1 Corigliano & Elgar LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Welcome to The Wisconsin Philharmonic’s inaugural concert of the historic 65th Anniversary Season. For 65 years, this orchestra has celebrated the cultural beauty of our community while providing unique, quality performances that have captivated audiences near and far. In reaching such a monumental anniversary, it seems fitting to open the season honoring composers of the past as well as the present. We are honored to present the World Premiere of John Corigliano’s Sonata for Violin and Orchestra. With special guest composer Martin Kennedy, orchestrator of the Sonata, in the audience and Lara St. John returning to The Philharmonic to perform this magnificent work, we are pleased to open the season in such a grand, celebratory fashion among family and friends. We are grateful for our partnership with the LaCrosse Symphony Orchestra and Lara St. John in commissioning this work. Special thanks to Arts Waukesha for sponsoring the commission and to the Hess & Helyn Kline Foundation for partial-sponsorship of Lara St. John’s performance this evening. Thanks to all who came out for our Season Preview & Beer Tasting at Carroll University last month, the first of many unique events we have scheduled throughout the season. In keeping with the celebratory spirit, I would like to invite each of you in attendance tonight to our English Tea social, hosted at Early Hill by Philharmonic friends, Tony and Andrea Bryant, this upcoming Saturday from 1-3pm. If you are interested in attending this event, please stop by the information table in the lobby at intermission. Last, but certainly not least, we are especially thankful for the generosity of tonight’s concert sponsor, the Harken Family Foundation. With ticket sales only amounting to 25% of our annual budgeted revenue, we rely on the contributed giving of individuals and organizations in our community to continue providing quality performances and education programs for 65 more years to come. Thank you, Harken Family Foundation, for supporting our vision and bringing us one step closer to achieving this goal. Andrea Rindo Executive Director Randle-Dable-Brisk Funeral, Cremation & Preplanning Services 1110 S. Grand Avenue, Waukesha (262) 547-4035 Supporting the Arts in Our Community for Generations Lee & Cathleen Brisk Owners/Funeral Directors Martin Dable Funeral Director www.waukeshafunerals.com
Transcript
1Corigliano & Elgar
LET TER FROM THE EXECUTIVE D IRECTOR
Welcome to The Wisconsin Philharmonic’s inaugural concert of the historic 65th Anniversary Season. For 65 years, this orchestra has celebrated the cultural beauty of our community while providing unique, quality performances that have captivated audiences near and far. In reaching such a monumental anniversary, it seems fitting to open the season honoring composers of the past as well as the present.
We are honored to present the World Premiere of John Corigliano’s Sonata for Violin and Orchestra. With special guest composer Martin Kennedy, orchestrator of the Sonata, in the audience and Lara St. John returning to The Philharmonic to perform this magnificent work, we are pleased to open the season in such a grand, celebratory fashion among family and friends. We are grateful for our partnership with the LaCrosse Symphony Orchestra and Lara St. John in commissioning this work. Special thanks to Arts Waukesha for sponsoring the commission and to the Hess & Helyn Kline Foundation for partial-sponsorship of Lara St. John’s performance this evening.
Thanks to all who came out for our Season Preview & Beer Tasting at Carroll University last month, the first of many unique events we have scheduled throughout the season. In keeping with the celebratory spirit, I would like to invite each of you in attendance tonight to our English Tea social, hosted at Early Hill by Philharmonic friends, Tony and Andrea Bryant, this upcoming Saturday from 1-3pm. If you are interested in attending this event, please stop by the information table in the lobby at intermission.
Last, but certainly not least, we are especially thankful for the generosity of tonight’s concert sponsor, the Harken Family Foundation. With ticket sales only amounting to 25% of our annual budgeted revenue, we rely on the contributed giving of individuals and organizations in our community to continue providing quality performances and education programs for 65 more years to come. Thank you, Harken Family Foundation, for supporting our vision and bringing us one step closer to achieving this goal.
Supporting the Arts in Our Community for GenerationsLee & Cathleen Brisk Owners/Funeral Directors
Martin Dable Funeral Director
www.waukeshafunerals.com
2 Wisconsin Philharmonic
Founded 1947
presents
Corigliano & ElgarTuesday, October 9th, 2012Oconomowoc Arts Center
Alexander Platt, ConductorOverture to Les vespres siciliennes ...................................................................Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
(The Sicilian Vespers)
Sonata for Violin and Orchestra from ....................................................................John Corigliano (b. 1938)Sonata for Violin and Piano (1963) orch. Martin Kennedy (b. 1978)
Lara St. John, violin
INTERMISSION
Variations on an Original Theme ................................................................... Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)“Enigma Variations”
This concert is sponsored by the Harken Family Foundation.
