his cruel soul,
He wish'd for one to trouble and control;
He wanted some obedient boy to stand
And bear the blow of his outrageous hand;
And hoped to find in some propitious hour
A feeling creature subject to his power.”

—George Crabbe’s Peter Grimes, lines 51-58

Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980): Dark with Excessive Bright

Composed 2018

14 min

Spurring Missy Mazzoli’s success is her inexhaustible drive and an audaciously original sound, which draws on multiple sources. These include the minimalists and Meredith Monk, a groundbreaking vocalist and multi-disciplinary artist who explores a range of unorthodox, sometimes other-worldly vocal techniques. As she matures as a composer, Mazzoli said last year in a Classical Voice North America interview, she is willing to be even more daring, as illustrated by her 2022 Violin Concerto (Procession) which she described as a bevy of “crazy textures” and “extended techniques.” Procession premièred in 2022, as did her latest opera, The Listeners, which music writer Alex Ross described as a “potent, chilling and excruciatingly relevant work.” 

Mazzoli typically eschews generic titles like Symphony No. 1 or Violin Concerto, choosing evocative and often telling names that suggest direct or indirect narratives like Still Life with Avalanche, or Vespers for a New Dark Age. “‘Dark with excessive bright’ (from Milton’s Paradise Lost), is a surreal and evocative description of God, written by a blind man,” Mazzoli writes. “I love the impossibility of this phrase, and felt it was a strangely accurate way to describe the dark but heart-rending sound of the double bass itself.” 

Dark with Excessive Bright was premièred in 2018 by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, (co-commissioners of the work with the London-based Aurora Orchestra). It is an intense 14-minute work that manages to be at once haunting and poignant. In this concerto for contrabass (or double bass, as the instrument is also known) and string orchestra, the solo and ensemble lines dissolve at times into penetratingly skewed and intoxicating harmonies. The double bass is usually known for growly low notes, but Mazzoli takes advantage of the instrument’s full range and surprising suppleness, especially its less frequently heard, expressive upper register, adding ghostly glissandos or slides along the way.

Although some of her music is inspired by indie rock, electronica, and ambient music, this work looks back at the baroque and Renaissance eras, visioning the nearly 450-year instrument owned by the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s principal bassist, Maxime Bibeau, as a kind of historian travelling back in time. “While loosely based in baroque idioms,” she says, “this piece slips between string techniques from several centuries, all while twisting a pattern of repeated chords beyond recognition.” 

—Program note by Kyle MacMillan

Few younger-generation composers are more in demand than Missy Mazzoli, whose works are increasingly heard on concert and opera stages across North America and beyond. In the last five years alone, the 42-year-old New Yorker has served as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence, and become one of the first two women to receive a commission from the Metropolitan Opera. In addition, Musical America named her its 2022 Composer of the Year, joining such luminaries in the field as John Corigliano, Kaija Saariaho, and Joan Tower.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791): Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385 “Haffner”

Composed 1782

17 min

Music lovers are indebted to Sigismund Haffner, the younger. Mozart and Haffner, son of Salzburg’s former mayor, had been friends since childhood, and in the summer of 1776, Haffner asked Mozart to compose a serenade for the festivities before the wedding of Haffner’s sister, Marie Elisabeth. The resulting “Haffner” Serenade (Serenade No. 7) is in eight movements, and lasts about an hour when performed uninterruptedly (which was not the original intention).

The Haffner-commissioned symphony was also intended to be for a particular occasion. Mozart had relocated to Vienna in 1781, to take up the whirlwind life of a freelance composer. In mid-July of the following year, his father, Leopold, passed on a Haffner request—for a symphony to be performed at a celebration in honour of Haffner’s impending elevation to the nobility.

The specificity of the timing proved awkward, since Mozart was deeply involved with several urgent projects. Some were musical, such as the making of lucrative wind-ensemble arrangements of arias from his comic opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, which had recently premièred to tremendous acclaim. Others were personal, headed by a change of residence in anticipation of his own wedding to Constanze Weber, three weeks later.

He composed the symphony as quickly as he could. “You see that my intentions are good—only what one cannot do, one cannot!” he wrote to his father. “I am really unable to scribble off inferior stuff. So I cannot send you the whole symphony until next post-day.” He ended up missing the deadline.

A few months later, Wolfgang asked Leopold to send it back to him, so he could program it for a subscription concert in Vienna. He didn’t recognize it when it arrived. “The new Haffner symphony positively amazed me,” he wrote to his father, “for I had forgotten every single note of it. It must surely produce a good effect.” Which it did.

To create the version of the piece that premierèd in Vienna in March 1783, he dropped the march with which he had opened the version for the Haffner occasion, and added flutes and clarinets to the outer movements. The first movement leaps right in with a stirring call to attention, and then, in a marked departure for the period, remains ingeniously focused on just one real theme throughout the movement. The second movement is a serene, gracious Andante; the third, a brief Minuet with a tender Trio section at its core. The finale, which Mozart requested be played “as fast as possible,” bubbles over with comic-opera vivaciousness. The main theme is, in fact, a close variation of the jovial aria “Ah, how I shall triumph”, from his Abduction from the Seraglio. 

—Program note by Don Anderson

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976): Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20

Composed 1940

18 min

In the summer of 1939, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears arrived in the United States, by way of Canada. At the age of 26, Britten was already an international figure, more appreciated abroad than at home, and commissions followed him, including one from the Japanese government, for a work to be performed during festivities connected with the 2,600th anniversary of the birth of the Emperor Jimmu, founder of the reigning dynasty. 

Britten responded with Sinfonia da Requiem, feeling that the recent Sino-Japanese War was an occasion for mourning. Officially the work was accepted, but then came a “furious protest,” via the Japanese embassy in New York, concerning the liturgical titles of the three movements, Lacrymosa, Dies irae, and Requiem aeternam, all drawn from the Dies irae in the Mass for the Dead. The commission was withdrawn. When the score appeared, it bore instead the simple dedication, "in memory of my parents.” (The composer had been doubly bereaved a short while before his American journey.)

The “symphony” (his longest work for unaccompanied orchestra) is a musical journey, in a way comparable to Dante’s Inferno, cycling through deeply felt states of mind that reflect something of Mahler’s grandeur and grotesquerie. To effect a proper resolution of the work’s unbearable tensions, Britten rearranged the Requiem Mass. Lacrymosa, normally the coda to the sequence, is placed at the beginning; the Dies irae becomes a Berliozian scherzo; and the Requiem aeternam goes to the end.

The composer describes the Lacrymosa as “a slow marching lament.” It has three motifs, the first being announced, after a sombre introduction, by cellos answered by the solo bassoon. The second, marked by a major seventh interval, is given out by the alto saxophone. The third consists of “alternating chords of flutes and trombones, outlined by piano and harps,” after which the movement builds to a climax based on the first cello theme.

Britten describes the Dies irae as “a form of Dance of Death, with occasional moments of quiet marching rhythm.” The leading motif is a single note played “flutter-tongue” to denote terror. The basic scheme, he says, is that of “a series of climaxes of which the last is the most powerful, causing the music to disintegrate and to lead directly to” the last movement. The finale’s somewhat ghostly “lullaby” is played in close formation “by three flutes over a soft background of solo strings and harps.” The music returns to this theme after a flowing violin melody, which, in effect, achieves a complete reconciliation; and the work “ends quietly on a sustained clarinet note.”

John Barbirolli conducted the first performance, given by the New York Philharmonic on March 29, 1941. Not long after, a performance of the work by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky and attended by Britten, led directly to the commissioning of Britten’s defining, first full opera, Peter Grimes. 

—Program note by Marcus Adeney

Kerem Hasan, conductor

Kerem Hasan made his TSO début in April 2019.

Kerem Hasan is chief conductor of the Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck, now in his fourth season. In summer 2017, the young British conductor laid the foundations for a very promising international career by winning the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award. Prior to this, he had attracted attention as a finalist in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in London and as Associate Conductor of the Welsh National Opera.

