Appalachian Spring & Brahms' Double Concerto

Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, conductor
Gwen Hoebig, violin
Yuri Hooker, cello

Thanks for the support from

Manitoba Chamber Orchestra

Dinuk Wijeratne         Polyphonic Lively
(b. 1978)

Johannes Brahms     Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 102
(1833-1897)

     Allegro

     Andante

     Vivace non troppo

     Gwen Hoebig, violin

     Yuri Hooker, cello

INTERMISSION

Franz Joseph Haydn          Symphony No. 39 in G minor, Hob 1:39
(1732-1809)

     Allegro assai

     Andante

     Menuet

     Finale, Allegro di molto

Aaron Copland                   Appalachian Spring: Suite                                                  
(1900-1990)

     Very Slowly

     Fast

     Moderato

     Quite Fast

     Still Faster

     Very slowly (as at first)

     Calm and flowing

     Moderate

Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, conductor

Gwen Hoebig, violin

Yuri Hooker, cello

Polyphonic Lively
Dinuk Wijeratne
b. Sri Lanka / 1978
Commissioned by Symphony Nova Scotia in 2016, when Dinuk Wijeratne held the position of RBC Composer-in-Residence.
First performance: October 13, 2016 (Halifax) conducted by Bernhard Gueller
First WSO performance

Polyphonic Lively is a musical masterpiece inspired by painter Paul Klee’s vibrant artwork, where contrasting ideas harmonize in a celebration of unique voices.

Pol·y·phon·ic (adj.) – many-voiced, [music] composed of relatively independent melodic lines or parts.

Live·ly (adj.) – full of life or vigour.

“While browsing through a library book of very vibrant artwork by Paul Klee, the 20th century Swiss-German master, I was struck by the title of one of the paintings: ‘Polyphonic Lively.’ Though the two adjectives, back-to-back, suggest that something may have been lost in translation, I felt compelled to turn these very vivid and evocative words into music. They immediately conjured up high-vibration, high-intensity ‘chatter,’ and also seemed nicely suited to the celebratory nature of an orchestra’s season opener.

Music, as a communicative medium, offers unique and wonderful opportunities for stacking contrasting ideas – for ‘polyphony.’ As a composer I like to explore the possibility that musical voices, each conveying an idea that is either supportive or subversive, can be allowed to coexist in a way that often eludes us in today’s world. The nature of ‘Polyphonic Lively’ is character-driven and, through sharp turns and decisive action, its ‘journey’ is simply what the characters make of it. Its musical fabric is a multiplicity of voices, lines, and themes that decide – on a whim – when to coalesce and coexist.”

– Dinuk Wijeratne

Music

Jóhann Jóhannsson, Orphic Hymn

Steve Reich, Pulse

Art

The Floating Piers, Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Open Casket, Dana Schutz

Literature

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

Film

La La Land

Moonlight

History

Britain votes to leave the European Union

Pulse Nightclub shooting

Double Concerto
Johannes Brahms
b. Hamburg / May 7, 1833
d. Vienna / April 3, 1897
Composed: 1887
First performance: September 23, 1887 (Baden-Baden at a private gathering) conducted by the composer, with Joseph Joachim, violin and Robert Hausmann, cello, as soloists; First public performance October 18, 1887 (Cologne) performed by the same principals.
Last WSO performance: 2007; Markand Thakar, conductor, with Gwen Hoebig and Desmond Hoebig as soloists.

Brahms’s last orchestral composition, the Double Concerto, born from a fractured friendship and musical innovation, was symphonic masterpiece for violin and cello.

What turned out to be Brahms’s last orchestral work began with a divorce, a falling-out and a reconciliation.

The great violinist Joseph Joachim had been a close friend. Brahms composed his Violin Concerto for Joachim nine years earlier, and Joachim regularly performed Brahms’s music. But when Joachim found himself in a marital dispute, the moralistic composer entered the bitter divorce proceedings with a letter in support of Joachim’s wife. Joachim refused to speak with Brahms for several years. A reconciliation was engineered by the cellist of the Joachim Quartet, Robert Hausmann, who had just successfully premiered Brahms’s Second Cello Sonata.

