launceston masterhobart matinee10

my homeland

SebaStian Lang-LeSSing Chief Conductor & Artistic Director

THURSDAY 11 NOVEMBER 8PM

Princess Theatre, Launceston

SATURDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2.30PM

Federation Concert Hall, Hobart

Nicholas Milton conductorJun Yi Ma violin

SMETANA

My Homeland – The MoldauDuration 12 mins

MOZART

Violin Concerto No 3AllegroAdagioAllegro – Andante – Allegretto – AllegroDuration 24 mins

DVORÁK

The Noonday WitchDuration 14 mins

INTERVALDuration 20 mins

WEINER

Suite on Hungarian Folk DancesAllegro resoluto e ben marcatoAndante poco sostenuto – Allegro con fuocoAndante poco sostenuto – Pesante, poco maestosoPrestoDuration 27 mins

The Launceston concert will end at approximately 10pm.

The Hobart concert will end at approximately 4.30pm.

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1my homeland

This booklet uses paper produced from 50% post-consumer recycled waste and 50% fibre sourced from responsibly managed forests. Printed with vegetable-based inks and in accordance with ISO 14001.

BEDRICH SMETANA (1824-1884)

My Homeland – The Moldau

'The Moldau is a musical evocation of the greatest river in the Czech Republic. Beginning from its first small sources, where two springs, one cold and one warm, join into a stream, the Moldau flows through forests and meadows, through countryside where festivals are being celebrated, and around water nymphs.'The Moldau (Vltava) is the second work in My Homeland (Má vlast), Smetana’s six-part cycle of symphonic poems on Czech subjects. The Moldau is a musical evocation of the greatest river in the Czech Republic. Beginning from its first small sources, where two springs, one cold and one warm, join into a stream, the Moldau flows through forests and meadows, through countryside where festivals are being celebrated, and around water nymphs. Proud castles – mansions and ruins – rise up from nearby cliffs. The river swirls through the Rapids of St John, then flows in a broad stream towards Prague, where the historic fortress Vyšehrad comes into sight. It finally disappears in the distance as it sweeps majestically on to join the Elbe.

By the time Smetana began serious work on the symphonic poems Vyšehrad (the first work in the cycle) and The Moldau, in September 1874, he was within a few weeks of facing a musician’s greatest tragedy: total deafness, which struck on 20 October. The disaster seemed to spur on his work. A month later he noted that he had completed Vyšehrad and begun The Moldau, which he was to complete in a mere 19 days. Soon he was working on a further two symphonic poems, Šárka and From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields. Both were completed in 1875. When My Homeland was finally performed as a complete

cycle for the first time on 5 November 1882, the occasion, according to one eyewitness, was one ‘which the Czech musical world counts among its greatest celebrations… Never has there been such an exalted mood in any Czech assembly.’

Smetana’s orchestral poems adhere to Liszt’s notion of the literal representation in music of extra-musical elements. Thus, The Moldau is an exercise in tone-painting – the sonic rendering of objects, landscapes and scenes. The two sources of the Moldau are represented by flutes and clarinets respectively; strings introduce the Moldau theme proper in E minor, a key which will be constant virtually throughout the piece as the theme recurs in the manner of a rondo, though even now there is a brief hint of E major, suggestive of grandeur to come. Horns and trumpets suggest a hunt in the forest through which the river flows; from a village festival – perhaps a wedding – come the strains of a polka; against a delicately shimmering orchestration, the water nymphs dance by moonlight. The Moldau theme returns, growing in confidence, before suddenly plunging into the rapids, where cymbals and piccolo vividly highlight its giddy and turbulent passage. From this challenge, however, the stream emerges as a powerful river, striking out proudly and powerfully in E major to meet its destiny – Vyšehrad and Prague, and thence to diminuendo into the distance.

