View this season`s program - Woodstock Mozart Festival

29th Anniversary Season
2015
Wo o ds toc k
O pe ra
House
Wo ods toc k, Illi noi s
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
S a nfilippo
Ba rrington
Es t at e
H ills ,
I l l i noi s
Earn your degree close to
home at the Aurora University
Woodstock Center.
Offering bachelor’s
and graduate degree
programs in:
» Addictions (CADC)
» Business
» Communication
» Education
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Evening, weekend
and online classes
are available.
Learn more at
aurora.edu/woodstock
Aurora University Woodstock Center
222 Church St. | Woodstock, IL 60098-3315
815-337-6051 | [email protected]
Join us for
PRE-CONCERT INTRODUCTIONS
in the Community Room
of the Woodstock Opera House
July 25-26
Conductor/Artist Conversation
Saturday, 7:00 P.M.
BRIAN GRONER, conductor
Sunday, 2:00 P.M. KEVIN CASE, violin
NAZAR DZHURYN, cello
August 8-9
Conductor/Artist Conversation
Saturday, 7:00 P.M.
IGOR GRUPPMAN, conductor
Sunday, 2:00 P.M.
MYKOLA SUK, piano
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W O OD STOCK MOZAR T F E ST I V A L ’ S
Resident StringTrio
presents
THE FIRST TEN YEARS
of Mozart’s Life
You are invited to attend a program about The First Ten Years of Mozart’s Life
with a narrative accompanied by projected visuals about the young composer and
his development.
Between sections of the narrative, our Resident String Trio will perform
movements of Mozart’s Divertimento for String Trio in E-flat Major, K 563.
A movement of Mozart’s Piano Trio in G Major, K. 564 opens the program.
DATES AND LOCATIONS
Tuesday, October 6th from 1:00-2:00 P.M.
Leucht Conference Center
of McHenry County College
$5 for General Admission tickets.
To order tickets, call the Registration Office (815)455-8588 and use the course ID#
NMU S17001. Or register in person at MCC in room A258. For more information,
contact Dori Sullens (815)455-8559 or [email protected]
Friday evening, October 9th at 7:00 P.M.
in the beautiful new Sanctuary of the Dupage
Unitarian Universalist Church in Naperville.
To order $20 tickets ($10 for seniors 65+ and students)
visit [email protected]
Tuesday, October 13th at 12:00 Noon
Aurora University’s Crimi Auditorium in the
Institute Building for Collaboration.
Tickets are free but reservations are required.
Please register by contacting Suzy McGary at (630)844-4924
or [email protected]
We thank the Dr. Scholl Foundation for its support of the Festival’s
educational outreach effort through the presentation of these programs
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
2015
Maija Mizens, Ph. D., President
Judysharon Buck, Ph. D., Vice President
Mark Schiffer, M.D., Secretary
Amy Ottens, Treasurer
Marcia Koenen
Al Ottens, Ph. D.
Marsha Portnoy
Tom A Svoboda, Lt., Col. Ret.
The Woodstock Mozart Festival is a member of the
League of American Orchestras and the Illinois Arts Alliance
F E ST I V A L ST A F F
Anita Whalen, Artistic and General Director
Lori Babinec, Personnel Manager/Librarian
Pat Kalina, Administrative Assistant
Alexandra Nelson, Grants and Social Media
Funding is provided by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency,
and through private, foundation, and corporate contributions.
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A MESSAGE FROM
THE PRESIDENT
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the 29th Season of the Woodstock Mozart
Festival. It is a pleasure to bring you another season
of great music.
Throughout the past year, the Board of Directors and the
Artistic and General Director have worked to sustain and
grow the Festival.
In April the spring fundraiser again was held at the Sanfilippo Estate. Thank you to
Jasper and Marion Sanfilippo and the Sanfilippo Foundation for supporting the Festival
and thank you to all who participated and helped make it a memorable evening.
Fundraisers are important to sustain and grow the Festival, so I would like to encourage
your support by attending future events and, if you can, to volunteer your time to help
make them a success.
The Festival is also continuing and expanding our outreach program with the Festival’s
Resident Trio. With a generous grant from the Dr. Scholl Foundation, later this year
Anita Whalen, our Artistic and General Director, and the Resident Trio will present an
educational outreach program, the “First Ten Years” of Mozart’s life. The program
will be presented at McHenry Community College, Aurora University, and the Dupage
Unitarian Universalist Church in Naperville. This is not only a great opportunity
to bring a great program about Mozart to the community, but also to increase the
awareness of the Mozart Festival.
Next year is the 30th anniversary of the Festival and we are already planning this
milestone celebration. But, it is your generous donations that ensure that the Festival
will be celebrating thirty years and many more. It is through your generous support
and participation in our events that this great tradition can continue. To all who have
already made a donation this year, thank you. If not, please consider one.
On behalf of the Board thank you for attending the Woodstock Mozart Festival and
remember, it is through your support throughout the year that the Festival will be
maintained and grow.
Thank you and enjoy the concerts of the 29th Season,
Maija Mizens, PhD
President
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Marsha Portnoy
Writer
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Editorial & Marketing Consultation
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Woodstock, IL 60098
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E-Mail [email protected]
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Celebrate
the Stars
We applaud the musicians, directors,
entrepreneurs and volunteers –
everyone who uses their creative drive
to enrich our communities.
Crystal Lake: 381 South Main Street H 815.479.8600
Huntley: 10101 Route 47 H 847.669.0777
McHenry: 1500 South Route 31 H 815.385.5556
Woodstock: 1290 Lake Avenue H 815.338.2300
amcombank.com
Equal Housing Lender
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Member FDIC
Cary / Crystal Lake / McHenry
◆
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program I
&
Charitable Foundation
for their support of our
opening weekend’s concerts.
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W OOD STOC K MOZAR T F E ST I V A L
PROGRAM I
Saturday, July 25, 2015 • 8:00 P.M.
Sunday, July 26, 2015 • 3:00 P.M.
Woodstock Opera House
BRIAN GRONER, conductor
KEVIN CASE, violin
NAZAR DZHURYN, cello
Cosi fan Tutte Overture, K. 588
Concerto in C Major
for Piano, Violin and Cello, Op. 56 Triple Concerto
I. Allegro
II. Largo
III. Rondo: alla polacca
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ludwig van Beethoven
INTERMISSION
Symphony No. 38, in D Major, K. 504 PragueWolfgang Amadeus Mozart
I. Adagio –Allegro
II. Andante
III. Presto
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July 25-26
BRIAN GRONER,
conductor
Brian Groner is Music Director of the Fox Valley
Symphony in Wisconsin. He is also the music director of
the Harper Symphony Orchestra in Illinois and serves as a
faculty member of Northeastern Illinois University.
As a guest conductor, he has appeared with the Shenzhen Symphony in China, the
San Diego Symphony, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and the International
Contemporary Ensemble. He also has conducted for the Moscow Classical Ballet,
the Joffrey Ballet, Ballet Chicago, Nashville Ballet, Butler Ballet and the Blair Ballet.
Mr. Groner’s concerts have been broadcast by National Public Radio in the United
States and as a champion of new music, he has conducted the world premiers of
works of more than twenty American composers.
His advanced degree in conducting is from Northern Illinois University in
collaboration with Northwestern University under the guidance of Victor Yampolski.
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July 25-26
MYKOLA SUK,
piano
Mykola Suk’s international career has spanned
four continents from the Great Hall of the Moscow
Conservatory to Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and
Carnegie Hall in New York. He has appeared as soloist
with numerous leading orchestras from the Russian
National Symphony to the Beethoven Orchestra
Bonn, and has collaborated with many outstanding
conductors: Mikhail Pletnev, Janos Ferencik, Arvid
Jansons, James DePriest and Carl St. Clair. Mr. Suk’s interviews, live performances, and
CD recordings have been broadcast throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and
Asia on prominent radio stations and broadcast systems such as WQXR and WNYC,
New York; WFMT, Chicago, and WGBH, Boston.
Recital invitations have taken Mr. Suk to the Soviet Union, France, Germany, England,
Finland, Egypt, Mexico, the U.S., Canada, Korea, China, Mongolia and Australia.
The European Piano Teacher’s Journal wrote that Mykola Suk is “…surely the most
towering and volcanic talent to have come out of Russia since Anton Rubenstein.” In addition, his
passion for chamber music has taken him to many distinguished festivals throughout
the world including the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival (Finland), Kiev International
Music Festival (Ukraine), Australian Festival of Chamber Music, and the International
Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York City.