Ms. St. John’s performance is sponsored in part by a grant from the Hess & Helyn Kline Foundation.
The world premiere of Sonata for Violin and Orchestra is sponsored by Arts Waukesha, a re-granting partner of the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin
and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Country Springs Hotel is the official hotel of The Wisconsin Philharmonic.
Please turn off all cellular phones and other digital devices. We respectfully request members of the audience to refrain from the use of camera equipment or recording
devices during the performance.
Join us for our 4th Annual Veterans Concert!Salute to Our Veterans: Battle of BritainSunday, November 11, 2012, 3:00pm
Shattuck Auditorium, Carroll University
I. C.A.E.II. H.D.S.PIII. R.B.TIV. W.M.BV. R.P.A.
VI. YsobelVII. TroyteVIII. W.N.IX. NimrodX. Dorabella
PERCUSSIONMike Lorenz, Principal Victoria Daniel Josh Sherman
4 Wisconsin Philharmonic
ALEX ANDER PL AT T, MUS IC D IRECTOR
Alexander Platt has forged a unique career among the younger American conductors, combining a true commitment to regional orchestras and their communities with an ability to lead cutting-edge projects on the interna-tional scene. Building on his bedrock experience as Apprentice Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Opera (1991-93), Alexander is now in his third highly successful season as Music Director of both the La Crosse Symphony and the Greater Grand Forks Symphony, his seventeenth as Music Director of the Marion,
Indiana Philharmonic, and his sixteenth as Music Director of The Wisconsin Philharmonic. This follows twelve seasons as Music Director of the Racine Symphony (1993-2005), which he transformed from a struggling community orchestra to an artistically and fiscally thriving institution, and three seasons (2007-10) as Principal Conductor of the Boca Raton Sympho-nia—an assignment born of his debut with the orchestra and Sir James Galway at the International Festival of the Arts Boca on 48 hours’ notice, where he led the ensemble (in the opinion of The Palm Beach Post) into becoming the finest of the orchestras to emerge from the collapse of the Florida Philharmonic. Following acclaimed assignments with the Minnesota Opera and the Skylight Opera Theatre, Alexander Platt made his debut with Chicago Opera Theater in 1997 (conducting Mozart’s DON GIOVANNI), and was appointed Resident Conductor and Music Advisor in 2001. Over the next twelve seasons, he led the Chicago premieres of Britten’s DEATH IN VENICE, John Adams’ NIXON IN CHINA, the Bizet/Peter Brook LA TRAGEDIE DE CARMEN, and the Britten/Shakespeare A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM; the double-bill of Schoenberg’s ERWARTUNG and Bartok’s BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE, with Samuel Ramey and Nancy Gustafson; the world premiere of the Tony Kushner/Maurice Sendak version of Hans Krasa’s BRUNDIBAR; the premiere of his own version for young people of Tchaikovsky’s IOLANTA; and the world-premiere recording of Kur-ka’s THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK—all to high acclaim in Opera News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times of London, and both the great Chicago papers. In 2007 he made his Canadian debut at the Banff Festival, leading the co-premiere in conjunction with Calgary Opera of John Estacio’s FROBISHER, to accolades from Opera Canada. In Spring 2012 Alexander concluded his tenure at COT with the Chicago premiere of the Dmitri Shostakovich Moscow, Land of the Cherry-Bird Trees, to unanimous praise in the media. As a guest conductor Alexander Platt has led the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, the Freiburg Philharmonic in Germany and for three years the Aalborg Symphony in Denmark, as well as the Minnesota Contemporary Ensemble, Camerata Chicago, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Illinois, Lexington, Riverside California and Hudson Valley Philharmonics, and the Houston, Charlotte, Columbus, Flagstaff, Sioux City, El Paso and Indianapolis Symphonies. In 2012-13 he makes his debut with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony, as well as a return visit to Boca Raton. Alexander Platt made his New York debut in 2007 with the Brooklyn Philharmonic before thousands in Central Park, the first of several appearances with the orchestra. In addition to all these activities, Alexander Platt spends his summers in the Hudson Valley as the sixth Music Director of the Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, New York – the oldest summer chamber-music festival in America, where he follows in the footsteps of legendary maestrias Leon Barzin and Georges Barrere. Under his direction the concert series has become a thriving, eclectic festival. A recent highlight of his work there was his leading the world premiere of his chamber-orchestra version of David Del Tredici’s landmark music-drama FINAL ALICE (1976). The 2007 performance won accolades in The New York Times, which praised it as a workable version of Del Tredici’s masterpiece.