Abridged from a note by Anthony Cane © 1990

3about the music2 artist profiles

JUN YI MA

Born in Shanghai in 1972, Jun Yi Ma began violin studies at the age of six. He gave his first televised performance three

years later and was soloist with the Shanghai and Beijing symphony orchestras at age 10. In 1989 he was appointed Concertmaster of the Asian Youth Orchestra and in 1992 was Concertmaster and soloist with the Australian Virtuoso Chamber Orchestra. He studied at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music with Jan Sedivka, and at the Sydney Conservatorium with Charmian Gadd and John Harding. He has toured widely and performed before three US presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush and Bill Clinton. Appointed to the first violin section of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1997, he became Concertmaster of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (TSO) in 2002. He has been a regular Guest Concertmaster with the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. An active soloist and chamber musician, he has made numerous recordings. He appears regularly as a soloist with the TSO and was co-soloist in 2006 alongside Nigel Kennedy. In March 2009 he was soloist in Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta under Yip Wing-sie and more recently he played in the Worldwide Chinese Festival Orchestra in Beijing.

about the music

NICHOLAS MILTON

Music Director of the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra from 2004 to 2010 and Artistic Director of the Canberra

Symphony Orchestra since 2007, Nicholas Milton is one of the leading Australian conductors of his generation. His sensational 2008 debut with the Dortmund Philharmonic was followed in quick succession by numerous prestigious invitations, including his debuts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Tonkünstler Orchestra (Vienna), and with the orchestras of Stuttgart (SWR), Hannover (NDR), Wiesbaden, Mannheim, Darmstadt, Nice, Odense and Lugano. Future orchestral highlights include return visits to the London Philharmonic Orchestra and debuts with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the orchestras of Saarbrücken, Halle, Linz and Eindhoven. This season he conducted Die Fledermaus at the Volksoper in Vienna, Die Zauberflöte in Innsbruck, Don Giovanni in Leipzig, and performances of Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro and Hänsel und Gretel. He also conducted Franz Schmidt’s The Book with Seven Seals at the German National Theatre in Weimar and led the acclaimed new production of Henze’s ballet Undine in Rostock. In 2011 he returns to Vienna for Carmen and to Innsbruck for the new production of La fanciulla del west. Originally a violinist, he was Concertmaster of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (1996-2002) and violinist with Macquarie Trio (1998-2005).

Bedrich Smetana

54 about the music about the music

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)

Violin Concerto No 3 in G K216

Allegro Adagio Allegro – Andante – Allegretto – AllegroWe tend to forget that in addition to being an extraordinarily gifted composer, Mozart was an accomplished performer. He played the violin, viola, harpsichord, piano and organ. In fact, his first ever appointment was at the age of 13 when he took up the (albeit honorary) position of Konzertmeister (i.e. violinist) in Salzburg. Three years later, in 1772, he entered full paid employment in the same position. The following year Mozart wrote the first of his five violin concertos. The remaining four were all written in the second half of 1775, when Mozart was aged 19. The Violin Concerto No 3 in G K216 was composed in September of that year.

Given Mozart’s skills as a violinist, it is reasonable to assume that the violin concertos were tailored to his own abilities. We know for certain that he appeared as soloist when the Violin Concerto No 3 was performed in Augsburg in 1777 where, at an informal concert at the local Augustinian monastery, he also played the harpsichord and organ. ‘It went very smoothly,’ he wrote in a letter to his father, ‘everyone praised the beautiful pure tone.’

It is well to bear in mind that Mozart’s father, Leopold, was renowned as a violin pedagogue. Leopold Mozart’s Violinschule, a textbook on violin playing, was published in 1756, the year of Wolfgang’s birth. In addition to offering a wealth of practical advice on purely technical matters, Leopold’s treatise deals with the crucially important matter of ‘taste’. In particular, he offers rules for ‘good taste’ in performance.

One of the most striking things about the Violin Concerto No 3 is its exceptionally good taste. The opening Allegro, for instance, commences with one of those effortless Mozart themes – warm and sunny, new yet strangely familiar. Easily recognisable, the theme is taken up by the solo violin which also introduces new thematic material as the movement unfolds. Virtuosity is kept in check and the soloist and orchestra enjoy a complementary relationship, not a competitive one.

