Details
Marc-André Hamelin and our Principal Trumpet Robin Doyon join the ESO for Shostakovich’s popular and infectiously optimistic concerto. Richard Strauss’ light and exuberant Burleske also features Mr. Hamelin. Allan Gilliland’s colourful Shadows and Light (written for the ESO) and Debussy’s stunning La mer (The Sea) complete the program.
Join us for Symphony Prelude at 7:15 pm in the Upper Circle Lobby.
Debussy: La mer
Shostakovich: Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings
R. Strauss: Burleske for Piano and Orchestra
Gilliland: Shadows and Light
$69 Dress Circle (A)
$59 Terrace (B)
$51 Orchestra (C)
$38 Upper Circle (D)
$28 Gallery (E)
$20 Orchestra Front (F)
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Tickets subject to applicable service charges.
This performance will be recorded by CBC for later broadcast.
Thank you to our concert sponsor: The Joyce McDonald Fund
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Program Information
Gilliland: Shadows and Light (10')*
Ridout: Fall Fair (8')*
Shostakovich: Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings (22')*
Marc-André Hamelin, piano
Robin Doyon, trumpet
Intermission
R. Strauss: Burleske for Piano and Orchestra (20')*
Marc-André Hamelin, piano
Debussy: La mer (25')*
*Indicates approximate performance duration
Program Notes
Shadows and Light (2000 ESO commission)
Allan Gilliland
(b. Darvel, Scotland, 1965)
First performance: November 19, 2000 in Edmonton
Last ESO performance: March 2004
(Program note by the composer)
Shadows & Light has three main sections which I composed in the order two, one, three. After completing this material I felt the first section needed its own introduction. After composing this busy string texture I felt the whole work needed a slow introduction. This all leads to a piece that has the form slow introduction, fast string transition, three main sections and coda.
The material for the first main section comes from a single chord, consisting of a series of open fifths with the addition of a dissonant note. When I found this sonority I thought it would make a nice flashy series of repeated brass chords, and that's exactly how I use it. The upper brass and winds repeat this chord while the lower instruments interject with a base line. The notes of the bass line are chosen so that each note alters the function of the repeated chord.
The second section is also harmonically based. The original material is taken from a choral piece of mine entitled The Cloths of Heaven. I open that work with the choir singing a series of chords using a closed to open-mouthed syllable. This was always one of my favourite moments in this piece so I decided to adapt and modify it to an orchestral texture. Here, the progression takes on a minimalist feel. On top of this texture I add a long sweeping melody in the cellos and horns. This section builds to a bold climax that then winds down into the third section. This slow section changes the musical focus from harmony to counterpoint. Here I wanted alternate long lines in the string section with some of the gestures from the introduction. This slow section then leads into the coda. The coda begins with some more of the minimalist texture and then finishes with the bright brass chords.
Fall Fair
Godfrey Ridout
(b. Toronto, 1918 / d. Toronto, 1984)
First performance: October 24, 1961 in New York
Last ESO performance: Sobeys Symphony Under the Sky 2006
Godfrey Ridout’s Fall Fair remains one of the most often performed Canadian works, and one which the ESO has taken to heart. The orchestra has performed it many times, and recorded it on a CBC disc called Canadian and Russian Overtures, released in 1986. Fall Fair was in fact a CBC commission, written for United Nations Day in 1961 and performed at U.N. headquarters in New York with Ernest MacMillan conducting. It was inspired by the kinds of fairs common to small towns in Ontario in the 1920s, and is a colourful, lighthearted and high-spirited work.
Fall Fair is dominated by two main themes, the first of which is heard in the brass at the beginning – a bright and grand, and versatile theme, which shows different colours when it is brought back in a more lyrical way later on. The second theme is first heard on English horn accompanied by plucked strings. The work ends with an appropriately celebratory flourish.
Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings in C minor, Op.35
Dmitri Shostakovich
(b. St. Petersburg, 1906 / d. Moscow, 1975)
First performance: October 15, 1933 in Leningrad
Last ESO performance: May 2001
Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto was composed in 1933, and was the first work he wrote following the pivotal opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk. In 1936, this opera would lead to the composer being charged with the potentially fatal crime of “formalism” by the Soviet regime, forcing Shostakovich to alter his compositional style significantly, lest he invite imprisonment or worse. So this concerto, scored for piano with the addition of a prominent solo trumpet and strings, is one of the last of his works in which he still felt he had artistic free rein. It is also one of his most deliberately humorous works, and was certainly influenced by the neo-classical style that other composers, most notably Stravinsky, were beginning to explore.
