RESPIGHI

Trittico Botticelliano (“Three Botticelli Pictures”) (22’)*

La Primavera (Spring)

L’adorazione dei Magi (Adoration of the Magi)

La nascita de Venere (The Birth of Venus)

 

BERLIOZ

Les nuits d’été, Op.7 (“Summer Nights”) (31’)*

Vilanelle

Le spectre de la rose (The Ghost of the Rose)

Sur les lagunes – Lamento (On the Lagoons - Lamento)

Absence

Au Cimetière – Clair de lune (At the Cemetery – Moonlight)

L’île inconnue – Barcarolle (The Unknown Island - Barcarolle)

 

INTERMISSION

 

ELGAR

Variations on an Original Theme, Op.36 “Enigma” (31’)*

C.A.E. (L’istesso tempo)

H.D.S.-P. (Allegro)

R.B.T. (Allegretto)

W.M.B. (Allegro di molto)

R.P.A. (Moderato)

Ysobel (Andantino)

Troyte (Presto)

W.N. (Allegretto)

Nimrod (Adagio)

Intermezzo: Dorabella (Allegretto)

G.R.S. (Allegro di molto)

B.G.N. (Andante)

Romanza *** (Moderato)

Finale: E.D.U. (Allegro – Presto)

 

 

Trittico Botticelliano (“Three Botticelli Pictures”)

Ottorino Respighi (b. Bologna, 1879 / d. Rome, 1936)

 

First performance: September 27, 1927 in Vienna

Last ESO performance: October 1999

 

Ottorino Respighi was one of music’s great pictorialists, so it was probably only natural that one of his most beguiling suites of symphonic pictures should be based themselves on famous pictures. Commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Commission in 1927, Trittico Botticelliano premiered that same year with Respighi conducting. Each movement is based on a famous painting by Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (c.1445-1510), better known as Sandro Botticelli.

 

The first movement, La Primavera (“Spring”) features evocative birdsong, rustling winds, and other pastoral elements, combined with an ancient-sounding dance. Always a student of older forms of music, Respighi puts that to good use in the second movement, L’adorazione dei Magi (“Adoration of the Magi”), which creates a sense of the sacred through the use of pre-Renaissance modes and a plainsong melody. The final movement depicts the famous and sensual La nascita de Venere (“The Birth of Venus”). Amid swirling, undulating ocean waves in the background, the goddess herself emerges from a shell with her own, romantic and passionate main theme.

 

 

Les nuits d’été, Op.7 (“Summer Nights”)

Hector Berlioz (b. Côte-Saint-André, Isère, 1803 / d. Paris, 1869)

 

Piano and voice version published in 1841

Last ESO performance: March, 2003

 

Les nuits d’été is regarded as the first orchestral song cycle, and the start of a line that leads to the great cycles by Mahler and Richard Strauss. However, the set was not originally written as such, and there is no evidence that Berlioz necessarily intended the series to be an orchestral cycle at all. “The original voice-and-piano cycle (which was published by Catelin and dedicated to Louise Bertin) has long been eclipsed by the popularity of the later chamber-orchestra version,” wrote David Cairns in his book on Berlioz. “It lives and has its being in the iridescent colours of the orchestral incarnation for which it was always waiting.”

 

Berlioz wrote the six songs that make up the set, one at a time, between 1840 and 1841, setting them for voice and piano. All the poems were taken from La comédie de la mort (“The Play of Death”), a collection by Théophile Gautier. The orchestration of each song, however, was done separately, over a 15-year period. Each orchestrated version was dedicated to a different singer. As a set, therefore, they are adaptable to a wide range of voices.

 

 

Edward Elgar (b. Broadheath, Worcestershire, 1857 / d. Worcester, 1934)

 

First performed: June 19, 1899 in London

Last ESO performance: January 2007

 

After a tiring day spent teaching one day, Edward Elgar returned home, and daydreamingly sat at the piano, making up a tune. That’s nice, his wife Alice said, play it again. So, he did, only making up variations on the tune as he did so, in little musical portraits of their friends. This was the genesis of the “Enigma” Variations, the work which would eventually establish Elgar as a major new composer. He eventually wrote 14 variations, orchestrating them over the course of 1898-99. So what’s the Enigma?

