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MOZART
S ERIES
MO
Nashville Symphony
Hans Graf, conductor
Jeffrey Kahane, piano
ZART
CHRISTOPHER ROUSE
Odna Zhizn [A Life]
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Cadenza by Jeffrey Kahane
Concerto No. 25 in C Major
for Piano and Orchestra, K. 503
Allegro maestoso
Andante
Allegretto
Jeffrey Kahane, piano
INTERMISSION
BÉLA BARTOK
Concerto for Orchestra
Introduzione: Andante non troppo - Allegro vivace
Giuocco delle coppie: Allegretto scherzando
Elegia: Andante non troppo
Intermezzo interrotto: Allegretto
Finale: Pesante - Presto
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C H RI STO P HE R RO U SE
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Born on February 15, 1949 in Baltimore,
Maryland, where he resides
Odna Zhizn [A Life]
Composed: 2009
First performance: October 2, 2010, with
Alan Gilbert conducting the New York
Philharmonic
First Nashville Symphony performance:
This is the first performance by the
Nashville Symphony
Estimated length: 15 minutes
C
hristopher Rouse has been a major figure
in revitalizing the appeal of American
orchestral music over the past few decades.
Through his mastery of the concerto format
in particular, Rouse maintains a widespread
presence in the concert hall. Odna Zhizn was
commissioned to celebrate conductor Alan
Gilbert’s inaugural season as music director of
the New York Philharmonic, where Rouse has
served as composer-in-residence since 2012. This
relationship has included the recently acclaimed
premiere of his Requiem at Carnegie Hall last
May.
Rouse supplemented an education at Oberlin
and Cornell by taking private studies with the
maverick composer George Crumb. He has
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himself been a prominent educator, teaching
composition at Juilliard since 1997. Rouse
is above all associated with his music for
orchestra. His ongoing series of concertos has
earned international acclaim, with works for
solo instruments and, following the lineage we
hear in the Bartók selection, for full orchestra.
Rouse garnered a Pulitzer Prize in
1993 for his Trombone Concerto (1991),
which commemorated the death of Leonard
Bernstein. This set a pattern for a string of
notable compositions in memory of people
important to the composer. Rouse’s inspiration
for Odna Zhizn (Russian for “A Life”) was
to write a tribute for “a person of Russian
ancestry who is very dear to me” (the score
bears the inscription “for Natasha”). “Her life
has not been an easy one, and the struggles
she has faced are reflected in the sometimes
peripatetic nature of the music.”
W H AT TO L I ST E N FO R
Rouse explains that he encoded the names
of Natasha and of people and places central
to her life into musical terms. “While quite a
few of my scores have symbolically translated
various words into notes and rhythms, this
process has been carried to an extreme degree
in Odna Zhizn: virtually all of the music is
focused on the spelling of names and other
phrases.” That is, Rouse equated each letter
of the alphabet with a pitch and, at times,
even a duration, thus musically “spelling out”
particular words.
Yet the emotional arc of the singlemovement Odna Zhizn is visceral, not abstract,
unfolding in three seamlessly connected
sections (slow-fast-slow). Rouse’s reputation
as a masterful orchestrator can be heard
immediately in the slow opening section, with
its mysteriously sustained, percussion-flecked
harmonies. A well-crafted transition carries
us into the fast middle section, where the
music generates a sense of dramatic urgency.
After the most violent in a series of climaxes,
a solemn tolling returns to the subdued pace
of the opening — the most magical moment
in Odna Zhizn. The music should be heard,
notes Rouse, “both as the public portrayal of an
extraordinary life, as well as a private love letter.”
Born on January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria;
died on December 5, 1791, in Vienna
Concerto No. 25 in C Major for Piano and
Orchestra, K. 503
Composed: 1786
First performance: A concert in Vienna in
December 1786, with the composer at the
keyboard
First Nashville Symphony performance: March
28, 1950, with Music Director William Strickland
and soloist Soulima Stravinsky
Estimated length: 30 minutes
T
he piano was the instrument Mozart used
to make his living when he tossed off the
shackles of the aristocratic/church patronage that
had governed his life in Salzburg and opted for
the bright lights, big city of Vienna. He did that
in 1781, a decade before his premature death.
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AMA DÉU S MO Z A RT
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Odna Zhizn is scored for 3 flutes (3rd doubling
piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass
clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3
trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, 3 percussionists, harp, celesta and strings.