Mykola Suk completed his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Piano Performance at the
Moscow Conservatory. He gained international recognition as the winner of the First
Prize and Gold Medal at the 1971 International Liszt-Bartók competition in Budapest,
Hungary. Before coming to the United States, he served as Professor of Piano at the Kiev
State Conservatory and Moscow State Conservatory. In the U.S., he has taught as an
adjunct faculty member at various music schools such as the New England Conservatory,
Manhattan School of Music, Columbia University, and the University of Southern
Alabama. In 2001, Mr. Suk settled in Las Vegas, Nevada where he oversees keyboard
studies in the Music Department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
A champion of 20th and 21st century music, Mr. Suk has premiered numerous works of
Ukrainian composers that were composed for, dedicated to, or commissioned by him.
His recordings appear on the following labels: Melodia (Russia); Russian Disc;
Hungaraton (Hungary); Meldac/Tritan (Japan); Troppe Note/Cambria, and Music &
Arts (USA) labels.
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July 25-26
KEVIN CASE,
violin
The Festival’s concert master, Kevin Case performs
frequently in Chicago as a soloist, chamber musician and
with several orchestras. He has served as concertmaster of
the Memphis Symphony, the Grant Park Symphony, and
the Dallas Opera, and also has been featured as soloist with
orchestras throughout North America and Canada.
Mr. Case received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music
where he was the teaching assistant to the renowned violinist Zvi Zeitlin.
Now an attorney as well as a violinist, he is the founder and principal of Case Arts
Law LLC, a boutique law firm catering to the needs of classical musicians and other
performing artists.
July 25-26
NAZAR DZHURYN,
cello
A native of Lviv, Ukraine, Nazar Dzhuryn
received his degrees from the Lviv Music
School and Moscow Conservatory where he
subsequently spent two years as an Assistant
Professor of Cello. He has performed in solo
recitals throughout Russia, Ukraine, South
America, Europe, Africa and the United States.
An active Chamber Musician in the Chicago
area, he also maintains private teaching studios,
is assistant principal cellist of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra and serves on the
music faculties of Northeastern Illinois University, Elgin Community College and
Naperville’s School for the Performing Arts. As principal cellist of the Festival,
Mr. Dzhuryn was featured during the 2013 season as soloist with the orchestra in
Haydn’s C Major Cello Concerto.
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MozartAd2015:Layout 1
5/18/15
5:19 PM
Page 1
Please Join Us for the 52nd Annual
CREATIVE LIVING
SERIES
Always More Than You Expect
Making Masterpiece: Downton
Abbey and more
Rebecca Eaton, October 15, 10 a.m.
A Food-Inspired Life
Libbie Summers, November 19, 10 a.m.
Coffee & conversation at 9 a.m.
Visit woodstockfinearts.org to read more.
Six-speaker series tickets available June 22.
Single tickets available after September 1.
To order, call or visit the Woodstock Opera House
(815) 338-5300. Woodstockoperahouse.com
Supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts
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PROGRAM I NOTES
Notes by Roger Ruggeri © 2015
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
b. January 27, 1756; Salzburg
d. December 5, 1791; Vienna
Overture to the opera “Cosí fan tutte,” K. 588
Regarded by connoisseurs as Mozart’s finest achievement in the realm of comic
opera, Cosí fan tutte was the final product in a series of Italian-style collaborations with
the librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte. Their earlier ventures, The Marriage of Figaro (1786)
and Don Giovanni (1787), are, however, more frequently performed. As the noted
authority Edward J. Dent observed: “One might say that Cosí fan tutte has always
been the Cinderella of Mozart’s three Italian comic operas; though it is hardly fair
to call The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni ‘ugly sisters.’ But they made their
way throughout the world in the course of time, whereas Cosí fan tutte was almost
completely neglected until the great Mozart revival which took place in Munich
about 1895. Even then it would hardly have attracted much notice if it had not
been enthusiastically encouraged by Richard Strauss, who in those days was a young
conductor hardly known at all as a composer.”
It is believed that the Emperor Joseph II generally suggested the story of Cosí fan
tutte when, in the autumn of 1789, he commissioned Mozart to write an opera, for
apparently such a tale was popular in upper-class circles at that time. Mozart and Da
Ponte subsequently produced an opera for truly sophisticated tastes, a work which
has been called “the last expression of 18th-century artificialism.”
Set in 18th-century Naples, Cosí fan tutte (“Thus Do They All”) tells of a cynical old
bachelor who wagers with two young soldiers upon the changeable affections of
the sisters who are their fiancées. Masquerading as foreigners, the soldiers manage,
with some difficulty, to win the hearts of each other’s “true loves.” Remarking
upon the fact that this work has been “the one most severely criticized for moral
shortcomings,” Contemporary scholar Stanley Sadie observes: “The subject of the
comedy, feminine fickleness, was found shocking even quite shortly after the opera’s
composition, and is made the more so by the convention (standing equally in Figaro
and Don Giovanni) that the action should span no more than twenty-four hours.
The opera is however susceptible to more positive interpretations, for example as a
commentary on the strength and uncontrollability of amorous feelings and on the
value of a mature recognition of them.”
Perfectly matching the miniature symmetries of the opera itself, the overture begins
with a brief Andante introduction, at the end of which is heard the Cosí fan tutte
theme that is ultimately sung toward the end of the opera. The main portion of
the overture is a bubbling Presto that is punctuated by forceful orchestral tuttis while
progressing to a final restatement of the Cosí fan tutte motive.
Continued—
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Program I Notes Continued—
Ludwig van Beethoven
b. December 16, 1770; Bonn
d. March 26, 1827; Vienna
Concerto in C major for Violin, Violoncello, Piano
and Orchestra, Opus 56
Of all Beethoven’s concertos in larger form, his Triple Concerto is the least frequently
performed. Written during 1803-04, the work was premiered in 1807, but found no
further performances during Beethoven’s lifetime. Perhaps the foremost reason for the
work’s infrequent appearance is that it requires three superb soloists to be employed in
one place at the same time. Even beyond the artistic and financial problems posed by
the piece, it was viewed by some of Beethoven’s greatest admirers as something of a
disappointment in the light of the master’s other works in concerto form.
In his considerations of Beethoven’s concertos, Basil Deane comments that “...
the division of interest and difficulty within the solo group is uneven. Neither the
piano nor the violin part would present any special problems for the artist capable
of playing Beethoven’s solo concertos; but the solo cello part was written with an
Olympian disregard for the convenience of the player, and the work is one of the
most taxing in the cello repertoire. These obstacles, however, can be, and often are,
overcome, and still the concerto has not won general acceptance. The cause must lie,
at least in part, in the quality of the music itself. In the first movement the material
of the exposition is melodic in character and is subjected to restatement within the
solo group. The middle ‘development’ section also relies on repetition of previously
heard material. The basis of the movement, then, is lyric statement and restatement,
not motivic development. Unfortunately the themes themselves do not have sufficient
intrinsic interest to justify the repetition. The Largo, on the other hand, has a
Schubertian melodic grace and makes striking use of the cantabile qualities of the
string soloists, playing together in tenths. With it Beethoven abandons modulatory
form in favour of varied repetition of lyric melody and provides a link which leads
directly to the finale, a Rondo alla polacca, whose most remarkable features are the
sprightly main theme itself and its derivations in the coda.”
One might well wonder why Beethoven wrote this work. Beethoven’s contemporary
biographer, Schindler, stated that it was written for the Archduke Rudolph (at that
time, a teen-aged piano student of Beethoven), the violinist Seidler and the cellist
Kraft; it was dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz. It is important to notice that the work
was not commissioned; Beethoven wrote it because he wanted to write such a work.
Perhaps he wanted to enthrone one of his favorite chamber ensembles in a concerto
setting, or perhaps he wanted to investigate the possibilities of a romantic version
of the baroque concerto grosso. Whatever his reasons, Beethoven knew he was doing
something novel; in a letter to his publisher, he mentioned that “a concertante with
Continued—
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Program I Notes Continued—
three such concerting parts is indeed something new.” Those who listened to the
work agreed that it was indeed “something new,” but were also very aware that the
formal considerations of triple exposition and development extended the work to an
unusual degree.
Leaping to the work’s defense, British annotator Donald Tovey advanced the
idea that Beethoven’s later concertos would not have been possible without the
achievement of the Triple Concerto. Tovey continues: “...if it were not by Beethoven,
but by some mysterious composer who had written nothing else and who had the
romantic good fortune to die before it came to performance, the very people who
most blame Beethoven for writing below his full powers would be the first to acclaim
it was the work of a still greater composer. Let us take it on its own terms, and see
what it can tell us.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 38 in D major, “Prague,” K. 504
Less than a year after the first performance of Le Nozze di Figaro, Mozart accepted an
invitation to visit Prague, where his ribald comic opera was enjoying tremendous success.
