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| About this Concert Edmonton native Shauna Rolston’s performances never fail to electrify her audiences, and she is a frequent and favourite guest of the ESO. A world premiere of a new work by ESO Composer in Residence Robert Rival, and Tchaikovsky’s impassioned final symphony – a towering and melodic work inspired by unrequited love – complete the program. Canadian conductor Julian Kuerti has amassed an impressive list of re-engagements by orchestras delighted with his performances. Join us in the Upper Circle lobby at 7:15 pm for Symphony Prelude, hosted by D.T. Baker. Featured Repertoire DVOŘÁK: Cello Concerto TCHAIKOVSKY: Sixth Symphony “Pathétique” RIVAL: Achilles & Scamander (World premiere of an ESO commission) |
Next Landmark Classic Masters April 14, 2012 An Italian Guitar Concerto Thank you to our sponsors!  Series Sponsor |
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. |
 In recognition of Earth Hour, this evening's performance is powered with green electricity, provided by Bullfrog Power. This means that Bullfrog Power will inject Alberta-made wind power onto the Alberta grid to match the amount of electricity used by this event. All of the electricity injected on our behalf will be sourced from wind facilities that have been certified as low impact by Environment Canada. |
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Program Info
Program
RIVAL
Achilles & Scamander (World premiere of an ESO commission) (8’)*
DVOŘÁK
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op.104 (38’)*
Allegro
Adagio ma non troppo
Finale: Allegro moderato
INTERMISSION
TCHAIKOVSKY
Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op.74 “Pathétique” (46’)*
Adagio – Allegro non troppo
Allegro con grazia
Allegro molto vivace
Finale: Adagio lamentoso – Andante
Program subject to change
*indicates approximate performance durationProgram Notes
Achilles & Scamander (World premiere of an ESO commission)
Robert Rival (b. Calgary, 1975)
Listen to Robert Rival's audio preview of Achilles & Scamander, including musical excerpts:
Program note by the composer:
‘O Achilles, your strength is greater, your acts more violent
than all men’s; since always the very gods are guarding you.
If the son of Kronos has given all Trojans to your destruction,
drive them at least out of me to the plain, and there work your havoc.
For the loveliness of my waters is crammed with corpses, I cannot
find a channel to cast my waters into the bright sea
since I am congested with the dead men you kill so brutally.
Let me alone, then; lord of the people, I am confounded.’
—Homer’s Iliad, Book 21, lines 214-21
With these words, Scamander, the river god, implores a rampaging Achilles to take his fight elsewhere. But in vain. And so ensues a dramatic battle between god and mortal, the former roiling his waters in an effort to drown the transgressor, the latter saved only by the intervention of another god, Hephaestus, forger of Achilles’s shield, who lays waste to Scamander by raining fire upon him, thus allowing Achilles to carry on the slaughter.
This episode inspired in me a short tone poem. I depict Achilles with a muscular theme in the horns that rises up across the instrument’s entire range, punctuated by the jabs of his sword and his shrill war cry. Scamander’s theme, in the bass trombone, rises up, too, as if from the depths of the river itself. A subsidiary motive represents Achilles chasing his victims through the water—and later fleeing its surging waves. Hephaestus makes a late but extraordinary entry.
The Iliad stimulated my imagination like no other literary work has done in a long time. The musicality of its language—the poetry’s rhythm, the extended similes, the repetition—drew me into another world. But so did the sweep of the narrative, the long descriptions and digressions, and, especially, the striking relationship between mortals and gods
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op.104
Antonín Dvořák (b. Nelahozeves, 1841 / d. Prague, 1904)
First performed: March 19, 1896 in London
Last ESO performance: February 2005
In 1894, on a break during his tenure (1891-1895) heading up the newly-formed National Conservatory in New York, Antonín Dvořák went home to Bohemia briefly. While there, he began sketches for what would become his Cello Concerto, at the behest of Bohemian cellist Hanuš Wihan. Dvořák took to the task with relish, completing it the following February. Soon after, his sister-in-law died, so Dvořák reworked the concerto. His song “Leave Me Alone in My Dreams,” a favourite of hers, was quoted in both the Adagio movement and the finale.