And while Mozart had indeed become a celebrity
as a child prodigy, led around Europe on tours
arranged by his father, that fame was hardly useful
in paying the bills.
Essentially, Mozart had to start from scratch,
and he did that as a freelance star performer and
composer who gave lessons on the side. All the
while, he was hoping for more commissions like
The Abduction from the Seraglio, which he wrote
during his first year in Vienna for the theater
established by Emperor Joseph II.
During his youth in Salzburg, Mozart had
composed a handful of piano concertos. His
older contemporary Haydn was one of the few
peers Mozart really respected and with whom
he became friends in this critical decade. Haydn
had been evolving the symphony into one of
the grandest forms for instrumental music
available in the late 18th century, but he wrote few
keyboard concertos.
Therefore, it is no exaggeration to point out
that Mozart did for the concerto more or less
what Haydn had done for the symphony. In other
words, he turned a medium that was basically
associated with entertainment into a laboratory
for experimenting with his style, perfecting his
ideas of large-scale instrumental form, melody,
harmonic expression and orchestral eloquence.
All of these became defining signatures of the
style that became known as High Classicism
— the style that Beethoven inherited and
transformed into his own.
Given the importance of piano concertos
in Mozart’s career, it is curious that there is so
little evidence about their impact as they were
happening — no press accounts, for example.
The Mozart expert Neal Zaslaw points out that
for the composer’s “immediate contemporaries,”
the concertos represented a type of music simply
to be consumed then and there. They were
considered “not ‘classics’ but ‘popular music,’ to be
enjoyed, used up and replaced by newer works.”
Mozart responded to the demand for a new
supply as long as it held up, particularly between
1782 and 1786. Piano Concerto No. 25 dates from
the end of this period. It was followed by only two
more piano concertos (one in 1788 and one in
his final year, 1791). Despite the lack of recorded
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buzz about these works, Zaslaw notes that “a sort
of tacit approval of Mozart’s piano concertos even
by his contemporaries can perhaps be detected
in the fact that, whereas only three of his more
than 50 symphonies were published during his
lifetime, some seven of his 21 original concertos
for solo piano attained that distinction.”
When we talk about Mozart writing for the
piano, by the way, we mean “fortepiano” — a
smaller and lighter forerunner of the modern
concert grand (limited to about five octaves)
that was rapidly evolving in these years. Mozart
owned a state-of-the-art instrument designed
by the highly esteemed, Vienna-based piano
builder Anton Walter. He acquired this desirable
instrument at some point between 1782 and 1785.
Living in an apartment over which the mass of St.
Stephen’s Cathedral loomed, Mozart wrote more
than 50 works on this very fortepiano.
This concerto enjoys a special status among
Mozart connoisseurs as arguably his finest,
the most comprehensive and symphonic in its
gamut of emotions and expression. But it came
to attention relatively belatedly, in the modern
era, and is still not nearly as well known as the
C major Concerto from the previous year (No.
21). Composed in December 1786, the Piano
Concerto No. 25 benefits from the composer’s
recent experience that year composing one of his
operatic masterpieces, The Marriage of Figaro,
and is of the same vintage as the glorious Prague
Symphony in D major (No. 38).
W H AT TO L I ST E N FO R
The work’s duration alone indicates that this
is one of the most ambitious of Mozart’s Viennese
piano concertos. The orchestration (like that his
preceding C major concerto, No. 21) includes
the festive sound of trumpets and drums, though
Mozart does omit his beloved clarinets. The
opening Allegro maestoso builds a framework of
persuasively heroic rhetoric. One of the themes
even seems to “echo” the Marseillaise, the ode of
the French Revolution — which is all the more
uncanny when one realizes that the Marseillaise
was actually composed in 1792, after Mozart’s
death. Could this work have been the source?
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In addition to solo piano, the Piano Concerto No.
25 is scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2
trumpets, timpani and strings.
Born on March 25, 1881, in Nagyszentmiklós in
the Habsburg Empire (now Sînnicolau Mare,
Romania); died on September 26, 1945, in New
York City
Concerto for Orchestra
Composed: 1943
First performance: December 1, 1944, with
Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston
Symphony Orchestra
First Nashville Symphony performance:
March 8 & 9, 1971, with Music Director Thor
Johnson
Estimated length: 40 minutes
“I
n my youth,” Béla Bartók once remarked,
“Bach and Mozart were not my ideals of the
beautiful, but rather Beethoven.”
