Liszt & Strauss

Saturday, January 14, 2012, 8:00 pm

Enmax Hall, Winspear Centre

Liszt & Strauss

2011-12 Landmark Classic Masters

  • William Eddins, conductor
    Kemal Gekić, piano
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Details

About this Concert
Since making his ESO debut as an emergency replacement in 2004, Kemal Gekić has returned several times, tackling many bravado showcases for piano. He takes on two such works – the tempestuous First Piano Concerto and the glittering paraphrase of Beethoven’s The Ruins of Athens, both by the extraordinary Franz Liszt.

Join us in the Upper Circle lobby at 7:15 pm for Symphony Prelude, hosted by D.T. Baker.

Featured Repertoire
R STRAUSS: Don Juan
LISZT: First Piano Concerto
LISZT: Fantasia on The Ruins of Athens
R STRAUSS: Death and Transfiguration		 Next Landmark Classic Masters
January 28, 2012
Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto

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Ticket Information

$75 Dress Circle (A)
$65 Terrace (B)
$52 Orchestra (C)
$38 Upper Circle (D)
$28 Gallery (E)
$20 Orchestra Front (F)
Tickets subject to applicable service charges.
This performance is part of the Landmark Classic Masters series.

Program Info

Program

R. STRAUSS
Don Juan, Op.20 (17’)*
 
LISZT
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major (19’)*
 
INTERMISSION
 
LISZT
Fantasia on Beethoven’s The Ruins of Athens (11’)*
 
R. STRAUSS
Tod und Verklarung, Op.24 (Death and Transfiguration) (25’)*
 
Program subject to change.
*indicates approximate performance duration

Program Notes

Don Juan, Op.20
Richard Strauss (b. Munich, 1864 / d. Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 1949)
 
First performance: November 11, 1889 in Weimar
Last ESO performance: February 2000
 
From 1889 until around 1911, Richard Strauss was likely the most visible and most discussed composer in the western world. And one of the first major works which launched the discussion was his first symphonic poem (well, actually his second, but the first to be published), Don Juan. Its premiere was conducted by Hans von Bülow, who had taken on the young Strauss rather like a protégé.
 
The story of Don Juan was created in 1630 with the play by Spanish playwright Tirso de Molina. The character has been adapted in both literary and musical forms many times since, perhaps none so famously as Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. The main source of inspiration for Strauss’ take on the legend was the poem by Austrian poet-philosopher Nikolaus Lenau, published in the early 19th century. While we have come to see Don Juan as an unrepentant rake, Lenau described his vision by saying, “My Don Juan is no hot-blooded man eternally pursuing women. It is the longing in him to find a woman who is to him incarnate womanhood, and to enjoy in the one all the women on earth whom he cannot possess as individuals. Because he does not find her, although he reels from one to another, at last disgust seizes him, and this disgust is the Devil that fetches him.”
 
The work begins with a musical depiction of Don Juan’s youthful brio and virility – a searching idea which alternates with various romantic liaisons (one on solo violin, another on solo oboe). These are followed by a heroic theme, heard on the four horns. The searching theme is next, followed by what must politely be described as an orgy, rising to a tumultuous din, subsiding then to reviews of previous romantic exploits. Another, even more dramatic climax marks the start of the coda – followed by a shattering silence: the bitterness of his futile search overwhelms him. A dissonant chord, with the strings and woodwinds in A minor combined with F Major trumpets suggest Don Juan’s shudder of disgust. One commentator described the work’s conclusion as, “laconic, tight-lipped; there is no wild complaint, only abandonment of life.”
 
 
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major
Franz Liszt (b. Raiding, Hungary, 1811 / d. Bayreuth, 1886)
 
First performance: February 16, 1855
Last ESO performance: Sobeys Symphony Under the Sky 2008
 
Franz Liszt the pianist was without peer during his career – he was simply that good. He championed the works of many composers as a performer, among them the Wanderer Fantasy of Schubert and the Ninth Symphony (for which he made a piano transcription) of Beethoven. Both of these works contain themes which are repeated in different guises; Liszt seized upon this notion to create the idea of thematic transformation – a characteristic of much of the music created by Liszt from early on in his compositional career.
 
Thematic transformation is used throughout his First Piano Concerto, written originally in 1838-39 but revised extensively before it was finally first performed in 1855, with Liszt at the piano and Hector Berlioz conducting. The work is in four more or less identifiable movements, with the second and third played without a pause between, and only a brief stop between the third movement and finale.
 
The orchestra’s brief, opening statement is overwhelmed by the grand entrance of the piano, but it does provide the main material from which the rest of the movement unfolds – though it must be said the piano dominates the musical and emotional balance of the entire concerto. In the romantic slow movement, the orchestra again has first say, but the piano’s answer is the core of the movement. It is a lush idyll, with only minor unsettling intrusions a couple of times from the piano.
 
Early performances of the third movement caused a ruckus through, of all things, Liszt’s use of a triangle – a highly unusual choice of instrument in such a work at the time. Today, we might scarcely notice it, amid the rapturous runs and arpeggios demanded of the soloist and the elfin like scoring for the strings. The main theme from the first movement returns prominently halfway through the movement, forming the basis of an emotional climax. This main material is reworked in tempo and feel throughout the final movement, a breathless and exciting showcase for the piano that accelerates to a thrilling conclusion. Fans of the work may wish to note that the ESO presents Liszt’s Second Concerto at a Sunday Showcase concert on January 22 at 2 pm.
 
