2008-2009 Philharmonia No. 4

PROGRAM Saturday,Jan. 31, 2009 Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 Allegro non troppo Adagio Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace - Poco piu presto GarethJohnson, violin INTERMISSION Aaron Copland ( 1900-1990) Clarinet Concerto Stojo Miserlioski, clarinet Franz Liszt (1811-1886) Concerto No. I in E-flatMajor, S.124 Allegro maestoso Quasi adagio Allegretto vivace - Allegro animato Allegro marziale animato Jose Menor, piano PROGRAM Gareth JOHNSON Gareth Johnson is a graduate student at the Lynn University Conservatory of Music studying with violin artist-faculty Elmar Oliveira. He has been invited to perform throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean- not only rendering recitals and being presented as soloist with major orchestras, but also as an articulate, enthusiastic and creative presenter for the purpose of "keeping the classics alive and well into the 21st century." JOHNSON He has helped students throughout America understand that with hard work, commitment and focus, they, too, can achieve their dreams. Many people are astonished at the fact that in addition to his talents as a classical violinist, he is a devoted composer I arranger and performer of New Age/ Classical styles of music. In November, Johnson's new CD, Storytelling, will be marketed throughout the United States. stojo Stojo Miserlioski was born in Prilep, Macedonia. He first started playing clarinet at 11 with Professor Buzeski Dragoljub at the Primary School of Music in Prilep. He continued his studies with Professor Tatarcevski Pande at the High School for Musical Alts in Bitola, Macedonia. During his four years of high school, he won many national and international competitions both for solo clarinet and chamber music, namely: National Clarinet Competition 2002 (Skopje, Macedonia); National Chamber Music Competition 2003 (Shtip, Macedonia); Sofia International Chamber Music Competition 2003 (Sofia, Bulgaria); and International Clarinet Competition 2004 (Lazarevac, Serbia). He also has pa1ticipated in many master classes and MISERLIOSKI private lessons with world-renowned clarinetists: Nicolas Balderou; Petko Radev; Franc Cohen; Gregory Smith; Jonathan Cohler; Ante Grgin; and Daniel Silver. In 2003 Miserlioski attended Interlachen Summer Camp in Michigan. Miserlioski joined the Lynn University Conservato1y of Music in 2005, and is cmTently working toward an undergraduate degree in music pe1f01mance with clarinet artist-faculty Jon Manasse. MISERLIOSKI Jose MENOR Born in Sabadell, Spain, Jose Menor studied piano, composition and conduct ing in Barcelona, and then pursued studies at the Royal College of Music in London, Yale University and the Aspen Music Festival. He has worked with renowned professors and concert pianists including Ann Schein, Claude Frank, Stephen Hough, Kevin Kenner and Cristina Ortiz. At age 15, Menor perfo1med at New York's Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall) as a first-prize winner of The World Piano Competition, young artists division. Finalist of the YCAT auditions in London (2004) and winner of both national and international competitions, Menor has appeared as a soloist both in Europe and the United States, since he made his recital debut at the Palau de la Musica in MENOR Barcelona in 1996 as a first-prize winner at the "El Primer Palau" series. Recent engagements include perfo1mances with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and Orquestra Simfonica de! Valles, and recital tours in the United Kingdom, Spain, the United States and Canada. His performances have been recorded by Spanish national radio and television, Radio Canada, CNN, Finnish Broadcasting Company, ABC Classics FM (Australia) and others. He is enrolled in the Professional Performance Certificate program at Lynn University studying with piano artistfaculty Roberta Rust. PROGRAM NOTES By Dr. Barbara Barry, Head of Musicology Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Brahms' violin concerto is the outcome of a remarkable long fiiendship and musical collaboration with the violinist Joseph Joachim. Brahms first met Joachim on a concert tour of northem Geiman cities in 1853- a momentous year in Brahms' life, as it brought him to a wider public awareness through the publication of Robert Schumann's famous review of Brahms as the most impmtant new composer. Brahms' fiiendship with Schumann and his wife Clara was to be another vital strand in his personal relationships and professional work, as Brahms wrote one of the movements in the violin sonata for Joachim on the motto F-A-E ( frei aber einsam - free but lonely), the other two movements written by Schumann and Albeit Dietrich. In the 1870s Brahms turned his attention