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공연일정
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OVERSEAS/ORCHESTRA
OVERSEAS/ORCHESTRA
2022 SPO Tour to Europe - Salzburg ①
- SCHEDULE
- Wed. 19 October 2022, 19:30
- PLACE
- Großes Festspielhaus
- CONDUCTOR
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Osmo Vänskä
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SOLOIST
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Nicolas Altstaedt, Cello
- PROGRAM
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Sibelius, Symphony No. 1 in E minor Op. 39
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Walton, Cello Concerto
more
- PRICE
- CHARGE
※ Please make sure that your mobile phone is switched off.
※ Please do not applaud between the movements.
※ Please do not applaud between the movements.
Wednesday 19 October 2022 19:30 | Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg, Austira
Osmo Vänskä, music director
Nicolas Altstaedt, cello
Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra
program
Unsuk Chin, Frontispiece for orchestra *Austrian premiere
Walton, Cello Concerto
Moderato
Allegro appassionato
Tema ed improvvisazioni
------------------- intermission 20mins -----------------------
Sibelius, Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39
Andante, ma non troppo - Allegro energico
Andante
Scherzo: Allegro
Finale: Andante - Allegro molto - Andante assai - Allegro molto come prima - Andante
Presented by Salzburger Kulturvereinigung
Supported by GS Energy, SPO Patrons, SPO Mecenati
Tickets https://shop.jetticket.net/kulturvereinigung/SelectSeats?ret=2&e=2635
Unsuk Chin(1961-), Frontispiece for orchestra(2019)
Frontispiece for orchestra was commissioned by the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra to open Alan Gilbert’s inaugural season as their Chief Conductor. This occasion prompted me to write a short piece which presents a time lapse of a kind of the history of music: certain aspects of a number of key symphonic works of different epochs are being evoked and poured into new moulds by letting them interact and comment upon each other. These are never actual style quotations - mere allusions, and faint references. On the level of details, the work consists of many tiny fragments which all refer to gestures typical to certain works and composers, and these are being ‘translated’ to each other in numerous different and occasionally unexpected ways. As to give but a few examples: certain chord sequences by Anton Bruckner are interpreted in a manner akin to Anton von Webern, splinters of Strauss, Scriabin and Stravinsky collide, Brahmsian harmony passes through the prisms of, say, Charles Ives, and certain material from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony – Heaven forbid – is being presented a la manière de Pierre Boulez. This process of ‘translating’ happens on several levels: diverse materials and gestures, ranging from Baroque music all the way to the avant-garde, are being transcribed and transformed in an alienating manner so that something very different arises as a sum of their interactions. All of this happens at a rather microscopic level: all aforementioned allusions, as well as other ones, are not immediately perceivable, and it is most certainly not necessary to trace them in order to be able to ‘understand’ the piece. On the level of the macrostructure, the work’s form is being held together by a certain chord, which could be called its supporting pillar – a chord which, by way of exception, is completely autarchic. Frontispiece reflects on my decades-long experiences with landmark works of the symphonic literature as composer and recipient. In extracting distinct aspects of works of certain composers, Anton von Webern’s art of revealing a ‘universe in a nutshell’ by means of extreme compression served as a particular inspiration.
Text by Unsuk Chin
William Walton(1902-1983), Cello Concerto(1957)
When one thinks of the most representative of the twentieth-century British composers, the names of Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan William, and Benjamin Britten come to mind. William Walton is up there along with these composers, but his early career was not very successful. His first fame came with Façade of 1923, and his Viola Concerto, written in 1929 is considered as Walton’s greatest masterpiece. His Cello Concerto (1957) is the third and last of his concertos for string instruments, following his aforementioned Viola Concerto and Violin Concerto (1939). It was written in 1956, commissioned by the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, who was also the soloist at the premiere in Boston on 25 January 1957.
Initial responses to the concerto were mixed. Some criticized the work old-fashioned while others called it a masterpiece, and some even predicted that it would enter the international concert repertoire of the twentieth century. Walton had been regarded as avant garde in his youth, but by 1957, when he was in his mid-fifties, he was seen as a composer in the romantic tradition.
The concerto is in three movements, but does not follow the conventional concerto form: it has a moderate-paced opening movement followed by a much quicker central scherzo and the third movement is improvisatory in nature. The first movement in C major is comprised of the vital and expressive first theme and the relatively calm second theme. The key of the second movement is ambiguous, but most analyses view it either in C-sharp minor and or in A minor. Even though there is a rather slow and lyrical middle section, the overall movement is in very quick tempo. The finale movement, the longest of the three, is consisted of a theme, four “improvisations”, and an extended coda. The improvisations are varied in their characters: the second improvisation functions as a sort of cadenza of conventional concertos, whereas the third improvisation is a brilliant orchestra toccata and the fourth improvisation is marked rapsodicamente (“rhapsodically”).
Despite the divided critical reception after the premiere, Walton’s Cello Concerto is arguably “a modern masterpiece” written in the twentieth century. His rather blunt earlier compositional method is refined and modified in this work with the Waltonesque fresh and original musical ideas, and the listeners can glimpse his deliberation. The cellist Daniel Müller-Schott has called Walton “an English Impressionist” in that the concerto abundantly portrays the natural landscape and colors.
Jean Sibelius(1865-1957), Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39(1899)
Sibelius, one of the most important symphonists of the twentieth century, wrote seven symphonies throughout his life. His symphonies are highly praised as the successor of the Western musical tradition of the Romantic era advocated by such composers as Brahms, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, and Bruckner. On the other hand, his symphonies are unique in their use of modal melodies, simple rhythms, persistent repetition of short motives, ostinato and pedal point techniques, distinctive orchestral colour and strong contrast of texture, all of which differentiate his music from any other composer’s.
Sibelius’s First Symphony conforms to the norm of four-movement symphony. The first movement, preceded by a slow introduction (Andante, ma non troppo), is a majestic allegro, and the second movement has a tragic theme in the mood of Finnish folk music. The third movement Scherzo starts with a fast rhythm and cheerful mood, and the last movement with the title ‘Quasi una fantasia’ (Like a fantasy) has a free form. The melody that had appeared in the introduction of the first movement reappears in the fourth movement, which shares pulse with the technique that Schumann employed in his symphonies, namely the use of cyclic theme. The orchestration of the symphony, with a harp, a base drum, and a triangle, seems to have been influenced by Mahler.
By “teleological germination” technique in which a theme is originated from a motivic fragment, Sibelius wanted to transform a symphony into a new and modern formal structure while keeping the tradition of symphony as a musical genre. At the same time, there are aspects of “symphonic poems” in this symphony, presumably because he felt affinity toward his many previous symphonic poems based on Finnish folk epics.
Sibelius is sometimes considered as a conservative composer who honors existing musical tradition. He certainly followed the standard genre idioms, preferred haunting diatonic melodies, and stayed within the boundary of tonal music. On the other hand, his symphonies fuse majestic tone reminiscent of Nordic landscape of the nature that surrounded him, contemplative mood, and Finnish folk tunes and non-tonal modal music. All of these combine to form unique color of his music, putting his music at the center of the twentieth century symphonic repertoire and appealing to audience of the twenty-first century.
Text by Jiyoung Kang | Translation by Sukho Lee