This season in Innsbruck, Kerem Hasan conducts Verdi's La traviata at the Tiroler Landestheater in addition to his concerts with the Tiroler Symphonieorchester. Other highlights of the 2022/23 season include a production of Carmen at English National Opera and guest engagements with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Dresdner Philharmonie, and Norwegian Radio Orchestra. He works with the Munich Radio Orchestra, Romanian National Radio Orchestra, and Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música for the first time this season. Repeat invitations take him to the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Noord Nederlands Orkest. In June 2023, he will make his début with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Japan.

His recent successes include opera performances at Glyndebourne (The Magic Flute), with Glyndebourne on Tour (The Rake’s Progress), at the Welsh National Opera (La forza del destino), at English National Opera (Così fan tutte), and at Tiroler Landestheater (Samson et Dalila, Rigoletto, The Rape of Lucretia). He has conducted concerts with the Concertgebouworkest, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, SWR Symphonieorchester, MDR-Sinfonieorchester, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, Filarmonica Teatro La Fenice, and New Japan Philharmonic. In the summer of 2022, he made his US début with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony Orchestra, and Minnesota Orchestra.

At the invitation of his mentor Bernard Haitink, he has assisted Haitink with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Concertgebouworkest, and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. In the summer of 2016, he first attended the Conducting Academy of the Aspen Music Festival, where he worked with Robert Spano, returning in 2017 as Conducting Fellow, then returning as Assistant Conductor in summer 2018. In August 2022, he was invited as a guest artist and conducted the Aspen Chamber Orchestra.

Born in London in 1992, Kerem Hasan studied piano and conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He later honed his craft at Zurich University of the Arts with Johannes Schlaefli.

Jeffrey Beecher, double bass

Jeffrey Beecher made his TSO début in June 2007.

Jeffrey Beecher pursues a varied musical career as both an energetic performer and educator. He performs as Principal Double Bass with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which he joined in 2006, and serves as Co-Artistic Director of Silkroad and on the faculty of The Glenn Gould School at The Royal Conservatory.

He tours frequently with Silkroad, performing in major venues of North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. In addition to performing, he has participated in residencies around the world, including work at Harvard University; University of California, Santa Barbara; Getty Museum; Rietberg Museum; and the Aga Khan Museum. He appears on several recordings, including Off the Map, A Playlist Without Borders, and the GRAMMY® Award–winning Sing Me Home, as well as in the documentary film The Music of Strangers.

As an orchestral musician, Beecher has performed as Principal Bass with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. An active chamber musician, he has enjoyed performing at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, Weill Recital Hall, Zankel Hall, and the 92nd Street Y. He has also performed at many festivals, from the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival to the Marlboro Music Festival.

He has made numerous arrangements for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Silkroad Ensemble. He also composed and produced music for the internationally broadcast television show Travels to the Edge with Art Wolfe.

He began his musical education in New York where he attended The Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. He completed his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Harold Robinson and Edgar Meyer. He plays on two double basses: an Italian bass made by Giovanni Battista Rogeri in Brescia, Italy, in 1690; and a French bass made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume in Paris, France, in 1850.

Oundjian Conducts The Planets 
(November 9, 10 & 12 only) 

Oundjian Conducts Mozart's Jupiter 
(November 13 only, George Weston Recital Hall) 

Peter Oundjian, conductor 
Eric Abramovitz, clarinet 
Miles Jaques, basset horn 
Toronto Children’s Chorus & Toronto Youth Choir 
(The TTC and TYC appear on November 9, 10 & 12 only) 

Gioacchino Rossini  
Overture to La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) 

Felix Mendelssohn  
Concert Piece No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 114 

I. Presto 
II. Andante 
III. Allegretto grazioso 

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor  
Ballade in A Minor, Op. 33  

Intermission 

Gustav Holst 
The Planets, Op. 32 
(November 9, 10 & 12 only) 

I. Mars, the Bringer of War 
II. Venus, the Bringer of Peace 
III. Mercury, the Winged Messenger 
IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity 
V. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age 
VI. Uranus, the Magician 
VII. Neptune, the Mystic 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 
Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 “Jupiter” 
(November 13 only, George Weston Hall) 

I. Allegro vivace 
II. Andante cantabile 
III. Menuetto: Allegretto 
IV. Molto allegro 

Gioacchino Rossini (1792–1868): Overture to La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) 

Composed 1817 

10 min  

ROSSINI’S OPERA The Thieving Magpie premièred at Italy’s famous La Scala, and it was a triumph—the latest of many for its composer, who was barely 25 years old. He was basking in a period of phenomenal productivity and public success that saw the creation of masterpieces like The Barber of Seville and Cinderella. The Thieving Magpie was Rossini’s seventh opera in two years, and it was popular, performed with remarkable frequency throughout Europe. Then, in the year before Rossini’s death, it largely disappeared from the repertoire until the 21st century. 

The Thieving Magpie is neither serious nor comic, but both—it is opera semiseria, a popular genre of the day, with roots in French opera from the mid-18th century. The plot is quintessential semiseria: highly dramatic, but with a happy ending, it revolves around an innocent girl saved from unjust execution by a ruthless persecutor. The story is rife with class conflicts, but also infused with comic and popular elements, and unfolds in a series of rustic settings—courtyard, prison, courtroom, village square. Its popular overture, like that of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, is a microcosm of the opera’s particular blend of comedy and drama. The opening drum rolls and pompous, brassy march evoke a military atmosphere, perhaps recalling the French Revolution–era “rescue opera” that was one of the precursors of semiseria.  

The allegro that follows, in fast waltz rhythm, opens with a nervous theme in E minor, which is later reused in the prison scene. But the theme is almost immediately recast in E major, and the tone of the music shifts definitively to the comic. The overture ends with a patented Rossini crescendo: for dozens of bars, the music grows noisier and more animated, closing in a burst of high spirits that anticipates a happy ending several hours away. 

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana 

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847): Concert Piece No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 114 

Composed 1833; orch. Carl Baermann 

8 min  

IN 1829, Felix Mendelssohn embarked on a grand musical tour of Europe, which included stops in England, Scotland, Italy, Switzerland, and France. During his extensive travels that spanned several years, he continued to compose and perform as a pianist in private and public concerts. In June 1830, he travelled to Munich where he met and became friends with the virtuoso clarinetist Heinrich Baermann, who played in the city’s court orchestra. Two years later, in late December, Baermann and his son Carl, also a clarinetist and a basset horn player, paid Mendelssohn a visit in Berlin, requesting a new work from him that they could perform in their upcoming concerts in Russia. As compensation, the duo promised the composer they would cook him Dampfnudeln (steamed dumplings) and Rahmstrudel (sweet-cheese strudel), two Austro-Bavarian specialty dishes. 

Mendelssohn agreed to the task and, as relayed in Carl Baermann’s memoir, completed his Konzertstück (Concert Piece) No. 1 in F minor for clarinet, basset horn (a form of alto clarinet), and piano, in a single day on December 30. On January 5, 1833, the Baermanns performed it, and it was so successful that they immediately asked Mendelssohn to write another work. He finished his Second Konzertstück in D minor on January 19. The piano part was later orchestrated by Carl Baermann. 

Both pieces, popular with clarinetists and basset horn players, are witty and sparkling examples of the refined elegance and dramatic flair of Mendelssohn’s musical style. The opening Presto of Konzertstück No. 2 starts with a lively orchestral introduction, after which the soloists play a melody of agitated energy. As clarinet and basset horn continue to trade phrases, the tension relaxes, and, eventually, the “conversation” culminates in short individual cadenzas. The agitated atmosphere then returns briefly and leads into a brilliant unison passage for the soloists to close the movement with a flourish. 

Pulsating chords in the horns and bassoons launch the second movement, to which the soloists respond with tentative, sigh-like motifs. A tender serenade follows, with the clarinet singing the main melody, while the basset horn burbles underneath. Near the end, the clarinet is given the opportunity to improvise a cadenza, before the Andante draws to a serene conclusion.  