Alexander Platt has been devoted to the music of our time. Over the last three decades he has led the U.S. premieres of concert works of Britten, Shostakovich, Ned Rorem, Colin Matthews
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ALEX ANDER PL AT T, MUS IC D IRECTOR c o n t.
and Judith Weir, and has been an advocate for composers as diverse as Michael Torke, Libby Larsen, Joan Tower, and Simon Holt. In 2010 and 2011, with The Wisconsin Philharmonic, he led Aaron Jay Kernis’ Simple Songs, the world premiere of Daron Hagen’s Third Symphony, and the co-premiere of Joseph Schwantner’s symphony Chasing Light; at the Maverick Concerts, he led the world premiere of the chamber version of Hagen’s Seven Last Words for piano and orches-tra; and while in Grand Forks and La Crosse he directed the North American premiere of both the Britten Temporal Variations for oboe and strings, and the reconstruction of his unfinished Clarinet Concerto for Benny Goodman. In summer 2012 at the Maverick Concerts, he leads the premieres of works by Harold Meltzer and Russell Platt, and in the autumn, with the La Crosse Symphony and The Wisconsin Philharmonic, he leads the world premiere of his commission of John Corigliano’s Sonata for Violin and Orchestra, with violinist Lara St. John. A research scholar for the National Endowment for the Humanities before he entered college, Alexander Platt was educated at Yale University, as a conducting fellow at both Aspen and Tanglewood, and then at King’s College Cambridge under a British Marshall Scholarship. At Cambridge he led all of the important musical societies, deputized in the legendary King’’s College Choir, and as conductor of the Cambridge University Opera Society led revivals of both Britten’s OWEN WINGRAVE and Berlioz’s BEATRICE AND BENEDICT, to high praise in the London press. During this time he also made his professional conducting debut at Aldeburgh, his London debut at the Wigmore Hall, and reconstructed the lost chamber version of the Mahler Fourth Symphony which has gone on to become a classic of the repertoire. In addition to recording for National Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, the South-West German Radio and the BBC, his 2004 recording of Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy with violinist Rachel Barton Pine still appears frequently on radio stations across America.
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6 Wisconsin Philharmonic
JOHN CORIGLIANO, COMPOSER
The American John Corigliano continues to add to one of the richest, most unusual, and most widely celebrated bodies of work any composer has created over the last forty years. Corigliano’s numerous scores—in-cluding three symphonies and eight concerti among over one hundred chamber, vocal, choral, and orchestral works—have been performed and recorded by many of the most prominent orchestras, soloists, and chamber musicians in the world. Recent scores include Conjurer (2008), for percussion and string orchestra, commissioned for and introduced by
Dame Evelyn Glennie; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: The Red Violin (2005), developed from the themes of the score to the François Girard’s film of the same name, which won Corigliano the Oscar in 1999; Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan (2000) for orchestra and amplified soprano, the recording which won the Grammy for Best Contem-porary Composition in 2008; Symphony No. 3: Circus Maximus (2004), scored simultaneously for wind orchestra and a multitude of wind ensembles; and Symphony No. 2 (2001: Pulitzer Prize in Music.) Other important scores include String Quartet (1995: Grammy Award, Best Contemporary Composition); Symphony No. 1 (1991: Grawemeyer and Grammy Awards); the opera The Ghosts of Versailles (Metropolitan Opera commission, 1991, International Classical Music Award 1992); and the Clarinet Concerto (1977.) One of the few living composers to have a string quartet named for him, Corigliano serves on the composition faculty at the Juilliard School of Music and holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Music at Lehman College, City University of New York, which has established a scholarship in his name; for the past fourteen years he and his partner, the composer-librettist Mark Adamo, have divided their time between Manhattan and Kent Cliffs, New York. More information is available at www.johncorigliano.com.
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7Corigliano & Elgar
M ARTIN KENNEDY, ORCHESTR ATOR
Composer and pianist Martin Kennedy began his formal training at Indiana University, where he received Bachelors of Music in both Composition and Piano Performance. He went on to earn a Master of Music in Composition at Indiana University and a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Juilliard School, where he was a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow. His principal teachers in composition include Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, Claude Baker, David Dzubay, and Don Freund.
Kennedy’s music has been performed internationally by numerous artists and ensembles, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, the Bloomington Camerata, the Haddonfield Symphony, and the Tuscaloosa Symphony.