Piano and trumpet have the first say in the work, ushering in a piano passage at first moody, but soon broadening out to an excited urgency in piano and strings. The trumpet intrudes with fanfare-like calls, as if commenting on the bristling piano’s manic energy. The moodiness of the opening returns at the end, leading into the slow second movement – a waltz in A-B-A form begun by strings alone. It is nearly a minute and a half before the piano enters, sparsely adding to the string measures with left and right hand playing identical material an octave apart. Then the piano takes over, rhapsodizing its own material in the central section as the strings add to the emotional mood. The trumpet finally enters nearly two-thirds into the movement, playing a muted solo over the strings as the waltz theme returns.
The third movement is brief – a Moderato section begun as a cadenza for the piano, joined soon after by a hauntingly beautiful theme in the strings. Piano and strings come together for the last measures of the movement, which proceeds without a pause into the finale. Shostakovich’s early work as a silent film accompanist surely had some influence on the piano passages of this brisk and frantic music, which often has the feel of a cinematic chase or fight scene. Piano, strings, and trumpet all seem to release some pent-up, madcap cascade of colourful figures; the mood is irrepressible. In the middle, the music slows to allow the trumpet a playful, lyrical solo with some faux-Spanish touches. The manic mood soon reclaims the field, however, and the work comically concluding with a few false endings and a wonderfully over-the-top sense of occasion.
Burleske in D minor, AV 85
Richard Strauss
(b. Munich, 1864 / d. Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 1949)
First performance: June 21, 1890 in Eisenach
Last ESO performance: 1974
Aside from Richard Strauss himself, two men figure prominently in the legacy of the composer’s only work for piano and orchestra. The first was Hans von Bülow, the autocratic and dyspeptic conductor and pianist. One of the first to recognize the young Strauss’ talent, Bülow programmed Strauss’ Serenade – written when the composer was just 17 – and invited Strauss himself to conduct it. The young man remembered the favour, and at the age of 21, was inspired to write a composition for piano and orchestra for Bülow, to be called Scherzo in D minor.
But Bülow was unimpressed, deeming the work both “Lisztian” and “unplayable.” Convinced of his mentor’s better judgement, Strauss withdrew the work. And that’s where the second man integral to the work comes in. Like Strauss, Eugen d’Albert was 25 in 1889, and a rising young piano star in Germany. He saw potential in the work, and encouraged Strauss to revive it. Strauss did, renaming the work Burleske and dedicating it to its new champion, who gave the work’s premiere.
As time went on, Burleske became one of Strauss’ own favourite compositions, and as its title suggests, it is a work filled with humour and showmanship. And both those characteristics are established at the outset. The motif which opens the work, a quick rising and falling measure punctured by timpani, will dominate the thematic material of the entire piece which, though cast in a single movement, is full of contrasting moods and tempos. The piano is in almost constant activity – when not dominating the proceedings, it is providing eddying or cascading commentary under the orchestral sections. Material from the opening motif is used often to bridge from one passage to another – and the opening is presented again almost verbatim about halfway through.
The fast sections have a mercurial and urgent energy to them, the slower sections are richly, broadly romantic – this is not a work of great subtlety. But the demands made of the soloist are formidable, and while it is easily the dominant figure in Burleske, pay special attention to the bravura writing for the timpani (Barry Nemish) as well, as it also has a prominent role throughout the entire work.
La mer
Claude Debussy
(b. St. Germain-en-Laye, 1862 / d. Paris, 1918)
First performance: October 15, 1905 in Paris
Last ESO performance: January 2000
Claude Debussy was not a seafarer; in fact, he made fun of himself with respect to his composition La mer. Sketched out in landlocked Burgundy, Debussy wrote his publisher, “You will tell me that the ocean doesn’t lap against the slopes of Burgundy!,” but Debussy was not out to write a piece that literally depicted the sea. Though Debussy hated the term “impressionism” as applied to his music, La mer is the quintessence of it: it was the product of Debussy’s lifelong love of what the sea represented, what it felt like, to him. He was fascinated by the sea, and spent a lot of time at seasides all along the coast of France. It was perhaps only half-jokingly that he once wrote to fellow composer Messager that he was destined for a life on the sea, but chance took him otherwise.
Musically, La mer took people by surprise, just as his opera Pelléas et Mélisande had done three years earlier. It was unexpectedly bold; everyone praised its orchestral colours, but were confounded by the music itself; scholar Paul Griffiths refers to “passages of unprecedented intricacy.” The work is divided into “three symphonic sketches,” in Debussy’s words, each given a vivid title. “The problem was that the titles and subtitles of Debussy’s works were often more useful to him than to the listener,” writes Edward Blakeman. “They were starting points only, stimulating his imagination and setting in motion the creative process, but they did not dictate the course of the musical events.”