Mozart and his wife arrived in Prague on January 11, 1787, to spend a month presenting
concerts and socializing with Czech high society. At a concert on January 19th, Mozart
unveiled the present symphony, a work that he had completed in Vienna on the previous
December 6th. (In his recent study of Mozart’s symphonies, Neal Zaslaw points out that
the Finale was written on the same kind of manuscript paper that Mozart used for the
last half of Figaro; thus, he suggests, this movement predates the rest of the symphony
by about eighteen months.) Mozart’s first new symphony in three years, the “Prague”
is often regarded as a link between his earlier works in this form and the more epic final
three symphonies. Zaslaw writes: “The ‘Prague’ symphony distinguishes itself from the
sixty-odd symphonies that Mozart had previously written by being noticeably more
difficult: it is harder to perform and more challenging conceptually.” With each of its
three movements in sonata form, this D major symphony thoroughly delighted the
Prague audience.
Equally enthusiastic is the pianist-scholar Charles Rosen, who, in his Sonata Forms, writes:
“In the sonata forms, the meaning of a phrase depended on its place in the work as a
whole, on its position in the general movement from polarization to resolution. The
forms, therefore, demanded clearly separable elements whose altered functions could
be clearly recognized as they appeared at different points of the work…The Prague
Symphony, Mozart’s most massive achievement in the symphonic genre—a work which
unites grandeur and lyricism as no other—shows this play of individual and permutable
motivic elements at its highest…The opening phrase reveals the same relation between
main voice and accompanying voices and the same ambiguities that we have observed
in Haydn’s symphonies and quartets, accomplished with a delicacy, even a smoothness
Continued—
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16 ◆
Program I Notes Continued—
of surface that was not in Haydn’s range…Once again, in this work, we can see the
reciprocal relation between motif and structure in a sonata form: the motif articulates
structure, emphasizes the most crucial points, and the structure reinterprets the motif,
giving each appearance a new and sometimes radically different significance.”
Some consternation has circled around the fact that this symphony, lacking a minuet,
has but three movements. For a while it was nicknamed “the D major symphony without
a minuet.” Mozart wrote a number of symphonies in the same format; it was only the
Austrian symphonies that included minuets, his early ones based upon Italian models
were all in three-movement form. Of course, the present work is far removed from the
genre of Mozart’s early symphonies. It has been theorized that the composer felt that a
typical minuet would have weakened the overall architecture of the work; others think
that Mozart didn’t have time to write a minuet, that he postponed the writing of a
minuet, or that he substituted another minuet at the symphony‘s Prague performance.
The esteemed Mozart scholar, Alfred Einstein, dismisses the whole subject, writing that
this symphony “says everything it has to say in three movements.”
Unlike Haydn and Beethoven, who were fond of beginning symphonies with slow
introductions, this is one of only four Mozart symphonies to begin in such a manner.
(Characteristic of the monumental design of this work as a whole, its 36-measure
introduction remained unparalleled until Beethoven created a 33-measure introduction
to his Second Symphony in 1802.) Strings present the first theme of the Allegro section.
Strings reveal the second theme of this highly contrapuntal movement.
Omitting the trumpets and tympani of the outer movements, Mozart composed
a beautiful Andante whose first theme is given a divided exposition between strings
and woodwinds.
Like the preceding movements, the Finale is also in sonata form. With an air of refined
gaiety the violins present the first theme as this Presto whirls through contrapuntal
development to a sparkling conclusion.
La Bellissima
Kathleen Basista,
owner
[email protected]
www.labellissima-online.com
10 N. Williams St. Crystal Lake, IL 60014
(815) 477-3404
Hours Mon - Wed 10-6 · Th 10-8 · Fri 10-6 · Sat 10-5
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FROM THE ARTISTIC and
GENERAL DIRECTOR
Dear Friends,
It is a privilege to welcome you to our 29th season, and
especially to have been able to bring you great music for so
many years! Those of you who have been attending our
concerts know that we celebrate the legacy of Mozart, not
only by performing his works, but also the works of other
composers.
During this season, we highlight two major piano works by
Beethoven, who was very much influenced by Mozart…
Anita Whalen
his Triple Concerto for piano, violin and cello; and his Fifth
Piano Concerto, nicknamed Emperor by a French army officer who referred to it as
“an emperor among concertos.”
In 1787 Mozart met the seventeen-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna, and
remarked, “Keep your eyes on him; some day he will give the world something to
talk about.” Beethoven’s purpose in going to Vienna was to study with Mozart,
but he had to leave suddenly for Germany, where his mother was dying in Bonn.
Later he returned to Vienna just after Mozart had died. Although disappointed, he
continued his studies with Mozart’s teacher, Haydn.
We hope you will enjoy today’s concert and we thank you for your attendance. We
also hope you will continue supporting the Festival through your attendance and with
your contributions on behalf of our 30th Anniversary Season next year.
As we look to the future, we thank you for the privilege of sharing with you the
wonderful gifts of Mozart and More!
Anita Whalen
Artistic and General Director
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program II
With Deepest Apprecition
we thank
Jane & Robert
Barkei
for their continuing
sponsorship of this weekend’s
performances.
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W OOD STOC K MOZAR T F E ST I V A L
PROGRAM II
Saturday, August 1, 2015 • 8:00 P.M.
Sunday, August 2, 2015 • 3:00 P.M.
Place de la Musique
IGOR GRUPPMAN, violinist and conductor
VESNA GRUPPMAN, violin and viola
Johann Sebastian Bach
Concerto in C Minor
for Oboe and Violin, BWV 1060
(with two violins)
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro
“Estate”(Summer) Op. 8, No. 2 (RV315)
from The Four Seasons
I. Allegro non molto; allegro
II. Adagio; Presto
III. Presto
INTERMISSION
Antonio Vivaldi
Gustav Holst
St. Paul’s Suite for String Orchestra
I. Jig (Vivace)
II. Ostinato (Presto)
III. Intermezzo (Andante con moto)
IV. Finale (Allegro) The Dargason
Astor Piazzolla
The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
Summer and Autumn
Jerome Kern
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Arr: Igor Frolov
We sincerely thank Jasper and Marion Sanfilippo for
inviting us into their home for this weekend’s concerts
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August 1-2
IGOR GRUPPMAN,
violinist and conductor
Ukrainian violinist Igor Gruppman enjoys a multi-faceted career as soloist,
conductor, orchestra leader and chamber musician. Currently he serves as concert
master of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and as guest Leader of orchestras
such as the London Symphony, London’s Royal Philharmonic, and St. Martin
in the Fields. He also performs as guest soloist and conductor of the Rotterdam
Philharmonic, the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, and
during 2014-2015, the Orquesta Clasica Santa Cecilia in Madrid. Appearing in
the Unites States in this role as well, he is the Principal Conductor of the Orchestra
at Temple Square in Salt Lake City and, in the spring of 2015, launched a new
orchestra, the Soloists of Europe.
Mr. Gruppman has collaborated with and been influenced by important conductors:
George Solti, Valery Gergiev, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon
Rattle and Bernard Haitink.
He sometimes shares the podium with Maestro Gergiev, and in 2009 was invited by
him to conduct the Mariinsky Stradavari Orchestra on a tour of Asia. In that part
of the world, he also has been invited for solo and conducting engagements with the
Tokyo NHK and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestras.
Mr. Gruppman appeared in an all-Mozart program at the De Doelen Great Hall
in Rotterdam where, in addition to conducting, he gave the Netherlands premier of
Mozart’s recently reconstructed Concerto for Violin and Piano with pianist Ronald
Brautigam. He has since been asked by the orchestra to conduct his own series of
concerts, and was the conductor of the orchestra’s 2010 and 2011 proms series.
Igor Gruppman’s discography is extensive on the Naxos, Koch, and Video Artist
International labels. He is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, where
he studied with Leonid Kogan and Mstislav Rostropovich, followed by studies
with Jascha Heifetz in Los Angeles. He is now on the faculty of the Rotterdam
Conservatory.
Recently Igor and his wife, Vesna, premiered Paul van Brugge’s Double Concerto
for Violin and Viola with the Temple Square Orchestra, commissioned by the
Dutch Performing Arts Foundation. In 1994 the Gruppman Duo won a Grammy
Award for their recording of Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto for two violins, which they
performed at the Festival in 2012.
Mr. Gruppman plays the 1731 “Julles Garcin” Stradivarius violin generously
provided by the Erasmus Foundation.
