AN EVENING WITH THE MSO 29 JUNE 2018

CONCERT PROGRAM

Melbourne Symphony OrchestraKolja Blacher violin, director

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Bernstein Serenade (after Plato’s “Symposium”)

INTERVAL

Beethoven Romance No.1

Beethoven Symphony No.1

Running time: Two hours, including a 20-minute interval

In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone.

The MSO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which it is performing. MSO pays its respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other communities who may be in attendance.

mso.com.au (03) 9929 9600

MSO’s regional touring activities are supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, The Robert Salzer Foundation, and the Freemasons Foundation Victoria. In Mildura, MSO is further supported by Mildura Rural City Council – Mildura Arts Centre, TASCO Petroleum, Duxton Vineyards, Mildura Living, Stefano’s Cafe and new U Mildura.

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MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Established in 1906, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an arts leader and Australia’s oldest professional orchestra. Chief Conductor Sir Andrew Davis has been at the helm of MSO since 2013. Engaging more than 4 million people each year, the MSO reaches diverse audiences through live performances, recordings, TV and radio broadcasts and live streaming. Its international audiences include China, where MSO has performed in 2012, 2016 and most recently in May 2018, Europe (2014) and Indonesia, where in 2017 it performed at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Prambanan Temple.

The MSO performs a variety of concerts ranging from symphonic performances at its home, Hamer Hall at Arts Centre Melbourne, to its annual free concerts at Melbourne’s largest outdoor venue, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. The MSO also delivers innovative and engaging programs and digital tools to audiences of all ages through its Education and Outreach initiatives.

Kolja Blacher has performed with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra di Santa Cecilia and Baltimore Symphony. He has worked with conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Mariss Jansons, Vladimir Jurowski, Simone Young, and Asher Fisch, and with Claudio Abbado (a close association dating from their time at the Berlin Philharmonic and Lucerne Festival).

Kolja Blacher’s repertoire ranges from Bach to Berio, covering the classical-romantic core repertoire and contemporary works. He gave the German premiere of Brett Dean’s Electric Preludes for the six-string e-violin. Recent recordings include the Nielsen Violin Concerto with Giordano Bellincampi and the Duisburg Philhamonic and the Schoenberg Violin Concerto with Markus Stenz and the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne.

KOLJA BLACHER VIOLIN, DIRECTOR

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PROGRAM NOTES

FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809–1847)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Overture, Op.21

‘I have grown accustomed to composing in our garden…’ wrote the 16-year-old Mendelssohn to his sister Fanny in 1826. ‘Today or tomorrow I am going to dream there A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This is, however, an enormous audacity…’

From Mendelssohn’s own dream emerged a concert overture that captured all the magic of the siblings’ ‘favourite among old Will’s beloved plays’. Shakespeare’s plays formed a regular part of the Mendelssohns’ family life; they read them in English as well as in German, frequently dividing the parts between themselves for impromptu presentations. Yet for all the overture’s dreamlike deftness, elfin humour and fluent orchestration – the work of a ‘finished master’, albeit a young and audacious one – its composition followed Mendelssohn’s habit of scrupulous self-criticism and painstaking revision.

Adolf Bernhard Marx (assuming the role of musical mentor) had complained of the first draft that, beyond the dance of the elves with its introductory chords he ‘could perceive no Midsummer Night’s Dream in it’. This was severe criticism indeed, for Mendelssohn’s goal was to ‘imitate the content of the play in tones’. But, even without Marx’s criticism of that early version – ‘cheerful, pleasantly

agitated, perfectly delightful, perfectly praiseworthy’, we can be certain that the composer would have torn it to shreds of his own accord.

Salvaged from the first draft was the famous opening – four sustained and ‘gleaming’ chords in the woodwind – and the fairy music: feathery whispering of the violins. Mendelssohn was persuaded, too, not to dispense with the comical braying of the transformed Bottom. Later, he declared roguishly of this passage that, while there was nothing in his overture ‘that Beethoven did not have and practise’, perhaps he had broken new ground in using the ophicleide (the coarse-toned ‘chromatic bullock’, its part covered nowadays by the more refined tuba).

To these were added the lyrical wanderings of the mortal lovers, the ‘rumbustious representation of the rustics’, and the horns of Theseus’ hunting party. Yet, while evoking the whimsy and confusion of the drama, the musical ideas neatly obey the requirements of sonata form. The central section is a fanciful development of the fairy music, and the fairies have the last word (as in the play) with the return of the four woodwind chords of the opening.

Yvonne Frindle © 1998

Mendelssohn’s concert overture on A Midsummer Night’s Dream was first performed in public on 29 April 1827. It was another 15 years before Mendelssohn returned to the play, composing his incidental music for a German production in Potsdam (premiered 18 October 1843). The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed the Overture under conductor Georg Szell on 21 May 1938, and most recently in July 2016 with Alexander Shelley.

