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Concerts of Thursday, February 23 and Saturday, February 25, 2012, at 8:00pm. James Gaffigan, Conductor Leila Josefowicz, Violin Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) Sinfonia from L’isola disabitata (The Desert Island), Hob. XXVIII:9 (1779) Thomas Adès (b. 1971) Violin Concerto, Opus 23 “Concentric Paths” Opus 23 (2005) I. Rings II. Paths III. Rounds Leila Josefowicz, Violin Intermission Richard Wagner (1813-1883) Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin (1850) Claude Debussy (1862-1918) La mer (The Sea), Three Symphonic Sketches (1905) I. De l’aube à midi sur la mer (From Dawn until Noon on the Sea) II. Jeux de vagues (Play of the Waves) III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea) Notes on the Program by Ken Meltzer Sinfonia from L’isola disabitata (The Desert Island), Hob. XXVIII:9 (1779) Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, on March 31, 1732, and died in Vienna, Austria, on May 31, 1809. The first performance of L’isola disabitata took place at Esterháza, Hungary, on December 6, 1779. The Sinfonia from L’isola disabitata is scored for flute, two oboes, bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. Approximate performance time is eight minutes. These are the First ASO Classical Subscription Performances. In 1761, Franz Joseph Haydn began his years of service to the court of the Hungarian Esterházy family. At the time, the Kappellmeister of the Esterházy court was the Austrian composer, Gregor Joseph Werner. Haydn was Vice-Kappellmeister of the Esterházy court until Werner’s death in 1766. From then until 1790, Haydn served as Kappellmeister to the ruling Prince Nikolaus Esterházy. Haydn’s contemporary biographer, G. A. Griesinger, described Prince Nikolaus as: an educated connoisseur and a passionate lover of music, and also a good violin player. He had his own opera, spoken theatre, marionette theatre, church music, and chamber music. Haydn had his hands full: he composed, he had to conduct all the music, help with the rehearsals, give lessons and even tune his own keyboard instrument in the orchestra. He often wondered how it had been possible for him to compose as much music as he did when he was forced to lose so many hours in purely mechanical tasks. Haydn’s opera L’isola disabitata (The Desert Island) premiered at the palace in Esterháza on December 6, 1779, in celebration of Prince Nikolaus’s birthday. Less than a month earlier, a fire caused severe damage to the palace, including the court theater. And so, the opera’s premiere took place in the palace’s marionette theater. The intimate nature of Haydn’s new opera—including just four singers and a single set—facilitated staging under such challenging circumstances. L’isola disabitata, Haydn’s setting of a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, concerns the tale of Costanza and her husband, Gernando, who are separated and reunited on a desert island. The late 1760s and 1770s were among the most prolific and creative of Haydn’s Esterházy tenure. These years coincide with the Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”) literary movement that was sweeping throughout Germany. During that period, Haydn composed several works in the spirit of Sturm und Drang, featuring minor keys, pervasive and restless energy, startling dynamic contrasts and frequent, dramatic pauses. The orchestral Sinfonia that precedes the action of The Desert Island is a fine example of Haydn’s Sturm und Drang approach. The Sinfonia opens with a slow introduction (Largo) in G minor. At start of the agitated principal Allegro vivace, also in G minor, the meter shifts from ¾ to 4/4. Toward the close of the Sinfonia, a lovely extended G-Major episode in the spirit of a minuet (Allegretto) provides striking contrast. That temporary repose is swept away by a brief reprise of the G-minor quick-tempo section (Vivace). Violin Concerto, Opus 23 “Concentric Paths” (2005) Thomas Adès was born in London, England, on March 1, 1971. The first performance of the Violin Concerto took place at the Kammermusiksaal, Berlin, Germany, on September 4, 2005, with Anthony Marwood as soloist, and the composer conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. In addition to the solo violin, the Concerto is scored for two piccolos, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, three horns, two trumpets, trombone, tuba, timpani, bass drum, clash cymbal, cowbell, low drums, metal block, metal can, metal guero, small bongo drums, snare drum, tam-tam, wood block, wood drum, wood guero and strings. Approximate performance time is twenty minutes. These are the first ASO Classical Subscription Performances. Born in London in 1971, Thomas Adès studied piano at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He graduated from King’s College, Cambridge in 1992. The following year in London, Thomas Adès gave his first public piano recital, a triumphant event that immediately catapulted the young artist to a position of considerable prominence in the British musical world. Thomas Adès soon demonstrated his talents as a composer of striking creativity and originality in a wide range of musical genres. From 1993-95, Mr. Adès served as Composer in Association with the Hallé Orchestra. His chamber opera, Powder Her Face (1995), has been performed throughout the world. Likewise, his second opera, The Tempest (2004), commissioned and premiered by London’s Royal Opera House, has