“An artist of vibrant instinct and disarmingly natural musicianship.” – Classical DiscDigest
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22 ◆
August 1-2
VESNA GRUPPMAN,
violin and viola
Igor & Vesna Gruppman
Vesna Gruppman’s solo career began when she
was a teenager. By the age of sixteen, she had
performed as soloist with several ensembles
including the Munich Chamber Orchestra,
the Moscow Philharmonic and the Prague
Philharmonic. She also received the First
Prize at the Jaroslav Kocin International Violin
competition in Russia and was the first artist
to win the National Violin Competition in her
native Yugoslavia six times in a row.
A graduate of the Moscow Special School of Music, Ms. Gruppman received a
doctorate in performance and pedagogy from the Moscow Conservatory, where
she studied with legendary teachers: David Oistrakh, Yuri Yankelevich and Igor
Bezrody. As testimony to an active performing schedule, Ms. Gruppman has
appeared as soloist and chamber musician with the Dallas Symphony, Edmonton
Symphony, Concerto Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra, San Diego Symphony,
National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine, London’s Beethoven Philharmonic
Orchestra the Rotterdam Philharmonic Strings and Mariinsky Orchestra. Her
recital appearances have taken place at Wigmore Hall and St. John’s Smith Square
in London, the Hermitage Hall in Amsterdam, Kiev’s Philharmonic Hall and the
Mozart Hall in Prague.
Ms. Gruppman’s solo and chamber music recordings have received generous
reviews in international publications: Gramaphone, American Record Guide, Classical Disc
Digest and The Strad Magazines. In 2009 Video Artists International featured her
as a soloist and chamber musician. And in 2010 the Netherlands Performing Arts
Foundation awarded a commission to Vesna and Igor Gruppman for composer Paul
van Brugge’s concerto for Violin, Viola and Orchestra. The premier took place in
March 2011 with the Orchestra at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.
During Vesna Gruppman’s 2013-2014 season, she was featured in recital and on
chamber music tours of Asia and the United States and on a new DVD release for
Video Artists International. She is a professor of Violin and Viola at the Rotterdam
Conservatory, and she and her husband Igor are co-founders of the Gruppman
International Institute.
“…drive and passion…deft balance, elegant phrasing and burnished shimmer…” – LA TIMES
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23 ◆
PROGRAM II NOTES
Notes by Roger Ruggeri © 2015
Johann Sebastian Bach
b. March 21, 1685; Eisenach
b. July 28, 1750; Leipzig
Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor, BWV 1060
(performed with two violin soloists)
After seven years as Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, J.S. Bach added to
his impressive workload the musical direction of the Collegium Musicum. This
group, founded by Telemann in 1704, was essentially a voluntary ensemble of
professional and student musicians who performed regular public concerts in
gardens and coffee-houses (most likely Zimmermann’s Coffeehouse). During
the decade of the 1730’s, Bach produced many instrumental works, a number
of which were reworkings of compositions dating from his years in Weimar
and Cöthen. Unfortunately, not all the versions of Bach’s works survived into
modern times.
For example, the present concerto (BWV 1060) is known to the modern world
as a work for two solo harpsichords, strings and continuo, in a manuscript
which dates from the Leipzig period (1723-1750). It is the consensus of
scholarly opinion that the work was originally written for oboe and violin
soloists; a reconstruction of that instrumentation was made by the noted
Bach authority, Max Schneider. Consistent with Bach’s flexible choice of solo
instruments, our performances will utilize two violins performing the solo
lines. Modeled upon the fast-slow-fast concerto format established by Vivaldi,
the work is a felicitous vehicle for the solo instruments.
Antonio Vivaldi
b. March 4, 1678; Venice
d. July 28, 1741; Vienna
“Summer,” from “Le Quattro Stagioni” (“The Four Seasons”),
Opus 8, No. 2 (RV 315)
It is easy to imagine that Vivaldi’s enormous compositional productivity
was made possible by the security of his life as a secular priest in the
administration of the Ospedale della Pietá in Venice. This picture of creative
tranquility is jarred a bit by the realization that Vivaldi was charged with the
responsibility of turning parentless girls into professional-quality musicians.
The realities of his tenure (1703 to 1740) reveal that Vivaldi’s school was
involved in an ongoing struggle for survival. The Ospedale della Pietá was but
one of four such schools in Venice; their continued existence was dependent
Continued—
◆
24 ◆
Program II Notes Continued—
upon the audiences that they attracted to their concerts and their ability to
curry support from Venetian nobility.
Later in his career, Vivaldi was given the freedom to tour away from the
school. Although he was ostensibly attracting additional patronage to the
Ospedale, Vivaldi was also promoting his own reputation. Amid all his activities
away from Venice, Vivaldi upheld his responsibility to the school by sending
them two new concertos each month.
Among the notable works of this period were I Quattro Stagioni, the first four
concertos in a set of twelve published about 1725 under the collective title, Il
Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Invenzione (“The Trial of Harmony and Invention”).
The “Trial” referred to was the test of whether music and the composer’s
inspiration could create convincing impressions of specific programmatic
ideas. One of the most famous early examples of program music, The Four
Seasons was presented to Vivaldi’s Bohemian patron, Count Venceslas Morzin
(whose family later provided Haydn’s first employment). Of course, it is
reasonable to assume that Vivaldi’s young female students at the Seminario
dell’Ospedale della Pietá in Venice had already performed these concertos
by the time that the composer led Count Morzin’s orchestra in a formal
appearance. Filled with grace and wit, these concertos exerted such influence
on the creation of programmatic music that echoes of them can still be
perceived in Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony.
Vivaldi sometimes tried to make his descriptive virtuosity more evident by
writing comments within the music itself. It is believed that Vivaldi himself
later created the following sonnets for the Amsterdam edition of these works:
Concerto in G minor, Op. 8, No. 2 (RV 315) “Summer”
I. Allegro non molto; Allegro.
In the harsh season scorched by the sun,
Languish man and flock, and the pine is set afire;
The cuckoo begins to call, and soon after,
The turtledove and the goldfinch are heard singing.
Zephyr sweetly blows, but Boreas suddenly
Enters into a contest with its neighbor;
And the little shepherd weeps, for he fears
The awesome threatening storm, and his fate;
II. Adagio; Presto.
To his tired limbs rest is denied
By the fear of lightning, awesome thunder
And the furious swarm of flies and hornets!
Continued—
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25 ◆
Program II Notes Continued—
III. Presto.
Alas, his fears are justified.
The sky is filled with thunder and lightning.
And hail cuts down the proud grain.
Gustav Holst
b. September 21, 1874; Cheltenham
d. May 25, 1934; London
“St. Paul’s Suite” for String Orchestra
After a number of years in which Holst celebrated Hindu culture in his
compositions, he changed artistic directions and began to indulge his growing
interest in English folk music. This new direction soon produced the St. Paul’s
Suite (1913) and his massive work for full orchestra, The Planets (1914-16).
The present work was composed for the orchestra of the St. Paul’s Girls’
School in Hammersmith (a suburb of London), where Holst was in charge of
the music department. Externally, the work was an expression of gratitude for
new music facilities; inwardly, it marked Holst’s renewed involvement with the
folk music of his native land.
Filled with the musical fragrance of the British Isles, the work begins with a
robust Jig (Vivace). This lively folk dance which may derive its name from the
Old French word giguer (“to leap” or “to gambol”). Holst’s dance is somewhat
unusual in that it uses 9/8 meter in additional to the traditional 6/8 meter.
In the second movement, Ostinato (Presto), a repeated figure, first played
by second violins, forms the thematic essence of this whirling “perpetual
motion.”
The first section of the Intermezzo begins with a lovely violin cantalina (Andante
con moto), accompanied by pizzicato strings. Contrast is provided by an
animated Vivace second section.
The Finale is a set of thirty Allegro variations on the folk song, The
Dargason. Another famed folk tune, Greensleeves, appears as a contrapuntal
countersubject as this high-spirited movement skips to its final measure.
Ástor Pantaleóon Piazzolla
b. March 11, 1921; Mar del Plata, Argentina
d. July 4, 1992; Buenos Aires, Argentina
Continued—
◆
26 ◆
Program II Notes Continued—
“Summer” and “Autumn” from The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
The legendary modern Argentine master of the dramatically sensuous
tango, Piazzolla was a prodigy bandoneón player who led many groups with
his expressive accordion-like instrument. In 1954, the composition of a
symphony for the Buenos Aires Philharmonic won him a scholarship to study
composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Encouraged by her to explore
the possibilities of tango, he returned to Argentina and began to infuse the
elegantly sensuous dance with fantastic musical elements, including jazz,
chromaticism, fugue, expanded instrumentation and dissonance. Ultimately
known as “nuevo tango,” his music was largely dismissed by traditionalists, but
continues to gain thousands of admirers throughout the rest of the world.