The first movement is titled De l’aube à midi sur la mer (“From dawn to midday on the sea”). The music stirs itself to life – but tempo, mood, key are all ambiguous. Rhythms, more or less in 6/8 time, ebb and flow – much like the sea itself, of course. There are motifs, but no melodies. At times, the musical forces seem to coalesce, but die away just as quickly. The movement ends, however, with one of Debussy’s most forceful orchestral fortissimos, but it too, dies away on the very last notes. The second movement, Jeux de vagues (“Play of waves”) seems an even more gossamer orchestral fabric than the first. It begins in a similarly unsure way as the first, but in a quicker tempo. Musical elements shift capriciously, darting and fading, often disparate ideas weave simultaneously. As the movement ends, a climax of sorts is reached, but the final moments, with a solo flute and harp harmonics, are reminiscent of Debussy’s famous Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune of a decade earlier. The final movement, Dialogue du vent et de la mer (“Dialog of the wind and the sea”) begins dramatically, growling up from the lower instruments. Two main ideas play against each other, the first based on the dramatic opening; the second has a more romantic feel. Dynamic contrasts are strongly felt, with the quiet moments full of pathos. The movement builds to an excited, agitated ending, a strong orchestral flourish, and a final period on timpani – a surprisingly solid ending to a work of such delicate textures.
Program Notes © 2010 by D.T. Baker, except as noted
Artist Information
William Eddins, conductor
William Eddins is in his fifth season as Music Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. A native of Buffalo, New York, he currently resides in Minneapolis with his lovely wife Jen, a clarinetist, and their two boys Raef (AKA Raefster; Munchers) and Riley (AKA Squeaky; The Imp; Dr. No).
Bill has been playing piano since he was five when his parents bought a Wurlitzer Grand piano at a garage sale. He started conducting during his sophomore year at the Eastman School of Music, and most of the '80s were spent trying to decide whether to pursue a career in conducting or piano. The quandary was answered for him when he realized that the life of a poor, starving pianist was for the birds. In 1989 Bill decided to study conducting with Dan Lewis at the University of Southern California, from whence he managed to land assistant conductor posts with the Chicago Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra in 1992.
Bill has many non-musical hobbies including: cooking, eating, discussing food, and planning dinner parties. He is also quite fond of biking, tennis, reading, and pinball. Unfortunately, due to pianistic paranoia his days in the martial arts are long over.
Bill is committed to bringing classical music to the greater public. He has started a podcast – Classical Connections – which is dedicated to exploring the history of classical music and highlights live chamber music performances in which Bill has taken part (check it out for yourself at Bill Eddins' website). He has also produced a solo piano CD – Bad Boys, Volume I – which features Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata and Albright's Nightmare Fantasy Rag. His latest recording, on the Naxos label, features American music for cello and orchestra.
Marc-André Hamelin, piano
Pianist Marc-André Hamelin’s unique blend of musicianship and virtuosity brings forth interpretations remarkable for their freedom, originality, and prodigious mastery of the piano’s resources. Long known for his bold exploration of unfamiliar pianistic terrain, Mr. Hamelin has increasingly turned his attention to the established masterworks of the piano literature, in performances and recordings of the piano sonatas of Haydn, major works by Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin and others. 2009–2010 season highlights include dates with the Boston, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Montréal, and San Francisco symphony orchestras, and recitals for the La Jolla Music Society, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, San Francisco Performances, Wigmore Hall in London, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
Other recent appearances include a series of dates at New York City’s Lincoln Center, featuring chamber concerts with Midori, and Haydn and Mozart concerti with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; an international tour and recording with the Takács Quartet; the season-opening recital of the Aspen Music Festival, and more. Mr. Hamelin has made recital appearances for the Celebrity Series of Boston, Chicago Symphony Presents, and WPAS in Washington, D.C., and has performed in concert with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Saint Louis Symphony. Mr. Hamelin has recorded more than 35 CDs for Hyperion, and has received eight Grammy nominations. He records the Strauss Burleske and Max Reger Piano Concerto with the Berlin Radio Symphony for Hyperion this season. A resident of Boston, Mr. Hamelin was presented with a lifetime achievement prize by the German Record Critic’s Association, and is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada.
Mr. Hamelin last appeared with the ESO in January 2008.
Robin Doyon, trumpet
A native of East Angus, Québec, Robin Doyon was appointed Principal Tumpet of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in September 2008. He received his Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Classical Interpretation at the University of Montréal with Jean-Luc Gagnon. He has studied with many masters of the trumpet, including Allen Vizzutti, Jens Lindemann, and James Thompson. In 2002, he was Laureate of the National Music Festival, the Montréal Symphony Orchestra Competition, and the Radio-Canada Young Artists Competition.
Mr. Doyon has also been the recipient of numerous other prizes, including the 2007 prix avec Grande distinction from the Montréal Conservatory of Music. He has been a member of the Grand Ballet of Canada Orchestra and is a regular performer with the Montréal Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the Laval, Longueuil, and the Metropolitan orchestras. He also performed with the Contemporary Ensemble of Montréal and the Contemporary Music Society of Québec. Robin Doyon was also a Professor at the University of Sherbrooke.
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