He is the recipient of several prestigious prizes, including the ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize, the ‘2 Agosto’ International Composition Prize, five ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, a BMI Student Composer Award, the ASCAP Raymond Hubbel Award, a MacDowell Fellowship, an Aaron Copland Award, and two Indiana University Dean’s Prizes in Composition.
Kennedy also remains in demand as a pianist and collaborator. He has toured with both violinist Lara St. John and flutist Thomas Robertello, and he regularly plays both solo and chamber music concerts. He is committed to the performance of new works, having been a member of both the Indiana University New Music Ensemble and the New Juilliard Ensemble.
Kennedy’s music is available on the Centaur, Azica, and Riax labels. His works are pub-lished by the Theodore Presser Company and G. Schirmer Inc.
www.martinkennedy.com
8 Wisconsin Philharmonic
L AR A ST. JOHN, V IOL A
Canadian-born violinist Lara St. John has been described as “something of a phenomenon” by The Strad and a “high-powered soloist” by the New York Times.
In North America, she has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras including Cleveland, Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and the Boston Pops. In Europe, she has played with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Symphony (Hanover), Zurich
Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Bournemouth Symphony, and the Amsterdam Symphony, among others. In Asia, solo appearances have included the Hong Kong Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, China Philharmonic in Beijing, Guangzhou Symphony and the Shanghai Broadcasting Orchestra. Lara has also performed in Australia and Turkey.
The Los Angeles Times has written, “St. John brings to the stage personal charisma, an unflagging musical imagination and genuine passion.” Recitals in major concert halls have included New York, Boston, San Francisco, Ravinia, Washington DC, Prague, Berlin, Toronto, Montreal, and in the Forbidden City.
Lara has made eight recordings. Her most recent recording Mozart featuring the Sinfonia Concertante and Concerti Nos. 1 & 3 with her brother Scott St. John and The Knights won the 2011 Juno Classical Album of the Year for Soloist with Large Ensemble. Whole Note wrote that it “…simply can’t imagine a more satisfying recording of this glorious work.”
Her recording with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and conductor Eduardo Marturet VIVALDI– The Four Seasons and Piazzolla – The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires reached No. 2 on the iTunes charts on its first day and The Cleveland Plain Dealer said, “Lara St. John is as captivating in the seductive scenes of the Piazzolla as she is crisp, caressing and colorful in Vivaldi’s atmospheric paeans to nature.” Audiophile Audition stated “Do we need another Four Seasons? With playing and sound like this, yes we do!”
Of her third recording, Bach: the Concerto Album Gramophone, wrote, “It is difficult to argue with such a technically dazzling and unfailingly musical interpretation.” When the recording was released on iTunes, it immediately reached No. 1 in the classical category.
Lara began playing the violin when she was two years old. She made her first appearance as soloist with orchestra at age four, and her European debut with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon when she was 10. She toured Spain, France, Portugal and Hungary at ages 12 and 13, entered the Curtis Institute at 13, and spent her first summer at Marlboro three years later. Her teachers have included Felix Galimir and Joey Corpus.
She performs on the 1779 “Salabue” Guadagnini thanks to an anonymous donor and Heinl & Co. of Toronto.
www.larastjohn.com
9Corigliano & Elgar
Getting Better while Growing Older
Congratulations to The Wisconsin Philharmonic
on 65 Successful Years
Celebrating our 96th year
10 Wisconsin Philharmonic
CORIGLIANO & ELGAR
Welcome to our historic 65th Anniversary season here at The Wisconsin Philharmonic. Since our musical “Tour de France” was such a great experience, this season we will cross the Eng-lish Channel and spend the year celebrating the uniquely British Spirit, a musical tradition whose greatness is too easily overlooked. Often disparaged by Germans as “Das Land ohne Musik” (the land without music), we forget the line of unassailable British master compos-ers: Purcell, Elgar, Holst, and Vaughan Williams as well as honorary sons Handel, Hayden, and Mendelssohn whose careers are forever linked the British musical tradition. All in all, a glori-ous British spirit does indeed shine through the many masterpieces we’ll present this year.
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): Overture to The Sicilian Vespers (Les vepres siciliennes). Verdi and Elgar may indeed at first seem like oil and water: one, the fearless, rough-and-tum-ble Italian republican patriot, with a somewhat infamous personal life; the other, the seeming-ly perfect Victorian English gentleman, right down to the tweed suits, waxed mustache, and ream of aristocratic titles. Going deeper, however, the similarities are striking. Both compos-ers were utterly self-made men, the sons of small-time Catholic shopkeepers whose genius went largely unaided by formal musical education, and who both became nothing short of national heroes. Verdi would become the very musical embodiment of the Risorgimento, the blood-soaked Italian drive to eventual unification in the middle 19th century, even becom-ing a bona-fide Senator two years later in the new Italian constitutional monarchy. With his Pomp and Circumstance marches, Elgar would come to musically symbolize the British Empire, becoming Master of the King’s Musick and ascending to a knighthood and a baronetcy.