The present work only came into being in 1999, when the Russian composer
Leonid Desatnikov (b. 1955) adapted four of Piazzolla’s single-movement
tangos for solo violin and strings, periodically adding little musical allusions
to Vivaldi’s Seasons. Piazzolla originally wrote these pieces for his Quinteto
Nuevo Tango, which consisted of the composer on bandoneón, plus violin,
electric guitar, piano and double bass. The earliest of these was “Buenos Aires
Summer” of 1965, which ultimately became part of his beloved “Angel” series
of tangos. In 1970, he wrote tangos associated with the remaining seasons.
Jerome Kern
b. January 27, 1885; New York City
d. November 11, 1945; New York City
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
A product of a cultured middle-class family, Jerome Kern displayed
exceptional interest and talent for music, but went along with his father’s
desire to have him join the family’s merchandising firm. After an incident
in which he was empowered to purchase two pianos, but instead committed
to buying two hundred pianos, Kern was encouraged to pursue his musical
ambitions. He studied in Heidelberg, then, in the early 1900s, went to
London’s musical theaters, where he enjoyed working with P. G. Wodehouse
as his lyricist. Kern returned to New York City in 1904 and began writing songs
for Tin Pan Alley. Within a decade, Kern began his long string of Broadway
and Hollywood successes, including Show Boat (1927) and Roberta (1933).
For that latter show, a romance about a fashion designer and a football star,
Kern wrote the enduring lyric ballad, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Igor and Vesna
Gruppman encouraged Igor Frolov to arrange Kern’s song for two violins with
piano, later having it reset for string orchestra.
◆
27 ◆
W OOD STOC K MOZAR T F E ST I V A L
MASTER CLASS
with
IGOR AND VESNA GRUPPMAN, violinists
Sunday, August 2, 2015 • 5:30 P.M.
Place de la Musique
Romance in F Major
Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827)
Banjo and Fiddle Annaliesa Caswell (Age 15) Stockton
Teacher: Rachel Handlin
William Kroll
(1901-1980)
Concerto in E Minor
Felix Mendelssohn
Allegretto non troppo-Allegro molto vivace
(1809-1847)
Sean Johnson (Age 18) Rockford
Teacher: Rachel Handlin
Caprice ViennoisFritz Kreisler
Joanna Nerius (NIU student) Belvidere
(1875-1962)
Teachers:formerly Rachel Handlin
currently Matthias Tacke
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Allegro moderato-Moderato assai
◆
28 ◆
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(1840-1893)
Dennis Anderson, CFP®
Branch Manager
Senior Vice President – Investments
Jenny Murray, AAMS®
Assistant Branch Manager
Senior Registered Financial Associate
Timothy Oman, CRPC®
Financial Consultant
The Reilly Team
Brian Reilly
Senior Vice President – Investments
David Reilly
Financial Consultant
The Wormley Team
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Senior Registered Financial Associate
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2013-1473 Exp. 12/31/2016 Member SIPC
◆
29 ◆
La Petite Crêperie
& Bistrot
On the Woodstock Square
Epicure
847-382-1677
EpicureBistro.com
Bistro
In the Barrington Foundry
718 W. NW Hwy
◆
30 ◆
FOSS PIANO
SERVICE
630-365-6440
46W009 Keslinger Rd.
Elburn, IL 60119
◆
31 ◆
◆
32 ◆
◆
33 ◆
Apple Creek
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Woodstock, IL
815-338-2255
815-2APPLE4
www.applecreekflowers.com
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◆
34 ◆
We Salute Our
ENCORE CIRCLE MEMBERS
$1,000 or More Contributors
to The Woodstock Mozart Festival
$10,000
Jane and Robert Barkei
$5,000 - $9,999
Louise and Erv LeCoque
AptarGroup Charitable Foundation
Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture
at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation
$2,500 - $4,999
City of Woodstock
Dr. Scholl Foundation
Home State Bank
Illinois Arts Council
Vivian B. Sodini and James G. Haughton
Lynn and Ray Pensinger
Isabel and Mark Shiffer
$1,000 - $2,499
Anonymous
Amy and Al Ottens
Marcia and Mark Koenen
Mary Ellen and Ed Streit
Jadwiga and Bogdan Lodyga
Tom and Sonia Svoboda
Charles Mehlman and
Anita and Charlie Whalen
Maija Mizens
Geri and Ron Yonover
The Allstate Foundation
NIB Foundation
The ENCORE CIRCLE is a special recognition association of
generous contributors who have made a gift or pledge
of $1,000 or more in a 12-month period.
In recognition of their special commitments,
The Woodstock Mozart Festival Board of Directors thanks these donors.
◆
35 ◆
program III
◆
36 ◆
W OOD STOC K MOZAR T F E ST I V A L
PROGRAM III
Saturday, August 8, 2015 • 8:00 P.M.
Sunday, August 9, 2015 • 3:00 P.M.
Woodstock Opera House
IGOR GRUPPMAN, conductor
MYKOLA SUK, piano
Divertimento in D Major, K. 125a [136]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Presto
Ludwig van Beethoven
Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major
for Piano and Orchestra, OP. 73, Emperor
I. Allegro
II. Adagio un poco mosso
III. Rondo: Allegro
INTERMISSION
Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550
I. Molto Allegro
II. Andante
III. Menuetto: Allegretto
IV. Allegro assai
◆
37 ◆
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
August 8-9
IGOR GRUPPMAN,
violinist and conductor
Ukrainian violinist Igor Gruppman enjoys a multifaceted career as soloist, conductor, orchestra leader
and chamber musician. Currently he serves as concert
master of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
and as guest Leader of orchestras such as the London
Symphony, London’s Royal Philharmonic, and St.
Martin in the Fields. He also performs as guest soloist
and conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic,
the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra and Chamber
Orchestra, and during 2014-2015, the Orquesta Clasica Santa Cecilia in Madrid.
Appearing in the Unites States in this role as well, he is the Principal Conductor
of the Orchestra at Temple Square in Salt Lake City and, in the spring of 2015,
launched a new orchestra, the Soloists of Europe.
Mr. Gruppman has collaborated with and been influenced by important conductors:
George Solti, Valery Gergiev, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon
Rattle and Bernard Haitink.
He sometimes shares the podium with Maestro Gergiev, and in 2009, was invited by
him to conduct the Mariinsky Stradavari Orchestra on a tour of Asia. In that part
of the world, he also has been invited for solo and conducting engagements with the
Tokyo NHK and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestras.
Mr. Gruppman appeared in an all-Mozart program at the De Doelen Great Hall
in Rotterdam where, in addition to conducting, he gave the Netherlands premier of
Mozart’s recently reconstructed Concerto for Violin and Piano with pianist Ronald
Brautigam. He has since been asked by the orchestra to conduct his own series of
concerts, and was the conductor of the orchestra’s 2010 and 2011 proms series.
Igor Gruppman’s discography is extensive on the Naxos, Koch, and Video Artist
International labels. He is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, where
he studied with Leonid Kogan and Mstislav Rostropovich, followed by studies
with Jascha Heifetz in Los Angeles. He is now on the faculty of the Rotterdam
Conservatory.
Recently Igor and his wife, Vesna, premiered Paul van Brugge’s Double Concerto
for Violin and Viola with the Temple Square Orchestra commissioned by the
Dutch Performing Arts Foundation. In 1994 the Gruppman Duo won a Grammy
Award for their recording of Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto for two violins, which they
performed at the Festival in 2012.
IGOR GRUPPMAN, conductor “Command of the baton, elegant musicianship, powerful music making.” - KOREAN DIGEST
◆
38 ◆
August 8-9
MYKOLA SUK, piano
Mykola Suk’s international career has spanned
four continents from the Great Hall of the Moscow
Conservatory to Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall
and Carnegie Hall in New York. He has appeared
as soloist with numerous leading orchestras from
the Russian National Symphony to the Beethoven
Orchestra Bonn, and has collaborated with many
outstanding conductors: Mikhail Pletnev, Janos
Ferencik, Arvid Jansons, James DePriest and Carl St.
Clair. Mr. Suk’s interviews, live performances, and
CD recordings have been broadcast throughout the United States, Canada, Europe
and Asia on prominent radio stations and broadcast systems such as WQXR and
WNYC, New York; WFMT, Chicago, and WGBH, Boston.
Recital invitations have taken Mr. Suk to the Soviet Union, France, Germany, England,
Finland, Egypt, Mexico, the U.S., Canada, Korea, China, Mongolia and Australia. In
addition, his passion for chamber music has taken him to many distinguished festivals
throughout the world including the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival (Finland), Kiev
International Music Festival (Ukraine), Australian Festival of Chamber Music, and the
International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York City.
