34

MAHLER SYMPHONY 10

Gustav Mahler, c. 1907

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CONCERT PROGRAM

Peter OundjianMusic Director

William RowsonFanfare: Sesquie for Canada’s 150th (Apr 6 only; WORLD PREMIÈRE/TSO CO-COMMISSION)

Christine DonkinHopewell Cape: Sesquie for Canada’s 150th (Apr 7 only; TSO PREMIÈRE/TSO CO-COMMISSION)

Robert SchumannCello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129I. Nicht zu schnell –

II. Langsam –

III. Sehr lebhaft

Intermission

Gustav Mahler/compl. Deryck CookeSymphony No. 10 in F-sharp Minor/MajorPart I:

1. Andante – Adagio

2. Scherzo I: Schnelle Viertel

Part II:

3. Purgatorio: Allegretto moderato

4. Scherzo II: Allegro pesante

5. Finale: Langsam, schwer – Allegro moderato

Thursday, April 6, 2017

8:00pm

Friday, April 7, 2017

7:30pm

Thomas Dausgaardconductor

Joseph Johnsoncello

Our own Principal Cello Joseph Johnson takes centre stage in this concert, with Toronto favourite Thomas Dausgaard leading the Orchestra. Schumann’s Cello Concerto is one of his most personal works, somewhat enigmatic in its refusal to embrace virtuosity for the sake of virtuosity. This is a very restrained piece, with no overt showiness (even the cadenza is very brief and is actually accompanied); it contains some of Schumann’s most intimate music, especially in the short but moving slow movement. Mahler’s symphonic odyssey was quite remarkable. From the wide-ranging First, through the powerhouse Fifth and Sixth, to the celebratory Eighth and deeply unsettling Ninth, his symphonies are visionary. The Tenth is the true summation of this great trajectory, written at the height of his abilities. It embraces a new kind of music, more astringent and challenging, but still beautiful and engaging.

Please note that these performances are being recorded for online release at TSO.CA/CanadaMosaic.

The April 6 concert is generously supported by George Fierheller.

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THE DETAILS

The five years that Schumann spent in Dresden

produced little in the way of reward, artistically or

financially. Relief arrived in the autumn of 1849

when an old friend, Ferdinand Hiller, wrote to

offer the position of Municipal Music Director in

another German city, Düsseldorf. After a lengthy

period of hesitation, Schumann accepted the

job. It was his first public office—and it proved to

be his last.

One almost immediate product of the move was

his “Rhenish” Symphony, No. 3. Another was this

concerto, which he composed with typical speed.

Far from typical were the doubts about it that

arose later (as did the mental illness that would

lead to his death). Seeking to improve and polish

it, he went over it with several prominent cellists.

As late as 1854, the year it was published, he was

still tinkering with details. For unknown reasons,

the concerto does not appear to have been

performed in public until four years after his death.

The first significant cello concerto of the

nineteenth century, it is a beautiful, poetic work,

created virtually as much with the orchestra in

mind as the solo instrument. It continues two

of Schumann’s favoured procedures: the entire

piece is performed as a single, uninterrupted

whole, and some of its themes recur throughout

the piece, not just in one movement.

It opens with a brief, gentle orchestral prelude,

followed by a lyrical cello theme. The second

subject is romantic, as well. The movement

gains its sense of drama and conflict from the

development of these ideas and their interaction

with the orchestral theme heard at the start.

There is no solo cadenza. Instead, a quiet

transitional passage leads into the slow section.

Pizzicato strings introduce this haunting, dream-

like song without words, music perfectly suited

to the expressive side of the cello’s personality.

Schumann recalls the concerto’s prelude in the

passage which links the slow movement and

the finale. The last section is the most outgoing

portion of the concerto, and its most humorous.

The concerto’s only cadenza comes near the

end. In a bold, innovative step, it is accompanied

by the orchestra, rather than being performed,

as it would be traditionally, only by the soloist.

Following the cadenza, soloist and orchestra

race merrily to the concluding bars.

Program note by Don Anderson

Robert Schumann Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129

Born: Zwickau, now in Germany, Jun 8, 1810 Died: Endenich, now in Germany, Jul 29, 1856Composed: 1850

26min

For program notes to William Rowson’s Fanfare: Sesquie

for Canada’s 150th and Christine Donkin’s Hopewell Cape:

Sesquie for Canada’s 150th, please turn to pages 7 and 8,

respectively, of the Sesquies Canada Mosaic program.