 
Fantasia on Beethoven’s The Ruins of Athens
Franz Liszt
 
First performance: March 4, 1874 in Budapest
This is the ESO premiere of the piece
 
Credited with creating the modern concept of a solo piano recital, Franz Liszt was a showman without peer. In addition to his awing technique, Liszt delighted audiences by not only composing works specifically designed to put his talents on full display, but by creating bravura showcases built around popular works by other composers. Before setting tonight’s work, Liszt had already created a Capriccio alla turca, based on the famous Turkish March from Beethoven’s only ballet, The Ruins of Athens. And when he decided to expand the idea to a full-fledged fantasia, Liszt did so in three versions published simultaneously: one for solo piano, one for piano duet, and one for piano and orchestra. All were dedicated to Nikolai Rubinstein. Liszt presented the work at a charity concert at which over two thousand people were present.
 
Liszt gives the orchestra first say in the latter version – in fact, for the entire introduction. When the piano enters, however, it does so spectacularly, and with music from the Dervishes’ Chorus from Beethoven’s ballet featured. The final section is built around the Turkish March, which begins quietly, but becomes increasingly quicker and more ornate. For the grand finish, Liszt brings back other themes from the fantasia, along with the march.
 
 
Tod und Verklärung (“Death and Transfiguration”)
Richard Strauss
 
First performance: June 21, 1890 in Eisenach
Last ESO performance: May 1995
 
Though only in his 20s when he composed Tod und Verklärung, Richard Strauss was already a public figure. His extraordinary Serenade for Winds (1884) had won him critical acclaim, and his first tone poem, Don Juan (see above) in 1888 made him Germany’s predominant musical personality of the day.
 
Tod und Verklärung, his fourth tone poem, premiered to widespread admiration at a music festival in 1890. The music’s program is that of an idealist on his deathbed. In his last moments, he recalls events of his life, and following his death, his soul departs, “to find, gloriously achieved in eternity, those ideals which could ne be fulfilled here below,” as Strauss said.
 
Strings and timpani (the latter representing the man’s failing pulse) are heard at the outset, while other instruments give us his dying sighs. An oboe enters – a moment from his childhood is rememebered – until a shattering fortissimo brings back his pain. Following this, we get the work’s first main theme, a heroic melody that can be thought of as the “will to live” motif. After its first appearance, the music leads into a gentle subject (childhood is recalled again), then youthful vigour, followed by a love scene.
 
Trombones and timpani bring back the painful reality of his dying pulse. Three more times, the “will to live” motif returns, each in more elaborate orchestral colours. A beat on the side drum represents the moment of death. Gradually, the soul rises, garbed in a gloriously orchestrated and powerful conclusion.
 
Program notes © 2011 by D.T. Baker

Artist Info

William Eddins, conductor

william eddins

William Eddins is in his seventh season as Music Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. During his tenure, he has made it a priority that he conduct performances in nearly every subscription series the orchestra has presented, as well as a wide variety of special concerts and galas.

Bill Eddins began playing the piano at age five, but was bitten by the conducting bug while in his sophomore year at the Eastman School of Music. In 1989, he decided to begin conducting studies with Daniel Lewis at the University of Southern California. Assistant Conductorships with both the Minnesota Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony (the latter under the leadership of Daniel Barenboim) honed his skills even further.

Mr. Eddins has many interests outside music. He is fond of biking, tennis, reading, pinball, and cooking. He recently completed building his own recording studio at his home in Minneapolis, where he lives with his wife Jen (a clarinetist), and their sons Raef and Riley. While conducting has been his principal pursuit, he continues to perform on piano in Edmonton and elsewhere. He accepts a limited number of guest appearances each year. In 2008, he conducted a rare full staging of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for Opéra de Lyon, which won him great acclaim, leading to a repeat engagement in Lyon in July and September 2010, as well as Edinburgh in August 2010, and in London in September 2010. During August 2009, Bill toured South Africa, conducting three gala concerts with soprano Renée Fleming and the kwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Kemal Gekić, piano

kemal gekicFlamboyant, daring, provocative, exciting, seductive, and sensitive are some of the words used to describe one of today’s most formidable pianists, Kemal Gekić, whose playing has been acclaimed worldwide by public and critics alike. His daring approach to tone and form marked him as a maverick in the musical world, a distinction he welcomes: the very strength of his artistry challenges, provokes, intrigues. Performing worldwide from a vast repertoire, Kemal Gekić presents fascinating, uncompromising, and ever-changing interpretations As a recording artist, Mr. Gekić has won accolades in Europe, America, and Japan for insightful and original views of the music. His outstanding Rossini-Liszt transcriptions (Naxos) was given a “Rosette” of The Penguin Guide to Music, while his recording of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes (JVC) is generally considered to be the best recording of the set in history.
 
Born in Split, Croatia, Kemal Gekić got his early training from Lorenza Baturina. He graduated the class of Jokuthon Mihailovic at the Art Academy of Novi Sad and was immediately given a faculty appointment by the piano department which he eventually directed until 1999. Since 1999 he has been Artist in Residence at the Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He is a visiting professor  at the Musashino Academy of Music in Tokyo and a guest lecturer at numerous universities and academies throughout the world. He has served as a juror on numerous piano competitions. Programs on his life and his performances were broadcast by RAI Italy, TV Portugal, TV Yugoslavia, NHK Japan, POLTEL Poland, RTV Lower Saxony West Germany, RTV USSR, Intervision, CBC and PBS.
 
Mr. Gekić last appeared with the ESO at Sobeys Symphony Under the Sky in 2008.

Multimedia

Kemal Gekić performing La Danza Tarantella Napoletana:

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