Brahms produced his Double Concerto in part to make good with his old esteemed friend. Brahms wrote to Joachim about the idea. The violinist replied, expressing interest, and asked Hausmann to perform it with him. Both instrumentalists had been and would continue to be the inspiration for much of Brahms’s chamber music.

Brahms had doubts about constructing a concerto for two solo string instruments that included a cello, which he also felt had questionable carrying power. As always, Joachim suggested changes to increase the violin’s virtuosity. Brahms didn’t accept them all but diplomatically found solutions to appease the violinist. Clara Schumann weighed in too, as Brahms struggled to maintain the integrity of a work with such a unique genre and little precedent, of which his conservative nature was always mindful.

In a letter to Joachim, Brahms wrote: “After you have seen the piece, you may send me a card which simply says, ‘I disown it.’ That will be quite sufficient for me, and I shall know what to do.”

Brahms needn’t have worried, for Joachim came to love the work. The rehearsals and preview performance for friends at the Baden-Baden home of Clara Schumann were happy occasions. A public performance in Cologne took place a few weeks later.

Brahms’s fears likely lay in his knowledge that the only real ancestor to his Double Concerto is Mozart’s splendid Symphonie concertante for violin, viola and orchestra. Even Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for violin, cello, piano and orchestra would not have been a useful model since the piano’s role smooths out many of the challenges, namely:

Should the violin and cello sound as equals, given their different registers and tonal realms? With an octave-and-a-half gap between them, wouldn’t it seem like a third solo instrument is missing? Can both soloists sound prominent enough atop Brahms’s usually abundant orchestral tapestry? Perhaps most of all, how does one make everything symphonic in view of the multiple messaging in the solo roles?

Brahms made it work, creating a masterpiece with a unique sense of light and shade. Right from the start, the two soloists share equal billing, sometimes playing separately, sometimes together, in dialogue, in octave unison or in opposition. The orchestra is a full participant in the drama.

The first movement opens powerfully, leading to the dramatic entrance of the cello. After its cadenza, woodwinds appear, setting up the equally dramatic entrance of the violin. The cello then joins the solo violin in a duo-cadenza, which establishes both solo instruments as equals. Driving this point further, the orchestra is silent during the cadenzas. It’s interesting to note that Brahms opens with cadenzas rather than waiting for their traditional spots near the end of classical movements. The plan between the solos and orchestra continues through the warmly reflective Andante and the inevitable vigour of the finale.

The Double Concerto was written toward the end of Brahms’s life when his music was turning more inward and his expression more intimate. With the completion of this work, he turned away from orchestral music to spend the remaining ten years of his life composing chamber music, piano works and songs, many of which are considered among his finest achievements.

Music

Giuseppe Verdi, Otello

Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 8

Art

Breton Women at a Pardon, Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret

Girl with Peaches, Valentin Serov

Literature

A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle (first appearance of Sherlock Holmes)

The Earth, Émile Zola

History

Construction begins on the Eifel Tower in Paris

Anne Sullivan begins teaching 6-year-old Helen Keller

Symphony No. 39
Franz Joseph Haydn
b. Rohrau, Lower Austria / March 31, 1732
d. Vienna / May 31, 1809
Composed: 1767
First WSO performance

Haydn’s Symphony No. 39 is a musical journey filled with intense emotions and unexpected twists, dramatic shifts and passionate melodies. This symphony, inspired by the philosophy of personal expression, creates a bold and expressive musical landscape that captivates from start to finish.

Beginning as early as the 1750s through the works of notable composers such as Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, the ephemeral sweetness found in much of the music of the early Classical period began to find newer and stronger emotional states. The use of minor keys, sudden contrasts, bold agitation and unexpected harmonic shifts created an expressive tonal dialect that became known as Sturm und Drang, named after Friedrich von Klinger’s 1776 play Wirrwarr, oder, Sturm un Drang (“Confusion, or, Storm and Stress”).

Klinger’s drama was inspired by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy of free personal expression, which would become a doctrine of the Romantic movement. Haydn and Mozart explored its ingredients in many works. In fact, of Haydn’s 11 symphonies in minor keys, seven date between 1765 and 1772 – one-third of his symphonic output of that period. All of these are ripe with passionate involvement in this bold new expressive style.