Verdi’s I Vespri Siciliani, composed originally for Paris is, despite the ancient heritage of its storyline, an opera dripping with the political bloodletting of its time. While Italy was painfully but inexorably drawing towards unification, France also spent much of the middle 19th-century going through its own upheaval. Following the revolutions of 1848, it would be in 1851 that President Louis-Napoleon, nephew of Bonaparte himself, would stage the coup d’etat that would restore him to the Imperial throne. In 1855, he staged a grand international exhibition to celebrate his achievements most especially that of his modernization of the city of Paris, under the brilliant Baron Haussmann, and in so doing ordered the Paris Opera to commission a new opera for the occasion. Verdi, by then the most popular opera composer in Europe, was the man for the job.
Looking back, it’s something of a miracle that the plot submitted by the arch-republican Verdi passed the censors. The blood-and-guts story of The Sicilian Vespers is based on the Easter Monday rebellion of the people of Palermo against their French colonial rulers in March of 1282. The Overture to Les vepres siciliennes is itself a simple piece, with four basic themes, portraying impending conflict, violence, languor, and joy; but as with much of Verdi’s work, it is like a gong in the ocean, simple yet profound.
John Corigliano (b.1938): Sonata for Violin and Orchestra, orchestrated from the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1963) by Martin Kennedy (b.1978). World Premiere
John Corigliano, winner of the Grammy, the Oscar, and the Pulitzer Prize, is one of America’s most prominent living composers, having achieved worldwide fame for his Symphony No.1, his opera The Ghosts of Versailles, and his film music for Altered States and The Red Violin. His ancestors having come to America from southern Italy, Cori-gliano’s father, John Corigliano Sr., was the longtime Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic in the postwar era. While, like most conductors, I have greatly admired Corigliano’s music over the years, it was a recent performance of his 1963 Sonata for
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CORIGLIANO & ELGAR c o n t.
Violin and Piano in Woodstock, New York that inspired the idea that a full-fledged work for violin and orchestra lay just underneath the Sonata’s febrile surface. Violinist Lara St. John immediately came to mind as the soloist for such a project. Composer Martin Kennedy, a protégé of Corigliano and graduate of The Juilliard School, proved the ideal candidate to carry out the orchestration.
Commissioned as a joint project of The Wisconsin Philharmonic and the La Crosse Sympho-ny, I hope you’ll agree that this new Sonata for Violin and Orchestra is a welcome addition to the still-sparse repertoire of great American violin concertos. An early masterwork of its composer, Corigliano gives us a work firmly set in the tradition of his musical forebears Barber, Bernstein, Copland and Stravinsky, yet of a voice that is fully and vibrantly his own.
A note from Martin Kennedy:Written during 1962-63, John Corigliano’s Violin Sonata features a wide range of dramatic and emotional energy amidst a musical dialogue in which both violin and piano are on equal footing. The piece won first prize in the 1964 Spoleto Festival Competition for Creative Arts and received its premiere there on July 10, 1964.
Unusual for its time, the sonata is mostly tonal, leaning towards a more conservative style favored by Bernstein, Walton, and Barber. Music historians have sometimes de-scribed it as ‘neo-tonal,’ arriving at a time in history when most composers were still committed to serial composition. This is not to say that the piece does not contain a great deal of musical complexity. Hidden within its borders lie compositional devices and treasures that invite repeated study. Non-tonal and poly-tonal elements abound, combined with constructional, contrapuntal, and rhythmic techniques that offer end-less rewards for both performer and listener.
The sonata’s original title — Duo for Violin and Piano — hearkens back to Aaron Copland’s composition of the same name, sharing not only that work’s imaginative interplay and emotional immediacy but its use of both instruments as equal partners in a dialogue of brilliant virtuosity and searing emotion. In tonight’s performance, the violinist will be joined in conversation by the orchestra, the two engaging in a partnership that is further enhanced by the interplay of colors and timbres under the conductor’s baton.
The first movement begins with an opening fanfare in the violin, followed by a clear cadential resolution in C major. This proudly declarative statement leads to a sly melody in the violin, accompanied by a jaunty accompaniment that is subtly under-mined by the appearance of a flatted-third (or ‘blue note’) in the bass. A dialogue between violin and orchestra continues as they explore the theme, reshaping and expanding upon it as the piece rises to a thrilling climax.