A “RAVISHING” WORKAlthough Schumann had doubts about his

Cello Concerto, his wife Clara, in contrast,

harboured no qualms whatsoever about the

piece. An entry in her diary from 1851 reads,

“I have played Robert’s Cello Concerto again

and thus procured for myself a truly magical

and happy hour. The romantic quality,

the flight, the freshness, and humour, and

also the highly interesting interweaving

of cello and orchestra are, indeed, wholly

ravishing, and what euphony and what deep

sentiment are in all the melodic passages!”

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Gustav Mahler/compl. Deryck CookeSymphony No. 10 in F-sharp Minor/Major

Born: Kalischt, Bohemia, Jul 7, 1860 Died: Vienna, Austria, May 18, 1911Composed: 1910; compl. Deryck Cooke, 1960–1976

Mahler worked intently on his Tenth Symphony

over the summer of 1910, at his summer retreat

at Toblach, in the Italian Alps, but he never

finished it. For several decades after his death,

his widow Alma failed to find someone willing

to take on the daunting task of completing it (in

1924, the young Austrian composer Ernst Krenek

had created performing versions of the first and

third movements only). The challenge proved

more appealing in the 1950s and 60s, when

Mahler’s music was attracting new generations

of performers, listeners, and scholars, among

them an English musicologist and broadcaster

named Deryck Cooke (1919–1976).

Between 1959 and 1972, Cooke worked on

completing the Tenth Symphony, the process

of which included his close study of the

facsimile (both the 1924 edition showing 116

of 165 pages of sketches and drafts and a new

edition in 1967 that included 44 more pages

of sketches); absorbing input from conductors,

composers, and Mahler experts; and revising

his version accordingly. His final version of the

Tenth was first performed in London on October

13, 1972, with Wyn Morris conducting the New

Philharmonia Orchestra, and was published in

1976 (a revised edition appeared in 1989).

Mahler himself had spoken of the piece as

“fully prepared in the sketch,” and Cooke was

astonished to discover that it was, in a sense,

complete. The 165 surviving pages include

rough sketches, short scores (i.e. elaborations

on (usually) four or five staves), and draft

orchestrations for a five-movement work of just

under two thousand bars. It “continues without

interruption from beginning to end,” Cooke

wrote, “even if the continuity is only tenuously

preserved in places.”

Cooke’s task was to interpret the occasionally

messy and confusing notation of the manuscript;

correct obvious slips of the pen; fill out

missing or incomplete textures with “pastiche-

composing” (i.e. fake Mahler); complete the

preliminary scoring of the first half of the piece

and make a convincingly Mahlerian orchestration

of the second; and supply tempo, dynamic,

phrasing, and other performance markings. But

he left intact all of Mahler’s surviving thematic,

harmonic, rhythmic, contrapuntal, and formal

ideas, and obeyed such notes on orchestration

and performance as existed. The music we

hear in his version of the Tenth is original and

innovative, intensely expressive, profoundly

autobiographical. Even unfinished, Mahler’s

Tenth is a masterpiece.

Cooke’s version of the Tenth Symphony

represents Mahler’s definitive plan: a fascinating

five-movement “mirror” structure. Two great,

complementary slow movements, both well

over twenty minutes long, frame the work as

a whole; within, two scherzos, both about

twelve minutes long, frame the intermezzo-like

“Purgatorio,” which, at about four minutes, is the

shortest movement in any Mahler symphony.

The opening Adagio is a movement of

tremendous emotional power. It unfolds as

67min

continued on next page

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THE DETAILS

an immense sonata form, with three principal

themes: the first is a brooding, near-atonal

recitative; the second, warm and passionate;

and the third is faster and lighter. After a bitter

and sardonic development section, the music

reaches a point of crisis in the recapitulation: the

brass, with terrifying power, announce a new,

chorale-like melody that reaches a harrowing

climax on a nine-note chord. In the long coda

that follows, built on motives from all three

themes, the music works gradually toward an

ethereal, radiant close.