The Allegro grazioso has all the gaiety of a comic opera finale, featuring the soloists as the protagonists. They revel on tuneful phrases separately, then come together for dazzling passages. Quicksilver exchanges then lead to a climactic moment of suspense (marked Adagio), after which the duo blazes through a passage to the curtain-closing chords of the orchestra. 

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD 

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912): Ballade in A Minor, Op. 33 

Composed 1898 

12 min  

“I AM SORRY I am too busy to do so. I wish, wish, wish you would ask Coleridge-Taylor to do it. He still wants recognition, and he is far and away the cleverest fellow going amongst the young men. Please don’t let your committee throw away the chance of doing a good act.” 

We underestimate how many truly impressive works of art owe their existence primarily to a scheduling conflict. That short letter, written in April 1898 by English composer Edward Elgar in response to a request by the Three Choirs Festival, was the beginning of the Ballade in A Minor, deflecting a great opportunity in the direction of a very young Black composer who needed a big break to establish himself.  

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was the son of a doctor from Sierra Leone and a British mother. With their joint efforts, he was enrolled in the Royal College of Music in London at the age of 15. Initially trained as a violinist, he idolized Brahms and Dvořák, and his early works reflect these composers’ vibrant hues for the string section. The Ballade in A Minor was one of his first attempts to take a cautious step out of their shadow (though “caution” is the last thing suggested by the Ballade’s rhapsodic flourishes). The work premièred just five months after Elgar’s letter, with Coleridge-Taylor conducting, and helped announce his arrival as a pre-eminent composer of his generation. 

The work itself reflects the composer’s roots as a violinist. His scoring for the string section was lauded for its “alternations of barbaric gaiety with languid swaying melody.” It is Brahmsian in structure, with more than a hint of Dvořák in its melodic overtones. Brahms’s use of hemiola—a technique of shifting between triple and duple metre—features prominently. The 6/8 metre of the first two themes is contrasted by the 2/4 of the third fragrant theme. The second half of this work’s single movement then jumps between these three themes, before an orchestral tutti and successive changes in tempo drive the work to a cliff-hanging crescendo. 

Away from the podium, Coleridge-Taylor was fiercely devoted to his support of the Black experience on both sides of the Atlantic, making fast friends with the likes of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Booker T. Washington. The composer suffered no illusions regarding the vicious racism that was mixed in with the warm reception in America. Writing defiantly to a friend ahead of a visit, he asserted, “As for the prejudice, I am well prepared for it. That which you and many others have lived in for so many years will not quite kill me. I am a believer in my race.” It would be pneumonia at the age of 37, not prejudice, that quenched the flame of a composer that still had so much more music in him. 

—Program note by Michael Zarathus-Cook 

Gustav Holst (1874–1934): The Planets, Op. 32 

Composed 1914–1916 

53 min  

BORN IN CHELTENHAM, ENGLAND, Gustav Holst composed The Planets during the first two years of WWI. The first performance, a private rehearsal, was given in London by the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Adrian Boult (later Sir Adrian) on September 29, 1918. Albert Coates conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the public première on November 15, 1920.  

On a tour of Spain in 1912, a fellow traveller had introduced Holst to astrology. The curiosity thus aroused in him sowed the seeds of this spectacular orchestral suite, his most popular (if not most representative) creation. It portrays the astrological, rather than the mythological, characters of seven planets in our solar system. 

“Mars, the Bringer of War” presents a harrowing portrait of cold, inhuman power. The brass section takes centre stage, hammering forth harsh blocks of sound over an implacable, motor-like rhythmic tread. Early audiences were convinced that Holst had intended this music as a portrait of the world war that had recently ended. In fact, he had completed the sketches before it broke out.  

“Venus, the Bringer of Peace” offers total contrast—a calm, tranquil reverie, set far from the scene of any conflict and shot through with gorgeous instrumental solos. Holst associated “Mercury, the Winged Messenger” with the process of human thought. It flits by with appropriate speed and delicacy. “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” has both its jovial feet planted firmly on the ground. Hearty tunes steeped in Holst’s study of English folk dances drive the opening and closing sections. In between rests a hymn-like theme evoking a more ceremonial type of rejoicing. 

In the miniature tone poem “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age”, Holst sets forth his views on the stages of human life: the uncertain beginning, the struggles and heartbreaks of maturation, and, finally, the emergence in late years of wisdom, with its serene acceptance of imperfection and mortality.  

Next comes the dynamic conjuring act of “Uranus, the Magician”. Holst puts the orchestra through many spectacular paces, dramatic and grotesquely humorous alike. The suite concludes with the cool, disembodied meditations of “Neptune, the Mystic”. They arrive as if having travelled across vast distances of outer and inner space.  

—Program note by Don Anderson  

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791): Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 “Jupiter” 

Composed 1788 

29 min  

MOZART COULD NOT HAVE KNOWN that the three symphonies he composed between June 26 and August 10, 1788, would be his last. It is fitting, however, that his career as a symphonist should end with three such masterpieces. They are quite different from each other: No. 39 in E-flat major is one of his most elegant creations, its successor in G minor is perhaps his most pathos-filled, and, appropriately, No. 41 is the grandest and most joyous of all his symphonies. 

Uncertainty also exists regarding their performance during Mozart’s lifetime. Circumstantial evidence points to one or more of them being played on several occasions—at a series of subscription concerts at the Vienna Casino later in 1788; during Mozart’s tours of Germany in 1788 and 1789; or in Vienna, conducted by Antonio Salieri in April 1791 (for which performance Mozart may have prepared the second version of Symphony No. 40, with added clarinets). In addition, Symphonies 40 and 41 were rapidly circulated, suggesting that they were performed during his lifetime.  

“Jupiter” was not his title; the nickname is apparently of English origin, coined in the early 1800s by the violinist Johann Peter Salomon. The earliest surviving published reference to it as such dates from the Edinburgh Festival of 1819. This subtitle, linking it with the most powerful of the gods of ancient Rome, seems altogether appropriate. 

The “Jupiter” mirrors No. 40 in dispensing with a slow introduction. Mozart plunges us immediately into the joyous energy with which the opening movement abounds. For all its trumpet-and-drums brilliance, it still retains an unforced elegance. He then drops the trumpets and drums for the slow second movement. His tempo indication, cantabile (singing), describes this restful idyll perfectly. The third movement is truly symphonic in scale and bearing, with a quieter trio section at its heart. The finale looks not only to the future—through its increased expressive weight—but also the past, specifically to the Baroque world of Bach and Handel, by incorporating elements of fugal writing. Learnedness and joy here join hands to conclude Mozart’s career as a symphonist in a burst of creative brilliance.  

—Program note by Don Anderson 

Peter Oundjian, conductor 

Recognized as a masterful and dynamic presence in the conducting world, Peter Oundjian has developed a multi-faceted portfolio as a conductor, violinist, professor, and artistic advisor. He has been celebrated for his musicality, his engaging personality, and having an eye toward collaboration, innovative programming, leadership, and training with students. Strengthening his ties to Colorado, Oundjian is now Principal Conductor of the Colorado Symphony in addition to Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival, which successfully pivoted to a virtual format during the pandemic summers of 2020 and 2021. 

Now carrying the title Conductor Emeritus, Oundjian spent 14 years as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony, serving as a major creative force for the City of Toronto. His tenure was marked by a reimagining of the TSO’s programming, international stature, audience development, touring, and a number of outstanding recordings, garnering a GRAMMY® nomination in 2018 and a JUNO Award for Vaughan Williams’s orchestral works in 2019. He led the Orchestra on several international tours to Europe and the US, conducting the first performance by a North American orchestra at Reykjavik’s Harpa Hall in 2014.  

From 2012 to 2018, Oundjian served as Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, during which time he implemented the kind of collaborative programming that has become a staple of his directorship. Oundjian led the RSNO on several international tours, including to North America and China, and on a European festival tour with performances at the Bregenz Festival and the Dresden Festival as well as in Innsbruck, Bergamo, Ljubljana, and other cities. His final appearance with the orchestra as their Music Director was at the 2018 BBC Proms where he conducted Britten’s epic War Requiem. 

