TMSO Special（7/16）

This concert is over. Date: Tue. 16. July 2024 14:00 (13:00)

Venue: Suntory Hall Venue Info Seat

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Artists

Alan GILBERT, Conductor
Daishin KASHIMOTO, Violin
Amihai GROSZ, Viola

Profile

Alan GILBERT (Principal Guest Conductor)

Alan Gilbert is Principal Guest Conductor of TMSO, Principal Conductor of NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Music Director of Royal Swedish Opera, Conductor Laureate of Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at Juilliard School. He was also Music Director of New York Philharmonic between 2009 and 2017. Gilbert makes regular guest appearances with orchestras including Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestre de Paris, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra. He has appeared at Metropolitan Opera, LA Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Semperoper, and Oper Zürich, among others.

Daishin KASHIMOTO (Violin)

Daishin Kashimoto is First Concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker and a soloist in high demand across the globe. He is first prize winner of a long list of competitions, including the “6th Menuhin International Junior Violin Competition” in England in 1993, the “International Competition for Violinists in Cologne“ in 1994 and in 1996, both the “International Fritz Kreisler Violin Competition” in Vienna and the “Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition for Piano and Violin” in Paris. He is also active in the field of chamber music. Since 2007, he has served as music director at annual international chamber music festival “Le Pont” in Ako and Himeji in Japan. In 2023, the world premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s new violin concerto “Prayer” was performed by Daishin Kashimoto and the Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by Mo. Paavo Järvi at the Philharmonie Berlin. He plays on a Guarneri del Gesu 1744「de Beriot」violin kindly loaned by Crystco,Inc. and its chairman Mr. Hikaru Shimura.

photo:©Keita Osada (Ossa Mondo A&D)

Amihai GUROSZ (Viola)

Grosz, who switched from violin to viola at the age of eleven, studied under David Chen at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, under Tabea Zimmermann at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin, and under Haim Taub at the Keshet Eilon Music Center. He received various scholarships and prizes early on, was a member of the Young Musicians Group of the Jerusalem Music Center, and played for many years in the famous Jerusalem Quartet.
In 2010, Grosz then became a member of the Berliner Philharmoniker. In addition, Amihai Grosz is a sought-after soloist – not only with the Berliner Philharmoniker – and has worked with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Tugan Sokhiev, Klaus Mäkelä, Daniel Barenboim and Sir Simon Rattle.

©marco borggreve

Program

Ives (arr. by Brant): The Alcotts from A Concord Symphony [Ives 200]

Program Notes
Mozart: Sinfonia concertante in E-flat major for Violin and Viola, K.364 (320d)

Program Notes
Beethoven: Symphony No.5 in C minor, op.67

Program Notes

Ives (arr. by Brant): The Alcotts from A Concord Symphony

Charles Ives: Born in Danbury, Connecticut, October 20, 1874; died in New York City, May 19, 1954

Charles Ives was tough, uncompromising, iconoclastic, idealistic, intrepid, and independent-minded. Small wonder, then, that he came to be generally regarded not only as the father of nearly everything American in American music, but as the father of nearly everything modern in modern music as well. The Concord Sonata, originally written for solo piano, ranks among his greatest works, yet, like most of his other compositions, it waited inordinately long to be heard − nearly a quarter of a century after its completion in 1915 (Ives had been working at it off and on for more than a decade, and he continued making revisions until 1947). John Kirkpatrick gave the first public performance of the complete work in Town Hall, New York City, on January 20, 1939.
Ives described his sonata as “an attempt to present one personʼs impression of the spirit of transcendentalism that is associated in the minds of many with Concord, Massachusetts” (during the mid-nineteenth century). Each of the four movements is named after a major American literary figure: Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts (Louisa May and her father Amos Bronson), and Thoreau.
The massive textures, complex polyphony, frightening technical challenges and vast range of dynamics and colors in Ivesʼs Concord Sonata all lend the work to orchestral transcription. In fact, Ives initially conceived each of the four movements for larger instrumental forces. Between the years 1958 and 1994, Canadian-born (Montreal) American composer, orchestrator, arranger, pianist, and conductor Henry Brant (1913-2008) brought Ivesʼs vision into reality, and conducted the world premiere in Ottawa with the National Arts Centre Orchestra on June 16, 1995. Composer and musicologist Kyle Gann calls it “a new Ives symphony, with far more chamber-like orchestration than his other symphonies, as was necessary to bring the pianistic content across. It is … faithful to the original with a devotion and intelligence that go beyond mere transcription.”
Ives described the Alcotts movement as follows: “Concord village, itself, reminds one of that common virtue lying at the height and root of all the Concord divinities. As one walks down the broad-arched street, passing the white house of Emerson − ascetic guard of a former prophetic beauty − he comes presently beneath the old elms overspreading the Alcott house. It seems to stand as a kind of homely but beautiful witness of Concordʼs common virtue. … And there sits the little old spinet-piano Sophia Thoreau gave to the Alcott children, on which Beth played the old Scotch airs, and played at the Fifth Symphony.” Ives himself recorded this movement, available on a CRI CD entitled Ives Plays Ives.