Basing its thematic material on a theme that is strongly reminiscent of that of the first movement, the second movement serves as a melancholy meditation on the ideas presented in the first movement. The plaintive melody presented by the violin in the opening measures is masterfully expanded upon throughout, generating a wealth of both delicate and thunderous material from what is an otherwise unassuming melody.
The third movement begins with a strong declamation in the orchestra, offering up a fevered response to the sorrow present in the previous movement. Here violin and orchestra provide both conserere (to join) and certamen (to fight) upon which
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CORIGLIANO & ELGAR c o n t.
the very word concerto is based. Fury gives way to grief as the violin answers the orchestra’s opening melody with a plaintive restatement of the same. Both violin and orchestra build to a crescendo, followed by a violin cadenza and a final, resigned statement of the theme, fittingly marked ‘without emotion.’
The final movement is a bright and optimistic rondo, beginning with a giocoso melody that, as in the first movement, is accompanied by a bouncy and somewhat off-kilter figure. Polyrhythms and mixed meters abound in a high-wire act of skill and concentration as the soloist and orchestra become intertwined in a moto perpetuo. A flowing middle section provides a respite from the turmoil, though the tension never dissipates and we are soon thrust back into battle, as the music crashes back and forth, culminating in a fevered race towards an exciting and heroic finale.
Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934): Enigma Variations, Op.36 Elgar’s “Variations on an Original Theme” are now more well-known as the “Enigma Varia-tions” due to Elgar’s use of the word at the head of the manuscript score. Elevated to a knighthood soon after the Enigma Variations’ blazing success, Elgar was Great Britain’s first native composer of the highest rank since the 17th Century genius Henry Purcell. He would come to be seen as the musical embodiment of the British upper class, a stiff and jocular figure given to motor cars, country houses, and fine tailoring. Deep down, he was a shy and moody man, often painfully aware of his modest, Catholic, West Country background and an artist of an utterly Romantic sensibility who found himself a walking anachronism after the tumult of the First World War. A hardworking freelance musician from the age of 16, he never took a formal composition lesson in his life.
The first performance of the Variations turned Elgar overnight from a somewhat re-spected local figure into an international star. The work is in fact a sequence of fourteen variations, each of remarkably individual character; they are musical pictures of Elgar, his wife, and his closest friends. In the program notes for the premiere, Elgar teased the audi-ence by saying that, in addition to the main theme at the outset, the piece had an enigma inside of it -- a “dark saying,” in which “another and larger theme ‘goes’, but is not played.” A great deal of ink has been spilled over the last century in trying to decipher Elgar’s secret theme; the current consensus is that it is drawn from the slow movement of one of his favorite works, Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony. While making perfect sense, what makes the Variations truly fascinating is Elgar’s warm and witty portrayal of his human subjects:
I. (C.A.E.) – Alice, the composer’s wife.II. (H.D.S.P.) – Hew David Steuart-Powell, a pianist friend. Notice the runs of notes.III. (R.B.T.) – Richard Baxter Townsend, an eccentric whose voice went from soprano to
bass.IV. (W.M.B.) – William Meath Baker, who once exited a music-room with a slam of the
door.V. (R.P.A.) – Richard Penrose Arnold, the witty and sensitive son of the great Victorian
poet, Matthew Arnold.VI. (Ysobel) – Isabel Fitton, a viola-playing friend who had trouble making leaps with
her bow across the strings.VII. (Troyte) – Arthur Troyte Griffith; representing his “maladroit essays to play the
pianoforte.”VIII. (W.N.) – A calm musical interlude depicting the gracious home of Winifred
Northbury.
13Corigliano & Elgar
Best wishes to the Wisconsin Philharmonic for another successful
IX. (Nimrod) – A hymn to friendship itself. August Jaeger was Elgar’s musical confidant and staunch supporter in tough times; he was an editor at the music publisher Novello. Jaeger means “hunter” in German and, in tribute, Elgar was here referring to King Nimrod, the mighty hunter from the Book of Genesis.
X. (Dorabella) – Dora Penny, a friend who stammered.XI. (G.R.S.) – George Robertson Sinclair, the organist of Hereford Cathedral, bounding
about with his pet bulldog, Dan.XII. (B.G.N.) – A tribute to Basil Nevinson, a close friend.XIII. (***) – A bit of a mystery. The asterisks apparently refer to Lady Mary Lygon, a
musical organizer who had gone on an ocean journey when Elgar was composing the piece. A ship’s engines are here evoked by Elgar asking the timpanist to softly pound coins against the kettledrum.