Highlights of past seasons include appearances with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; the Iceland Symphony; and the Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis, Baltimore, Dallas, Seattle, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras. With the onset of worldwide concert cancellations, support for students at Yale and Juilliard became a priority. In the 2022/23 season, Oundjian conducts the opening weekend of the Atlanta Symphony, followed by return engagements with the Baltimore, Indianapolis, Dallas, Colorado, and Toronto Symphonies, as well as a visit to the New World Symphony.  

Oundjian has been a visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Music since 1981, and, in 2013, was awarded the school’s Sanford Medal for Distinguished Service to Music. A dedicated educator, Oundjian regularly conducts the Yale, Juilliard, Curtis, and New World Symphony Orchestras. 

An outstanding violinist, Oundjian spent 14 years as the first violinist for the renowned Tokyo String Quartet before he turned his energy toward conducting. 

Eric Abramovitz, clarinet 

Eric Abramovitz joined the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2018 as Associate Principal & E-flat Clarinet, and was appointed Principal Clarinet in 2021. He was named the Vandoren Emerging Artist of the year in 2017, and a CBC Next! artist in 2013. A first-prize winner at the OSM Standard Life Competition in 2011, Abramovitz has been featured as a soloist with numerous orchestras including the McGill and USC Symphonies, l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. He was a Sylva Gelber Career Grant recipient in 2016, and toured throughout Japan with the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble. 

A Montreal native, Abramovitz obtained his bachelor’s degree at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, and pursued graduate studies at the University of Southern California. His teachers include Zaven Zakarian, Alain Desgagné, Robert Crowley, Simon Aldrich, Jean-François Normand, Kimball Sykes, and Yehuda Gilad. In his free time, Eric enjoys eating, spending time with his family and cats, shooting pool, playing hockey, and cheering for the Montreal Canadiens. 

Miles Jaques, basset horn  

Miles Jaques has been serving as clarinetist and solo bass clarinetist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since the 2017 season, and as Acting Associate Principal Clarinet since the 2016/17 season. Before moving to Canada, Jaques was a member of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida. 

An accomplished orchestral musician, Jaques has performed and toured across North America in many ensembles, including The Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, Florida Orchestra, and Florida Grand Opera.   

As a chamber musician, Jaques regularly performs as a part of The TSO Chamber Soloists and has appeared in numerous festivals and societies throughout the US and Canada, including Toronto Summer Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Amici Chamber Ensemble, ChamberFest Dubuque, Baltimore Chamber Music Society, and others. 

A committed educator, Jaques serves on the clarinet faculty of the University of Toronto and as the Woodwind Coach for the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. Additionally, he has presented master classes at The Royal Conservatory of Music, Iberacademy, University of Antioquia, and University of South Dakota.   

Jaques is a Buffet Crampon Artist, playing exclusively on Buffet Crampon instruments, and a D’Addario Woodwinds Performing Artist. 

Gustavo Gimeno, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin

Anna S. Thorvaldsdottir
Aeriality

Jean Sibelius
Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47

I. Allegro moderato
II. Adagio di molto
III. Allegro, ma non tanto

Intermission

Richard Strauss 
Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59

Maurice Ravel 
La valse

Anna Thorvaldsdóttir (b.1977): Aeriality for orchestra

Composed 2010–2011

13 min

In the composer’s words: Aeriality refers to the state of gliding through the air with nothing or little to hold on to—as if flying—and the music both portrays the feeling of absolute freedom gained from the lack of attachment and the feeling of unease generated by the same circumstances. The title draws its essence from various aspects of the meaning of the word “aerial” and refers to the visual inspiration that such a view provides. “Aeriality” is also a play on words, combining the words “aerial” and “reality”, so as to suggest two different worlds; “reality”, the ground, and “aerial”, the sky or the untouchable.

Musically it is on the border of symphonic music and sound art, with sound-textures combined—and contrasted with—various forms of lyrical material. Parts of the work consist of thick clusters of sounds that form a unity as the instruments of the orchestra stream together to form a single force—a sound-mass. The sense of individual instruments is somewhat blurred, and the orchestra becomes a single moving body, albeit at times forming layers of streaming materials that flow between different instrumental groups. These chromatic layers of materials are extended by the use of quartertones to generate vast sonic textures. At what can perhaps be said to be the climax in the music, a massive, sustained ocean of quartertones slowly accumulates and is then released into a brief lyrical field that almost immediately fades out at the peak of its own urgency, only to remain a shadow.

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Aeriality is Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s second work for large orchestra. Her “seemingly boundless textural imagination” (The New York Times) and striking sound world have made her “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music” (NPR). Her music is composed as much by sounds and nuances as by harmonies and lyrical material—an ecosystem of sounds, where materials grow in and out of each other, often significantly inspired by nature and its many qualities, particularly structural ones, like proportion and flow. 

Her highly atmospheric and texturally imaginative works have been performed internationally by leading ensembles and arts organizations. Notably, her “detailed and powerful” orchestral writing (The Guardian) has garnered her awards from the New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, the Nordic Council, and the UK’s Ivors Academy, as well as commissions by many of the world’s top orchestras. Portrait albums with Thorvaldsdottir’s works have appeared on the Deutsche Grammophon, Sono Luminus, and Innova labels.

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957): Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47

Composed 1903, revised 1905

35 min

“Dreamt I was twelve years old and a virtuoso,” Sibelius confided to his diary, in 1915, at the age of 50; becoming a famous virtuoso violinist remained, even then, the great unfulfilled ambition of his life. No surprise, then, that his only concerto was for violin, even though virtuoso solo writing was not his most natural milieu.

It is an unusual concerto. There is little interplay between orchestra and soloist. There are solo cadenzas and orchestral tuttis, but of true dialogue there is almost none. In the monumental first movement—as long as the other two movements combined—the drama lies in the sequencing of many diverse ideas, rather than the intensive development of one or two ideas. 

The main theme—long, meditative, and hauntingly expressive—is introduced by the violin, against a trembling accompaniment in the high strings, then works up to a climax (with a mighty blast of brass). Next, a solo cadenza serves as a bridge to a whole series of secondary themes, all distinct. Most are introduced by the orchestra, with the violin contributing an important lyrical theme (Largamente, espressivo) in double stops in the high register. The main theme recapitulation begins in the bassoon; the violin adds counterpoint, then takes over midway. The secondary themes follow, all return, but with the violin now taking a leading role throughout.

The concise yet elegiac second movement starts with a short, bleak introduction in the woodwinds opening onto a highly expressive main theme, played at length in the violin’s low register. That introduction, developed in an anguished full-orchestra setting, forms a bridge to a second lyrical theme, also in the violin, now in double-stops and laced with cross-rhythms. The first theme returns, but in the orchestra this time; the violin contributes rich figuration as counterpoint. After an emotional orchestral climax, the violin draws the music to a hushed, moving close.

The finale, in a polonaise-like rhythm, is a bustling, strutting rondo, introduced by the violin, against an ostinato pattern in the strings and timpani. The second theme (more Sibelian cross-rhythms) is introduced by the orchestra, then extended by the violin in multiple-stops in the high register. A build-up of intensity seems to be heading toward a fortissimo reprise of the first theme; at the last minute, however, the violin offers a surprising variation, with a rarefied, pianissimo accompaniment. The second theme then also returns, with a new counterpoint in the violin. A clever combination of elements from both themes then signals a transition into a short but powerful coda, in which huge orchestral sonorities and sweeping violin figures seem to surge in great waves.

—Program note by Kevin Bazzana

Richard Strauss (1864–1949): Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59 

Composed 1909–1910, arranged 1945

21 min

Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavlier was premièred in Dresden in 1911. Excerpts from the piece have been featured in concert virtually since its creation, although Strauss did not prepare many of them himself. This popular concert-suite version appeared in 1945, without crediting an arranger, although the most widespread theory is that it was created by the Polish-American conductor Artur Rodziński. 

