3 DECEMBER 15 | Thursday

Gala: Rachmaninov Concerto No. 3

Vladimir ashkenazy conductoralexei Volodin piano

ConCerT duraTion: 1 hr 55 mins

all Timings indiCaTed are approximaTe.

SERGEI RACHMANINOVVocalise 6’00

SERGEI RACHMANINOVpiano Concerto no. 3 in d minor, op. 30 39’00

intermission 20’00

SERGEI RACHMANINOVSymphonic Dances, op. 45 35’00

one of the few artists to combine a successful career as a pianist and conductor, russian-born Vladimir ashkenazy inherited his musical gift from both sides of his family; his father david ashkenazy was a professional light music pianist and his mother evstolia (née plotnova) was daughter of a chorus master in the Russian Orthodox church. Ashkenazy first came to prominence on the world stage in the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw and as First prize-winner of the Queen elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1956. since then he has built an extraordinary career, not only as one of the most outstanding pianists of the 20th century, but as an artist whose creative life encompasses a vast range of activities and continues to offer inspiration to music-lovers across the world.

Conducting has formed the larger part of ashkenazy’s activities for the past 30 years. he continues his longstanding relationship with the philharmonia orchestra, who appointed him Conductor laureate in 2000. in addition to his performances with the orchestra in london and around the uk each season, and in countless tours with them worldwide, he has also developed landmark projects such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich Under Stalin and Rachmaninoff Revisited. last season ashkenazy and the philharmonia undertook a major tour of China, recent highlights include a european tour with soloists evgeny kissin and Vadim repin and a ground-breaking tour of latin america.

ashkenazy is also Conductor laureate of both the iceland and nhk symphony orchestras and principal guest Conductor of the orchestra della svizzera italiana. he has recently stepped down from the music directorship of the euyo, a post he has held with great satisfaction for 15 years. he has previously held posts as principal Conductor and artistic advisor to the sydney symphony orchestra (2009-13), and Chief Conductor of the Czech philharmonic orchestra and music director of nhk symphony orchestra. he maintains strong links with other major orchestras including The Cleveland orchestra (where he was formerly principal guest Conductor) and deutsches symphonie-orchester Berlin (Chief Conductor and music director 1988-96).

Vladimir ashkenazy conductor

ashkenazy maintains his devotion to the piano, these days mostly in the recording studio where he continues to build his extraordinarily comprehensive recording catalogue. This includes the grammy award-winning shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (a work which he commissioned), Bach’s Wohltemperierte Klavier, rachmaninov’s Transcriptions and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. spring 2013 saw the release of ‘ashkenazy: 50 years on decca’ – a 50-Cd box-set celebrating his long-standing relationship with the label. in 2014, decca released a milestone collection of ashkenazy’s vast catalogue of rachmaninov’s piano music, which also includes all of his recordings as a conductor of the composer’s orchestral music.

alexei Volodin piano

acclaimed for his highly sensitive touch and technical brilliance, alexei Volodin is in demand with orchestras at the highest level. he possesses an extraordinarily diverse repertoire, from Beethoven and Brahms through Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Scriabin to Gershwin, Shchedrin and Kapustin.

As Artist-in-Residence at the Mariinsky Theatre for 2014/15, he performs five concerts including the opening recital of the season. he appears regularly with Valery gergiev including, in the current season and beyond, concerts with the mariinsky orchestra at stockholm’s Baltic sea Festival, konzerthaus dortmund and konzerthaus Vienna, as well as münchner philharmoniker and london Symphony Orchestra. Last year, he performed all five Beethoven Concertos with the mariinsky in a “Beethoven marathon”.

other highlights in the 2014/15 season include the rotterdam philharmonic orchestra for a european tour, stuttgarter philharmoniker with Vladimir Fedoseyev, orquestra simfònica de Barcelona, Bournemouth symphony orchestra with andrew litton, netherlands radio philharmonic orchestra, and sinfonia Varsovia at the Warsaw Beethoven Festival. last season he made his debuts with the swedish radio symphony orchestra and the danish radio symphony orchestra.

in demand as a recitalist, alexei Volodin regularly performs at london’s international piano series and Wigmore hall, Vienna’s konzerthaus, alte oper Frankfurt, munich’s herkulesaal, Tonhalle zürich, lisbon’s gulbenkian Foundation, Taipei’s national Concert hall, madrid’s auditorio nacional, Barcelona’s palau de la musica, amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, paris’ salle pleyel, and the great hall of the moscow Conservatoire.