The Symphony No. 39 is among Haydn’s earliest musical journeys into Sturm und Drang. Right off the top, one finds a balanced four-bar phrase awaiting another. Then, the music simply stops. Where Haydn would use a moment of silence to point out something humorous or dramatic, this one is unsettling. So on the music goes, but the next phrase is completely unexpected – violins alone, unsupported, punching their way with jagged intervals. Then, more silence. Finally, the orchestra picks up the cue and switches loudly to the relative B-flat major key, where it stays for the rest of the exposition. As the first movement progresses, the unusual effect of the two horns pitched in G and B-flat is especially telling.

The slow movement is a dance in triple-time, with a central development section in typical Sonata form. Sharp interruptions appear in its seemingly aristocratic veneer.

The minuet third movement is quietly rustic – in G minor but reverting back to a B-flat “waltz” in the trio that features high horns and oboes in relief of the sighing string theme. The finale caps everything off energetically, highlighting Haydn’s always superb developmental skills peppered with racing strings and an emphatic G minor finish.

Music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Apollo et Hyachintus

Joseph Haydn, Symphony No. 35

Art

The Swing, Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Landscape with Animals, Philip James de Loutherbourg

Literature

The Female American, Unca Eliza Winkfield

Memoirs of a Magdalen, Hugh Kelly

History

The first English traders visited the Winnipeg area

Appalachian Spring
Aaron Copland
b. Brooklyn, NY / November 14, 1900
d. North Tarrytown, NY / December 2, 1990
Composed: 1943-44: Revised as a Suite 1945
First performance: Ballet on October 30, 1944 (Washington); Suite on October 4, 1945 (New York) conducted by Artur Rodzinski.
Last WSO performance: 2012, Richard Lee, conductor.

Appalachian Spring, commissioned as a ballet by arts patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, tells the story of a young pioneer couple’s trials and triumphs on a Pennsylvania farm. The music captures the essence of rural life and received great acclaim, winning a Pulitzer.

The commission for Appalachian Spring came from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, a pianist and wealthy patron of the arts who greatly admired the work of dancer-choreographer Martha Graham. In 1942, Coolidge offered funding for three ballets, one of which Graham wanted composed by Aaron Copland since the two had successfully collaborated in 1931 on a ballet based on his Piano Variations.

Graham wanted the story to reflect her grandmother’s farming roots in turn-of-the-century Pennsylvania – a pioneer story of a new farmhouse, a young bride and bridegroom and the growing strength through trials and tribulations in their new lives. The premiere was to be at Washington’s Library of Congress in honour of Mrs. Coolidge’s 80^th birthday in October 1944.

Copland set the music for chamber ensemble due to the limited space in the theatre. He composed at night on an empty Hollywood sound stage since he was scoring a film at the time. The solitude, he claimed, helped him in realizing the peaceful mood of rural Pennsylvania.

Graham took the title Appalachian Spring from an unrelated poem by Hart Crane, and both the premiere and subsequent New York performance were enthusiastically received. Copland won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for music, later setting the score as an eight-movement suite.

After an introduction of the characters, the music follows a story of elation and tenderness, square dances, country fiddlers, Revivalist passion, motherhood and gathering strength, its best-known music being the Shaker theme “Simple Gifts.’’

The composer provided the following overview of the suite:

“The Suite arranged from the ballet contains the following sections, played without interruption:

“1. Very Slowly. Introduction of the characters, one by one, in a suffused light.

“2. Fast. Sudden burst of unison strings in A-major arpeggios starts the action. A sentiment both elated and religious gives the keynote to this scene.

“3. Moderato. Duo for the Bride and her Intended – scene of tenderness and passion

“4. Quite fast. The Revivalist and his flock. Folksy feelings – suggestions of square dances and country fiddlers

“5. Still faster.  Solo dance of the Bride – presentiment of motherhood. Extremes of joy and fear and wonder.

“6. Very slowly (as at first). Transition scene to music reminiscent of the introduction.

