Classical Concert V April 12, 2008, 7:30 PM & April 13, 3:00 PM Peakes Auditorium, Bangor High School Elgar - Introduction and allegro, op. 47 Tchaikovsky - Concerto for violin, op. 35, D major (first movement)     Heather Thomas, 2007 BSO Maine HS Concerto Competition winner Brahms - Symphony no. 2, op. 73, D major Heather Thomas, Soloist Heather Thomas, winner of the 2007 Maine High School Concerto Competition, will solo with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra at the April 12 and 13, 2008, concerts. Thomas, a resident of Belgrade, will solo on her violin under the baton of Music Director and Conductor Xiao-Lu Li for the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for violin, op. 35 in D major. “This is the first time I will be playing with an orchestra solo,” says Thomas. “Playing with a professional orchestra is one of the most important experiences for a musician.” Upon hearing the announcement that she won first prize in the concerto competition, she recalls, “I didn’t think I would win first prize, so it came as a shock. I was in a daze for quite a while afterwards. I felt elated!” Thomas practices on her violin four hours a day. To prepare for her solo performance with the BSO, she says she plays really slowly “because it makes your mind think through all the steps. Playing quickly, you’re more prone to make mistakes.” Thomas, age 17, began her violin studies in Maine at the age of five with Suzuki teacher Betsy Kobayashi, who maintains a studio in the Augusta area. At age 10, she won first prize in the Junior Division of Pine Tree State Music Competition. That same year she began studying with Fudeko Takahashi at the New England Conservatory’s (NEC) Preparatory School in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2005 Thomas was accepted into NEC’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, the premier orchestra at the Preparatory School, and traveled with the orchestra to Venezuela and Brazil. In 2007 she participated in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in Indiana. Last summer she attended Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute, where she was named concertmaster of the Young Artists Orchestra performing Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Thomas has also played in several chamber groups while attending the Bowdoin International Music Festival for three summer sessions. For other musicians who would like to have the opportunity to perform with professional orchestras at a young age, Thomas recommends practicing in front of an audience. When she was preparing for the concerto competition, her teacher “invited some of her friends over. It helped me to prepare mentally to play in front of an audience and judges.” Thomas will also perform in the annual Youth Concert with the BSO on May 12, 2008, at the Bangor Auditorium. Program Notes by Laura Artesani, D.M.A. Introduction and Allegro, op. 47 by Edward Elgar In 1904, Elgar’s close friend, August Jaeger, wrote to the composer, suggesting that he create something for the recently formed London Symphony Orchestra. “Why not a brilliant quick String Scherzo, or something for those fine strings only? A real bring down the house torrent of a thing such as Bach could write... You might even write a modern fugue for strings, or strings & organ! That would sell like cakes.” Elgar must have liked the idea, because a few months later he replied, “I’m doing that string thing in time for the Symphony Orchestra concert. Introduction and Allegro – no working out part, but a devil of a fugue instead.” The work was premiered at an all-Elgar program on March 8, 1905, with the composer at the podium; the concert also included In the South, the Grania Funeral March, Sea Pictures, and Cockaigne. Three months later, Elgar and his wife sailed to the United States, where the composer was awarded an honorary doctorate from Yale. This was arranged by Samuel Sanford, a professor at Yale, to whom the Introduction and Allegro is dedicated. The Introduction and Allegro is written for string quartet and orchestra, with the quartet acting at various times as an independent ensemble, as individual soloists, and as members of the orchestra. Three contrasting ideas are presented in the Introduction; the third is based on a Welsh tune, which Elgar had heard while vacationing in Cardigan Bay. Of this theme, Elgar wrote, “Although there may be (and I hope there is) a Welsh feeling in the one theme – to quote Shakespeare again: ‘All the waters in Wye cannot wash the Welsh blood out of its body’ – the work is really a tribute to that sweet borderland where I have made my home.” The Allegro is based on the second theme presented in the Introduction, presented now in a major mode. A second subject follows, consisting of repeated note pattern played by the soloists and the full orchestra. The opening theme of the Introduction returns, bringing the exposition to a rousing conclusion. In place of the customary development section, there is “a devil of a fugue,”as Elgar described it. Although the subject initially seems new, it is based on the bass part of a theme heard in the Introduction. As the fugue progresses, the texture becomes thicker and the tempo accelerates, ultimately reaching what has been described as “a climax of compression.” A complete recapitulation of the Allegro follows. The work concludes with an impressive coda that brings back a richly harmonized rendition of the Welsh tune from the Introduction. Although the Introduction and Allegro was performed on several occasions in 1905, it was soon forgotten until its revival by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1937. It is now recognized as the foundation of a succession of important works for strings by English composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams and Sir Michael Tippett. Concerto for violin, op. 35 in D major by Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was written during March and April of 1878 in Clarens, Switzerland, where the composer had taken refuge after fleeing from Moscow and his failed marriage. This trip was financed by Nadezhda von Meck, the mysterious patroness who corresponded with Tchaikovsky and supported him financially for over a decade, although the two never met face to face. Tchaikovsky intended to dedicate the concerto to Leopold Auer, concertmaster of the Imperial Orchestra in St. Petersburg. This plan was