Volodin records for Challenge Classics. his most recent recording of solo rachmaninov works was released in 2013. his previous release was a solo Cd of schumann, ravel and scriabin, while his earlier disc of works by Chopin won a Choc de Classica and was awarded five stars by Diapason. he is a regular artist at festivals including the Bad kissingen sommer Festival, la roque d’anthéron, Festival la Folle Journée, White nights in st petersburg and the moscow easter Festival.

Born in 1977 in leningrad, alexei Volodin studied at moscow’s gnessin academy and later with eliso Virsaladze at the moscow Conservatoire. in 2001 he continued his studies at the international piano academy lake Como. he gained international recognition following his victory at the international géza anda Competition in zurich in 2003.

he is an exclusive steinway and sons artist.

11-13 DECEMBER 15 | FRI & SAt, 7.30pM i SuN, 4pM

VICtORIA CONCERt HALL

tAN CHIN tuAN CENtENNIAL CONCERt SERIES pRESENtSSSO CHRIStMAS CONCERt

Jason lai conductorsingapore symphony Children’s Choirsingapore BiBle College Chorale

make it another memorable Christmas at the Victoria Concert hall, as the sso, ssCC and the singapore Bible College Chorale join forces under associate Conductor Jason lai. Come join us for three magical performances featuring traditional carols and favourite yuletide melodies such as The First Noel and excerpts from The Nutcracker suite!

highlights include:

ENGELBERt HuMpERDINCKprelude to Hansel and Gretel

JOHN RuttERChristmas Lullaby pHILIp LANEThe Night Before Christmas, for narrator & orchestra

presented by

19 DECEMBER 15 | SAt, 7.30pM

VICtORIA CONCERt HALL

SG50@VCH:t’ANG QuARtEt – COMING HOME

Wrap up 2015 with T’ang Quartet this Christmas, and create one last enchanting memory of a momentous year. adding to the sentimental season is a smidgen of nostalgia as T’ang Quartet returns to its first performance hall where the kinship among the four members burgeoned as they played with the singapore symphony orchestra. enjoy popular festive tunes infused with irrepressible warmth as T’ang Quartet celebrates its homecoming as part of the orchestra’s SG50 showcase featuring Singapore’s finest musicians. Let's make it merry, everyone!

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Credit: olivier Cruciata

Vocalise 6’00

• Born on the estate of Oneg, near Novgorod, April 1, 1873; died in Beverly Hills, California, March 28, 1943.

• Most of his music was composed in the twentieth century, yet his style remains unabashedly nineteenth-century romantic, ensuring continued popularity.

• Rachmaninov left Russia in 1917, never to return. He composed little after his departure, spending more time concertizing as a pianist and conducting.

• “A six-and-a half-foot scowl” was Igor Stravinsky’s description of the tall but dour, serious-looking Rachmaninov. In fact, though, he was as capable of laughing and having fun as anyone else.

it is ironic that of rachmaninov’s songs – more than eighty of them – it is the wordless Vocalise alone that has captured the public’s fancy. rachmaninov’s songs were all written during his early years, while he was still living in russia. after leaving in 1917, he never wrote another. The Vocalise is the last of a group of fourteen songs written in 1912. rachmaninov dedicated this song of haunting beauty and elegiac loveliness to the celebrated russian coloratura soprano Antonina Nezhdanova, who gave the first performance with the composer at the piano on February 6, 1916.

a vocalise is a song without words in which singers can concentrate on beauty of tone production and musical phrasing without concerning themselves about projection of a text as well. The adaptability of rachmaninov’s example for other media was soon perceived. The famous russian conductor serge koussevitzky asked the composer to arrange it for orchestra, with violins carrying the melody line. The work has since been heard in countless other arrangements (and dis-arrangements!) as well.