 

Not the tune – that’s presented at the outset, prior to the set of variations. Not the identities of all the friends – we have the names behind the initials and affectionate nicknames. Rather, Elgar has said, there is another theme, but one which is “never played.” Whether he meant a theme as a musical idea, or an overall “meaning,” Elgar never said, and despite decades of speculation as to the indentity, Elgar took the answer with him to the grave.

 

Following the G minor theme, variation one is for Elgar’s wife. Variation two is named for H.D. Steuart-Powell, a pianist friend of Elgar’s. The Allegretto third variation in G Major is for R.B. Townsend, an amateur actor whose vocal gifts for sudden changes in pitch is gently parodied. Variation four is W. Heath Baker. The fifth is named for R.P. Arnold, son of the famous poet, who was noted for his sense of humour. “Ysobel” was the nickname for violist Isabel Fitton, so her instrument is given prominence in variation six. Arthur Troyte Griffiths was a more willing pianist than an able one, and his enthusiasm colours the seventh variation. Elgar said that, while the eighth variation is named for Winifred Norbury, the music itself is meant to depict an eighteenth-century house.

 

The most famous variation, often excerpted as a stand-alone moment, is the serene “Nimrod” ninth variation, named in tribute to Elgar’s friend A.E. Jaeger. Variation ten teases Dora Penny (“Dorabella”) and her tendency to speak hesitatingly. Organist G.R. Sinclair is depicted throwing a stick into a river for his bulldog to retrieve – listen for the bark – in the eleventh variation. The cello spotlight in number twelve is for cellist Basil Nevinson. No initials are given for variation 13, though the reference to Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage was a nod to Lady Mary Trefusis, who was on a sea excursion at the time. Elgar gave himself the last word with the final variation – “Edu” was a nickname for himself.

 

Program notes © 2011 by D.T. Baker

 

2010/11 brought a slew of return engagements in North America. Highlights in Canada included a Werther production with the Montréal Opera, and engagements with the Calgary Philharmonic, Québec Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia, and I Musici de Montréal in a rare guest appearance. In the U.S., he conducted the Oregon Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, and Rigoletto with the Cincinnati Opera. From 2002-2006 Jean-Marie Zeitouni was associate conductor and chorus master at l’Opéra de Montréal and was Music Director of their Young Artist Program. He was also Music Director of the Banff Centre "Opera as Theatre" program (2005-06), chorus master at l’Opéra de Québec (2003-05) and choir director of the Québec Symphony Orchestra (2001-03). He was as well director of the orchestra and opera workshop of the Faculty of Music at Laval University (1999-2002). In the summer of 2004, Zeitouni acted as assistant conductor at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City for the Jonathan Miller production of Così fan tutte. Jean-Marie Zeitouni graduated from the Montréal Conservatory in conducting, percussion, and theory. He studied with Maestro Raffi Armenian.

 

Mr. Zeitouni last appeared with the ESO in April 2011.

 

She can be heard on disc with the Boston Early Music Festival in Lully's operas Thésée and Psyché, both nominated for a Grammy Award. This year, she adds Blow's Venus and Adonis and Charpentier's Actéon to her discography, again with the Boston Early Music Festival. A recipient of a Canada Council emerging artist grant, Lebel received a Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto, and a Masters of Music from the University of Montréal. This season, Mireille Lebel will sing the title role in L'Enfant et les sortilèges, Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus and Idamante in Idomeneo with Theater Erfurt, Mahler's Symphony No. 3 with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and L'Orchestre symphonique de Trois Rivières, and Annio in La clemenza di Tito with Toronto's Opera Atelier.

 

Ms. Lebel last appeared with the ESO in December 2008. She made her debut with Edmonton Opera in the role of Mercédès in Carmen in December 2007.