Subscription Concert C Series

Subscription Concert No.968 C Series

This concert is over. Date: Sun. 19. February 2023 14:00 (13:00)

Venue: Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Venue Info Seat

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Artists

Yan Pascal TORTELIER, Conductor
Benjamin BEILMAN, Violin

Profile

Yan Pascal TORTELIER (Conductor)

Yan Pascal Tortelier enjoys a distinguished career as guest conductor of the world’s most prestigious orchestras. He began his musical career as a violinist and, at fourteen, won first prize for violin at the Paris Conservatoire, making his soloist debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra shortly afterward. Following general musical studies with Nadia Boulanger, Tortelier studied conducting with Franco Ferrara at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.

In 2020 Yan Pascal Tortelier concluded his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra with whom he has built a very special relationship in this role during recent seasons. Former positions have included Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Ulster Orchestra (1989-1992) and Principal Guest Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (2005-2008). He was also Principal Conductor of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra from 2009-2011. Following his outstanding work as Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic between 1992 and 2003, including annual appearances at the BBC Proms and a very successful tour of the US to celebrate the orchestra’s 60th anniversary season, he was given the title of Conductor Emeritus and continues to work and record with the orchestra regularly.

Benjamin BEILMAN (Violin)

Born in 1989, Benjamin Beilman studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank. and at the Kronberg Academy with Christian Tetzlaff. His international career was launched after winning two first prizes in 2010 at the Montreal International Musical Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York.
He has performed with notable conductors and orchestras including Marriner, Nézet-Séguin, Chani, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. He has given recitals at the venues such as Berliner Philharmonie, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and Wigmore Hall, and has appeared at music festivals such as Aix-en-Provence and Verbier. In recent years, he has been deeply involved in contemporary music.
His debut album “Spectrum” was released from Warner Classics in March 2016.
He plays the “Ysaye” Guarneri del Gesu from 1740 on loan from Nippon Music Foundation.

photo:©Sophie Zhai

Program

Lalo: Violin Concerto No.2 in D minor, op.21, "Symphonie espagnole"

Program Notes
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, op.14

Program Notes

Lalo: Violin Concerto No.2 in D minor, op.21, “Symphonie espagnole”
　
Ⅰ Allegro non troppo
Ⅱ Scherzando: Allegro molto
Ⅲ Intermezzo: Allegretto non troppo
Ⅳ Andante
Ⅴ Rondo: Allegro

Edouard Lalo: Born in Lille, January 27, 1823; died in Paris, April 22, 1892

　　Edouard Lalo was descended from an old Spanish family that had settled in France over two centu-ries previously. Although he was a Frenchman and was trained at the Paris Conservatoire, his musi-cal style gravitated more towards the Spanish and the German. Apropos of the former, Laloʼs com-patriot Paul Dukas wrote: “Lalo seems to us, above all, an artist of Mediterranean sensibility whose music, in its wonderfully spontaneous outpouring, naturally takes on the aspect of idealized dance.”
　　The allure of Spain, with its passionate spirit, flamboyant rhythms, dazzling local color and exotic aura, captivated any number of French composers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu-ries. The most famous of these include Bizet (Carmen), Chabrier (España), Debussy (Ibéria), Ravel (Rapsodie espagnole) and Ibert (“Valencia” from Escales). Lalo too fell under the spell of Spain, and incorporated elements of its music into his Symphonie espagnole. It remains the only work by this composer still in the popular repertory. One occasionally hears the overture to his opera Le Roi dʼYs; rarer still are performances of the ballet suite Namouna and the Symphony in G minor.
　　Lalo labored for years before he found public acclaim. His earliest compositions were written in the 1840s. Lack of recognition drove him to playing viola for nearly ten years in the Armingaud-Jacquard Quartet. (He also played violin and cello.) In 1865 he married the beautiful contralto Julie Bernier de Maligny, who inspired him to take up composition again. A Divertissement brought Lalo some recognition, but it was the two works written for and premiered by the great Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate that won the composer real fame: the Violin Concerto, Op. 20 (pretty much for-gotten today), followed immediately by the Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21.
　　The Symphonie espagnole belongs to that category of hybrid works that donʼt fit easily into any of the established genres. Part symphony, part concerto, part suite, the Symphonie espagnole has nev-ertheless managed to maintain a firm hold on the hearts of both violinists and audiences ever since its premiere in Paris on February 7, 1875. When Tchaikovsky heard it, he wrote to his patroness Nadejda von Meck: “The work has given me great enjoyment. It is so fresh and light, and contains piquant rhythms and harmonized melodies. … He shuns carefully all that is routine, seeks new forms without wishing to be profound, and cares more for musical beauty than for the old tradi-tions.” Regarding the workʼs title, Lalo had in mind “a violin soaring above the rigid form of an old symphony.”
　　The first movement is laid out in traditional sonata form with two principal themes: the first in D minor, lusty and vigorous, with an appendage set to a gently rocking rhythmic pattern reminiscent of the malagueña, which will be more fully developed in the final movement; the second in B-flat major, rather sentimental and sweetly lyrical (dolce espressivo). Both themes are briefly developed before returning in the recapitulation. Frequent and rapid shifts for the soloist from high to low range and back again are a feature of the movement, indeed, of much of the entire work.
　　The second movement falls into three sections. The outer ones are based on the rhythm of the seguidilla (a lively dance from southern Spain; another famous example is found in Carmen, premiered the same year as Laloʼs work) and employs a seductive theme; the central section is more restrained and genial.
　　The Intermezzo (in times past often omitted) begins with a thirty-bar orchestral passage, after which the soloist dominates. The rhythm is again of Spanish-Moorish origin and features the triplet-duplet pattern from the first movement.
　　A sonorous, dark-hued passage introduces the fourth movement. The soloist then weaves a long melody to which has variously been ascribed Spanish, Scandinavian and Hungarian influences. A somewhat lighthearted passage occupies the central portion of the movement, following which the main theme returns, now considerably varied and embellished with numerous trills. The movement ends in peace and serenity.
　　The rondo finale is full of gaiety, bustle, the sound of tolling bells and a return of the malagueña rhythm first heard back in the opening movement. Brilliant virtuosic writing replete with trills in the upper range, staccato arpeggios, flying leaps from register to register, and rollercoaster scales carry the Symphonie espagnole to its exciting conclusion.

Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, op.14

Ⅰ Reveries, Passions Largo - Allegro agitato e appassionato assai
Ⅱ A Ball Valse. Allegro non troppo
Ⅲ Scene in the Country Adagio
Ⅳ March to the Scaffold Allegretto non troppo
Ⅴ Dream of a Witchesʼ Sabbath Larghetto - Allegro

Hector Berlioz: Born in La Côte-Saint-André, near Grenoble, December 11, 1803; died in Paris, March 8, 1869

　　“All modern programmists have built upon him − Liszt, Richard Strauss and Tchaikovsky. Wagner felt his influence. … He is the real beginner of that interpenetration of music and poetic idea which has transformed modern art.” Thus did the English musicologist Ernest Newman eulogize Hector Berlioz, whose Symphonie fantastique stands at the pinnacle of the genre known as the “program symphony.” By the composerʼs own admission, Goetheʼs Faust contributed to the inspiration that produced the Symphonie fantastique. The power and originality of Beethovenʼs symphonies, espe-cially the Eroica, and the depth of vision embodied in the Shakespeare plays also fed Berliozʼ emo-tional and psychic appetite.
　　But by far the strongest and most direct influence on the composition of the symphony was a young Shakespearean actress, Harriet Smithson, who appeared in Paris as Ophelia and Juliet in productions by a touring company from England. When Berlioz first saw her on stage on September 11, 1827, he was so overwhelmed and consumed with passion for her that he became like a man possessed. His physical and mental turmoil are extravagantly expressed in numerous letters, from which the following excerpt is characteristic: “I am again plunged in the anguish of an interminable and inex-tinguishable passion, without motive, without cause. … I hear my heart beating, and its pulsations shake me as the piston strokes of a steam engine. Each muscle of my body shudders with pain. In vain! ‘Tis terrible! Oh unhappy one!” All this, three years after he had first laid eyes on Harriet, and Berlioz still hadnʼt met her face to face!
　　In a heroic gesture designed to attract her attention to his burning love, this most romantic of Romantics wrote his Fantastic Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist to prove to her that he too was a dramatic artist. The performance took place on December 5, 1830, though Harriett apparently was unaware of the event. Two years later, Berlioz revised the symphony and created a long sequel, Lélio, or The Return to Life, preceded by an extended spoken monologue. He mounted a produc-tion of this triple bill, contriving through friends to have Harriet in attendance this time. This event took place on December 9, 1832. The ruse worked: Berlioz eventually met Harriet and married her a few months later, but it was not a happy union, and they separated after a decade, by which time Berlioz already had a mistress.
　　The most prominent autobiographical element of the score is the use of the idée fixe, a melody that recurs throughout each of the five movements in varying guises − fervent, beatific, distant, restless, diabolical, etc., depending on the changing scene. This idée fixe (a term borrowed not from music but from the then-new science of psychology) actually operates on two levels, for it can also be re-garded as a quasi-psychological fixation that possesses the music as it possesses the thoughts of the artist of the program.
The drug-induced fantasy world of the symphony is only one of its unusual and original aspects. Not just the content, but the degree of detail Berlioz provided paved the way for the tone poems of Liszt and Strauss. Another novelty was the use of the orchestra as a giant virtuoso instrument for the conductor to play upon. (The concept of conducting as a role apart from instrumental participa-tion was still in its infancy.) But above all, it is the myriad examples of orchestral effects and tonal colors that make this work so endlessly fascinating: the otherworldly wisps of sound high in the vio-lins in the slow introduction; the distant, plaintive oboe and English horn calls, and the threatening thunderstorm heard on four differently-tuned timpani in the third movement; the terrifying brass and drum effects in the March; the grisly scraping and twittering in the introduction of the last movement, followed by the diabolical parody of the idée fixe in the high E-flat clarinet accompa-nied by a galloping figure on four bassoons; then comes the Dies irae theme in the tubas, accompa-nied by deep bells. The list could go on and on …
　　Here are some of Berliozʼ own descriptive comments about each movement:
　　Ⅰ　“A young musician of morbidly sensitive temperament and fiery imagination poisons himself with opium in a fit of lovesick despair. [It] plunges him into a deep slumber during which his sensa-tions, his emotions, his memories are transformed in his sick mind into musical thoughts and images. He recalls first that soul-sickness … then the volcanic love, his frenzied suffering, his jealous rages, his returns to tenderness.
　　Ⅱ　“He encounters the loved one at a dance.
　　Ⅲ　“One summer evening in the country … the scenery, the quiet rustling of the trees all concur in affording his heart an unaccustomed calm.
　　Ⅳ　“He dreams he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned to death and led to the scaffold.
　　Ⅴ　“He sees himself in the midst of a frightful troop of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every kind. Strange noises, groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries. The beloved melody appears again ... it is she, coming to join the Sabbath. She takes part in the devilish orgy.”

Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.

【Soloist Encore】（2/19up）
J.S.Bach：Violin Sonata No.3 in C major, BWV 1005-3
Largo
　（Benjamin BEILMAN, Violin）

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Supported by The Nippon Foundation
　　

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