Chofu Series No.26

Date: Sat. 14. March 2026 14:00 (13:00)

Venue: Chofu Green Hall Venue Info

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Artists

Ken-ichiro KOBAYASHI, Conductor
Mayu KISHIMA, Violin

Profile

Ken-ichiro KOBAYASHI (Conductor)

Ken-ichiro Kobayashi is one of Japan's most well known conductors. He studied at Tokyo University of the Arts. In 1974, he received the 1st prize and the special award at International Conductors’ Competition of Hungarian Television in Budapest. Kobayashi is Conductor Laureate of Hungarian National Philharmonic, Japan Philharmonic and Nagoya Philharmonic, Special Guest Conductor of Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, and Principal Guest Conductor of Kyushu Symphony. He is also an emeritus professor at Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo College of Music and Franz Liszt Academy of Music.

Photo©山本倫子

Mayu KISHIMA (Violin)

First Prize winner in the First Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition in 2016.
In 2000, Mayu Kishima caused a stir in the music world when she became the youngest-ever Japanese top prizewinner in the Junior Division of the 8th Wieniawski International Competition in Lublin. She became a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium in 2009, and was awarded First Prize in the International Music Competition Cologne in 2011.
In autumn 2015, she graduated at the top of her class from the graduate school of the Hochschule für Musik, with all professors awarding her top grades, and received Germany’s national qualification for musicians.
Kishima has participated in several recordings thus far. On the strong recommendation of Vladimir Ashkenazy, who was then Music Director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra, she performed “Tzigane” on Ravel: Orchestral Works. The recording of her performance at the 2015 Progetto Martha Argerich festival in Lugano was included on the live recording CD Argerich & Friends, released on Warner Music in May 2016. In 2024, Kishima released her album Dear on the King Records label.
The Antonio Stradivari 1699 “Walner” violin has been specially loaned to Mayu Kishima by the Munetsugu Collection.

photo ©Kazumi Kurigami

Program

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor, op.64

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

Program Notes

｜Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor, op.64

Ⅰ Allegro molto appassionato
Ⅱ Andante
Ⅲ Allegretto non troppo - Allegro molto vivace
(played without pause)

Felix Mendelssohn: Born in Hamburg, February 3, 1809; died in Leipzig, November 4, 1847

Mendelssohn wrote his E-minor Violin Concerto for his friend Ferdinand David, concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. In July of 1838, the composer had written to David: “Iʼd like to write a violin concerto for you next winter; one in E minor sticks in my head, the beginning of which will not leave me in peace.” One year later Mendelssohn wrote again, saying that he needed only “a few days in a good mood” to write the concerto. “But it is not, to be sure, an easy assignment; you want it to be brilliant, and how should someone like me do that? The whole first solo will consist of high Eʼs.” Early sketches reveal that Mendelssohn had indeed written a large number of high Eʼs, but by the time of the finished product in 1844 he had obviously reconsidered. Along the way, while David waited and waited for his concerto, those “high Eʼs” seem to have become something of a private joke. Mendelssohn finally completed the work in September of 1844.
It was well worth the wait. The sense of facility and effortless grace, its polish and eternal freshness, and the amiable, genteel mood it generates totally belie Mendelssohnʼs effort to compose it. Critic Philip Hale asserted that “the concerto always, under favorable conditions, interests and promotes contagious good feeling.” David was of course the soloist at the premiere, which took place at a Gewandhaus concert in Leipzig on March 13, 1845.
There is no opening orchestral introduction; the soloist enters with the main theme almost immediately. All three movements are joined, with no formal pauses to break the flow. Mendelssohn places the cadenza at the juncture of the development section and the recapitulation, with the soloist continuing on as accompanist after the orchestra reenters. Thus, the cadenza assumes a more important dramatic and structural role within the movementʼs design.
The term “well-bred” is often invoked to describe this concerto, and nowhere better does it serve than for the quiet rapture and poetic beauty of the second movementʼs principal theme. A moment of sweet melancholy in A minor intrudes briefly, with trumpets and timpani adding a touch of agitation. The principal theme then returns in varied repetition and a gently yearning passage, again in A minor, leads to the finale.
As in the two previous movements, the soloist gives the first presentation of the principal theme, one of elfin lightness and gaiety. The mood of this movement has often been compared to that of the fairyland world of an earlier Mendelssohn score, his music for A Midsummer Nightʼs Dream.

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.
　

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