SERGEI RACHMANINOV (1873-1943)

larry rothe, the san Francisco symphony’s program annotator, has written evocative words about rachmaninov’s Vocalise, which he calls “six minutes of hypnotic beauty, the aural equivalent of a soothing massage … a wordless song undulating like warm hands on tense muscle, we can feel our breath ease and our blood pressure drop.”

piano Concerto no. 3 in d minor, op. 30 39’00

i. allegro ma non tantoii. intermezzo: adagioiii. Finale: alla breva

in 1909, the 36-year-old rachmaninov was at the height of his career as composer and pianist. it was time to conquer america, and for this important visit he composed his Third Piano Concerto, which he wrote during the summer months at his country estate, ivanovka. in october, he set sail for the new World, but not having had time to learn the piano part, he resorted to practising on a “dumb” (silent) piano he took on board with his baggage. The concerto was greeted warmly, though not rapturously, at its premiere on november 28, 1909, with Walter damrosch conducting the symphony society of new york. as soloist, rachmaninov also performed the concerto with gustav mahler conducting the new york philharmonic, on which occasion rachmaninov was enormously impressed with mahler’s abilities as a conductor.

The Third Concerto proudly carries a reputation for being one of the most difficult, expansive, brilliant and romantic in the repertory of piano concertos. It is also one of rachmaninov’s longest and structurally most complex orchestral works. like the Second Symphony, many of the concerto’s melodic ideas have their seeds in the opening motif. also like the symphony, there is a strong interrelation between the movements, as material in each movement recurs in varied form in succeeding movements. in mood and style, the music is thoroughly grounded in the nineteenth-century russian romantic tradition. nicolas slonimsky’s assessment of rachmaninov in general serves to underscore the concerto’s qualities in particular: “… melancholy moods prevail, and minor keys predominate … there is an unmistakable stamp of rachmaninov’s own individuality in the broad rhapsodic sweep of the melodic line, and particularly in the fully expanded sonorities and fine resonant harmonies of his piano writing.”

SERGEI RACHMANINOV

The Concerto opens with a disarmingly simple theme. rachmaninov said that it “wrote itself … i wanted to ‘sing’ the melody on the piano, as a singer would sing it.” however, a musicologist-friend of the composer, Joseph yasser, believed the theme was derived from an ancient monastic chant of the russian orthodox Church, a claim rachmaninov denied. The second subject consists of a gently playful staccato idea for the orchestra answered by the soloist, from which evolves a broadly lyrical theme in the piano. The development section begins as did the opening, with the soloist becoming increasingly predominant. A cadenza of prodigious difficulty and enormous proportions contains within it the movement’s recapitulation, a most unorthodox procedure. an alternate view holds that the recapitulation consists only of the brief epilogue beginning with the restatement of the opening bars of the movement, shared by piano and orchestra. The slow movement reveals rachmaninov at his most melancholic, rhapsodic and nostalgic. The languid principal theme is reworked though a series of variations, a simple enough procedure in view of the structural complexities of the outer movements. This fact, as well as the generally more relaxed mood, may well have been responsible for the movement’s title “intermezzo.” near the end is a faster, scherzando passage whose woodwind lines are melodically related to the first theme of the first movement. The darkly melancholic mood of the closing pages is abruptly banished by a brilliant flourish, and the third movement is launched without pause.

Themes as well as rhythmic patterns of this expansive finale are largely derived from or related to material of the first movement. The finale abounds in energetic rhythms, bravura flourishes, scintillating passage work and brilliant effects for soloist and orchestra alike, although rachmaninov does not fail to include a characteristically lyric, soaring theme as well. The long coda provides a fitting conclusion to a grandiose concerto, “growing gradually in intensity,” writes herbert elwell, “to sonorous heights in a lofty peroration.”