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LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990)

Serenade (after Plato’s “Symposium”) for solo violin, strings, harp and percussion

I Phaedrus – Pausanias (Lento – Allegro)

II Aristophanes (Allegretto)

III Erixymathus (Presto)

IV Agathon (Adagio)

V Socrates – Alcibiades (Molto tenuto – Allegro molto vivace)

Kolja Blacher violin

In early June 1954, Leonard Bernstein moved his family into a rented home on Martha’s Vineyard, the fashionable summer retreat off the Massachusetts coast. He had just completed the score for Elia Kazan’s film On the Waterfront and his two summer projects were the composition of Candide and a violin concerto for Isaac Stern. With ‘all cylinders burning’, Candide emerged slowly, but the concerto was finished by early September when Bernstein left for Venice. For the 12 September premiere at the Teatro Fenice, Stern was the soloist, with Bernstein conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Bernstein’s ‘violin concerto’ was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation. With the dedication ‘to the beloved memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky’, it perpetuates the legacy of the legendary conductor of the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitsky, who had been Bernstein’s mentor in Boston and Tanglewood. With characteristic quirkiness, Bernstein chose not to burden his new work with the weighty designation of

‘concerto’; instead, he decided to call it a ‘serenade’, recalling the Italian sera, or ‘evening piece’, with its emphasis on courtship, mating rituals and flirtatious expression of love.

Indeed, preparing for this work, Bernstein had re-read Plato’s Symposium, the ancient dialogue between guests at an imaginary Greek banquet that had impressed him during his student years at Harvard. In essence, the Serenade becomes an essay-discussion in praise of love, surely the singular guiding principle of Bernstein’s own life, private and professional, and, by extension, his love for humankind. The solo violin is the host, the commentator who provokes debate between the guests at Plato’s party. The music itself, while it follows no literal program, is, like the dialogue, ‘a series of related statements in praise of love, and generally follows the Platonic form through the succession of speakers at a banquet’. Bernstein further explains that ‘the “relatedness” of the movements does not depend on common thematic material, but rather on a system whereby each movement evolves out of elements in the preceding one’.

In his Serenade, with all its titular implications of light-hearted frivolity, Bernstein re-examines the lofty notion of the ‘violin concerto’ by its unusual five-part form and by toying with more than a hint of jazz, particularly in the last section of the work. ‘I hope it will not be taken as anachronistic Greek party-music,’ he explained, somewhat ruefully, ‘but rather as the natural expression of a contemporary American composer imbued with the spirit of that timeless dinner-party.’

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No doubt he foresaw the reaction of critics in the mid-1950s when anything that contained hints of jazz was definitely not to be taken seriously.

Sixty years later, Bernstein’s Serenade remains one of the few musical scores inspired by a discussion of philosophy. Although still rarely played, it has endeared itself to listeners and commentators as one of the most characteristic works of its multi-dimensional creator, the prime purveyor in music of the optimistic spirit of humanism.

Bernstein described each of the movements as follows:

Phaedrus – Pausanias – Phaedrus opens the symposium with a lyrical oration in praise of Eros, the god of love. (Fugato, begun by the solo violin.) Pausanias continues by describing the duality of lover and beloved. This is expressed in a classical sonata-allegro, based on the material of the opening fugato.

Aristophanes – Aristophanes does not play the role of clown in this dialogue, but instead that of the bedtime story-teller, invoking the fairy-tale mythology of love.

Erixymathus – The physician speaks of bodily harmony as a scientific model for the workings of love-patterns. This is an extremely short fugato scherzo, born of a blend of mystery and humour.

Agathon – Perhaps the most moving speech of the dialogue, Agathon’s panegyric embraces all aspects of love’s powers, charms and functions. This movement is a simple three-part song.

Socrates – Alcibiades – Socrates describes his visit to the seer Diotima,

quoting her speech on the demonology of love. This is a slow introduction of greater weight than any of the preceding movements; and serves as a highly developed reprise of the middle section of the Agathon movement, thus suggesting a hidden sonata-form. The famous interruption by Alcibiades and his band of drunken revellers ushers in the Allegro, which is an extended Rondo ranging in spirit from agitation through jig-like dance music to joyful celebration.