to the major instmmental forms of symphony, string qua1tet and conce1to1 the forms to which Beethoven had made such powerful conttibutions, and now Brahms, in turn, was ready to ·write his own largescale works. After the "Variations on a Theme by Haydn" (also known as the "St Anthony Chorale Va1iations") Brahms wrote the first two symphonies in 1876 and 1877- a contrasting pair of dark, brooding intensity and more open, relaxed style- followed by the violin conce1to for Joachim in 1878. Like the contrast of intensity and lyiicism between the first and second symphonies, the first movement of the violin conce1to captures that same internal contrast of mood and keys. After an opening unharmonized layout of the D major chord, the orchestra presents a synopsis of the musical ideas that will be developed in the movement- the unexpected tum to the key of B-flat major; a full, broadly scored first subject based on the t:Iiad; and a second subject group consisting of twu ideas: a contrasting, softer lyiical melody and a strongly aiticulated dotted figure. The slow movement opens with one of Brahms' most beautiful and lyiical lines, presented by oboes and bassoons, then taken up by the violin solo in the stratosphere, floating above, then descending to exchange phrases of dialogue with the orchestra. At the center of the movement is an elegiac nan-ative in the minor mode, which gradually dissolves out to allow the return of the expressive opening line, spun out with graceful decoration in the solo violin. By an exquisite symmetry, at the end of the movement the violin ascends to its highest register and is suspended there till the music dies away. r\JOTES The finale is in Brahms' "gypsy style" ("style hongrois") also found in the Hungarian Dances and the finale of the G minor piano quartet, op. 25. Whereas the slow movement of the con~erto emphasized the violin's l)'lical qualities, in the finale the solo violin emphatically leads with a strongly aiticulated rhythmic figure, repeated by the orchestra. This figure provides a sense of forward momentum that drives the movement and impels it toward the coda, which is the final section of the movement. ln the coda solo violin and orchestra combine forces for an exciting conclusion, but surprisingly, just before the last bars of the movement, Brahms pulls back the tempo to end the work with two magisterial chords. Clarinet Concerto Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Aaron Copland was a major 20th century composer who, like Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin, wrote in a range of different styles- Broadway, ballet, film as well as classical genres- in an eclectic mix of energy and vitality that would be characteristic of American composers. Born to Russian Jewish pai·ents who had moved to New York, Copland showed early talent at the piano. At age 17, he began theory and composition lessons with Rubin Goldmark, but the main influence on his development was his study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, who helped Copland develop his own style and also provided opp01tunities for Copland to meet other composers and study the music of Faure, Mahler and Stravinsky, whom he particularly admired. ln the late 1930s and '40s, Copland started writing his popular American balletsBilly the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942) and Appalachian Spring ( 1944 )- with their combinations of American popular melody, pounding dance rhythms and modern tonal language. NOTES The Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra with Harp and Piano (1950), to give it its full title, is another crossover work. Commissioned by the f.unous jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, Copland incmporated jazz elements into the work. It has an unusual form - unlike the customary three movements for a concerto, it is in two movements, the first slow and reflective, followed by an extensive unaccompanied cadenza- a long, improvisatory section which traditionally occurs near the end of a first movement of a concerto, but here is both the link between the slow first movement and the fast second movement, and also a written out rhapsody which is part reflection, part anticipation of musical ideas that will come in the second movement, and part demonstration of the surprisingly different sounds of the clarinet's lower and upper registers. The first movement's character is reflective, with a slow harmonic rhythm, and the suspensions across the barline and use of the harp recall the sound of the French composer Etic Satie in his Gymnopedies. After the free-ranging cadenza, the second movement is faster and more rhythmically pointed, using the clatinet'~ shaipersounding upper register, which is used in jazz, and with the use of pizzicato strings in the middle of the movement. Using altemating bars of 3/ 4 and 2/ 4, the final section - Ritmico Vigoroso - dtives forward in a complex interplay between the clarinet and the orchestra, but Copland pulls back the tempo in the last pages of the movement for the strong, declai·atory flourish -with which the work ends. Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, S. 124 Franz Liszt (1811-1886) Liszt was one of the key figures of the Romantic petiod, with connections to Chopin and Berlioz, and later in the 19th century, to Wagner. (Liszt was, in fact, Wagner's father-in-law, as Wagner married Liszt's daughter Cosima von Billow). A heroic, larger-than-life figure, Liszt showed extraordinary and prodigious talent on the piano as perfo1mer and improviser, and an astonishing sight reader as a young boy, playing a conce1to at age 9. His father took him on conceit tours, which spread his reputation, and Liszt studied piano with Carl Czerny, who refused to take any money for the lessons, as did Antonio Salieri, who taught him counterpoint and score reading. Czerny's tuition would become the basis of Liszt's fo1midable piano technique, making the young Liszt learn everything from memory and read many works by sight. Paris in the 1830s was the center of musical life for many expattiates like Chopin, Hiller and Liszt himself as well as for the great French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz with whom Liszt had a long and warm friendship. In 1832 Liszt heard another musician who would make a profound impression on him, the acclaimed violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. From Paganini's example, Liszt developed an even more electrifying technique in the Et11des d'execution transcendente d'apres Paganini (1938-40), based on Paganini's caprices for solo violin, and Paganini also influenced Liszt by his powerful stage presence. Liszt, as a young man, developed the Romantic persona with his long black hair which later became a white mane. He played the entire repertory from Bach to Chopin as well as his own works in more than l,000 concerts in his concert tours of the 1830s and 40s. Clara Schumann said: "He can be compared to no other player. .. he arouses fright and astonishment. He is an original." Liszt started work on the first piano concerto in 1835, but the work did not assume its final form for almost 20 years. Its first performance was in 1855 in Weimar, with Liszt playing the piano part and Berlioz conducting, and is in four movements. The first movement opens with a strong orchestral figure followed by a piano flourish in double octaves, with NOTES Liszt recalling the opening of Beethoven's Emperor concerto (in the same key of E-flat major), only more martial in tone. Uniquely to Liszt, he gives the piano opportunities to play solo, as if meditating aloud in the midst of the concerto, as he does after the piano's first entry and then in combination with the orchestra with the reflective lyrical second theme. Liszt's opposite musical personalities of poetry and virtuosity alternate and contest the ground throughout the movement. The second movement takes us into a realm of inwardness, the piano entering with lyrical and delicate figuration in the right hand over an extended left hand broken chord pattern (Alberti bass). Suddenly, there is a dramatic call to attention, in which the mood of lyrical calm is NOTES broken by an urgent figure, but this abrupt interruption subsides for the movement to close on a tender ending with delicate figuration and trills in the upper register of the piano. The slow movement leads directly into the allegretto vivace, a playful, scherzo-like movement, emphasizing the rapid delicate figuration and runs Liszt had made famous, and referring back to the martial theme of the first movement in an unmistakable quotation. The finale retums to the martial character of the first movement, transforming the opening movement's principal theme. Like the first movement, the finale alternates between different characters, the highly ornate piano writing and the strongly articulated, which Liszt combines in a magnificent conclusion to the work. PROGRAM Sunday, Feb. l, 2009* Sergei Rachmaninoff ( 1873-1943) Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in A minor, Op. 43 Marina Stojanovska, piano Ludwig van Beethoven ( 1770-1827) Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 Allegro con brio Largo Rondo. Allegro Valeriya Polunina, piano INTERMISSION Antonin Dvorak ( 1841-1904) Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 Allegro Adagio, ma non troppo Finale: Allegro Moderato-andante-allegro vivo Jonah Kim, cello 'Sunday concffts include a pre-concert lecture at 3 p.m. by Dr. Barbara Barry, head