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.
　

Mozart: Sinfonia concertante for Violin and Viola in E-flat major, K.364 (320d)

Ⅰ Allegro maestoso
Ⅱ Andante
Ⅲ Presto

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Born in Salzburg, January 27, 1756; died in Vienna, December 5, 1791

A sinfonia concertante is essentially a classical concerto for multiple soloists (usually two to four). Its distinction from the Baroque concerto grosso lies in its form and its use of the orchestra more as accompanist than as an equal and opposing partner to the soloists. Paris in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries could claim the richest musical life of any city in Europe. Hundreds of fine instrumentalists clamored for concertos to display their talent. To satisfy this demand, and the demand of the paying public as well to hear these soloists in tuneful music, composers turned out concertos that featured several, often diverse instruments at a clip. This music was overtly fashionable, and was written solely to please an adoring public. Consequently, most of it is of little value, and very few of the six hundred or so sinfonias concertantes survive today. The sinfonia concertante was essentially a Parisian phenomenon; hence, the French spelling symphonie concertante is really more appropriate than the Italian sinfonia concertante. Common usage dictates the Italian for the work on todayʼs program, and French for Mozartʼs Symphonie concertante for winds.
Standing head and shoulders above all others in the entire genre is Mozartʼs Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola, K. 364, a masterpiece worthy to rank with his greatest piano concertos. It is a work of unusual depth of expression, eloquence, and breadth of scope. It was composed, oddly enough, after (not during) Mozartʼs extended sojourn in Paris in the late 1770s. Also odd is the lack of information regarding its composition and premiere. We do not know for whom it might have been written, only that it dates from the latter half of 1779 in Salzburg.
The Sinfonia concertante opens with a maestoso call to attention for full orchestra, a sound that strikes us immediately as being unusually full, rich and indicative of the breadth that will characterize the entire movement. Part of this richness is due to the use of a divided viola section, giving more weight and color to this warm-hued instrument. A world of contrasts is presented in the long orchestral introduction: full orchestra vs. selected elements, loud vs. soft, chordal texture vs. arpeggiated figuration, string sonorities vs. winds, stern military bearing vs. ardent lyricism. The soloists enter in octaves on a sustained E-flat, followed by a descending scale − a passage often described as one of “piercing sweetness.”
A profusion of thematic ideas is found in this movement. The soloists retain most of these for themselves; in fact, the movement is notable for this very lack of sharing of ideas between soloists and orchestra. (The orchestra too has its quota of unshared material.) But the soloists certainly share with each other, displaying absolute artistic parity throughout. Each in turn takes the lead, each expresses itself fully, gives its partner a say, then joins in simultaneous dialogue. The course and variety of these dialogues provides a source of endless fascination.
The Andante is one of Mozartʼs most poignantly expressive movements, darkly scored, and spiritually related to the great arias of tragic bearing in the operas. The key is C minor, rarely used in Mozartʼs day except for music of extreme pathos and intensity of emotional outpouring. The first principal idea is stated at the outset, then developed by the soloists; the second, also introduced by the orchestral strings, is one of Mozartʼs most ravishingly beautiful and elegiac themes.
The third movement is a rondo, as are nearly all classical concerto finales. Though joyous and often exuberant, it is still colored by the nobility and dignity of the former movements. Pairs of oboes, sometimes with horns, offer periodic commentaries. Unusually for a rondo movement, there is no episode in a minor key for contrast, but such has been the wealth of other kinds of contrasts in this remarkable work that the episode is scarcely missed. The Sinfonia concertante closes with the same self-assurance and grandly maestoso character with which it began more than half an hour earlier.