Mykola Suk completed his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Piano Performance
at the Moscow Conservatory. He gained international recognition as the winner of
the First Prize and Gold Medal at the 1971 International Liszt-Bartók competition
in Budapest, Hungary. Before coming to the United States, he served as Professor of
Piano at the Kiev State Conservatory and Moscow State Conservatory. In the U.S.,
he has taught as an adjunct faculty member at various music schools such as the New
England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, Columbia University, and the
University of Southern Alabama. In 2001, Mr. Suk settled in Las Vegas, Nevada
where he oversees keyboard studies in the Music Department of the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas.
A champion of 20th and 21st century music, Mykola Suk has premiered numerous
works of Ukrainian composers that were composed for, dedicated to, or
commissioned by him.
His recordings appear on the following labels: Melodia (Russia); Russian Disc;
Hungaraton (Hungary); Meldac/Tritan (Japan); Troppe Note/Cambria, and Music
& Arts (USA) labels.
“An astonishing blend of muscular power, poetry and utter control, he will prove to be one of the
more formidable to have appeared in this country in years” – American Record Guide
◆
39 ◆
PROGRAM III NOTES
Notes by Roger Ruggeri © 2015
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
b. January 27, 1756; Salzburg
d. December 5, 1791; Vienna
Divertimento in D major for Strings, K. 136 (125a)
Amid several extensive forays in Italy with his father, Mozart returned home
to Salzburg in time to celebrate his sixteenth birthday. With Italian ovations
still fresh in his mind, the aging prodigy disconsolately settled into Austrian
small-town life. During these early months of 1772, Mozart composed three
string works, possibly intended for use at some unspecified point during his
next tour to Italy. Mozart did not assign a title to these works; a later hand
inscribed the word Divertimento. (Some present day musicologists would
not call this work a divertimento, because it lacks the requisite minuet
movement.) It is unlikely that Mozart would have objected to this designation,
for he was generally unconcerned about subtle differentiations between
divertimenti, cassations, serenades, etc. There was a time when this work and
its two companions were thought to be string quartets, but it is now generally
accepted that they are works for massed strings.
The opinion of respected Mozart scholar, Alfred Einstein, is always welcome.
Concerning K. 136, 137 and 138, he writes: “They are simply symphonies
for strings alone, without oboes and horns; or rather they tend towards the
symphonic style in the same degree that Mozart’s first quartet had tended
towards the chamber-music style. I believe that Mozart wrote them in
preparation for the last Italian journey, in order not to be disturbed during
the composition of [the opera] Lucio Silla if symphonies should be demanded
of him, and that he would then have added wind-instruments to the outer
movements on the spot in Milan, according to need and feasibility. The keys
chosen are evidence for this supposition. There is nothing of chamber music
in the first ‘quartet,’ in D (K. 136): the first movement [Allegro] is rather
a virtuoso piece for the violins, which play somewhat in the manner of a
concertante duet; the second movement [Andante] is graceful and ‘tender,’
quite in the Italian fashion; and the last [Presto] while not a rondo, has a low
specific gravity, the beginning of the development being characterized by a bit
of counterpoint.”
Continued—
◆
40 ◆
Program III Notes Continued—
Ludwig van Beethoven
b. December 16, 1770; Bonn
d. March 26, 1827; Vienna
Concerto No. 5 for Piano and Orchestra, in E-flat major, Opus 73
Having first noticed that his hearing was impaired at the age of twenty-six,
Beethoven continued to perform as a pianist, but directed an increasing proportion
of his energies to composition. By the time that he was in his late thirties, his
public performances were behind him. The four piano concertos which he had
composed and premiered were conceived in a manner that gave Beethoven ample
opportunity to display his celebrated powers of extemporization. However, with his
fifth and final concerto, completed in 1809, Beethoven created a more controlled
environment for the soloist, forbidding even the traditionally improvised cadenza at
the close of the first movement.
Written shortly after the Sixth Symphony, his Concerto No. 5 was completed during
the chaotic period of Napoleon’s siege and occupation of Vienna. During the rifle
fire and explosions, which rattled Beethoven’s residence, the composer would cover
his head with pillows in a vain attempt to preserve the remnants of his hearing.
Largely because of the political turmoil of the period, the concerto was not given a
performance until November 28, 1811, when Friedrich Schneider was the soloist in
the Leipzig premiere. A few months later, Beethoven’s noted student, Carl Czerny,
played the first Viennese performance on February 12, 1812. According to an
apocryphal tale, the concerto received its nickname at that later performance, when
a French army officer referred to it as “an emperor among concertos.” Although the
designation was not the composer’s own, the title “Emperor” has survived because it
seems appropriate to the work’s lofty breadth.
The effect of this concerto upon early audiences was very dramatic, for they were
used to the conventional procedures of the day. For example, rather than the
usual orchestral introduction of the themes, the orchestra plays a decisive chord
and the soloist immediately launches a series of rhapsodic passages that create
a sense of an introductory cadenza. After this impetuous beginning, the work
continues with a closely argued flow of heroic and contemplative materials which
range through widely contrasting tonalities. Referring to its premiere in Leipzig,
a writer for the Allgemeine Musik Zeitung stated: “It is without doubt one of the
most original, imaginative, most effective but also one of the most difficult of all
existing concertos.” A Viennese critic expressed his reaction to this adventuresome
composition from a negative stance, dismissing Beethoven as “proud and
overconfident...He can be understood and appreciated only by connoisseurs.”
I. Allegro, E-flat major, 4/4. Launched by a decisive orchestral chord, the soloist begins a
virtual introductory cadenza. After this impulsive outset, violins introduce a first theme
Continued—
◆
41 ◆
Program III Notes Continued—
which is then taken up by the clarinet. The flowing majesty of this idea is contrasted by the
violins’ softly stated second theme. French horns take up this thought before the pianist
reenters with extended treatment of both subjects. Development centered largely upon
the first theme, yields to a recapitulation and a long crescendo to the normally expected
cadenza. Breaking with tradition, Beethoven commands the soloist to play only the short
solo passage with leads to the movement’s coda. Thus, the movement ends, in the words
of Scott Goddard, “in a blaze, not of imperial splendor, but of E-flat.”
II. Adagio un poco mosso, B major, 4/4. Set apart by its distant key of B major, the serene
Adagio begins with muted violins intoning a hymn-like main theme. Ornamented
varieties of this theme are set forth by the piano; only toward the end of the movement
does the soloist present the unadorned theme. Over the sustained note of the bassoon, the
soloist subtly begins to evolve the theme of the finale and then, without a break, launches
the exhilarating theme of the final movement.
III. Rondo: Allegro, E-flat major, 6/8. Called “the most spacious and triumphant of
concerto rondos,” this finale is an ingenious combination of rondo and sonata forms.
Toward the end, the timpani takes up the rhythm of the rondo theme while the piano
plays a reflective series of chords. With a rush of ascending scales, the soloist invites the
orchestra to join in an exuberant conclusion.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550
Mozart wrote his last three symphonies, “The Great Trilogy,” during the summer
of 1788, completing No. 40 in G minor on July 25th. Considering that these three
masterworks of the symphonic repertoire poured forth from his mind within
this brief period of two months, it is curious that the area surrounding this fertile
summer were devoid of any other works of particular significance. However, if
one takes into account the problems that the composer faced during this period,
it is surprising that he accomplished as much as he did. His health was beginning
to fail, he was heavily in debt, and he was extremely depressed about the lack
of recognition that was being afforded him. To make matters worse, he was not
comfortable with his new position in Vienna as composer to Emperor Joseph II.
Following the death of Gluck in late 1787, the Emperor had to fill the prestigious
post of court composer. Although Joseph II was not fond of Mozart’s music, the
problematic genius was the only man who could creditably fill the position. On
an earlier occasion, after hearing the premiere of The Abduction from the Seraglio
in 1782, the Emperor is reported to have said: “Too beautiful for our ears, and
far too many notes, my dear Mozart.” Never at a loss for words, the composer
rejoined: “Exactly as many, Your Majesty, as are needed.” Perhaps the Emperor
recalled that exchange when he established Mozart’s salary; Gluck had earned
2,000 florins... for Mozart the fee was set at 800 florins. However, the reduction
could have been justified because of reduced demands; all Mozart had to do was
provide the court with minuets, waltzes and country dances for the elaborate
Continued—
◆
42 ◆
Program III Notes Continued—
masquerades which were then the rage in Vienna. Mozart remarked that his salary
was “too much for what I do; too little for what I could do.”