The emotionally bruising operatic dramas Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909) seem to have purged a taste for ghoulish material from Strauss’s system. For his next stage project, he pulled a complete about-face and produced, in close tandem with the librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the delicious, supremely tuneful “comedy for music” Der Rosenkavalier. Admirers of the previous operas were taken aback by this startling shift in style, but audiences gave the new score a swift and eager embrace. 

Fifty sold-out performances followed before the year was out. Special “Rosenkavalier trains” departed daily from several cities to trundle eager listeners to Dresden, and additional productions were staged across Europe in short order. It remains, to this day, his most popular opera.

From the beginning, von Hofmannsthal’s libretto, based on two plays by Molière, included a “pants role” (Octavian) —a male role performed by a woman. The plot unfolds in Vienna during the 18th-century reign of Empress Maria Theresa. The Marschallin, a worldly woman in her thirties, is having an affair with a young nobleman, Octavian, and the opera’s opening scene finds them in bed together. When Octavian falls in love with Sophie, a more suitable match for him, the Marschallin graciously steps aside and lets true, young love take its course.

When Hofmannsthal sent Strauss the scene in the spring of 1909, the composer was reportedly delighted. “It will set itself to music like oil and melted butter,” he wrote back. “I’m hatching it already.”

The music combines Classical-period charm à la Mozart with 19th-century dance rhythms. (The latter included the waltz, which didn’t yet exist when the opera takes place, but who cares?) Strauss clothed all this in his ripe, late-Romantic orchestration. It presents an enchanting medley of the opera’s most glorious moments, including the surging prelude; the presentation of the silver rose; a luscious love duet between Sophie and Octavian; a teasing, languorous waltz associated with the lecherous Baron Ochs; the ecstatic final trio and duet; and another, quicker waltz to finish.

—Program note by Don Anderson

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937): La valse (choreographic poem for orchestra)

Composed 1919–1920

13 min

As early as 1906, Ravel had contemplated writing a waltz in homage to Johann Strauss II, and by 1914, he was mulling over a symphonic poem to be titled Wien (Vienna). But contemporary events were to intervene. A loyal Frenchman, shattered by service in World War I, he was no longer inclined, by 1919, to write an innocent, sunny homage—not when all Europe was reeling from the catastrophic consequences of Austro-Hungarian imperialism, of which the waltz was such a potent symbol. 

La valse, instead, became a savage danse macabre, in which clichés of the waltz idiom are introduced only to be ruthlessly parodied, and in which nostalgia for 19th-century imperial Vienna is undermined by premonitions of Europe’s dire future. But the darkness of La valse grew out of more personal feelings, too, for in 1916, Ravel’s beloved mother had died, and he never stopped mourning her. As he composed La valse, especially as the Christmas holidays loomed, he was, he said, haunted by her memory.

In the published score, Ravel added this descriptive preface: “Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be glimpsed. The clouds gradually dissipate: one sees…an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth.... An imperial court, about 1855.” 

“I had intended this work,” Ravel said, “to be a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, which was associated in my imagination with an impression of a fantastic and fatal whirling.” The key word here is “fatal”. When the end comes, it is noisy, violent, and crazed, more like the triumphant dance of mad Elektra at the end of Richard Strauss’s opera than a tribute to Johann Strauss II. After all, the culture that produced Vienna’s beloved “Waltz King” was by no means benign—and there was a world war to prove it.

Structurally, La valse falls into two large sections, both of which begin quietly, with a vague churning in the murky low register, out of which rhythm and melody gradually materialize, as though some dreamy, twisted vision of the waltz were emerging out of the ashes of war. In the first half, as in a typical Viennese waltz, separate little waltzes are strung together, one melody following another. In the second half, the same themes are reused freely, in more bizarre and ominous guises. (The piece as a whole, ironically enough, is about the same length as many Strauss waltzes.)

—Program note by Don Anderson

Augustin Hadelich, violin

Augustin Hadelich is one of the great violinists of our time. From Bach to Brahms, Bartók to Adès, he has mastered a wide-ranging and adventurous repertoire. He is often referred to by colleagues as a musician’s musician. Named Musical America’s 2018 “Instrumentalist of the Year”, he is consistently cited worldwide for his phenomenal technique, soulful approach, and insightful interpretations.

Hadelich’s 2020/21 season culminated in performances of the Brahms Violin Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. These were the first performances played by the full ensemble to a live audience in Davies Hall in 15 months. In the summer of 2021, he appeared at the Aspen, Colorado, Grant Park and Verbier Festivals, as well as at Bravo! Vail with the New York Philharmonic. His 2021/22 season started off with a stunning début with the Berlin Philharmonic (Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2) with Gustavo Gimeno on the podium. Shortly thereafter came the European première of a new violin concerto written for him by Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy.

Hadelich has appeared with every major orchestra in North America, including the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Toronto Symphony, as well as throughout Europe, the Far East, and further afield.

Hadelich was the winner of a 2016 GRAMMY® Award—“Best Classical Instrumental Solo”—for his recording of Dutilleux’s Violin Concerto, L’arbre des songes, with the Seattle Symphony under Ludovic Morlot (Seattle Symphony Media). A Warner Classics Artist, his most recent release is a GRAMMY®-nominated double CD of the Six Solo Sonatas and Partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach. One of Germany’s most prestigious newspapers, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, boldly stated: “Augustin Hadelich is one of the most exciting violinists in the world. This album is a total success.” He also has a series of releases on the AVIE label, including a CD of the Violin Concertos by Jean Sibelius and Thomas Adès (Concentric Paths), with Hannu Lintu conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (2014).

Born in Italy, and the son of German parents, Augustin Hadelich is now an American citizen. He holds an Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, where he was a student of Joel Smirnoff. He has recently been appointed to the violin faculty at Yale School of Music. He plays the violin “Leduc, ex-Szeryng” by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù of 1744, generously loaned by a patron through the Tarisio Trust.

Steven Reineke, conductor (Dec 6 & 7)
Lucas Waldin, conductor (Dec 8)
Nikki Renée Daniels, vocalist
Paul Alexander Nolan, vocalist
Etobicoke School of the Arts Holiday Chorus

Traditional/arr. Matthew Jackfert
“I Saw Three Ships”

Edward Pola & George Wyle/arr. Steven Reineke
“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

Irving Berlin/arr. Jim Gray
“I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”

Vince Guaraldi/arr. Jim Gray
“Christmas Time Is Here”

Sammy Cahn & Jule Styne/arr. Matt Podd
“Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”

Mel Tormé & Robert Wells/arr. Matt Podd
“The Christmas Song”

Ray Evans/arr. Steven Reineke
“Silver Bells”

Traditional/arr. David Chase
“The First Noël”

Felix Bernard/arr. Ralph Hermann
“Winter Wonderland”

Arr. Steven Reineke/orch. Sam Shoup 
Holiday Hits Medley
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” (Mariah Carey & Walter Afanasieff)
“Hard Candy Christmas” from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Carol Hall) 
“Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” (John Lennon & Yoko Ono)
“Feliz Navidad” (José Feliciano)

Intermission

Joseph Carleton Beal & James Ross Boothe/arr. Steven Reineke 
“Jingle Bell Rock”

Judith Clurman & David Chase
“Eight Days of Light”

Walter Kent/arr. Steven Reineke
“I’ll Be Home for Christmas”

Buddy Greene/arr. Jim Gray
“Mary, Did You Know?”

Mykola Leontovych/arr. David Hamilton 
Carol of the Bells

Irving Berlin/arr. Matt Cusson
“Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)” from White Christmas

Hugh Martin & Ralph Blane/arr. Adam Podd
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”

Adolphe Adam & John Sullivan Dwight/arr. David T. Clydesdale
“O Holy Night”

Arr. Sam Shoup & Steven Reineke/orch. Sam Shoup 
The Jingle, Jangle Sing-Along
“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (Johnny Marks)
“Frosty the Snowman” (Walter “Jack” Rollins & Steve Nelson)
“Here Comes Santa Claus” (Gene Autry & Oakley Haldeman)
“Jingle Bells” (James Lord Pierpoint)

Steve Reineke, conductor

Steven Reineke has established himself as one of North America’s leading conductors of popular music.