of musicology. PROGRAM Marina STOJANOVSKA Maiina Stojanovska was born in Prilep, Macedonia. She finished her studies at the High School for the Musical Arts in Bitola, Macedonia, with professor Margarita T atarcevska. Stojanovska has been a pait of numerous competitions, master classes and festivals in her native country and abroad. Her awards include three first-place prizes in the Interfest-Bitola: Macedonia, four first-place prizes in state competitions, second prize in Liszt And Ba1tok: Bulgaria, and third p1ize in Ohridski Biseri: Macedonia. Her master class STOJANOVS KA teachers have included Rita Kinka (Serbia), Josip Jermin (Ukraine), Andrei Diev (Russia), Natasa Velkovic (Austria), Rosvita Gediga (Germany), and Todor Svetiev (Macedonia). Stojanovska has perfo1med in recitals all over the world, including in Serbia, Bulgaria, Germany, Bosnia and Hercegovina. An alumna of the Interlochen Academy (Mich. ) summer festival in 2007, she is currently a freshman studying with piano aitist-faculty Roberta Rust. valeriya POLUNINA London. The winner of the "Russian Pe1forming Alts" scholarship award, she has participated in numerous master classes in England, Russia and Israel. Valeriya Polunina was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1982. She completed her specialized secondary education at the Ekaterinburg Music Academy, where she double-majored in piano performance and music composition. In 2007 Polunina completed her bachelor's degree at the Russian Music Academy, where she studied with Professor M. Drozdova, who was one of the few to study under Professor M. Yudina. She also completed a Mo-year degree in composition at Moscow State Conservatory. She has performed in numerous concerts as a soloist in Russian, Ukrainian and European cities and as a member of various chamber ensembles. She also has played with orchestras including the Ekaterinburg Symphony, Simferopol Symphony and Russian Academy of Music Symphony. Polunina won first prize in the international competition "Russian Performing Alts" dedicated to Sergei Rachmaninov. She is also a p1izewinner of the International Piano Competition in Polunina is currently completing her Professional Performance Certificate at the Lynn University Conservatory of Music as a student of piano artist-faculty Roberta Rust. POLUNINA Jonah Born in Seoul, South Korea, cellist Jonah Kim moved to the United States to begin his musical studies when he was 7. After a year of instmction from his father, he was accepted to the Juilliard School, where he studied with a full scholarship. Kim has pursued a solo career, working with the Philadelphia, National Symphony and New Jersey Symphony orchestras, among others. A$ a recitalist, Kim has performed in major venues including the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Kimmel Center (Philadelphia) and Kravis Center (West Palm Beach). Winner of numerous competitions, Kim was broadcast on radio for WHYY and WITF, as well as on NBC and CBS television. KIM KIM In 2000, Kim enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied for six years under the tutelage of Orlando Cole and Peter Wiley, and occasionally with solo cellist Lynn Harrell. He also has studied chamber music with Joseph Silverstein, Arnold Steinhardt, Aaron Rosand, Gary Graffman and Seymour Lipkin and performed in master classes for the Emerson Quaitet, Ve1mecr Quartet, Takacs Quartet, as well as for cellists Joel Krosnick, Timothy Eddy, Stephen Isserlis, Gary Hoffman, Mai·cy Rosen, Andre Diaz and Ron Leonard. Currently, Kim divides his time behveen Prague, New York City and Boca Raton, where he is an undergraduate student studying with cello aitist-faculty David Cole at the Lynn University Conservatory of Music. PROGRAM NOTES By Dr. Barbara Barry, Head of Musicology Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Although Rachmaninoff lived well into the 20th centmy, his style was characterized by the late Romantic tradition of soaring melodies, dramatic interpolations and rich harmony. A highly gifted pianist, he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory at age 10, and when the family moved to Moscow a few years later, he went to the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied piano with Nikolai Zverev and composition with Arensky and Taniev. Graduating with the gold medal, Rachmaninoff's career would be developed in both composition, which he regarded as his main musical direction, and piano performance. His major works for piano and orchestra are the four piano concertos and the Rhapsody on a of Paganini's set. Rachmaninoff alternates between Paganini's theme and another well-known melody, the "Dies Irae," traditionally used as a symbol of death, as Berlioz had used to dramatic effect in the finale