Wihan would eventually take up the concerto, which was dedicated to him, but the first performance took place with Dvořák conducting, and Leo Stern as soloist. It might seem at first as if the first theme heard in the work is given relatively short shrift, particularly as the second subject (heard first on the horn) is given much more breadth – it was one of the composer’s own personal favourites among his melodies. The bulk of the movement is spent with each of these musical ideas, and that first theme is made much more dominant in the recapitulation.
The second movement is one of Dvořák’s finest slow movements. After an introduction in the woodwinds, the cello enters, quoting that favourite song mentioned above. The mood is not tragic, but beautiful, serene, and direct. Three horns present an almost organ-like chorale mood to a bridge, used to usher in a cadenza for the cello, accompanied by the woodwinds, and leading to a gentle conclusion. The finale perks up the pace with a picturesque march tune used as the main subject of a loose rondo movement. Not only does the song from the slow movement return, there are echoes of a theme from the first movement as well, lending a sense of completeness to the finale of this broad, rich concerto, which has taken its place as among the best. Upon hearing it, Dvořák’s friend and mentor Johannes Brahms famously said, “"Why on earth didn't I know that one could write a cello concerto like this? Had I known, I would have written one long ago."
Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op.74 “Pathétique”
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (b. Kamsko-Votinsk, 1840 / d. St. Petersburg, 1893)
First performed: October 28, 1893 in
Last ESO performance: October 2005
Pretty much from its first performances, Tchaikovsky’s final symphony has produced a barrage of conflicting rhetoric. People tend to hear what they want in a work, so for those who must insist that this great, tragic work is Tchaikovsky’s suicide note, they cite mounds of evidence. Just as there is equally compelling evidence to those who believe that the symphony was simply the next work in what he hoped would be many more. Tchaikovsky himself is not much help, either. Always a bit of an emotional weather vane, the composer’s own writings could be seen to support either point of view.
So what do we know? Well, we know that Tchaikovsky let germinate the idea of what he termed a “Program Symphony” for more than two years, after sketching out a rough in which he wrote, “The ultimate essence of the plan of the symphony is LIFE. First part – all impulsive, confidence, thirst for activity. Must be short. Finale DEATH (result of collapse). Second part, love; third, disappointments; fourth ends dying away (also short).” We also know that the first performance of the work (presented at its premiere without a sobriquet) was met with reasonable success. And we also know that within a week of that first performance, Tchaikovsky was dead. Nine days after that first performance, the work, now called the “Pathétique” Symphony, was given again, and to great acclaim. Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest claims to have suggested to Piotr the name for the work. And we know that Tchaikovsky dedicated the symphony to his nephew, known as “Bob” or “Bobyk” in his many letters, and for whom Tchaikovsky doubtlessly had deep feelings, though he knew nothing could come from it.
Enter more contradiction. The official cause of his death was cholera, from drinking unboiled water. There are many who just as adamantly maintain he took poison by his own hand. The latter hear in the work what must obviously be the torments of the composer. Again, letters from Tchaikovsky would seem to indicate that he was indeed unhappy; but then why did he write his publisher, saying, “I have never felt such self-satisfaction, such pride, such happiness, as in the consciousness that I am really the creator of this beautiful work.”?
Ultimately, we are left with the music, regarded by many as the finest Russian symphony ever written. The bassoon solo which rises from the murky strings at the outset presents an idea which will be prevalent throughout much of the work – a rising, then falling idea that eventually brings us to the Allegro of the movement, and from E minor to the symphony’s home key. It is here that another melody is presented, and it is this secondary subject that dominates the rest of the movement. The development section is capped with a powerful orchestral tutti, but the movement ends quietly.