Along with his role as Principal Pops Conductor of the TSO, Reineke is music director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. He is also principal pops conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and principal pops conductor of the Houston Symphony.

Reineke is a frequent guest conductor with The Philadelphia Orchestra, and his extensive North American conducting appearances include Atlanta, Cincinnati, Edmonton, and San Francisco. On stage, Reineke has created programs and collaborated with a range of leading artists from the worlds of hip-hop, Broadway, television, and rock, including Cynthia Erivo, Common, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Sutton Foster, Megan Hilty, Cheyenne Jackson, Wayne Brady, Peter Frampton, and Ben Folds, among others. In 2017, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered featured Reineke leading the National Symphony Orchestra performing live music excerpts between news segments—a first in the show’s 45-year history. In 2018, Reineke led the National Symphony Orchestra with hip-hop legend Nas performing his seminal album Illmatic on PBS’s Great Performances.

As the creator of more than 100 orchestral arrangements for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Reineke’s work has been performed worldwide and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings on the Telarc label. His symphonic works Celebration Fanfare, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Casey at the Bat are performed frequently. His Sun Valley Festival Fanfare was used to commemorate the Sun Valley Summer Symphony pavilion, and his Festival Te Deum and Swans Island Sojourn were débuted by the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras. His numerous wind ensemble compositions are published by the C.L. Barnhouse Company and are performed by concert bands worldwide.

Nikki Renée Daniels, vocalist

Nikki Renée Daniels recently starred in the Tony Award–winning revival of Company on Broadway. Other recent credits include Hamilton (Angelica Schuyler) at the CIBC Center in Chicago and The Book of Mormon (Nabulungi) on Broadway. She has also been seen on Broadway as Clara in the 2012 Tony Award–winning revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and Fantine in Les Miserablés, and in Nine; Aida; Little Shop of Horrors; The Look of Love; Promises, Promises; Anything Goes; and Lestat. She made her New York City Opera début as Clara in Porgy and Bess.

Daniels played the featured role of Tracy in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at the Radio City Music Hall. Other New York credits include playing Martha Jefferson in 1776 at City Center Encores! and Rose Lennox in The Secret Garden at David Geffen Hall. Regional theatre credits include Ray Charles Live! (Della B.) at Pasadena Playhouse; Anything Goes (Hope) at Williamstown Theatre Festival; and Aida (Aida) and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Narrator) at ArtPark.

Daniels has performed as a soloist with many symphony orchestras across the US and Canada. She has also performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, and holds a BFA from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Her début CD, Home, is available on iTunes. For more information, please visit nikkireneedaniels.com.

Paul Alexander Nolan, vocalist 

Paul Alexander Nolan was most recently seen in Parade at New York City Center, directed by Michael Arden. As a proud Canadian, he has led seven Broadway productions including Jesus Christ Superstar, Once, Doctor Zhivago, Bright Star, Chicago, and Escape to Margaritaville, and he originated the role of Jim in Slave Play at NYTW, on Broadway, and at The Taper in LA. 

Earlier this year, he starred in the world première of the Ahrens & Flaherty musical Knoxville at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL, as well as fellow Canadian Britta Johnson’s musical Life After at The Goodman in Chicago. Nolan is credited with five original cast albums. TV credits include The Code, Madam Secretary, and Instinct for CBS. With the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Paul is in the final stages of producing a concept album about isolation, entitled T+L, with his lifelong friend Michael Tremblay. For more information, please visit paulalexandernolan.com.

Lucas Waldin, conductor 

Lucas Waldin has delighted audiences across North America with his dynamic and versatile conducting. He has collaborated with some of today’s most exciting artists including Carly Rae Jepsen, Ben Folds, the Canadian Brass, and Buffy Sainte-Marie, along with conducting presentations such as Disney in Concert, Blue Planet Live, Cirque de la Symphony, and the groundbreaking symphonic début of R&B duo Dvsn as part of the global Red Bull Music Festival.

Waldin has been a guest conductor throughout the US and Canada, including with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Grant Park Festival Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Vancouver Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, and the Toronto Symphony.

Resident Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra since 2009, Waldin was subsequently appointed Artist-in-Residence and Community Ambassador—the first such position in North America. He appeared with the ESO over 150 times and conducted in Carnegie Hall during the orchestra’s participation in the 2012 Spring for Music festival. In recognition, he was awarded the Jean-Marie Beaudet Award in Orchestra Conducting, and a Citation Award from the City of Edmonton for outstanding achievements in arts and culture.

A native of Toronto, Canada, Waldin holds degrees in flute and conducting from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Etobicoke School of the Arts Holiday Chorus

David Ambrose & Patricia Warnock, conductors

The Etobicoke School of the Arts Holiday Chorus made its TSO début in November 2008.

Soprano

Jace Grosbein Ainslie
Roxy Pearce Basman
Kidan Brusselers
Ciara Charles
Avni Chaturvedi
Farrah Collins
Rebecca Corbin
Emily Cram
Jordyn Crawford
Lucy Crow
Sabina Crow
Alexina Fedyshyn
Gaia Friedman
Taylor Gage
Isabel Gehres
Emily Harrington
Rachael Kennedy
Stella Kiloh
Jahlaya Lafortune-Spencer
Ela Lemieux
Gabriela Majewska
Amelia Miville-Dechene
Mad Morin
Penny Otis
Finn Reed
Marley Robinson-Shaw
Clara Scott
Isabel Rose Silva
Sofia Ventura
Kalashree Vyas
Chelsea Webster
Sophia Qureshi Wennekers
Kenna Wessingee
Ashton Wilkinson
Esther Wszelaki

Alto

Sofia Amelunxen
Rebekah Arseneau
Lucy Axbey
Dalila Bejar-Ali
Ella Chung
Mia Cirera-Hughes
Avalyn Cozzubbo
Ria Davda
Mia de Lasa
Melzee Diao
Allyson Farrell
Saskia Fowler
Shade Hansen
Lee Howden
Madeline Knapp
Sophia Kot
Brenna MacDonald
Sasha Middleton
Phoebe Onapajo
Lilith Otis
Casper Pressé
Aster Queale
Alexandra Smith
Kendra Tang
Ashley Thoprakan  
Teresa Topolski
Lily Westsmith
Ella Woo

Tenor

Nikki Battiston  
Zac Bolognone
RJ Cidadao-Ellis
Tyler Gibson
Caitlin Graham
Eleanor Guy
Luke Mathews
Marina McAleer
Alyx McCabe
Elan McMurray
Milan Miville-Dechene
Lexi Roth
Maya Thomas
Liam Tsuji
Thomas Winiker

Bass

William Bastianon
Nate Bernstein-Cord
Max Cohen
Lucas Drube
Noah Gurevitz
Ezequiel Igreja
Benjamin LeRoij
Rayn Mohamed
Callum Thompson
Bolan Walker

The Jingle-Jangle Sing-Along

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer

You know Dasher and Dancer
and Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen,
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glows.
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say:
“Rudolph, with your nose so bright
Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
Then how the reindeer loved him,
As they shouted out with glee:
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
You’ll go down in history.”

Here Comes Santa Claus

Here comes Santa Claus,
here comes Santa Claus, 
right down Santa Claus Lane,
Vixen and Blitzen and all his reindeer
pullin’ on the reins.
Bells are ringin’, children singin’,
all is merry and bright,
So jump in bed and cover your head
’cause Santa Claus comes tonight.

Here comes Santa Claus,
here comes Santa Claus, 
right down Santa Claus Lane.
He’s got a bag that’s filled with toys
for boys and girls again.
Hear those sleigh bells jingle jangle,
oh what a beautiful sight.
So jump in bed, and cover your head,
’cause Santa Claus comes tonight.