Beethoven remained the Hungarian
composer’s touchstone in his cycle of six string
quartets that spanned over three decades of his
career. Beethoven was likewise a key model for
the remarkable balance of discipline, formal
innovation and exciting fantasy that keeps
Bartók’s mature music so perennially appealing.
When Bartók’s seminal Music for Strings,
Percussion and Celesta received its premiere in
1937, the composer had not yet been compelled
to abandon his beloved Hungary for the reluctant
exile of his final years. Once World War II was
under way — and the Hungarian government had
allied with the Nazis — Bartók set sail with his
second wife for the United States. A downward
spiral had begun, and Bartók found himself
alienated in this new land. He faced an indifferent
public, and the leukemia that would later kill him
began to affect his health.
It was in the midst of this very dark period
for the composer — when it seemed his creativity
had reached its terminus — that a new orchestral
commission arrived in the summer of 1943.
Serge Koussevitzky, the famous composer of the
Boston Symphony, asked Bartók for a new piece.
He had been prompted by the intervention of
the composer’s allies and fellow Hungarians, the
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with which Mozart creates such beauty here, in
contrast to the ceaseless stream of ideas in the
outer movements.
The rondo finale has more weight than the
conventional “last drink” third movement. For its
theme Mozart borrowed a tune from his earlier
opera seria, Idomeneo. Yet for all its formality,
Mozart infuses his treatment of the entire
movement with considerable wit, invention and
emotional shading.
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Another striking element is the insistent
four-note rhythm that the soloist trades back and
forth with the orchestra. This anticipates another
extremely famous musical meme: the “knocking”
motif of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Mozart
himself left no surviving cadenzas for this work.
The opening phrases of the Andante could
easily be the entrée into one of Mozart’s most
intimate opera scenes. The music here reminds us
that the piano concertos on one level served as a
kind of staging ground to test out ideas that could
be developed in an opera, or even as a voiceless
“concert opera” featuring the soloist as the drama’s
protagonist. Listen for the hard-won simplicity
C L A SS I CA L
The Concerto for Orchestra serves to
showcase the expressive power and
versatility of a modern orchestra.
S ERI ES
conductor (and former Bartók student) Fritz
Reiner and the violinist Joseph Szigeti. Though he
reportedly weighed less than 100 pounds when
he undertook the commission, Bartók rallied
and produced one of the great success stories
of modern music. The Concerto for Orchestra,
which he composed in the summer and early fall
of 1943, premiered in December of the following
year. It was soon embraced by both critics and the
public and has since become an orchestral staple.
Its musical poetry remains bracing. The idea
of a concerto featuring not just a soloist, but the
whole ensemble as a collective of virtuosos did
not begin with Bartók. He did, however, revive
the Baroque concept of the concerto — the socalled “concerto grosso” — which juxtaposes
smaller groupings of instruments against the
texture of the larger ensemble. The Concerto for
Orchestra also serves to showcase the expressive
power and versatility of a modern orchestra.
Instrumental timbre turns out to be a significant
dimension of this music, along with its innovative
formal design and the manner in which Bartók
develops his thematic material.
In formal terms, the Concerto can also be
regarded as a symphony in five movements,
beginning in a dark, brooding mood but finding
its way to triumphant affirmation. (For a number
of reasons, Bartók regarded the symphony at
this moment in history as passé.) The composer
lays out this five-movement design according
to one of his favorite patterns: the palindromic
structure ABCBA. Thus the slow third movement
is the tragic center surrounded by two lighter
interludes, which in turn are framed by the two
longest (and fastest) movements.
W HAT TO L IST E N F OR
Contrast fuels the opening movement, in
which a slow introduction is followed by an
allegro crowded with furious counterpoint. Each
of the three inner movements has a distinctive
feature. The scherzo-like second (titled “The
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Game of Pairs”) presents pairs of instruments in
sequence, with a brass chorale as the trio.
The haunting “Elegy” at the heart of
the Concerto recalls material from the slow
introduction and contains Bartók’s so-called
“night music” — a term the composer used to
describe his heavily atmospheric, mysterious
sonorities evoking the enigma of the natural
world at night.