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.
　

Beethoven: Symphony No.5 in C minor, op.67

Ⅰ Allegro con brio
Ⅱ Andante con moto
Ⅲ Allegro
Ⅳ Allegro

Ludwig van Beethoven: Born in Bonn, December 16, 1770; died in Vienna, March 26, 1827

Every time Beethovenʼs Fifth, the worldʼs most famous symphony, appears on a program, some voices in the audience will probably be heard muttering, “What, the Fifth again?” Others will use this as an opportunity to reacquaint themselves with a work they know only slightly. And still others, probably the majority, will gladly welcome the Fifth again as an old friend, eager to delve deeper into its mysterious workings, eager for renewed spiritual nourishment, eager to learn what interpretative insights the conductor will bring to the work and to judge the performance against a background of innumerable previous performances, live and recorded, which the listener may already know. “Masterpieces are capable of infinite self-renewal,” as critic Lawrence Gilman used to say. To Robert Schumann, “no matter how frequently heard, whether at home or in the concert hall, this symphony invariably wields its power over men of every age like those great phenomena of nature that fill us with fear and admiration at all times, no matter how frequently we may experience them.”
Beethoven wrote his Fifth Symphony intermittently between 1804 and 1808, with most of the work accomplished in 1807. The first performance took place in Viennaʼs Theater-an-der-Wien on December 22, 1808. Today, more than two hundred years later, and with countless performances behind us, Beethovenʼs Fifth has not lost its power to shock and awe. Concertgoers who believe that music must have a nice tune to be viable need only remind themselves that, although the first movement contains not a single melody, it may well be the most universally recognized piece of classical music ever written. Additional forward-looking elements found in the Fifth include demands for a greater degree of technical proficiency from the musicians than in most any previous symphony, solo material for nearly every instrument, the innovative use of the piccolo, contrabassoon and trombones in purely symphonic music (though they had long been employed in opera orchestras), and the linking of movements in the scherzo-to-finale.
The opening movement consists almost entirely of an intense, concentrated onslaught of a four-note rhythmic cell that unfolds with unparalleled energy and can leave an audience gasping under its emotional impact.
The second movement provides all the melody the first movement lacked. It is in double variation form, meaning that Beethoven alternates two different themes (a favorite device of Haydn, a composer Beethoven adored). The first is the consoling subject presented in the opening measures by violas and cellos, the second is heard initially in clarinets and bassoons in Beethovenʼs familiar militaristic vein.
Beethoven did not call the third movement a scherzo, as he had in some of his previous symphonies, but it is one in all but name with its insistent pulsation in rapid triple meter. The “ta-ta-ta-taaah” motif of the first movement was not absent in the second (it could be heard embedded in the second, militaristic theme), but in the third it returns with a vengeance, blared forth first by the horns, then the full orchestra. The contrast provided by the central trio section could not be greater, the music infused with Rabelesian jollity.
The emotional peak of the symphony arrives in the finale. Traditionally, the finale represented merely a lightweight, festive ending. But in the Fifth, the finale assumes a new role, acquiring the status of triumphal solution, the grand peroration that resolves conflicts and tensions of the preceding movements. Hector Berlioz, always one to respond to innovative genius, is reported to have met his former teacher, the French composer François Lesueur, after a performance, whereupon Lesueur exclaimed: “It moved and excited me so much that my head was reeling. One should not be permitted to write such music.” “Calm yourself,” replied Berlioz; “it will not be done often.”

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.
　

【Encore】（7/16up）
Dvořák：Terzetto in C major, op.74 No.2
（Alan GILBERT, Daishin KASHIMOTO, Violin、Amihai GROSZ, Viola）

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