Jingle Bells

Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O’er the fields we go
Laughing all the way.
Bells on bob-tail ring
Making spirits bright.
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight.

Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way.
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh, hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way.
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.

Frosty the Snowman

Oh, Frosty the Snowman
Was a jolly happy soul,
With a corncob pipe and a button nose
And two eyes made out of coal.

Frosty the Snowman
Is a fairytale, they say
He was made of snow
but the children know
How he came to life one day.

There must have been some magic
In that old silk hat they found,
For when they placed it on his head
He began to dance around.

Oh, Frosty the Snowman
Was alive as he could be.
And the children say
He could laugh and play
Just the same as you and me.

Thumpity thump thump (2)
Look at Frosty go,
Thumpity thump thump (2)
Over the hills of snow.

John Debney, conductor

First Half

Intermission

Second Half

John Debney, composer/conductor

John Debney is the ultimate film music character actor. In equal demand for family films such as Jingle Jangle, Come Away, and Elf as he is for adventure films like Iron Man 2, the Oscar-nominated composer also scored the powerful and poignant The Passion of the Christ. Debney is an agile jack-of-all-genres—composing for sci-fi adventure (ORVILLE), comedies (Bruce Almighty), horror (Dream House), and romance (Valentine’s Day) with the same confidence and panache.

Debney is also known for his work in such films as Princess Diaries, Sin City, Liar Liar, Spy Kids, No Strings Attached, The Emperor’s New Groove, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Hocus Pocus. Debney’s work also includes Disney’s The Jungle Book directed by Jon Favreau, Fox’s Ice Age: Collision Course directed by Mike Thurmeier, and Twentieth Century Fox’s award-winning musical The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron. Debney’s most recent films include The Beach Bum starring Matthew McConaughey and directed by Harmony Korine, the Warner Bros. comedy feature Isn’t It Romantic starring Rebel Wilson, Paramount Pictures’ family adventure feature Dora and the Lost City of Gold, and Bleecker Street’s biopic Brian Banks. Upcoming for Debney is Come Away directed by Brenda Chapman and starring Angelina Jolie.

Born in Glendale, California, Debney’s professional life began after he studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts, when he went to work writing music and orchestrating for Disney Studios and various television series. He won his first Emmy in 1990 for the main theme for The Young Riders, and his career soon hit a gallop. Since then he has won three more Emmys (Sea Quest DSV), and been nominated for a total of six (most recently in 2012 for his work on the Kevin Costner western miniseries Hatfields & McCoys). His foray into video-game scoring—2007’s Lair—resulted in a BAFTA nomination and a Best Videogame Score award from the International Film Music Critics Association.

Debney has collaborated with acclaimed directors as diverse as Robert Rodriguez, Garry Marshall, Mel Gibson, the Farrelly Brothers, Jon Favreau, Jim Sheridan, Ivan Reitman, Peter Chelsom, Rob Cohen, Brian Robbins, Tom Shadyac, Sam Raimi, Adam Shankman, Howie Deutch, Renny Harlin, Peter Hyams, and Kenny Ortega. He was nominated by the Academy for his Passion of the Christ score. Inspired by that score, he then created The Passion Oratorio, performed in 2015 in the historic Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, Spain, in front of 6,000 people during Holy Week. In 2005, Debney was the youngest recipient of ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Career Achievement Award.

“If I’m doing my job well,” says Debney, “I need to feel it. I really try to make sure that whatever I’m doing—even if it’s a comedy—that I’m feeling it and feeling either humor or the pathos or the dramatic impact of what I’m seeing. That’s the way I approach it.”

CineConcerts 

CineConcerts is one of the leading producers of live and digital music experiences performed with visual media, and continues to redefine entertainment. Founded by Producer/Conductor Justin Freer and Producer/Writer Brady Beaubien, CineConcerts will engage over 4.8 million people worldwide in concert presentations in over 1,749 performances in 48 countries through 2022, and recently launched CineConcerts +PLUS—a global digital network and app suite with hundreds of exclusive podcast episodes and produced content. 

CineConcerts continues to work with some of the most prestigious orchestras and venues in the world including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, and more. 

Recent and current live and digital concert experiences include Elf in Concert, The Pinball Concert (Digital), The Polar Express in Concert, Rudy in Concert, The Passion of the Christ in Concert, The Da Vinci Code in Concert, The Harry Potter Film Concert Series, Gladiator Live, The Godfather Live, It’s a Wonderful Life in Concert, DreamWorks Animation in Concert, Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage 50th Anniversary Concert Tour, Breakfast at Tiffany’s in Concert, and A Christmas Dream Live.

Justin Freer,
president/founder/producer

Brady Beaubien,
co-founder/producer

Andrew P. Alderete,
chief xr officer/head of
publicity and communications

Andrew McIntyre,
director of operations

Brittany Fonseca,
senior marketing manager

Si Peng,
senior social media manager

Opus 3,
worldwide representation

JoAnn Kane Music Service,
music preparation

Justin Moshkevich,
Igloo Music Studios,
sound remixing

Mozart Requiem

Michael Francis, conductor
Jane Archibald, soprano
Susan Platts, mezzo-soprano
Isaiah Bell, tenor
Kevin Deas, bass-baritone
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
    Jean-Sébastien Vallée, Artistic Director

Hildegard von Bingen
O virtus Sapientiae
    Toronto Mendelssohn Singers

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Maurerische Trauermusik
(Masonic Funeral Music), K. 477/479a 

Ludwig van Beethoven/adapted Michael Francis
Grosse Fuge, Op. 133

Gregorio Allegri/ed. John Rutter
Miserere mei, Deus
Tenor: Isaiah Bell
Choir 1: Toronto Mendelssohn Singers
Choir 2: Rebecca Genge, soprano 1
Rebecca Claborn, soprano 2
Simon Honeyman, alto
Neil Aronoff, baritone

Intermission

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart/compl. Robert Levin 
Requiem, K. 626
I. Introitus – Requiem
II. Kyrie
III. Sequenz
IV. Offertorium
V. Sanctus
VI. Benedictus
VII. Agnus Dei
VIII. Communio

Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179): O virtus Sapientiae 

Date of composition unknown

2 min

Hildegard of Bingen was the German founder and Benedictine abbess of a convent in Rupertsburg. A polymath who wrote on many subjects including medicine and natural history, she gained renown for her prophetic abilities and her religious visions. Many people—popes and emperors among them—sought her for her counsel. She was also a significant composer of Gregorian plainchant, setting her own written verses to her own original melodies. 

“Antiphon for Divine Wisdom” is a beautiful example of Hildegard’s captivating poetry and, as set to music in O virtus Sapientiae, of her highly distinctive style of monophonic plainchant melody. One of the abbess’s most important “visionary companions,” the figure of Sapientia (Divine Wisdom) represents, as Hildegard scholar Barbara Newman has described, “the ultimate mystery of creation, the bond between Creator and creature.” In this text, the powerful emanations (“virtus”) of Divine Wisdom are evoked through the imagery of three wings, symbolizing the activity of the Holy Trinity; as medievalist Nathaniel M. Campbell explains, “the one wing soaring in the heavens like the Father, the second upon the earth like the Incarnate Son, the third sweeping everyone, the vital force of the Holy Spirit.” 

The characteristics of each of the three wings are enhanced by clear musical word painting, otherwise rare in Hildegard’s works, Campbell has noted. In the line, “quarum una in altum volat”, listen to how the melody reaches a high point on “altum” (“high”), then leaps down “to earth” in the following line, “et altera de terra sudat”. By comparison, the text about the third wing, “et tercia undique volat”, seems to be set apart from the two earlier phrases. Campbell argues that, since it flows musically into the verse’s final line of praise, Hildegard is perhaps conveying, and highlighting the significance of, the merging of the Holy Spirit with Sapientia, working as one creative, life-giving force.