The second movement is set up, and presented, as a waltz. Yet its time signature throughout nearly its entire duration is 5/4, which one perceptive early critic (Paul Henry Lang) noted, “shows the best side of Tchaikovsky’s innate musicianship…maintaining the somewhat unusual 5/4 measure throughout, seldom accomplished without the appearance of a tour de force.” The third movement is dominated by a G Major march of fierce energy and intensity, which nevertheless enters on tiptoes.
It is clear that, right from the beginning, Tchaikovsky had in mind the unusual idea of an Adagio final movement. While it begins in B minor, the tragic song which lingers so powerfully in the imagination is actually in D Major. The overall mood is one of grieving, of regret; there is no respite, no happy ending – only a long dying away. “This is not a work you can be indifferent to,” wrote one music historian. “And even those fastidious persons disturbed by its sensational aspects should not allow themselves to be blinded thereby to the work’s equally real musical strengths.”
Program notes © 2012 by D.T. Baker, except as noted.
Artist Info
Julian Kuerti, conductor
Canadian conductor Julian Kuerti has quickly made a name for himself with his confident style, artistic integrity and passion for musical collaboration. He has led numerous orchestras across North America including the Boston, Houston, Montréal, Toronto, Colorado, and Utah symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. In the 2010/11 season, Mr. Kuerti made debuts with the Atlanta, Seattle, New Jersey, Vancouver, Rochester, Toledo, and Québec symphonies. He made debuts in Europe with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Bochumer Symphoniker. He recently completed his post as assistant conductor to James Levine at the Boston Symphony, having made his BSO subscription debut in 2008. He returned to the BSO podium on two last-minute occasions that year. Julian Kuerti was born in Toronto into one of Canada’s most distinguished musical families; his father is famed pianist Anton Kuerti. He began his instrumental training on the violin. While completing an honours degree in engineering and physics at the University of Toronto, he kept up the violin. He began his conducting studies in 2000 at the University of Toronto. He studied with David Zinman at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen in 2004, and with Finnish maestro Jorma Panula at the NAC Conductors Programme in Ottawa. In 2005, he was one of two conducting fellows at Tanglewood, where he had the opportunity to take masterclasses with James Levine, Kurt Masur, Stefan Asbury and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. Kuerti served as assistant conductor to Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra during the 2006/07 season. From 2005 to 2008, he was founding artistic director and principal conductor of Berlin’s Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop. Kuerti conducted the Boston Symphony Chamber Players in music by Golijov and Foss on Plain Song, Fantastic Dances, released in January 2011 on the BSO’s own label.
This is Mr. Kuerti’s debut with the ESO.
Shauna Rolston, cello
Award-winning Canadian cellist Shauna Rolston is one of the most compelling and unique musical voices on the stage today. Since receiving a mini cello for her second birthday, she has appeared in the world’s major concert halls including Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall, and was the featured artist at the 1988 Olympics. Praised for her blazing technique and her ability to touch the heart of each audience member, Ms. Rolston continues to astonish and delight with her concerts, recordings, and world premieres. Her passion for the music of our time has led to the commission and creation for her of more than 50 works for cello, including concertos by Canada’s leading composers. Upcoming projects include recordings, performances, and commissions including four cello concertos, a whistling concerto, and three groundbreaking double concertos: one for improvising cello and contemporary jazz piano by jazz sensation David Braid, one for cello and piano by Heather Schmidt, and another for cello and flute by Karen Tanaka, as well as Wildfire, a film for BRAVO! television with music by Heather Schmidt.The diversity of Shauna Rolston’s artistry is reflected in the many honours received, including her appointment as Canadian Music Centre Ambassador for her commitment to the performance of Canadian music, and most recently, the Oskar Morawetz Award for Excellence in Music Performance. Ms. Rolston is also devoted educator, much in demand as a guest master class artist. She is Professor of Cello and Head of Strings at the University of Toronto and a Visiting Artist for the Music and Sound Programs at The Banff Centre. Shauna earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from Yale University and a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music where she studied with the distinguished cellist and pedagogue, Aldo Parisot.
Ms. Rolston last appeared with the ESO in November 2010.
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