The Allegro is full of contrasts but they are never jarring or forced. Composure is likewise maintained in the beautiful Adagio. Here Mozart replaces the oboes of the first movement with flutes, and tones down the strings with mutes and pizzicato articulation. The solo violin soars above it all with arching, long-breathed phrases. It is a gorgeously serene movement, a remarkable accomplishment given Mozart’s youth.

The final movement, by contrast, is overwhelmingly dance-like. Headed Rondeau – as are all Mozart violin concerto finales – the last movement intersperses repeat appearances of the opening theme (which in this case is a somewhat rustic dance in 3/8) with contrasting episodes. Surprises come in the form of a wholly unexpected gavotte (Andante) and a jaunty folk tune (Allegretto), evidently from Strasbourg. Mozart, in fact, referred to K216 as his ‘Strassburg concerto’. Just as the Strasbourg tune seemed to appear from nowhere, it suddenly vanishes and the opening rustic theme is reinstated. In a final whimsical touch the last word is given to the winds. The concerto literally disappears into thin air.

Robert Gibson TSO © 2010

The TSO last performed this work in Hobart on 23 August 2006 with conductor Arvo Volmer and soloist Richard Tognetti.

ANTONÍN DVORÁK (1841-1904)

The Noonday Witch Op 108

Allegretto – Andante sostenuto e molto tranquillo – Allegro – Andante – Lento – MaestosoDespite international fame, Antonín Dvorák always thought of himself as a ‘humble Czech musician’, and towards the end of his life wrote five major symphonic poems, four of which – The Golden Spinning Wheel, The Wild Dove, The Water Goblin and The Noonday Witch – were based on a collection of Czech ballads by Karel Jaromír Erben (1811-1870).

With its explicitly programmatic or descriptive intent, the symphonic poem flourished during the nineteenth century. The Noonday Witch (1896) drew its programmatic content from The Garland, contained in Erben’s second set of ballads, Kytice. The Polednice (or Noonday Witch) is a figure from ancient folklore who, much like the Erl-King in Goethe’s poem, desires the spirit of a young child – noon being the hour when she appears.

Dvorák begins with a setting of tranquil domesticity. The opening Allegretto melody is graceful and charming – we can almost picture the farmer’s cottage in all its rustic simplicity with a hard-working mother attending to household chores. Her work is interrupted by a piping child wanting attention, represented by an insistent four-note phrase on the oboe. The child’s phrase (whose key, A flat, is at odds with the prevailing key of C) eventually draws an irritated response from the mother – a dotted rhythm on a downward scale. The child is silent for a moment, only to start up wailing soon after. The exasperated mother threatens to call the Noonday Witch to take away the naughty child. No sooner do

the words escape her lips than Dvorák stops the orchestral quarrel with an abrupt chord from the lower brass, a sudden pianissimo from the strings with the sinister addition of the bass clarinet and a switch to the slower tempo marking Andante sostenuto e molto tranquillo. The Noonday Witch has appeared.

According to fellow composer Leos Janácek, the musical description of the witch is ‘so truthful that one can almost clutch at the terrifying shadow [represented by] those weird harmonies.’ Indeed, through Dvorák’s orchestration we are left in no doubt as to the witch’s intent: her theme is uncompromisingly menacing. The fear felt by both mother and child is palpable as each pleads for mercy, in a counter-theme full of pathos. With a fearsome braying from the horns, the witch, as Janácek puts it, reaches out her withered hand for the child, while in a weeping figure from the strings the woman makes her final plea.

The unconcerned husband, portrayed by a calm Andante theme, returns home from his hunting in the woods only to find his wife collapsed on the floor of their cottage, their child clasped tightly in her arms. He awakens her – but they cannot revive their child. A whirring of strings and a spine-tingling Maestoso recapitulation of the witch’s theme from the whole orchestra graphically portray their anxiety and final horror. The Noonday Witch has claimed another victim.

Abridged from a note by David Vivian Russell © 2002

The TSO last performed this work in Hobart on 17 April 2002 with conductor Simon Kenway.

