Subscription Concert B Series

Subscription Concert No.1006 B Series

Date: Fri. 9. August 2024 19:00 (18:00)

Venue: Suntory Hall Venue Info Seat

Purchase Ticket（English）

Purchase Ticket (Japanese) Purchase Ticket (Japanese)

Baby sitting Service

[PDF download]

Artists

Daniel HARDING, Conductor
Nika GORIČ, Soprano

Profile

Daniel HARDING (Conductor)

photo:©Julian Hargreaves

Nika GORIČ (Soprano)

Slovenian soprano Nika Gorič studied at the Ballet and Music School in Maribor, University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz and the Royal Academy of Music, London where she completed her studies with Lillian Watson and Jonathan Papp, receiving the Regency Award in 2015 (whose industry and achievement were consistently of the highest calibre during their time at the Academy) and The Queen’s Commendation for Excellence in 2017 – for the best all-round student of the year. In 2019 she was awarded Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (Awarded to former students who have made a significant contribution to the music profession). Most recently, Nika was awarded an audience prize by Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

In season 2022/2023 Nika appears in the roles such as Gilda (Rigoletto), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Eurydice (Orphée aux Enfers), Fiordiligi (Cosí fan tutte), in a concert version as Ginevra (Ariodante) and in a world premiere of an opera Blühen at the Oper Frankfurt in the role of Anna.

photo©Doris Markač

Program

Berg: Sieben frühe Lieder

Program Notes
Mahler: Symphony No.1 in D major

Program Notes

Berg: Seven Early Songs（Sieben frühe Lieder）

Ⅰ Nacht (Carl Hauptmann)
Ⅱ Schilflied (Nikolaus Lenau)
Ⅲ Die Nachtigall (Theodore Storm)
Ⅳ Traumgekrönt (Rainer Maria Rilke)
Ⅴ Im Zimmer (Johannes Schlaf)
Ⅵ Liebesode (Otto Erich Hartleben)
Ⅶ Sommertage (Paul Hohenberg)

Alban Berg: Born in Vienna, February 9, 1885; died in Vienna, December 24, 1935

　Between 1900 and 1908, when he was in his teens and early twenties, Alban Berg wrote more than eighty songs for voice and piano. In fact, he composed virtually nothing else during this period. After he began studying with Arnold Schoenberg in late 1904, the teacher later remarked that “it was impossible for him to imagine composing anything but songs. … He was incapable of writing an instrumental movement, of finding an instrumental theme.” Nevertheless, when Berg decided to publish his Opus 1, he submitted his Piano Sonata, not a group of songs. Not until many years later, in 1928 when he had fully adopted Schoenbergʼs twelve-tone procedures, did Berg look back at these songs. Bergʼs biographer Mosco Carner suggests that the composerʼs reason for doing so lay in his desire to show “from whence he really came,” namely, the romantic era of Richard Strauss, Wolf, Mahler and early Schoenberg. He chose seven songs, revised them, and had them published under the title Seven Early Songs. The texts are all to poets of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In that same year Berg also orchestrated the songs, but in this form they were not published until 1959.
　These seven songs date from 1905 to 1908 and do not constitute a cycle; nor does their order of publication conform to their order of composition. Rather, Berg organized them with a view towards musical balance and emotional contrast. If one theme can be said to thread its way through all seven poems, it is the imagery of evening and night. The Seven Early Songs were first performed as a group by Lisa Frank and the composer on a broadcast recital from Radio Berlin on February 27, 1929, though three of them had been performed in Vienna in 1907. In their orchestrated form, the seven songs as a group were first performed by Claire Born on November 6, 1928 in Vienna, with Robert Heger conducting. (Five of the songs were previously sung on March 18 that year by Wanda Achsel-Clemens.) Berg did not indicate whether the songs were intended to be sung by a soprano or a mezzo-soprano, but they lie within the range of either voice type.
　The wistful song that Berg placed first, “Nacht” (Night), is deeply imbued with both melodic and harmonic aspects of the whole-tone scale. The sopranoʼs opening phrase is virtually identical in profile to that of the beginning of Schoenbergʼs Pierrot lunaire (written about five years later), one of the seminal works of early twentieth-century music and, like Bergʼs song, set in nighttime.
　“Schilflied” (Song amongst the reeds) owes its harmonic language to Wagnerian chromaticism. The wistful text is by the poet who inspired Richard Straussʼs tone poem Don Juan, Nikolaus Lenau.
　“Die Nachtigall” (The Nightingale), written in a Brahmsian vein, is the most tonal (D major in the outer sections, F-sharp minor in the middle) and conservative of the seven songs, but even here, writes Carner, “Schoenbergʼs hand can be seen in the contrapuntal interweaving of voice and piano and [in] the imitative writing in the last five bars [for piano].” It is written in simple ternary (ABA) form, with both text and music repeated identically.
　“Traumgekrönt” (A Crown of dreams), a setting of Rilkeʼs famous poem, boasts the most intricate piano writing of the seven songs. This one is richly melodic, yet at the same time perhaps the most forward-looking of the seven in terms of its harmony and its advanced counterpoint, clearly a result of Bergʼs study with Schoenberg.
　The brief “Im Zimmer” (Indoors) was the earliest of these songs to be composed (summer of 1905). It radiates a coy charm of the sort that would not be out of place in the world of Straussʼs Rosenkavalier.
　The passionate “Liebesode” (Loversʼ ode) takes for its text a nocturne by Otto Erich Hartleben, who translated Pierrot lunaire into German. Voice and piano remain completely independent, with the latterʼs rippling figure at the beginning of nearly every bar creating an almost hypnotic effect.
　“Sommertage” (Summer days) closes the Seven Early Songs in a mood of profound yearning and surging romanticism.