Vincent Plush © 2000

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed this work on 25, 26 and 28 July 2008 with conductor Eivind Aadland and soloist James Ehnes.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

Romance No.1 in G for violin and orchestra, Op.40

Kolja Blacher violin

The two violin Romances were published after Beethoven was well established in Vienna, the G major piece appearing in Leipzig in 1803 and the F major in Vienna two years after that. But despite that, the non-contiguous opus numbers and the fact that their first public performances were some years apart – the F major seems to have been premiered in 1798, and the G major in 1801 or 1802 – it is possible that they were written at the same time, namely in the 1790s. After all, in 1802 Beethoven produced his three Violin Sonatas, Op.30, works that do for their genre what the ‘Rasumovsky’ quartets and Eroica Symphony had done for

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theirs. Charming as the Romances undoubtedly are, the same could not be said for them.

Also in existence is a fragment from the first movement of what would have been a substantial Violin Concerto in C major (catalogued as WoO5) composed between 1790 and 1792 – before Beethoven left Bonn for Vienna – and it seems likely that at least one of the Romances, written for exactly the same modest orchestral forces, was intended as the slow movement: the keys of F and G are both closely related to C according to classical convention.

Both works do, however, show Beethoven’s intimate knowledge of string instruments – he was a more than proficient violinist and had played viola in the court orchestra in Bonn. In both works, he makes full use of the instrument’s singing upper register, but also uses its darker lower tones sparingly and to great dramatic effect.

The term ‘romance’, of course, has a literary history: French writers, in particular, used it to denote a poem or song in strophic form that related a tale of love and gallantry. German poets took the term over, infusing it with folk-idioms and often using it interchangeably with ‘ballade’.

The sense of a story told with the structural repetition of strophic verse carries over into Beethoven’s use, in these pieces, of rondo form, where repeated statements of material are contrasted with episodes of new material, balancing lyricism and virtuosity. The G major work has a deceptively simple, almost hymnal melody as its main theme. Just what the story might be is a mystery, of course.

Gordon Kerry © 2010

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed the Beethoven Romances at a War Funds Concert on 22 August 1940 with conductor Sir Bernard Heinze and Yehudi Menuhin, and most recently in May 2014 with Richard Tognetti as director/soloist.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

Symphony No.1 in C, Op.21

Adagio molto – Allegro con brio

Andante cantabile con moto

Menuetto (Allegro molto e vivace)

Finale (Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace)

When Beethoven presented his first symphony amid the gilt elegance of the Royal and Imperial Court Theatre (Burgtheater) in Vienna on 2 April 1800, he was already in his thirtieth year. Having lived in Vienna more than seven years, he was well established as the city’s foremost piano virtuoso, with his first two piano concertos already behind him – one of them repeated in this, his first personal benefit concert. His program cannily included excerpts from the great success of the previous year, Haydn’s new oratorio The Creation. But in choosing a Mozart symphony to open a program which would lead to his own symphonic debut, Beethoven was declaring himself more than ready to stand comparison with past masters.

And he invites comparison provocatively in the very opening chord of the symphony, which is not the expected C major but a discord. Though he shifts key in the third bar, it still is not the home key. Beethoven’s audience would have been bemused

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by this groping for tonality. The unexpected modulations build tension throughout the slow introduction until the Allegro arrives, and with it the proper key of C major, which is hammered emphatically.

With an anchor in C major, Beethoven is able to switch from one key to another without losing sense of direction. Harmonic innovation is already a distinctive characteristic of Beethoven’s symphonic style. He allows oboes and flutes, alternately, to lead the contrasting second subject, and crowns the movement with an extended and brilliant coda.

Beethoven begins the slow movement apparently intending to treat his winsome melody fugally, as if it were a counterpoint exercise for his former teacher, Albrechtsberger. But the graceful theme becomes a basis for inventive elaboration, fragments of rhythm or melody developed sturdily or ornamented affectionately with already confident command of the orchestra. In a foretaste of the remarkably individual use he would make of his kettledrums in works to come, Beethoven here has the timpani tuned as if for a movement in the key of C, rather than F, as it actually is. Thrice during the movement the ‘wrongly-tuned’ timpani delightedly provide soft bouncing support for a flowing, delicately-scored melody above.

Beethoven makes his first great contribution to symphonic form in the third movement, which he labels a minuet, though to all intents and purposes it is his first trademark symphonic scherzo. This is no longer dance music. But Beethoven resists the

term scherzo (implying a joke); for the young tiger is in no particularly jocular mood. Under Beethoven, scherzo was to take on a new meaning, with its vigorous one-in-a-bar beat and totally new driving force.

Again outlandish to some in the conservative musical establishment was the apparent frivolity with which Beethoven opens his finale – violins fooling over several false starts before they eventually hit on the tune and then whirl away with great brio. One respected German conductor is said to have habitually cut the introduction lest it evoke laughter in the audience. The light-hearted finale culminates, like the first movement, in a coda already stamped with true Beethovenian power and authority.

Anthony Cane © 2011

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed this symphony on 6 August 1938 under conductor Malcolm Sargent, and most recently in September 2013 with Bernard Labadie.