6 7about the music chair sponsors and patrons

LEÓ WEINER (1885-1960)

Suite on Hungarian Folk Dances Op 18

Allegro resoluto e ben marcato Andante poco sostenuto – Allegro con fuoco Andante poco sostenuto – Pesante, poco maestoso Presto

There are discernible traces of folk music from Hungary and other central European cultures in the work of Haydn and Schubert, but it was in the 19th century that Hungarian music became a conspicuous element in concert music. This partly reflects the establishment of music academies in that country, particularly the Academy of Music in Budapest, which was headed by two of the greatest Hungarian musicians: Franz Liszt, whose concert pieces such as the Hungarian Rhapsodies had gained currency all over Europe, and Ferenc Erkel, who founded a national school of opera. Brahms, of course, made Hungarian a second musical language, remembering the songs sung by emigrants to the New World which he had heard in Hamburg taverns as a young man.

What 19th-century composers, including Liszt and Brahms, understood as Hungarian music was, however, ‘gipsy’-inflected urban music or the ubiquitous verbunkos, originally a recruiting dance consisting of slow emotive music and a fast high-spirited dance; this soon evolved into the csárdás, a staple of Romantic art music. It fell to composers like Bartók and Kodály in the early years of the 20th century to make field-trips to rural Hungary and neighbouring areas where they collected authentic peasant music. Bartók in particular made scholarly editions out of his collected materials, but also allowed the irregular rhythms, angular melodies and bracing harmony of this music to infuse his own.

Bartók’s direct contemporary Leó Weiner was professor of composition at the Budapest Academy from 1912 to 1922 and professor of chamber music from 1920 to 1957; his students included some of the most influential musicians of the century such as Antal Dorati and George Solti. During the Nazi period, Weiner was one of the thousands of Hungarian Jews whose lives were saved by the heroic efforts of Swedish merchant Raul Wallenberg, who produced Swedish passports for them, sparing them deportation to the death camps.

Weiner was not a collector of folk music, and its influence on his work only began to be felt around 1931, when his Suite on Hungarian Folk Dances Op 18, which won the 1933 State Prize, was composed.

The work has no pretensions to ‘authenticity’ – the movements have generic Italian headings, rather than the title of specific dances, and Weiner’s musical language is defiantly conservative, remaining rooted in the late-Romantic idiom of much of his work. A tour de force of brilliant orchestration, it displays Weiner’s skill at creating powerful but lucid textures, as in the opening moments where the dance tune, with its characteristic heavy downbeats and short-long rhythmic snap, is belted out by horns with syncopated tutti chords, or in the more impassioned moments of the often elegiac third movement. The second and third movements use the verbunkos pattern of contrasting passages in slow and fast tempos. The third, in particular, shows Weiner’s ear for delicate textures and the effective use of solo instruments, especially the clarinet (descended from a Hungarian instrument) and the violin, offset against powerful tutti passages. The unflagging energy of the concluding presto recalls the brilliance of some of Rimsky-Korsakov’s scoring.

Gordon Kerry © 2010

This TSO last performed this work in Hobart on 18 August 1976 with conductor Peter Erös.

CHAIR SPONSORS

Chair Sponsors provide valuable financial assistance to the TSO through an annual donation of $5,000 or more. Their donation, which is nominally placed beside an orchestra chair of their choosing, supports the entire orchestra. All donations to the TSO are fully tax deductible.

Chief Conductor GHDConcertmaster Mike and Carole RalstonAssociate Concertmaster R H O’ConnorPrincipal Second Violin Joanna de BurghPrincipal Viola John and Jo StruttPrincipal Cello Richard and Gill IrelandPrincipal Double Bass Patricia LearyPrincipal Oboe Melanie Godfrey-SmithPrincipal Clarinet Dr Peter StantonPrincipal Bassoon Julia FarrellRank and File Bassoon Alan and Hilary WallacePrincipal Horn Mr Kenneth von Bibra AM and Mrs Berta von Bibra OAM

Principal Trumpet Joy Selby SmithPrincipal Timpani John and Marilyn CanterfordPrincipal Harp Dr and Mrs Michael TreplinPiano Mrs Neale Edwards

TSO PATRONSHis Excellency The Honourable Peter Underwood AC, Governor of Tasmania TSO CHAIRMAN EMERITUS

TSO Patrons are individuals and couples who support the TSO with an annual donation of $500 or more. All donations to the TSO are fully tax deductible.