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

O virtus Sapientiae

O virtus Sapientiae,
que circuiens circuisti,
comprehendendo omnia
in una via que habet vitam,
tres alas habens,
quarum una in altum volat
et altera de terra sudat
et tercia undique volat
laus tibi sit, sicut te decet, O Sapientia.

O power of Wisdom, 
encompassing, encircling, 
uniting in a single path 
everything living. 
Having three wings, 
one soars to heaven, 
another is distilled from the earth, 
the third flies everywhere. 
Praise to you, O Wisdom.

English translation: courtesy Schola Magdalena

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791): Maurerische Trauermusik (Masonic Funeral Music), K. 477/479a

Composed 1785

6 min

On December 11, 1784, Mozart became a Freemason at the lodge “Zur Wohltätigkeit” (“Beneficence”) in Vienna. At this time, Freemasonry in the Austrian empire had only been legal for 20 years; it was previously banned by Empress Maria Theresa due to fears that such secret societies would topple her reign. Emperor Joseph II later lifted restrictions but amalgamated many of the lodges—in 1786, Mozart’s lodge joined with two others to form “Zur neugekrönten Hoffnung” (“New Crowned Hope”). Led by his close friend the scientist Ignaz von Born, Mozart’s society was essentially a fraternity of liberal intellectuals, focused on the philosophical, rather than the political, ideals of the Enlightenment. According to lodge meeting records, Mozart was an active and valued member of the Brotherhood. 

Music was an important part of Masonic ceremonies, and, to this end, Mozart frequently contributed compositions such as songs and occasional works. In 1785, he wrote music for a Masonic funeral service first performed on November 17 for two brethren—Duke Georg August of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Count Franz Esterházy von Galántha, who were members of the Viennese aristocracy. The piece’s original scoring was for two oboes, clarinet, basset horn, two horns, and strings, but, for a second performance that took place on December 9, Mozart added two more basset horn parts (for fellow Freemasons Anton David and Vincent Springer) and one for contrabassoon. Additional versions of the music were given in 1786. 

Set in C minor, the funeral music opens with a progression of sighing swells in the woodwinds and brass, which shifts into a march-like dirge. Chromaticisms in the melodic material, dissonant harmonies, and sudden shifts in dynamic level create an atmosphere of anguish. The music then brightens briefly with a transition into E-flat major, and the oboes and clarinet introduce a hymn-like melody. But the anguish soon returns, this time intensified by a sonorous woodwind and brass chorale, solemn and grand. Later, powerful dotted rhythmic statements emerge from the horns, like brave resolve in the face of grief, after which the music gradually draws to a close, on a peaceful C-major chord.

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

The letter “B” and three flats

Masonic music has been defined as “music used in connection with the ritual and social functions of freemasonry”. Because the number three and the letter “B” are of particular significance to freemasonry, music written in the keys of C minor or E flat major, which both involve three flats, (whose symbol ’’ resembles the lowercase letter ’b’), in their key signatures has been considered especially appropriate for masonic ceremonial music. 

—Heinz Sichrovsky

Ludwig van Beethoven (c. 1770–1827): Grosse Fuge, Op. 133 

Composed 1825,1826;
(adapted Michael Francis)

16 min

Ludwig van Beethoven originally conceived his Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue) as the final movement of his B-flat-major string quartet, Op. 130, composed in 1825; it was premièred the following year this way by the Schuppanzigh Quartet. Critics were baffled by the complex fugal finale. Concerned there would be difficulty selling the quartet as is, Beethoven’s publisher requested that the composer replace the fugue with a new finale. Though reluctant, Beethoven must have thought his publisher’s advice valid enough to follow through with, creating a new ending for the quartet. The Grosse Fuge was then published as an independent work in 1827. Musicians, scholars, and listeners have since wrestled with its intricacies and have been astounded by the profundity of this late work. The version you’ll hear in this concert is an arrangement for string orchestra by Felix Weingartner.

A standard fugue has one main theme or subject, which is first presented in turn by each voice or instrument, thus creating the exposition. Thereafter, episodes of counterpoint alternate with subsequent presentations of the fugue subject. In his Grosse Fuge, Beethoven ratchets up the complexity of this form considerably: firstly, by playing with every possible variation and setting of the main subject—different dynamic levels and rhythms, augmentation (half time) and diminution (double time), retrograde (set backwards), and inversion (set upside down)—and secondly, by presenting two subjects simultaneously (i.e., a double fugue). 

Opening with an Overtura, we hear the dramatic unison presentation of the main subject, followed by varied restatements. With its violent shifts in mood and tense pauses, the overall effect is deeply unsettling. The first double fugal exposition follows, which pits the main subject, now in syncopation, with a leaping second subject. They continue in a series of variations, with the music becoming more dissonant. For nearly five minutes, the loud struggle continues, until the fugue abruptly collapses, and we find ourselves in a new section. Leaving behind the previous strenuousness, the Meno mosso e moderato features a fugato on a new lyrical theme. A quiet atmosphere is sustained as the instrumental voices interweave, ultimately unifying on a low murmur. 

Suddenly, the music erupts to fortissimo, with the main subject played in double time; then, back down to piano, and a short interlude ensues, combining the main subject with a comic melody with trills. It leads into the second fugue, in which Beethoven brings together three versions of the main subject. As the fugue progresses, the already dense texture thickens further with trills and other motifs, including from the second subject. Just when the piece “seems to be in danger of cracking under the tension of its own rhythmic fury,” as musicologist Joseph Kerman has said, we’re led back to the Meno mosso section. This time, however, the fugato, now forceful and march-like, offers no respite. Later, the comic tune with trills also returns, after which the music seems to lose steam; fragments of the subjects appear and disintegrate into silences. Then, the opening of the piece bursts forth, leading into the coda, which, after a hesitant start, gathers momentum on a soaring version of the second subject over the main subject, to finally draw this epic struggle to a triumphant close.

—Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Gregorio Allegri (c. 1582–1652): Miserere mei, Deus 

Composed circa 1638

10 min

The sublime Miserere mei, Deus (Have mercy on me, O Lord) for two choirs by Gregorio Allegri is probably the composer’s best-known work and continues to be performed frequently today. A Roman Catholic priest, Allegri was a member of the Roman School, a group of composers who created music primarily for the church. He wrote the Miserere around 1630, and it was performed in the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services (held during the three days before Easter Day) of Holy Week.

When the reigning Pope Urban VIII heard the Miserere, he apparently found it so moving that he banned any attempts for it to be copied and performed outside the Vatican, under threat of excommunication. For over a century, the piece’s exclusivity made it famous, and it was believed its status was secure—until February 1770, when the 14-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was touring Italy with his father, Leopold. They visited the Sistine Chapel, where the young Mozart heard Allegri’s Miserere and then proceeded to transcribe it accurately from memory after just two hearings, as Leopold later bragged enthusiastically. With this feat, Mozart thus seemed to have created the first unauthorized copy of the piece. However, scholars have shown that a few copies of the Miserere already existed before Mozart’s visit—in Continental Europe and in London where it was performed from as early as 1734. (It’s possible Mozart may have heard it there for the first time, when he visited the city with his father in 1765.) Still, performances of the Miserere remained relatively limited until Mozart’s transcription was published by the English music historian and composer Dr. Charles Burney in 1771, after which the Vatican lifted the ban.

Allegri’s Miserere is a setting of Psalm 51, originally for a five-voice and a four-voice choir. The choirs sing antiphonally, alternating lines along with a solo tenor, who delivers additional lines on a reciting tone. In these TSO performances, Choir 1 consists of a small chamber choir, whereas Choir 2 comprises a solo quartet—this distribution thus amplifies the contrast between the two. To enable the text to be heard and understood clearly, Allegri used fauxbourdon, a technique of musical harmonization in which the voices move mostly in parallel at certain intervals, with some parts featuring the occasional embellishment. The ear is therefore treated to a euphonious succession of sonorities, allowing for the reflection and absorption of the psalmist’s attitude of deep repentance.