XIV. (E.D.U.) – A portrait of Elgar himself; “Edu” was his wife’s nickname for him.
A celebration of human friendship, the Enigma Variations also seem to be the first real in-stance of the “Imperial anxiety” that would become a hallmark of his style. Atlas-like, Elgar seems to feel the need to support the British Empire on his musical shoulders; though that empire was then precisely at its zenith, a certain few, like Elgar’s poet-counterpart Rudyard Kipling, were already beginning to prophesy its eventual collapse.
Music Director ..................................................................................................................... Alexander PlattExecutive Director ................................................................................................................. Andrea RindoOffice Manager ..................................................................................................................... David ElbrechtPersonnel Manager/Librarian .....................................................................................Mary Pat MichelsStage Manager ............................................................................................................................Glen Lunde
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16 Wisconsin Philharmonic
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Family FoundationHarken Family FoundationWaukesha County
NanzSune & Jean EricsonGerald & Rebecca GapinskiGerald & Donna GerndtWilliam McDevittThomas & Patricia MillerHoward & Sara MillerFritz & Sally RufSara Toenes
Patron$150-$299Anonymous (2)Ron & Mary BeckmanBonnie Birk & Dave HellingEd & Helen BradyBeverly ChappieJames & Elizabeth ChermakPhyllis FloryFrieda HartPeter & Karol KennedyBruce & Rose LarkinLisa NevinsElaine PetersonJoAnn PortzJames & Ina ScheelStephen & Gale SchmiedlinRobert SchuettSharon & Joe SubjakBetty Lou TikalskyTom & Laura WantaKristine & Todd Zinkgraff
Karen & Robert CalhounJoAnne CrooksSue EvensonJeffrey & Susan FobesDarrell & Sally FoellRick & Dianne FroweinClaire GreeneElaine HaberichterRoss & Mary HansonLarry HarperDoug & Nancy HastadPeter & Joan HaupertCarolyn HeidemannBarbara HirschJohn & Susan HoaglundRichard & Jeanne
HyrniewickiJohn P. Macy & Sandi BrandAnn & Ed JohnsonBob & Jackie KastengrenRamon & Doris KlitzkeMary KnudtenDale & Gay KnutsonArmenta KolkoskiFrancis KosednarMitch LackeyEna Mollie LantzSharon & Tom LeairGlen R. & Sally Mohr LundeAndrew & Cari MatterJeanne & Kenneth MentingGeorge & Bonnie MorrisPhil & Cie MoteletDoris MurphyJean O’Donnell IllingworthElizabeth OrozcoDave & Betty ReulAndrea RindoDennis & Brenda SchendelWalter R. SchwartzNorman & Joanne SeegerWilliam D. SmithJohn & Rita StevensTerry StevensJim & Pat ToftPhilip & Audrey Trampe
John & Darlene TrotterDennis & Mary UnterholznerRobert L. VrakasJohn WellfordSue & Joe WimmerDonald & June WischerTheodore Youngquist
FriendUp to $49Anonymous (3)David & Chris AbbottEileen AlmRon & Pat AndersCarolAnne BozosiJeffery & Wanda BraunJohn BuckleyAlan & Carol CarlsonCraig CoursinKeith & Laura CuttsKristi DavisJuanita GordenShirley GuginThomas HalloranBetty HendersonEllen JakabMary JervisLois KaplanThomas & Jean KleinRay & Patti PedersenMark & Angela PenzkoverJohn & Leona PetersPaul & Cathy RiedlCharles & Irene RobertsWilliam & Nancy VebberMiriam WellfordJohn & Lynn WellinghoffBarbara WoernerKristin Ziebart
In Honor ofMary Pat Michels
Joseph Ketchum
Ellen Strommen Sune & Jean Ericson William & Carol Lamm Don & Carol Taylor
In Memory ofHilary Bryant
Anonymous Don & Carol Taylor
Don F. Hillmer Germaine Hillmer
Geth Galloway Joan Newman
Chet & Helen Goff Anonymous
James L. & Dorothy Goff Frisch Charles Goff McIntosh
Kiki Gould M.E. & Michael R. McCormick
Richard R. Lustig George & Edith Love
Eloise Morris Sune & Jean Ericson
Helen Pavlovics Anonymous
Florizel & Marguerite Reuter Thomas & Jean Klein
Clara Saler Richard & Bernard Saler
Maestro Milton Weber Anonymous Richard Schwartz & Elizabeth Jones Susanna Weber-Gadd
The Contributor Listing includes all contributions from the last twelve months received through September 7, 2012. Those who contributed after that date have our thanks and the assurance that your names will appear in the November 11, 2012 program. If you note an error in this list, please contact The Wisconsin Philharmonic at 262-547-1858 so that we may correct it for our next program.