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8 tasmanian symphony orchestra

9tso partners

VIOLINElinor Levy ConcertmasterLucy Carrig Jones Associate ConcertmasterDaniel Kossov Principal SecondAlison Lazaroff-Somssich Principal FirstRachel BremnerRohana BrownMiranda CarsonYue-Hong ChaFrances DaviesCherelle GadgeMichael JohnstonChristine LawsonSusannah NgChristopher Nicholas

VIOLA Janet Rutherford*Rodney McDonaldWilliam NewberyAnna RoachLuke Spicer

CELLO Sue-Ellen Paulsen*Ivan JamesMartin PenickaBrett Rutherford

DOUBLE BASS Stuart Thomson*Michael FortescueJenny Druery

FLUTE Douglas Mackie*Fiona PerrinKatie Zagorski Piccolo

OBOEDavid Nuttall*Dinah Woods Cor Anglais

CLARINETDuncan Abercromby*Nicole BatesChris Waller Bass Clarinet

BASSOON Lisa Storchheim*John Panckridge Contrabassoon

HORN Wendy Page*Heath Parkinson*Roger JacksonGreg Stephens

TRUMPET Yoram Levy*Matt Dempsey

TROMBONE Donald Bate*Liam O’Malley

BASS TROMBONERobert Clark*

TUBATimothy Jones*

TIMPANIMatthew Goddard*

PERCUSSION Gary Wain*Calvin McClayTracey Patten

HARPBronwyn Wallis#

PIANO/CELESTEStephanie Abercromby#

*principal player #guest principal

Chief Conductor & Artistic DirectorSebastian Lang-Lessing

Managing DirectorNicholas Heyward

Australian Music Program DirectorLyndon Terracini

TSO ChorusmasterJune Tyzack

TSO BoardGeoff Willis ChairmanPatricia Leary Deputy ChairKen BaxterMaria GrenfellNicholas HeywardPaul OxleyDavid RichJohn UpcherColin Norris Company Secretary

TSO Foundation Chairman Colin Jackson oam

FOTSO President Susan Williams

TASMANIAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Federation Concert Hall 1 Davey Street, Hobart Tasmania 7000 Australia GPO Box 1450, Hobart Tasmania 7001 Australia Box Office 1800 001 190 boxoffice@tso.com.au Administration (03) 6232 4444

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tso calendar of concerts

thursday 25 november 7pm Bernd Glemser in RecitalFEDERATION CONCERT HALL, HOBART Bernd Glemser's 2008 Hobart

recital was described by one concert-goer as “one of the most marvellous concerts I have ever attended” – get ready

for more fireworks from this astonishingly gifted performer.

Bernd Glemser piano

Program includes:BRAHMS Intermezzo Op 118/1 & 2MENDELSSOHN Songs Without Words

(excerpts)CHOPIN Ballade No 1CHOPIN Nocturne Op 27/1 & 2CHOPIN Mazurka Op 17/4 and Op 24/4CHOPIN Scherzo No 4

saturday 27 november 8pm Bernd's Back!FEDERATION CONCERT HALL, HOBART Bernd Glemser makes a

triumphant return to Tasmania following his sensational appearances in 2008 – don’t miss this opportunity to hear one of the great pianists of our time perform Brahms’ sizzling First Piano Concerto.

Sebastian Lang-Lessing conductorBernd Glemser piano

BRAHMS Piano Concerto No 1SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No 5

monday 29 november 8pm New WorldsFEDERATION CONCERT HALL, HOBART Bernd Glemser performs

Brahms’ brilliant Second Piano Concerto and Sebastian Lang-Lessing conducts Dvorák’s ever-popular New World symphony – voted Australia’s favourite symphony in ABC Classic FM’s nationwide poll.

tuesday 30 november 8pm

ALBERT HALL, LAUNCESTON

Sebastian Lang-Lessing conductorBernd Glemser piano

BRAHMS Piano Concerto No 2DVORÁK Symphony No 9, From the

New World