At least, Mozart’s spirits were lifted by the relative tranquillity of his new home in
Vienna. In a letter of late June, the composer wrote: “I have done more work in
the ten days that I have lived here than in the two months in my other lodgings,
and I should be much better here, were it not for dismal thoughts that often
come to me. I must drive them away; for I am living comfortably, pleasantly, and
cheaply.”
I. Allegro molto; G minor, 4/4. The sonata form first movement begins with violins
expressing a restive theme while violas and basses provide simple accompaniment.
Strings and woodwinds later reveal a less emotionally charged second theme.
After development and recapitulation, a brief coda completes the movement.
II. Andante; E-flat major, 6/8. Most classic era slow movements are in “song
form” (ABA); perhaps suggesting deeper emotional content, the materials of the
present movement evolve in sonata form. The first theme is begun by low strings
and continued by violins. Seemingly filled with sighs, a second theme is entrusted
to the violins. Lament and consolation also emerge from a third theme.
III. Menuetto: Allegro; G minor, 3/4. The graceful and vigorous Menuetto is
contrasted by a Trio section of charming simplicity. However, the dance’s minor
mode conveys an unexpectedly ominous quality that might have been intended to
disquiet perceptive aristocratic ears.
IV. Finale: Allegro assai; G minor, 4/4. Again using materials that express
themselves in sonata form, Mozart begins his final movement with the
violins’ immediate presentation of the theme. It’s interesting to recognize
the similarity between the first eight notes of this movement and those of
Beethoven’s later Fifth Symphony Scherzo (which, however, is in C minor with
somewhat different rhythm). A second theme is initiated by the violins and
later expressed by the clarinet.
Although Mozart fought off what he referred to as “dismal thoughts” in his E-flat
major symphony (No. 39), darkness seems nearer to the surface in this next
symphony. The key of G minor is perhaps indicative, for it is the tonality that
Mozart frequented for the expression of more turbulent moods. It is, however,
vital to recall that Mozart was a classicist; his expression was not that of a romantic
outpouring, but rather that of a balanced artistic statement. His Symphony No.
40 has a range of expression and a classical symmetry that is exceptional, even
for Mozart. It is fascinating to realize that our society tends to reserve the word
“perfect” to describe symmetrical structures; no matter how great the works
themselves, the word rarely seems appropriate to romantic expressions. Philip
Hale unconsciously paid tribute to this concept upon writing: “There are few
things in art that are perfect. The G minor Symphony is one of them.”
◆
43 ◆
Make it
a SWEET
DAY!
124 Cass Street • Woodstock
815.206.5224 • www.JacisCookies.com
COWLIN, CURRAN AND COPPEDGE
Attorneys at Law
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Crystal Lake, Illinois
60039-0188
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The Woodstock Branch of
Wells Fargo Advisors
is proud to support
The Woodstock Mozart Festival
The Woodstock Branch of Wells Fargo Advisors
2424 Lake Shore Dr.
Woodstock, IL 60098
815-334-2550
[email protected]
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© 2011, 2013 Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC. All rights reserved. 0114-03329 [74127-v4] A1702 (1259969_452702)
◆
44 ◆
MEET THE MUSICIANS
Lisa Fako, violin
A Chicago area native and member of the Festival
orchestra for ten years, Lisa studied with Betty
Lambert and Victor Aitay. With a bachelor of music
degree in Violin Performance from DePaul University,
she also studied with Joseph Silverstein.
An active Chamber musician, Lisa has been heard on
WFMT, with the West End String Quartet with “Corky
Siegel’s Chamber Blues”, the Chicago Philharmonic
Chamber Players and many other groups.
As a freelance orchestral player as well, she performs
regularly with many orchestras including the Chicago
Philharmonic, Lyric Opera, Lake Forest, and Elgin
Symphonies. Additional Festival appearances have
been at Tanglewood, Aspen, Strings in the Mountains, and Moab.
Paul Vanderwerf, viola
New to the orchestra last year, Paul Vanderwerf is an
active chamber and orchestral musician with a doctorate
in music from Northwestern University where he studied
under the guidance of Myron Kartman. He performs
regularly with the Chicago Philharmonic, Joffrey Ballet,
Lake Forest Symphony and Music of the Baroque. A
member of the Chicago Ensemble, Paul maintains a
private teaching studio and serves on the faculties of the
Music Institute of Chicago Academy and of North Park
University. He also teaches privately.
A long-time colleague of concert master Kevin Case, Paul will join the Festival’s Resident
String Trio in performances at three locations this October.
“I am an erring young man, like so many others,
but I can say to my own comfort, that I wish all
were as little erring as I.” – MOZART 1781
◆
45 ◆
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing
the inexpressible is music.” – ALDOUS HUXLEY
Casalena/Wilson Group
David D. Casalena, CIMA®
First Vice President – Wealth Management
Wealth Management Advisor
815.654.6351 • www.fa.ml.com/casalena_wilson_group
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◆
46 ◆
2015 Mozart Festival
ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL
Flute Violin I
Janice Bjorkman
Kevin Case, Concertmaster
Dr. James G. Haughton and
Lynn and Ray Pensinger Chair
Vivian B. Sodini Chair
Linda Korducki
Carol Dylan
Laura Hourt
Oboe
Philip Koch
Lisa Fako
Nina Saito
Jaime Duff, Week 1
Emily Knaapen, Week 3
Violin II
Clarinet Rachel Handlin
Tracy Jasas-Hardel
Christian Ellenwood
Catherine Bush
Christopher Zello
Pamela Simmons
Bassoon Erik Leveille
Lori Babinec
Charles Mehlman and
Viola
Maija Mizens Chair
Amanda Koch
Sonia and Tom Svoboda Chair
Peter Brusen
Paul Vanderwerf
Horn Olga Tuzhilkov
Michael Buckwalter
Cello
Liz Deitemyer, Week 1
Nazar Dzhuryn
Mary Jo Neher, Week 3
Anonymous Donor Chair
Trumpet
Kevin Wood
Matt Lee, Week 1
John Burson, Week 3
Timpani
Jon Mortensen
◆
47 ◆
Michael Beert
Roza Borisova
Bass
Charles Grosz
Al and Amy Ottens Chair
Personnel Director
and Librarian
Lori Babinec
2015
CORPORATE/FOUNDATION
DONORS
The following corporations and foundations have demonstrated exemplary
leadership to help ensure quality symphonic music in our community.
CONCERT UNDERWRITER: $10,000
Barkei Family Fund
Jane and Robert Barkei
SPONSOR: $5,000-$9,999
PATRON: $1,000-$2,499
AptarGroup Charitable Foundation
The Allstate Foundation
Gaylord & Dorothy
Donnelley Foundation
Foundation for Free Speech
LeCoque Family Foundation
Ronald and Geri Yonover Foundation
NIB Foundation
The MacArthur Fund for
Arts and Culture at the
Richard H. Driehaus Foundation
MATCHING GIFT: $100-$499
Bank of America Foundation
GUARANTOR: $2,500-$4,999
Dr. Scholl Foundation
City of Woodstock
Home State Bank
Illinois Arts Council
Pensinger Charitable Fund
“I should be only too happy to renounce all my
virtues in exchange for Mozart’s sins; but that
of course, I could not venture to determine
the extent of his virtues.”
◆
48 ◆
– MENDELSSOHN
Supporters of the Festival
2015 Individual Donors
CONCERT
UNDERWRITER: $10,000
Marengo
Jane and Bob Barkei
Woodstock
Anonymous
Jill B. Hartman
Linda and Mark McCormick
SPONSOR: $5,000-$9,999
Crystal Lake
Louise and Erv LeCoque
Omaha, Nebraska
Julie and Chuck Whalen
DONOR: $200-$499
Crystal Lake
Marian and Jerold Michaels
GUARANTOR: $2,000-$4,999
Woodstock
Dr. James G. Haughton & Vivian B. Sodini
Lynn and Ray Pensinger
Isabel and Mark Schiffer
Huntley
Barbara Bonner
Lucia and Gerald LaBonte
PATRON: $1,000-$1,999
Chicago
Ronald and Geri Yonover
Manhattan
Eileen and Andy Partak
McHenry
Janet and Allen Kennedy
Joan & Tom Skiba
Beth and Jim Wester
Crystal Lake
Maija Mizens and Charles Mehlman
Fox River Grove
Sonia and Tom Svoboda
Nashville, TN
Jan and Larry Pass
Naperville
Anita and Charlie Whalen
Skokie
Marsha Hawley and Peter Paul
Park Ridge
Jadwiga and Bogdan Lodyga
Spring Grove
Dianne & Edward Halpern
Rockford
Amy and Al Ottens
Uniontown, OH
Anastasia Kozer
Saint Charles
Marcia and Mark Koenen
Wheaton
Carolyn and Heather Collins
Woodstock
Mary Ellen and Ed Streit
Winnetka
Malcom Vye
Benefactor: $500-$999
Fox River Grove
Carol and Frank Svoboda
Woodstock
Helen and Mark Alizon
Norma D. Anderson
Ann Kohl
Sue and Paul Skowronski
RB Thompson
Glen Ellyn
Jeffrey Jens and Ann Boisclair
Marengo
Susan and Gilbert Tauck
Continued—
◆
49 ◆
Supporters of the Festival
2015 Individual Donors
INVESTORS: Up to $199
Algonquin
James Connelly
Island Lake
Judysharon Buck
Lincolnshire
Joseph Yashon
Sue Lerch and David Lubowitz
James G. Janossy, Jr.