been performed in such cities as Copenhagen, Strasbourg and Santa Fe. Thomas Adès has also composed numerous highly-acclaimed orchestral, chamber and choral works. He was the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award (2000). The compositions of Thomas Adès have provided the focus for numerous international festivals, including Helsinki’s Musica Nova (1999), the Salzburg Easter Festival (2004), Radio France’s Prèsences (2007 the Barbican’s “Traced Overhead”) and the Tonsattarfestival in Stockholm (2009). New York’s Carnegie Hall appointed Mr. Adès to the R and B Debs Composer Chair. During the course of the 2007-8 season, Carnegie Hall featured Mr. Adès as composer, conductor and pianist. From 1999-2008, Mr. Adès was Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival. He also served as Artistic Director of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Thomas Adès’s Violin Concerto was commissioned by the Berliner Festpiele, and by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its then Music Director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, underwritten by Lenore and Bernard Greenberg. The world premiere took place on September 4, 2005, at the Kammermusiksaal in Berlin, Germany, as part of the Berliner Festpiele. Anthony Marwood was the soloist, and the composer conducted the English Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Marwood and Mr. Adès appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the Concerto’s US premiere, which took place at Walt Disney Concert Hall on February 10, 2006. The composer provided the following commentary on his Violin Concerto, “Concentric Paths”: This concerto has three movements, like most, but it is really more of a triptych, as the middle one is the largest. It is the “slow” movement, built from two large, and very many small, independent cycles, which overlap and clash, sometimes violently, in their motion towards resolution. The outer movements too are circular in design, the first fast, with sheets of unstable harmony in different orbits, the third playful, at ease, with stable cycles moving in harmony at different rates. I. Rings II. Paths III. Rounds Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin (1850) Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany, on May 22, 1813 and died in Venice, Italy, on February 13, 1883. The first performance of the opera Lohengrin took place at the Hoftheater in Weimar, Germany, on August 28, 1850, conducted by Franz Liszt. The Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin is scored for three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals and strings. Approximate performance time is nine minutes. These are the first ASO Classical Subscription Performances. Richard Wagner first became acquainted with the story of Lohengrin, Knight of the Holy Grail, in 1845. As the composer recalled: I learned to know the myth of Lohengrin in its simpler traits, and alike its deeper meaning, as the genuine poem of the folk, and such as it has been laid bare to us by the discoveries of the newer searchers into saga lore. After I had thus seen it as a noble poem of man’s yearning and his longing…this figure became ever more endeared to me, and ever stronger grew the urgence to adopt it and thus give utterance to my own internal longing; so that, at the time of completing my (opera) Tannhäuser, it positively became a dominating need, which thrust back each alien effort to withdraw myself from its despotic mastery. Wagner drew upon a number of sources for the text of Lohengrin, including Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parsifal and several other 13th-century accounts. The story of Wagner’s Lohengrin takes place in Antwerp, in the early 10th century. The maiden Elsa is falsely accused of murdering her brother, the rightful heir to the throne. A knight arrives in a swan-drawn boat and agrees to defend Elsa’s honor. The knight demands that Elsa never try to determine his origin or name. Elsa consents, and Lohengrin defeats her accuser. Elsa and the knight wed, but soon, she becomes suspicious. Finally, she asks the knight the forbidden question. The knight reveals his identity. He is Lohengrin, a Knight of the Holy Grail. Because Elsa has violated her trust, the heartbroken Lohengrin must leave her forever. Before he departs, Lohengrin prays, and the swan is transformed back into the person of Elsa’s brother. In this tale, Wagner recognized: the necessity of love; and the essence of this love, in its truest utterance, is the longing for utmost physical reality, for fruition in an object that can be grasped by all the senses, held fast with all of the force of actual being. In this finite physically sure embrace, must not the god dissolve and disappear? Is not the mortal, who had yearned for God, undone, annulled? Yet is not love, in its truest, highest essence, herein revealed? Wagner also viewed the story of Lohengrin as a metaphor for the artist’s attempt to gain understanding within society. Wagner began work on the text of Lohengrin in 1845, finally completing the score on April 28, 1848. The opera received its premiere in Weimar, under the direction of Franz Liszt, on August 28, 1850. In time, Lohengrin emerged as one of Wagner’s most beloved works. The Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin (Langsam) is one of Wagner’s most sublime compositions. According to the composer, it is a depiction of the “miraculous descent of the Holy Grail, accompanied