The fourth movement (“Interrupted
Intermezzo”) plays with clichés of “innocent”
folk music, while the rude “interruption” in
this movement is often claimed to represent
Shostakovich, whose Seventh Symphony (the
“Leningrad”) had recently become a popular
rallying cry of resistance to the invading
Germans. Other interpretations, however, have
challenged that longstanding view of Bartók’s
intent.
The presto finale, with its madly whirring
strings and brass fanfares, urges the Concerto on
to a thrilling conclusion in Bartók’s inimitable
style.
The Concerto for Orchestra is scored for 3 flutes
(3rd doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (3rd doubling
English horn), 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4
horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, strings.
— Thomas May, the Nashville Symphony’s program
annotator, is a writer and translator who covers
classical and contemporary music. He blogs at
memeteria.com.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
HANS GRAF, conductor
Known for his wide
range of repertoire and
creative programming,
the distinguished Austrian
conductor Hans Graf is
one of today’s most highly
respected musicians.
Appointed Music Director of the Houston
Symphony in 2001, Graf concluded his tenure
in May 2013 and is the longest serving Music
In addition to his programs and projects
with LACO, recent and upcoming engagements
include appearances at the Aspen, Mostly Mozart,
Caramoor, Ravinia, Blossom and Oregon Bach
festivals; recitals in Salt Lake City, Scottsdale
and the Green Music Center in Santa Rosa;
and concerto performances with the Toronto,
Houston, Milwaukee and Colorado symphonies.
Kahane’s recent and upcoming European
engagements include programs with the
Camerata Salzburg and Hamburg Symphony.
Kahane’s recordings include works of
Gershwin and Bernstein with Yo-Yo Ma for
SONY, Paul Schoenfield’s Four Parables with
the New World Symphony for Decca/Argo, the
Strauss Burleske on Telarc with the Cincinnati
Symphony and the complete Brandenburg
Concerti (on harpsichord) with the Oregon Bach
Festival Orchestra on the Haenssler label.
First Prize winner at the 1983 Rubinstein
Competition and finalist at the 1981 Van Cliburn
Competition, Kahane was also the recipient of
a 1983 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the first
Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award in 1987.
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JEFFREY KAHANE, piano
Jeffrey Kahane has
established an international
reputation as a truly
versatile artist, recognized
by audiences around the
world for his mastery of a
diverse repertoire ranging
from Bach, Mozart and
Beethoven to Gershwin, Golijov and John Adams.
Since making his Carnegie Hall debut in 1983, he
has given recitals in many of the nation’s major
music centers, including New York, Chicago,
Boston and Los A ngeles. He appears as soloist
with major orchestras such as the New York
Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Los
Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra
and the San Francisco Symphony.
Jeffrey Kahane made his conducting debut at
the Oregon Bach Festival in 1988. Currently in his
18th season as Music Director of the Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestra, he concluded his tenure as
Music Director of the Colorado Symphony in
June 2010 and for 10 seasons was Music Director
of the Santa Rosa Symphony, where he is now
Conductor Laureate.
Orchestra Berlin and Bavarian Radio Orchestra,
among others.
Hans Graf has recorded for the EMI,
Orfeo, CBC, Erato, Capriccio and JVC labels,
and his extensive discography includes the
complete symphonies of Mozart and Schubert,
the premiere recording of Zemlinsky’s opera Es
war einmal and the complete orchestral works
of Dutilleux, which he recorded under the
supervision of the composer with the Orchestre
National Bordeaux Aquitaine.
Born near Linz, Graf has been awarded the
Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Legion d’Honneur by
the French government for championing French
music around the world as well as the Grand
Decoration of Honour in Gold for Services to the
Republic of Austria. In addition to his conducting
activities, he is currently a Professor of Orchestral
Conducting at the University Mozarteum
Salzburg.
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Director in the orchestra’s history. He currently
holds the title of Conductor Laureate. Prior
to his appointment in Houston, he was the
Music Director of the Calgary Philharmonic
for eight seasons and held the same post with
the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine for
six years. He also led the Salzburg Mozarteum
Orchestra from 1984 to 1994.
Hans Graf is a frequent guest with all of
the major North American orchestras. His
recent and upcoming guest engagements
include appearances with the Cleveland and
Philadelphia Orchestras, the New York and
Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Boston, San
Francisco, Cincinnati, Detroit, Baltimore
and National symphonies, among others. In
Europe, Graf has conducted the Vienna and
London Philharmonics, Vienna Symphony,
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Leipzig
Gewandhaus Orchestra as well as the St.
Petersburg Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphony