TMSO Special（2/17）

This concert is over. Date: Sat. 17. February 2024 14:00 (13:00)

Venue: Suntory Hall Venue Info Seat

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Artists

Eliahu INBAL, Conductor
Jaye LADYMORE, Speaker *
Akiko TOMIHIRA, Soprano *
New National Theatre Chorus, Chorus *
The Little Singers of Tokyo, Children’s Chorus *

Profile

Eliahu INBAL (Conductor Laureate)

Eliahu Inbal was born in Jerusalem in 1936. He held numerous chief posts with orchestras such as Frankfurt Radio Symphony (hr-Sinfonieorchester), Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Teatro la Fenice di Venezia, and Czech Philharmonic. He was appointed Conductor Laureate of Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in 2014. Many CDs of live performances by Inbal and TMSO are winning great acclaim. He was decorated by French and German Government, and by the cities of Frankfurt and Wien.

Jaye LADYMORE (Speaker)

Jaye Ladymore is excited to make her debut with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. She has previously performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Marin Alsop at the internationally renowned Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL. Ms. Ladymore has performed on numerous regional stages across the US, namely the Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago and American Players Theater in Wisconsin. She received the 2019 Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her work at TimeLine Theatre, an honor for which she is extremely grateful. In addition to performing on stage, Ms. Ladymore has appeared in multiple TV shows like Empire, Chicago Med, Chicago PD, The Chi and Proven Innocent. She garnered a series regular role on the hit show The 4400 in 2021 and has enjoyed featured roles in the movies An Acceptable Loss and Killing Eleanor. Jaye is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA. She is represented by Stewart Talent.

Akiko TOMIHIRA (Soprano)

Akiko Tomihira graduated of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, She also completed graduate school. After she received grant by The Meiji Yasuda Cultural Foundation, She continues to studied at Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart.
In 2005, She received Richard Wagner Scholarship.
In 2006 She matriculate to Bavarian State Theater Opera Studio. At Bavarian State Theater, she sung Der Rosenkavalier, Hänsel und Gretel, Die Zauberflöte. At that period, she performed with Peter Schneider, Kent Nagano at Bavarian State Theater.
In Germany, She also performed Le Nozze di Figaro and The Merry Widow. In Japan, She performed La Boehme, Die Zauberflöte, Ariadne auf Naxos、 Der Freischütz, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Kinkakuji, Fidelio.
In 2021 her performance at Lulu received unprecedented praise.
A member of Nikikai.

New National Theatre Chorus (Chorus)

New National Theatre, Tokyo, opened in October 1997 as the only national theatre for the modern performing arts of opera, ballet, contemporary dance, and play. Meanwhile, New National Theatre Chorus started its career and has played a central role in many opera performances all through the seasons. Their ensemble ability and rich voices have achieved acclaim from co-starred singers, conductors, directors, stage staffs as well as domestic and foreign media.

The Little Singers of Tokyo (Children’s Chorus)

The Little Singers of Tokyo (LSOT) formed in 1951 with the concept “for Japanese children to sing Renaissance works”. The founding spirit continues today with a repertoire focusing on authentic choral works based on traditional European music. LSOT covers a wide range of music from Gregorian Chants to contemporary works. In addition to the regular concerts held twice a year, LSOT has made 33 overseas concert tours. They have also appeared with many orchestras and opera theaters at home and abroad, and have performed with maestros such as Abbado, Luisi, and Muti.

Program

Shostakovich: Symphony No.9 in E-flat major, op.70

Program Notes
Bernstein: Symphony No.3 “Kaddish” *

Program Notes

Shostakovich: Symphony No.9 in E-flat major, op.70

Ⅰ Allegro
Ⅱ Moderato
Ⅲ Presto
Ⅳ Largo
Ⅴ Allegretto

Dmitri Shostakovich: Born in St. Petersburg, September 25, 1906; died in Moscow, August 9, 1975

　If there is a thread that runs through Shostakovichʼs canon of fifteen symphonies, it is the element of unpredictability from one to the next. The Ninth proved as much of a surprise as the previous eight; in fact, more so. Shostakovich wrote it in the summer of 1945, immediately following the end of World War II in Europe. Everyone fully expected that this would be a work on a grand scale, not only to celebrate the end of the war, but as a capstone to his trilogy of war symphonies and as a worthy continuation to the hallowed tradition of great Ninths by other composers (Beethoven, Schubert, Dvořák, Bruckner, Mahler, etc.). But what Shostakovich revealed to the public at a concert in Leningrad on November 3, 1945 was a relatively short, unpretentious piece shot through with sardonic humor, verve and wit. There was no heroic grandeur, no dedication, no apotheosis, no chorus … nothing remotely like the grandiose hymn to victory or tribute to the war dead everyone was expecting. Stalin was incensed, the public was confused, the critics were disappointed.
　Well, times change. The Ninth Symphony is now happily accepted for what it is, rather than rejected for what it is not and never attempted to be. “A merry little piece” was the composerʼs own description. Laurel Fay, a musicologist specializing in twentieth-century Russian music, calls the symphony “an escape, a cheerful celebration, perhaps even a hopeful look into the future.” The English musicologist Robert Layton finds hints of a darker world: “There is a restless movement, as if the comedy provided a distraction for events working at a deeper level whose shape is never clearly defined.” The assessment of Richard Rodda, writing for the Cleveland Orchestra, is darker still: “The referential framework of the symphony is almost certainly one of irony, or even of bitterness, so that the brilliant, chuckling surface of the music masks, perhaps, anger or sadness of derision or some burning frustration for which there is no name.” Shostakovichʼs Ninth may not be a masterpiece on the order of Beethovenʼs or Brucknerʼs Ninth, but it has a curiously ambivalent character that focuses attention and provokes contemplation. Here is Laurel Fayʼs thoughtful summary of the workʼs achievement:
　“Critics, both Soviet and Western, will undoubtedly continue to argue the merits of Shostakovichʼs Ninth Symphony. That it is so different in style and substance from the symphonies which immediately preceded it, that it was a wholly unexpected and not inappropriate response to a perceived historical necessity, are issues which are bound to stimulate further debate among those determined to explain and justify the continuity of Shostakovichʼs creative development. Taken on its own terms, though, as a piece of absolute music, the symphony eloquently justifies itself.”
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.
　

Bernstein: Symphony No.3 “Kaddish”

Ⅰ Invocation - Kaddish 1
Ⅱ Din Torah - Kaddish 2
Ⅲ Scherzo - Kaddish 3 - Finale

Leonard Bernstein: Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, August 25, 1918; died in New York City, October 14, 1990

　Each of Leonard Bernsteinʼs three symphonies is utterly different from the other two, but they are all programmatic in content, and one theme unites them all: man and his search for meaning and spiritual sustenance in the modern world. The Third Symphony (Kaddish) focuses on manʼs crisis of faith even more potently than had the First (Jeremiah) or the Second (The Age of Anxiety). Bernsteinʼs Kaddish Symphony actually bears more in common with oratorio than it does with symphony, and it incorporates theatrical elements as well. But regardless of its designated genre, it remains a powerful, if controversial work. The controversy revolves mainly around Bernsteinʼs own texts, which have been held up to ridicule and to charges of pretentiousness, vulgarity and even blasphemy.
　Kaddish (sanctification or holy) is the prayer Jews chant at the graveside and at memorial occasions in the home or at synagogue. Yet there is not a single mention of the word “death” in the text. On the contrary, Kaddish is an affirmation of life and a hymn of praise to God, ending with a plea for peace. Bernstein set this text three times, each movement expressing the text in a different mood − disturbing, tenderly comforting and wildly excited. To this text, sung in Hebrew and Aramaic (the ancient language spoken by Jesus), Bernstein added narrative texts of his own. These texts thrust man into direct confrontation with his God as man addresses Him in intimate, angry, accusatory and challenging tones. Bernstein was concerned that many Jews would find this language and tone offensive. A scholar of Hebrew literature and philosophy in Tel Aviv was consulted, and the response was that he could find no valid reason for taking offence; moreover, there had been many precedents for this type of commentary in Jewish and Hebrew literature, and even in the Bible (Jacob, Job, Moses, etc.).
　Humphrey Burton, in his monograph on the composer, observes: “That the Kaddish Symphony would also jolt concert-going audiences out of their seats by the brutality of its assault on received ideas of religion and manʼs relationship with God was characteristic of Bernstein's flair for the grand gesture … his intention was to express in a spectacular way the loss of faith experienced by people of all religions, not just the Jews, in a century dominated by senseless killing and destruction. And what could be more dramatic than a frontal attack on God?” Underscoring Burtonʼs comment was the event that led to the dedication to John F. Kennedy. While Bernstein was orchestrating the final “Amen” pages of the score, he received news that Kennedy had been shot, and later that he had died. Bernstein knew immediately to whom the dedication must go.
　The Symphony resulted from a joint commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the Boston Symphony Orchestra on occasion of its 75th anniversary in 1956. Bernstein was asked to write something for the Orchestra, but did not begin serious work on it until 1961. The work for orchestra, mixed chorus, boys choir, speaker, and soprano soloist was completed in November of 1963. The Boston Symphony waived the right for the world premiere when Bernstein requested that the honor go to the Israel Philharmonic. This premiere was given in Tel Aviv on December 10, 1963 with Bernstein conducting. The speaker was Hannah Rovina, one of Israelʼs leading actresses. Such was its success that two extra performances had to be added to the nine already scheduled.
　The Boston Symphony under Charles Munch (returning as guest conductor) gave the first American performance on January 31, 1964, for which occasion Bernsteinʼs wife, Felicia Montealegre (also from the world of professional theater), took the role of the speaker. Here the reception was mixed, with the Boston Globeʼs music critic Michael Steinberg calling Bernsteinʼs texts “a lava-flow of clichés.” Steinbergʼs scathing review aroused almost as much controversy as the new symphony.
　Bernstein substantially revised portions of the Symphony in 1977, particularly the spoken texts. At this time he also consented that the speaker could be either a woman (as in the original version) or a man. This revised version, with Michael Wager as the speaker, was also presented by the Israel Philharmonic, this time on Bernsteinʼs 59th birthday (August 25, 1977) in Mainz, Germany.
　The spiritual journey from angry accusations and despair to joy and jubilation is accomplished in a forty-minute span of three connected movements. Several themes and motifs play a part in conferring musical unity. One is the three-note motif heard at the very outset in the flutes; another is what Bernstein calls the Kaddish tune, a gently flowing melody played usually by the strings. Its eclectic style incorporates everything both twelve-tone writing to unabashed tonality. There is hand-clapping, foot-stomping, jazz rhythms, and a huge percussion department that amounts to a small orchestra in itself. This symphony still generates controversy.
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.
　

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