Barrington
Constance and Harrington Bischof
Belvidere
Dennis F. Fancsali
Mt. Prospect
Elizabeth and John Zulaski
Bolingbrook
Mary Ellen and Donald Newsom
Naperville
Marcia and David Hulan
Chicago
Alexandra Nelson
Ernest Rossiello
Valerie Moore and Benjamin Recchie
Venessa A. Rich
Victoria A. Miller
Niles
Vivian Mitchel
Snannon
Kris Garnhart
St. Charles
James Bachman and Susan Riffer
Joann and Adolf VanDril
Crystal Lake
David Kazmierczak
Kay and Haskel Pitluck
Kris and Ron Rogers
Molly and Robert Walsh
Susan and Robert Kessler
Wheeling
Maria M. Olszak
Willow Springs
Nancy Richter
Dekalb
Daisuke Yamaguchi
Francisco J. Solares-Larrave
Winnetka
Sylvia and Larry Margolies
Evanston
James Wicklund
Woodstock
Barbara Klein
Bette and David Chwalisz
Catherine and Douglas Knuth
Gerald Crohn
Grace and Frank Greenwald
Jane and Bob Koehler
Marsha and Sherwin Portnoy
Patrician and Kenneth Johnson
Phillip C. Veramae
Sandy and Mike Neese
Susan and Richard Eyre
Forest Park
Margaret Callaghan
Gilberts
Robert Scutt
Glenview
Naomi Frankel
Huntley
Diane and Steven Hendrickson
Joyce Barker
◆
50 ◆
SPECIAL
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Festival’s Board of Directors wishes to thank
the following individuals and organizations
for their gifts-in-kind to the
Woodstock Mozart Festival
The Woodstock Opera House staff for their generous assistance
Mark Foss of Foss Piano Service
for tuning services
Elisabeth Crisp of Apple Creek Flowers
for Festival floral arrangements
GNT Limousine for providing complimentary travel arrangements
of Mozart Festival soloists and special guests
Best Western of Woodstock for hosting
our guest artists, and the
Woodstock’s Quality Inn for our staff accommodations
Christopher Borg for Festival Photography
Steven Salzbrunn of Krea’tiv Edge
for publicity design work
Lette’r Rip Mailing Service for their exemplary service
Greg Dunham of Lindgren, Callihan, Van Osdol and Co., Ltd.
for our financial audit
Indepth Graphics and Printing, for donating their special efforts in the
compilation of this year’s program booklet
“Does it not seem as if Mozart’s works become
fresher and fresher the oftener we hear them?”
– SCHUMANN
◆
51 ◆
The Woodstock Opera House was built in 1889 to house City
Hall, the public library, fire department and a second-floor
auditorium. A production of the play Margery Daw presented
by the Patti Rosa Company provided the inaugural performance
on September 2, 1890 filling the main floor and balcony of the
auditorium to capacity.
The Opera House soon became McHenry County’s center for
entertainment and hospitality with touring vaudeville, minstrel,
and dramatic companies providing diversion after a week’s labor.
Farmers’ wives chatted among themselves in the “parlour” while
their husbands attended market.
When the traveling circuits disappeared, the House became
the site for the Chicago area’s first summer stock theatre.
Produced in 1934 by Roger Hill, headmaster of Woodstock’s
Todd School for Boys, the Shakespeare plays starred his young
student, Orson Welles.
In 1947 the Woodstock Players was formed by citizens and
provided acting experience for students graduating from the
Goodman School. Now-famous personalities Paul Newman, Tom
Bosley, Betsy Palmer, Geraldine Page, Shelley Berman, and Lois
Nettleton were among them.
In 1972 the Opera House was declared a “landmark” by the
city. It was later closed for two years of restoration work. It reopened in February 1977 and was renamed the Woodstock Opera
House Community Center. The Opera House was considered
fully restored with the final addition of the front Portico in 1999.
The building continues to be owned and proudly maintained by
the City of Woodstock and local residents. It features historic furnishings, stained glass windows, tin ceilings, original woodwork
and hand drawn stencil ornamentations.
In 2003 a new annex was completed. It provides disability
access, a freight elevator, back stage areas, offices and the Stage
Left Café. This important addition ensures a new century of performances and an artistic outlet to service the people of McHenry
County and northern Illinois.
◆
52 ◆
The Woodstock Opera House
The Woodstock Opera House is owned and proudly maintained
by the City of Woodstock as a service to the public.
WOODSTOCK CITY COUNCIL
Dr. Brian Sager, Mayor
COUNCIL MEMBERS
Daniel Hart, Maureen Larson,
Mark Saladin, Joseph Starzynski,
RB Thompson and Michael A. Turner
Roscoe C. Stelford III, City Manager
WOODSTOCK OPERA HOUSE STAFF
Managing Director...........................................................John H. Scharres
Technical Director.............................................................Joe McCormack
Technical Assistant............................................................. Nathan Knapke
Building Manager ............................................................. Mark Greenleaf
Office Manager .................................................................. Lori Steinkamp
Box Office Manager..........................................................Daniel Campbell
Box Office Assistant........................................................... Gerri Granzetto
House Managers.............................................Letitia Lyon & Nancy Canty
◆
53 ◆
P
rt f lac
& or e
M
us
ic
Arts Park presents
A
A
Lakeside Legacy
Concerts Events Great Live Music
Visit LakesideLegacy.org for full schedule of events & to buy tickets.
LAKESIDE LEGACY FOUNDATION
ART FAIR AT THE DOLE
September 5th & 6th 10am - 5pm
Presenting Sponsor
Purchase original works of art Wide variety of mediums Fine Art Free to attend Food & Wine
401 Country Club Road, Crystal Lake, IL 60014 ~ 815.455.8000
◆
54 ◆
WOODSTOCK MOZART FESTIVAL
2015 Advertisers
La Bellissima
Lakeside Legacy Arts Park
Lynn Carlson, Art Appraiser
Marsha Portnoy, Writer
Merrill Lynch
Music Makers for Life, Inc.
Northern Public Radio
Polish-American Medical Society
Read Between The Lynes
Stage Left Cafe
Studio 2015 Jewelry
The Oaks Dental Ctr., Ltd.
Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC
Wipfli CPAs & Consultants
Woodstock Fine Arts Asso.
Young Masters Martial Arts
1776 Restaurant
American Community Bank & Trust
Apple Creek Flowers
Aptargroup
Aurora University Woodstock Center
Baxter & Woodman, Inc.
Benjamin F. Edwards & Co.
Best Western, Woodstock Inn
Celsis Int’l, Ltd.
Centegra HealthSystem
Cowlin Curran & Coopege, Attys.
Epicure Bistro
Foss Piano Service
Fox Frame Shop, LLC
GNT Limousine
Jaci’s Cookies
◆
A special note of thanks to all of our advertisers.
We encourage our audience to patronize
these festival supporters.
◆
LIKE us on
“Did you know you can now connect
with the Woodstock Mozart Festival on Facebook?”
That’s right, the Mozart Festival is available online
with photo galleries, articles, and great messages about us.
“Like” us here www.facebook.com/WoodstockMozartFestival
to get updates about the festival.
◆
55 ◆
Become a Friend
of the Festival
…AND HELP KEEP OUR
Mozart
Marvelous!
The Woodstock Mozart Festival is a world-class musical event that
enjoys an international reputation. Yet it is a “homegrown” effort
that relies on the energy and dedication of volunteers. Right now,
the Festival is looking for a few good friends who can donate three
or four hours of their time to assist us with activities and events.
YES, I’m interested in helping out as a Friend of the
Festival. Please contact me:
Name_________________________________________________
Address _______________________________________________
Phone________________________________________________
Email_________________________________________________
Please send to: Festival Friends
Woodstock Mozart Festival
P.O. Box 734
Woodstock, IL 60098
Thank You!
◆
56 ◆