“7. Calm and flowing. Scenes of daily activity for the Bride and her Farmer-husband. There are five variations on a Shaker theme. The theme, sung by a solo clarinet, was taken from a collection of Shaker melodies compiled by Edward D. Andrews, and published under the title The Gift to Be Simple. The melody I borrowed and used almost literally, is called `Simple Gifts.’  It has this text:

`Tis the gift to be simple,

`Tis the gift to be free,

`Tis the gift to come down

Where you ought to be.

And when we find ourselves

In the place just right,

`Twill be in the valley

Of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain’d,

To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d.

To turn, turn will be our delight,

`Til by turning, turning we come round right.

“8. Moderate. Coda. The Bride takes her place among her neighbors. At the end the couple is left `quiet and strong in their new house.’ Muted strings intone a hushed, prayer-like passage. The close is reminiscent of the opening music.’’

Music

Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra

Leonard Bernstein, Fancy Free (ballet)

Art

Into the Jaws of Death, Robert F. Sargent

Lucifer, Jacob Epstein

Literature

The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams

Strange Fruit, Lillian Smith

Film

Double Indemnity

Going My Way

History

The Metropolitan Opera House hosts a jazz concert for the first time

D-Day: Allied forces invade beaches at Normandy

MUSICIANS

FIRST VIOLINS

Gwen Hoebig,
  Concertmaster
The Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté Memorial Chair, endowed by the Eckhardt-Gramatté Foundation
Karl Stobbe,
  Associate Concertmaster
Jeff Dydra,
  Assistant Principal
Mona Coarda
Tara Fensom
Hong Tian Jia
Mary Lawton
Sonia Lazar
Julie Savard
Jun Shao
Rebecca Weger**
Jeremy Buzash (guest)
Erika Sloos (guest)

SECOND VIOLINS

Chris Anstey,
  Principal
Elation Pauls,
  Assistant Principal
Karen Bauch
Kristina Bauch,
Elizabeth Dyer
Bokyung Hwang
Rodica Jeffrey
Susan McCallum
Takayo Noguchi
Jane Radomski

VIOLAS

Elise Lavallée,
  Acting Principal
Dmytro Kreshchenskyi,**
  Acting Assistant Principal
Marie-Elyse Badeau
Laszlo Baroczi
Richard Bauch
Greg Hay
Michael Scholz

CELLOS

Yuri Hooker,
  Principal
Robyn Neidhold,
  Assistant Principal
Ethan Allers
Arlene Dahl
Alyssa Ramsay*
Sean Taubner
Emma Quackenbush
Grace An (guest)
Samuel Nadurak (guest)

BASSES

Meredith Johnson,
  Principal
Daniel Perry,
  Assistant Principal
James McMillan
Eric Timperman*
Emily Krajewski
Taras Pivniak**

FLUTES

Jan Kocman,
  Principal
  Supported by Gordon & Audrey Fogg
Alex Conway

PICCOLO FLUTE

Alex Conway,
  Principal

OBOES

Beverly Wang,
  Principal
Robin MacMillan
Caitlin Broms-Jacobs (guest)
Renz Adame (guest)

CLARINETS

Micah Heilbrunn,
  Principal
Alex Whitehead

BASSOONS

Kathryn Brooks,
  Principal
Elizabeth Mee

HORNS

Patricia Evans,
  Principal
Ken MacDonald,
  Associate Principal
  The Hilda Schelberger Memorial Chair
Aiden Kleer
Caroline Oberheu
Michiko Singh

TRUMPETS

Chris Fensom,
  Principal
Isaac Pulford
  The Patty Kirk Memorial Chair
Paul Jeffrey,
  Associate Principal

TROMBONES

Steven Dyer,*
  Principal
Keith Dyrda,
  Acting Principal
Kyle Orlando**

TUBA

Justin Gruber,
  Principal

PERCUSSION

Andrew Johnson,
  Principal

TIMPANI

Andrew Nazer (guest)

HARP

To be determined
  Endowed by W.H. & S.E. Loewen
Alanna Ellison (guest)

PERCUSSION

Ben Reimer (guest)

KEYBOARD

Leanne Lee (guest)

PERSONNEL MANAGER

Isaac Pulford

MUSIC LIBRARIAN

Michaela Kleer

ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN

Aiden Kleer

* On Leave
** One-year appointment