foiled after Auer studied the score and refused to perform it, stating that parts of it were unplayable (Auer later changed his mind and taught the Concerto to many of his students, including Jascha Heifetz). The premiere did not take place until three years later, when Adolf Brodsky (who later became the director of the Royal College of Music in Manchester, England) performed it in Vienna on December 4, 1881 with Hans Richter conducting. Although the soloist was well prepared, the orchestra had not had sufficient rehearsal time, and the audience responded with hissing. In an infamous review of this performance, Eduard Hanslick wrote, “Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.” The London premiere went more smoothly, and the Moscow premiere better still. The Concerto is now considered a masterpiece of the violin repertoire, on a par with the violin concertos of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. The first movement begins with a memorable melody, played by the violin section. Curiously, this melody never returns; Tchaikovsky follows a similar format in the opening of his first Piano Concerto. Beginning in the ninth measure, the mood changes and a suspenseful dominant pedal tone takes over. The soloist enters, announcing the first “real” theme, which is followed by an equally memorable second theme, interspersed with brilliant, virtuosic passagework. As he was composing the Violin Concerto, Tchaikovsky wrote these lines to Nadezhda von Meck: “My melodies and harmonies of folksong character come from the fact that I grew up in the country, and in my earliest childhood was impressed by the indescribable beauty of the characteristic features of Russian folk music; also from this, that I love passionately the Russian character in all its expression; in short, I am a Russian in the fullest meaning of the word.” Symphony No. 2, op. 73 in D major by Johannes Brahms After struggling for fifteen years with the creation of his First Symphony, Brahms found that the Second Symphony, written just a year later, came to him much more easily. It was begun in June, 1877 in Pörtschach, a small town in Austria, and completed the following fall. The work was performed for the first time on December 3, 1877 by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Hans Richter. The audience’s response to the third movement was so enthusiastic that it had to be repeated. Although this work is known as Brahms’ “peaceful” symphony, it is tightly constructed and brimming with rhythmic inventiveness. The first movement, in sonata form, is dominated by two simple motives, consisting of a three note turn in the cellos and basses and a rising two note motive. Everything that follows is generated from these two figures. Although the tranquility of this work lends itself to comparison with Beethoven’s Sixth (Pastoral) Symphony, Brahms’s masterful use of motivic derivation in this movement is similar to what Beethoven achieved in his famous Fifth Symphony. Not long after the first movement begins, it seems to come to an unexpected halt. At this point, the trombones and tuba enter with dissonant, diminished-seventh chords. Brahms commented on this sudden change of mood in a letter written in 1878: “I very much wanted to manage in that first movement without using trombones, and I tried to… But their first entrance, that’s mine, and I can’t get along without it and thus the trombones. Were I to defend the passage, I would have to be long-winded. I would have to confess that I am, by the by, a severely melancholic person, that black wings are constantly flapping above us, and that in my output… that symphony is followed by a little essay about the great ‘Why’ (the Job motet, Op. 74).” The second movement, the only Adagio in Brahms’ four symphonies, appears to begin on the downbeat, but one gradually realizes that it actually began on beat four. This feeling of displacement continues throughout the movement, which frequently places the emphasis on the fourth beat of the measure. The opening theme for cello is accompanied by two bassoons, creating a rich, dark texture that contrasts with the overall sunny mood of the opening movement. The third, dance-like movement, scored without low brass, is in five sections, including two trios, beginning with an opening theme played by the oboe. Frequent meter changes, dramatic fermatas, and cross-rhythms dominate the movement. The vivacious concluding movement contains elements of sonata and rondo form. As in the first movement, the trombones are prominently featured again, although this time the mood is one of triumph rather than impending doom. Brahms possessed a dry sense of humor, and led many of his friends astray when he was working on his Second Symphony by describing it as grim and morbid. He told them that it was in the key of F minor, and that the orchestra would wear crepe bands on their sleeves at the premiere, “because of its dirgelike effect.” He also reported that the score would have a black border. They quickly realized that they had been duped when they heard the symphony in its completed form. It was dubbed by some as Brahms’ “Vienna Symphony,” because it seemed to reflect “the fresh, healthy life to be found in beautiful Vienna.” Not everyone was pleased with this side of Brahms. One disappointed critic from Leipzig wrote, “The Viennese are much more easily satisfied than we. We make quite different demands on Brahms and require from him music which is something more than pretty…when he comes before us as a symphonist.” Throughout his life, Brahms sent drafts of his compositions to Clara Schumann, his close friend and confidante. After seeing the sketches of the Second Symphony, her assessment was that it would have more immediate success than the First. This proved to be true; after its overwhelmingly positive reception, Brahms was engaged for a series of triumphant concert tours throughout Europe.

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Sunday, May 11, 2008: Famous Fifths Schubert: Symphony in B flat major, no. 5 Beethoven: Symphony no. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 Mozart: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, K. 22 Tchaikovsky: Symphony no. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 Mahler: Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 Shostakovich: Symphony no. 5 in D minor, op. 47

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