of his Symphonie Fantastiq11e. While the Rhapsody itself has no program, Rachmaninoff provided a description for Fokine's ballet Paganini, a dance version of the legend that Paganini sold his soul to the devil in e.xchange for b1illiance on the violin (Paganini tacitly encouraged the legend by gliding onto the stage in a wraith-like way and playing the violin "like the very Devil"). The famous theme represents Paganini, while the "Dies Irae" stands for the devil. Theme of Paganini. The work consists of24 variations. After an opening call to attention, the orchestra plays the skeletal bass progression which will, in tum, support the main theme. Each vaiiation has its own specific texture, demonstrating different aspects of rhythm, figuration and b1illiant technique. At the center of the work is a quiet, reflective meditation, with the main theme played by the French horn, the piano lightly accompanying it. The work is an exciting showpiece for the piano, demonstrating a stunning display of sonoiity and pianistic writing. Niccolo Paganini, the spectral virtuoso with charismatic stage presence who raised violin playing to new heights of brilliance and phenomenal technique, had a profound impact on several major composers, all of whom wrote works on Paganini's themes: Llszt, Brahms and Rachmaninoff. The Rhapsody was written in a few weeks in 1934, and just as Liszt had based his Etudes d'e.xecution transcendente d'apres Paganini on Paganini's capiices for solo violin, so the Rhapsody was similarly written on the last f\JOTES No. Piano Concerto 3 in C Minor, Op. 3 7 Ludwig van Beethoven ( 1770-1827) When Beethoven came to Vienna in 1792 to live permanently in the city that was the capital of the Austro-H ungarian Empire, he carried with him letters of recommendation that would open the doors of some of Vienna's most illustrious nobility. As much as for his compositions, Beethoven's reputation in the 1790s among the aiistocracy was for his famed ability as a pianist and improviser. Q!Jick to see how much his playing was in demand in the aristocratic salons, Beethoven sometimes refused to play. He maintained that he was either not in the mood or the audience did not appreciate what he did, but evidently he played sufficiently often to develop a stellar reputation as a pianist. Charactelistically, many of Beethoven's works in the 1790s were for piano: the early piano sonatas, the piano trios and the first two piano concertos. The C minor piano conce1to, the third of five piano concertos, was finished in 1803 (there was some doubt when it was begun, but probably in 1800 or 1801), and it is one of the first works in Beethoven's middle period after he suffered the c1isis over his deafness at Heiligenstadt, and the determination to dedicate himself to composition. The middle pe1iod is also described as Beethoven's heroic period, as many of the important works in all the major genressymphony, sonata, string quartet and concerto- are characterized by either a NOTES broad-based individuality in major keys, like the Eroica symphony, the first Rawmovsky string quaitet and the Emperor piano concerto, or have a passionate character of conflict in minor keys, particuIai·Iy Beethoven's personal key of C minor. Beethoven used this key most famously for the 5th symphony with its striking motto opening, and it is also the key of the 3rd piano concerto. But the works that stand behind Beethoven's conce1to is Mozart's C minor piano concerto, K 491, which Beethoven heard in a concert. He was so impressed with its expressive quality that he is reputed to have said to his pupil Cramer in despair: "Ah Cramer, Cramer, we'll never do anything like that." Not like that, but Beethoven's own individual approach to a piano concerto in C minor. Where Mozart brings out the inward, expressive side of the key, Beethoven's use is much more powerful and emphatic, as seen in the piano's first declarative entry. While Mozart often coordinates and alternates the piano and orchestra in a dialogue, Beethoven uses them in opposition and sometimes in confrontation. The first movement, though, also introduces a softer, Iyiical theme in E flat major, but the movement is no doubt dominated by the sense of power and conflict characteristic of Beethoven's use of C minor. The slow movement is in the unusual key of E major and provides a point of repose between the taut outer movements. It opens with the piano alone playing a chorale-like melody. In . one of Beethoven's magical moments, he uses the note B (part of the chord ofE major) as a pivot to the key of G major where the orchestra expands on the opening melody and the movement is a moving and lyrical meditation. Beethoven's finale does not release the tension of C minor to C major, as he does in