by an angelic host, and its consignment to the custody of exalted men.” Wagner continues: “The infinitely delicate outline of a miraculous band of angels takes shape, floating imperceptibly down from Heaven and bearing a sacred vessel.” The orchestra majestically proclaims the appearance of the Grail, “the precious vessel out of which our Savior drank at the Last Supper with His disciples; in which his blood was caught when, for love of His brethren, He suffered upon the cross.” After entrusting the Grail to the knights, “the seraphic hosts disappear into the bright light of the celestial blue from which they first emerged.” La mer (The Sea), Three Symphonic Sketches (1905) Claude Debussy was born in St. Germaine-en-Laye, France, on August 22, 1862, and died in Paris, France, on March 25, 1918. The first performance of La mer took place in Paris on October 15, 1905, at the Concerts Lamoureux, with Camille Chevillard conducting. La mer is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, two cornets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, orchestra bells, tamtam, triangle, two harps and strings. Approximate performance time is twentythree minutes. First ASO Classical Subscription Performance: December 1, 1961, Henry Sopkin, Conductor. Most Recent ASO Classical Subscription Performances: May 7, 8 and 9, 2009, Robert Spano, Conductor. “I still have a great passion for the sea” The first mention of Claude Debussy’s La mer occurs in a September 12, 1903 letter. There, Debussy informed composer André Messager: “I am working on three symphonic sketches under the title La mer: Mer belle aux îles Sanguinaires; Jeux de vagues; and Le Vent fait danser la mer.” (Debussy later changed the titles of the outer movements.) In that same letter, Debussy confided: “You perhaps do not know that I was destined for the fine life of a sailor and that it was only by chance that I was led away from it. But I still have a great passion for the sea.” This “passion” may be traced as far back as Debussy’s childhood visits to Cannes. And, the composer’s fascination with the sea continued throughout his life. In 1889, the young Debussy responded in a questionnaire that if he were not a composer, he would like to be “a sailor.” That same year, Debussy traveled with his friends—the brothers René and Michel Peter—to St. Lunaire, located on the north coast of Brittany. During the visit, Debussy and the Peters made a twenty-mile voyage in a fishing boat from St. Lunaire to Cancale. The trip occurred during a raging storm. René and Michel Peter feared for their lives—and for good reason. Debussy, on the other hand, relished the experience: “Now here’s a type of passionate feeling I have not before experienced—Danger! It is not unpleasant. One is alive!” After the travelers safely returned to St. Lunaire, the Peters did not see Debussy for several days. He left a note that read: “I have been smitten not with sea-sickness, but with sea-seeing-sickness.” It is perhaps ironic that the majority of the composition of La mer took place when Debussy was at inland locations. However, Debussy did not view this as a handicap. As he told Messager: (Y)ou’ll reply that the Atlantic doesn’t wash the foothills of Burgundy...! And that the result could be one of those hack landscapes done in the studio! But I have innumerable memories, and those, in my view, are worth more than a reality which, charming as it may be, tends to weigh too heavily on the imagination. In fact, Debussy once admitted to a friend that he found it difficult to compose while in close proximity to the sea he loved so much. The premiere of La mer took place in Paris on October 15, 1905, at the Concerts Lamoureux, with Camille Chevillard conducting. While critical reaction varied, most recognized the importance of La mer in the development of French musical expression. Debussy himself penned revisions to the score in 1909, although some conductors and orchestras continue to perform the 1905 version. Regardless, Debussy’s La mer is a brilliant musical product of the composer’s lifelong fascination with the sea and its infinite mysteries. Debussy’s La mer, like its subject, continues to elude description, all the while exerting a powerful attraction. Musical Analysis I. De l’aube à midi sur la mer (From Dawn until Noon on the Sea)—A slow, mysterious introduction depicts the grandeur of the sea at dawn. Soon, the sea awakens and activity increases as Debussy introduces several masterfully orchestrated rhythmic motifs. A grand concluding section, containing a chorale theme that will appear again in the finale, radiates the magnificence of the sea glistening in the noonday sun. II. Jeux de vagues (Play of the Waves)—If the first movement of La mer serves as the equivalent of a symphony’s vibrant opening movement (with slow introduction), Jeux de vagues is the scherzo. The play of the waves is reflected in the orchestra’s quicksilver introduction and exchange of rhythmic and melodic fragments. The peaceful conclusion of the movement is in sharp contrast to the almost frenetic activity that precedes it. III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea)—The finale begins ominously, with a roll of the timpani and terse interjections by the lower strings, answered by the woodwinds. The music gathers strength, momentum, and at times, violence. A contrasting lyric section soon gains energy of its own. The chorale, first heard in the opening movement, heralds the climax of the finale.