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.
　

Mahler: Symphony No.1 in D major

Ⅰ Langsam. Schleppend - Immer sehr gemächlich
(Slow. Dragging. - Always very easygoing)
Ⅱ Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schunell
(With vigorous movement, yet not too fast)
Ⅲ Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen
(Solemn and measured without dragging)
Ⅳ Stürmisch bewegt
(Stormily)

Gustav Mahler: Born in Kalischt, Bohemia, July 7, 1860; died in Vienna, May 18, 1911

　Mahler began work on this gigantic symphony, nearly an hour in length, in 1884 or 1885 and completed it in 1888. The first performance was given by the Budapest Philharmonic on November 20, 1889 with the composer conducting. In 1893 Mahler attached the title “Titan,” after a novel by Jean Paul. It is universally recognized as one of the greatest First Symphonies ever composed, yet little-known is the fact that it was preceded by four juvenilia symphonies, the manuscripts of which were purportedly seen by the great Mahler conductor Willem Mengelberg in Dresden during the 1940s. No trace of them has been found since (presumably they were destroyed in the air raids of 1945) − a great loss that has deprived us of observing the path Mahler took to his boldly original First Symphony.
　Among the innovations one can point to in this symphony are the largest assemblage of orchestral musicians hitherto required in a symphony, and the incorporation of café, pop, and gypsy music into the third movement. The evocation of nature in a symphony had been realized before (notably in Beethovenʼs Pastoral Symphony and in Berliozʼ Symphonie fantastique), but nowhere else are the very sounds of nature so pervasively and integrally bound up with the symphonic thought than in the first movement of Mahlerʼs First.
　Its opening moments are unforgettable − that sustained, distant sound of strings spread across a six-octave range vividly suggests the mystery and peace of the night, into which are interjected cuckoo calls, far-off fanfares and fragments of still-unformed melodies. The mood of the lengthy slow introduction is finally dispelled by a sprightly theme first heard in the cellos, followed by another lusty, outdoorsy theme in the violins. The music grows in fervor and intensity, culminating in a mighty outburst from the entire orchestra. The release of enormous, pent-up energy is crowned by three great whoops from the horn section, and the movement continues on its merry way to its conclusion.
　The robust scherzo movement is notable for its heavy rhythmic impulses derived from the Ländler, a rural Austrian dance. Special effects here include the use of the woodwind section en masse (often up to 12 players) in featured roles, breathtaking fanfares from the horns and trumpets, and signals from the “stopped” horns with their bells raised (“stopped” here meaning the playersʼ right hands are pushed deep into the bells, choking off the sound). A charming Trio, introduced by a poetic horn call, provides gentle contrast.
　The third movement opens with a sinister, minor-key variant of the popular French folksong “Frère Jacques” (“Bruder Martin” in German-speaking lands). The original title of “Funeral March” refers to Mahlerʼs parodistic portrayal in sound of a mock funeral procession, depicted in a book of Austrian fairy-tales. Beasts of the forest accompany a dead woodsmanʼs coffin to his grave. The use of a double bass instead of a cello to begin the “Frère Jacques” tune adds a touch of the grotesque. The tune is used as a canon or round, with additional instruments taking up the tune in turn (bassoon, cellos, tuba, etc.) without waiting for the previous one to finish.
　After this material has run its course, we hear a new, sentimental theme in the oboes, this one also bearing a counter-theme, now in the trumpets. Suddenly the sounds of a country fair intrude, music of a gypsy band with its corny melodies and relentless “um-pah” accompaniment. And then, as if from another world, Mahler offers an interlude of quiet repose − almost a dream sequence − in music of sublime beauty and gossamer textures. Eventually the mournful “Frère Jacques” music returns and the movement slowly recedes into the furthermost reaches of audibility.
　Anyone who has dozed off to the third movementʼs funereal tread will be instantly and rudely shocked back to his senses with the hellish outburst that opens the finale, one of the most frightening passages in all music. Strings swirl and rage, woodwinds in their highest registers scream in anguish, brass proclaim terrifying fanfares, and percussion evoke the din of battle and cataclysmic conflicts. When the torrent of notes finally subsides, strings sing a consoling, infinitely tender and yearning song. The violent conflicts return, but this time they result in heroic proclamations from the brass. However, victory and fulfillment are not quite yet achieved. In another long, generally quiet passage, the music slowly gathers momentum, ultimately reaching a towering climax for which Mahler instructs all the horns (plus extra trumpets and trombones, if available) to stand while they deliver fanfares from within an orchestra gleaming in a thousand dazzling, spectacular colors.

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.
　

Purchase Ticket

Performers and programs are subject to change, or performances may be cancelled.
No refunds except for cancelled performances.

Purchase Ticket（English）

Members: Wed. 6. Mar
Single ticket: Wed. 13. Mar

Purchase Ticket (Japanese) Purchase Ticket (Japanese)
Member tickets Including this concert

Performers and programs are subject to change, or performances may be cancelled.
No refunds except for cancelled performances.
Please contact us for unsold seat situation.
TMSO Guide 0570-056-057 Hours: 10-18 MON-FRI Closed on SAT, SUN and NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

This number cannot be reached by international calls, some IP phones and prepaid mobile phones.