the finale of the 5th symphony, but the finale's opening figure is a powerful theme which matches the character of the first movement, then is repeated by the orchestra. Alternation is the name of the game in this movement, both in the themes, which switch back and forth between piano and orchestra, and in the strong dotted heralding figure in the orchestra answered by emphatic upwardsweeping arpeggios in the piano which lead into the movement's lyiical second subject in E-flat major, like the first movement. Although Beethoven retains the key of C minor for the main part of the finale, at the coda of the movement, after a strong orchestral cadence, the mood lightens, the time signature changes to a lilting 6/ 8, and the tempo increases for the closing section in C major where piano and orchestra come together for a triumphant ending. Cello Concerto in BMinor, Op. 104 Antonin Dvorak ( 1841-1904) Czech composer Antonin Dvorak was born in Nelahozeves near Prague and showed early musical talent, studying organ, violin and viola. Although his parents were working-class people, they recognized his talent and encouraged his musical training. From 1857 he played viola in the concerts of the Cecilia Society in Prague, and later, from 1862, in the Provisional Theater as first viola, where he played in operas by Mozart, Weber, Rossini, Verdi and Wagner. This practical experience was to be invaluable to Dvofak in wiiting his own compositions. The cello concerto was Dvorak' s last concerto. Although composed in America, it does not contain any of the overt Native Ame1ican melodies found in the New World symphony. It was Wlitten for the Czech cellist Hanus Wihan, whom Dvorak consulted when he returned to Prague about details of the cello pait to make the Wliting more idiomatic for the instrument. Dvorak refused to add cadenzas because he felt them to be superfluous and extraneous to the somber and inward character of the work. Wihan, however, did not play the work at its first performance, which took place in London at the Queen's Hall in 1896, with the solo part played by Leo Stern. The opening orchestral exposition sets the dark, somber quality of the first movement and introduces the first theme- a mirror shape of three 1ising notes and returning to NOTES B, then three descending notes and returning to B. In this opening section, the second theme is announced by the horns, a hauntingly lyrical melody in D major, which is like a memory of the past. When the cello enters with the first theme, it is the departure point for a rhapsodic meditation which spans the whole range of the instrument. Highly integrated in the writing between cello and orchestra, the conception is symphonic and yet open, so as to allow points of reflection, such as the soloist's tender rendering of the second subject in the exposition or the poignant return of the first subject in the development in a slower tempo. At the end of the movement, Dvorak transforms the first theme into an ending of emphasis and strength. The wistful melody and sonority of clarinets accompanied by oboes and bassoons in the slow movement recalls Brahms, followed by the cello, initially like an obbligato. In the middle of the movement, high up in the cello register, Dvorak quotes from a song he had written in 1857 "Lasst mich allein" (let me be alone) as a personal memmy of his sister-in-law, who was very ill and whom he loved. Rescored for three horns, played "piano, n the opening wistful theme returns, followed by a cello cadenza and coda. For the finale, Dvorak staits the movement quietly, builds to a crescendo, but the dynamics again subside to let the cello enter conce1tante-style, as he has done in the first movement, in a theme that is a variant of the opening rising third theme from the first movement. Although Dvorak makes considerable demands on the NOTES cellist's technique, nothing is extraneous or overtly virtuosic, but everything is employed at the service of a profound musical and expressive conception. The development section, which is traditionally the point of greatest intensification, is here more like a meditation, first by the cellist, then interrelating with the flute and claiinet. At the end of the movement, there is an extraordinaiy leave-taking. After his sister-in-law's death in May 1895, Dvorak also quoted the song in the finale, and the cello, like the wings of a dove, takes the soul beyond the confines of this world, then brings the work to a powerful close. LYNN UNIVERSITY Featuring the Empire Brass Quintet Saturday, April 18 7:30 p.m. Mizner Park Amphitheater Downtown Boca Raton Bring your lawn chairs, blankets and picnic baskets and enjoy an evening of American Classics in the Pops tradition. FREE ADMISSION. NO RESERVATIONS NECESSARY.