The first Scherzo offers, in terms of rhythm, the

most complicated and “modern” music Mahler

ever wrote. This is an exuberant but off-kilter,

tongue-in-cheek dance, in which passing hints

of march, waltz, Ländler, and such, are ironically

undercut. The trio section, by contrast, is a study

in stability: it is a genuine Ländler, with an easy,

moderate, triple-time gait.

“Purgatorio”, though the shortest and strangest

movement, is the linchpin of the symphony. Its

inspiration was autobiographical—during the

summer of 1910, Mahler discovered that Alma

was having an affair with the brilliant young

architect Walter Gropius (who became her

second husband in 1915). The music, written

after this crisis, reflects the composer’s anguish;

in the middle of the movement, passionate

surges of string melody clearly allude to Alma.

The second Scherzo contrasts starkly with

the first, being much darker in tone. The

main scherzo section could be described as a

demonic dance; the trio, by contrast, is a simpler,

good-natured Viennese waltz. In the coda, the

music breaks up and dissolves right into the

Finale’s astonishing introduction, a grim funeral

march. Eventually, the funereal gloom does pass.

A moving new melody for a single flute, then a

warm outpouring in the strings, signal the start

of a musical process that, ultimately, achieves

something like redemption.

The finale itself is a kind of miniature symphony

in three movements (slow-fast-slow), and

though it has its own themes, it develops ideas

from the first movement, the fourth, and, most

significantly, “Purgatorio”. At its climax, we

hear the anguished nine-note dissonance that

underscored the climax in the first movement.

What follows, indeed, sounds very much like

healing, and transcendence. The finale closes, as

the symphony began—as a love song to Alma.

Program note by Kevin Bazzana

FOR ALMAMahler's Tenth

Symphony can be read,

ultimately, as a love

letter to his wife, Alma.

Just a few bars from

the end of the Finale,

Mahler suddenly

interpolates one last upsurge of romantic

melody in the strings, borrowing a motive

from “Purgatorio”. In the manuscript, at

this point, he wrote an exclamation that

leaves no doubt as to the motivation and

intended recipient of this last utterance—

and of the whole Tenth Symphony: “To live

for you, to die for you, Almschi!”

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THE ARTISTSThomas Dausgaardconductor

Thomas Dausgaard made his TSO début in January 2002.

Thomas Dausgaard is Chief Conductor of the BBC

Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Chief Conductor of the

Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor

of the Seattle Symphony, Honorary Conductor of the

Orchestra della Toscana (ORT), and Honorary Conductor

of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, having previously served as its Principal

Conductor from 2004 to 2011. He is renowned for his creativity and innovation in

programming, the excitement of his live performances, and his extensive catalogue

of critically-acclaimed recordings. He regularly appears with the world’s leading

orchestras, including recent seasons in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia.

As a recording artist, he enjoys long-standing relationships with the BIS and Da Capo

labels and has made well over 50 CDs, including the complete cycles of symphonies

by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Rued Langgaard. His most recent release is a

critically-acclaimed recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 (Deryck Cooke, third version)

with the Seattle Symphony. Thomas Dausgaard has been awarded the Cross of Chivalry

by the Queen of Denmark, and elected to the Royal Academy of Music in Sweden.

Joseph Johnsoncello

TSO Principal Cello Joseph Johnson joined the TSO in 2010.

Joseph Johnson has been heard throughout the world

as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. His festival

appearances include performances in all classical genres

at the American festivals of Santa Fe, Bach Dancing and

Dynamite Society, Bard, Cactus Pear, Grand Teton, and

Music in the Vineyards, as well as the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and

the Virtuosi Festival in Brazil. Principal cellist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra

since the 2010/11 season, he also serves as principal cellist of the Santa Fe Opera.

Mr. Johnson was previously principal cellist of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

and prior to this position, he was a member of the Minnesota Orchestra cello

section for eleven years. He was a founding member of the Prospect Park Players

and the Minneapolis Quartet, the latter of which was honoured with The McKnight

Foundation Award in 2005. Currently, he is the cellist for the XIA Quartet. A graduate

of the Eastman School of Music, Joseph Johnson earned a master’s degree from

Northwestern University. Mr. Johnson performs on a magnificent Paolo Castello

cello, crafted in 1780, in Genoa.