18 Wisconsin Philharmonic
THE WISCONSIN PHILHAR MONIC : G IV ING OPPORTUNITIES
Frugality and creativity have always been part of The Wisconsin Philharmonic’s history. Special efforts like the Annual Gala generate substantial funds which are deeply appreciated. In addition to special events, other fund development efforts add pivotal revenue to The Wisconsin Philharmonic’s bottom line.
The Individual Campaign is conducted in the fall of each season. It is an opportunity for individuals to support The Wisconsin Philharmonic at a level that is meaningful to them. Contributors receive valuable benefits based on the level of their donation. For a complete list of donor levels and benefits, visit The Wisconsin Philharmonic’s web site (www.wisconsinphilharmonic.org).
The Wisconsin Philharmonic also offers Planned Giving Programs, designed to ensure that The Wisconsin Philharmonic will continue for future generations. Options include Wills and Bequests, Trusts (like a Charitable Remainder Trust), Insurance (an old cash value policy), Appreciated Stock and Retirement Plan Proceeds.
In-kind donations are also accepted. For more information about any of these options, contact The Wisconsin Philharmonic office at 262-547-1858.
THE WISCONSIN PHILHAR MONIC : ENDOWMENT FUNDS
The Wisconsin Philharmonic offers four Endowment Funds that are open and accept additional donations.
The Wisconsin Philharmonic Endowment Fund provides income to support general operations. Gifts to this permanent fund help to preserve the future of classical music in our communities.
The James and Dorothy Goff Frisch Endowment Fund was created to honor these founding members of The Wisconsin Philharmonic and is used to sponsor a soloist during the season.
The Wisconsin Philharmonic Education Investment Fund provides funding for the educational programs of The Wisconsin Philharmonic.
The Anthony W. Bryant Scholarship Fund honors businessman and philanthropist, Tony Bryant, who has been an advocate of The Wisconsin Philharmonic for many years. The scholarship is awarded by competitive audition to a graduating high school senior who declares an intention to major in music while in college.
19Corigliano & Elgar
THE WISCONSIN PHILHAR MONIC EDUCATION PROGR A MS
The Wisconsin Philharmonic education programs are an example of the Philharmonic’s steadfast commitment to providing programs that serve the entire community and provide opportunities to help students achieve success and enrichment through classical music.
Chapman Piano Competition – This biennial piano competition is open to all Waukesha County piano students age 14 through 20. The student prepares a selection from the repertoire list to perform by memory. The award to the winner includes cash and an op-portunity to perform with The Wisconsin Philharmonic as a featured soloist.
Shining Stars Scholarships – Annual auditions each March are open to string, wind and percussion Waukesha County students. The students play before Philharmonic musicians and receive the judges written evaluations. Winners are presented to the audience at The Wisconsin Philharmonic’s Season Finale concert and receive a cash award to be used for continuing music studies. Clinics by the Maestro – Maestro Alexander Platt, Music Director of The Wisconsin Philharmonic, offers free clinics once per year to four selected high schools. The purpose of Clinics with the Maestro is to encourage high school string players to continue making beautiful music.
Major Classic for Minors – Chamber ensembles from The Wisconsin Philharmonic pres-ent programs in elementary schools throughout Waukesha County. Each presentation is about 45 minutes long and includes a demonstration of the instruments and their unique sounds, themes in music, conducting, and a question-and-answer period. For many students, this is the first experience with classical music and up-close exposure to musical instruments and performers. These programs are offered free to the schools.
Masterworks Chamber Music Coaching – This project promotes the study of chamber music by assigning a Wisconsin Philharmonic musician to a high school as an ensemble coach. The group spends five sessions with its coach and is expected to practice outside classroom time. At the end of the program, groups perform their works at an annual chamber music festival. Additionally, students are given a writing assignment that can vary from self-reflection to a music critique.
Middle School Orchestra Workshops – A new program for this season, the Middle School Orchestra Workshops open with a performance by a Wisconsin Philharmonic string quintet. Following the performance, students are split into sections to receive coaching from the professional musicians. The workshop ends with the Philharmonic musicians listening to a concluding performance and offering suggestions for improvement.
VIS IT OUR OFF ICE
The Wisconsin Philharmonic234 W. Main Street Suite 9