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PRINCIPAL PARTNER

GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

PREMIER PARTNERS VENUE PARTNER

MAJOR PARTNERS EDUCATION PARTNERS

SUPPORTING PARTNERS

The CEO InstituteQuest Southbank Bows for StringsErnst & Young

TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS

MEDIA AND BROADCAST PARTNERS

The Scobie and Claire Mackinnon Trust, Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund

The Gross Foundation, Li Family Trust, MS Newman Family Foundation, The Ullmer Family Foundation

Sir Andrew Davis Chief Conductor

Benjamin Northey Associate Conductor Anthony Pratt#

Tianyi Lu Cybec Assistant Conductor

Hiroyuki Iwaki Conductor Laureate (1974–2006)

FIRST VIOLINS

Dale Barltrop Concertmaster

Sophie Rowell Concertmaster The Ullmer Family Foundation#

Peter Edwards Assistant Principal John McKay and Lois McKay#

Kirsty BremnerSarah Curro Michael Aquilina#

Peter FellinDeborah GoodallLorraine HookAnne-Marie JohnsonKirstin KennyJi Won KimEleanor ManciniMark Mogilevski Michelle RuffoloKathryn Taylor Michael Aquilina#

Amy Brookman*Michael Loftus-Hills*Nicholas Waters*

SECOND VIOLINS

Matthew Tomkins Principal The Gross Foundation#

Robert Macindoe Associate Principal

Monica Curro Assistant Principal Danny Gorog and Lindy Susskind#

Mary AllisonIsin CakmakciogluFreya Franzen Anonymous#

Zoe FreisbergCong GuAndrew Hall Andrew and Judy Rogers#

Isy WassermanPhilippa WestPatrick WongRoger YoungJacqueline Edwards*

VIOLAS

Christopher Moore Principal Di Jameson#

Fiona Sargeant Associate Principal

Lauren Brigden Mr Tam Vu and Dr Cherilyn Tillman#

Katharine BrockmanChristopher Cartlidge Michael Aquilina#

Anthony Chataway Dr Elizabeth E Lewis AM#

Gabrielle HalloranTrevor Jones Cindy WatkinElizabeth WoolnoughCaleb Wright

CELLOS

David Berlin Principal MS Newman Family#

Rachael Tobin Associate Principal

Nicholas Bochner Assistant Principal

Miranda Brockman Geelong Friends of the MSO#

Rohan de Korte Andrew Dudgeon#

Keith JohnsonSarah MorseAngela SargeantMichelle Wood Andrew and Theresa Dyer#

DOUBLE BASSES

Steve Reeves Principal

Andrew Moon Associate Principal

Sylvia Hosking Assistant Principal

Damien EckersleyBenjamin HanlonSuzanne LeeStephen Newton Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser#

Emma Sullivan*

FLUTES

Prudence Davis Principal Anonymous#

Wendy Clarke Associate Principal

Helen Hardy* Guest Associate Principal

Sarah Beggs

PICCOLO

Andrew Macleod Principal

MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

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MSO BOARD

ChairmanMichael Ullmer

Managing DirectorSophie Galaise

Board MembersAndrew DyerDanny GorogMargaret Jackson ACDavid KrasnosteinDavid LiHyon-Ju NewmanHelen Silver AO

Company SecretaryOliver Carton

OBOES

Jeffrey Crellin Principal

Thomas Hutchinson Associate Principal

Ann Blackburn The Rosemary Norman Foundation#

Rachel Curkpatrick*

COR ANGLAIS

Michael Pisani Principal

CLARINETS

David Thomas Principal

Philip Arkinstall Associate Principal

Craig Hill

BASS CLARINET

Jon Craven Principal

BASSOONS

Jack Schiller Principal

Elise Millman Associate Principal

Natasha Thomas

CONTRABASSOON

Brock Imison Principal

HORNS

Saul Lewis Principal Third

Ian Wildsmith* Guest Principal Third

Abbey Edlin Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM#

Trinette McClimontAlexander Morton*

TRUMPETS

Shane Hooton Associate Principal

Tristan Rebien* Guest Associate Principal

William EvansRosie Turner

TROMBONES

Brett Kelly Principal

Richard Shirley Tim and Lyn Edward#

Mike Szabo Principal Bass Trombone

TUBA

Timothy Buzbee Principal

David J. Saltzman*

TIMPANI**

Christopher Lane

PERCUSSION

Robert Clarke Principal

John Arcaro Tim and Lyn Edward#

Robert CossomBrent Miller*Greg Sully*

HARP

Yinuo Mu Principal

# Position supported by

* Guest Musician

** Timpani Chair position supported by Lady Potter AC CMRI

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