Symphonic Dances, op. 45 35’00

i. non allegroii. andante con moto (Tempo di valse)iii. lento assai – allegro vivace

most concert-goers do not associate rachmaninov with ballet music, and none of his scores was specifically written to be danced. But in 1939, Michel Fokine, whose successes as principal Choreographer of diaghilev’s Ballets russes included Les Sylphides, The Firebird and Petrushka, choreographed rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini at london’s Covent garden. The composer was thrilled. during the summer months of 1940, while living at an estate on long island, new york, rachmaninov composed three Fantastic Dances, which he hoped Fokine would choreograph also. Fokine was interested, but died before anything could come of the project. By the time the philadelphia orchestra, led by eugene ormandy, gave the world premiere on January 3, 1941, rachmaninov had retitled the work Symphonic Dances and had deleted the movement titles of “daytime”, “ Twilight”, and “midnight”. at any rate, the Symphonic Dances leave a stronger impression as symphonic music than as dance music. it was to be rachmaninov’s last composition.

Exceptionally brilliant orchestration contributes significantly to making the Symphonic Dances one of the finest scores in this composer’s catalogue. The care rachmaninov lavished on the orchestration can be seen in the trouble he took to consult robert russell Bennett about the use of the saxophone, which Rachmaninov used for the first and only time in this work. To an otherwise normal-sized orchestra, the composer also added a large number of percussion instruments that shine, glisten, tinkle, and tintinnabulate: glockenspiel, xylophone, chimes, triangle, tambourine and cymbals, as well as piano and two harps. nevertheless, it should be noted that rachmaninov also prepared a two-piano version of the score that, in its own medium, is as masterly as the full orchestral work. The composer enjoyed playing this privately with his friend and neighbour in new york, Vladimir horowitz. (hearing these two super-virtuosos together in this kaleidoscopically-colored score would almost certainly be a mind-blowing experience.)

SERGEI RACHMANINOV

Rachmaninov wrote a seemingly strange performance direction for the first movement: non allegro. not allegro? What does this mean? only that this allegro (meaning lively and cheerful) should not be interpreted as “fast” or “jovial”. There is something weighty and serious about this music, at times perhaps even a bit menacing. it is further characterized by vigorous rhythmic drive and a theme built from a tiny, three-note motif, which is announced in the opening bars by the english horn and followed immediately by clarinet, then bassoon. The pervasive use of this three-note motif, which is found in nearly every measure of the opening and closing sections of the movement, calls to mind Beethoven’s use of a four-note motif in the first movement of his Fifth Symphony. The central lyrical section features the solo saxophone in an expressive melody reminiscent of a russian folk song. here rachmaninov scales down the orchestra to chamber music proportions, using just a woodwind quintet for much of the time. near the end of the movement we hear another new theme, this one warmly consoling and played by violins. The theme actually evokes a poignant autobiographical memory, as it is derived from a theme in the composer’s First Symphony, written nearly half a century earlier, a work that was deemed at the time so poor that rachmaninov nearly abandoned his career as a composer. (The score was left behind when Rachmaninov fled russia in 1917, and has never been found. after his death, a set of orchestral parts was located collecting dust in the library of the leningrad Conservatory; from these the score was reconstructed.) now, at the other end of his life, rachmaninov looks back at a score he was sure would never be heard again and exorcises the demons that plagued him for years by turning the symphony’s angry, opening flourish into something gently consoling.

sinister harmonies from the brass introduce the second movement, an uneasy, mysterious waltz (though written in 6/8 and 9/8 meter) tinged with nostalgia and melancholy. on and on the ghostly music whirls, becoming increasingly energetic, eventually gyrating nearly out of control. The movement does not so much end as disintegrate.

The final movement too opens with mysterious, ominous mutterings and rumblings, but soon launches into a rousing, brilliantly scored movement full of fantastic images, rhythmic excitement and much tintinnabulation from the

percussion. The music winds down for a sombre central section full of haunting, spectral sounds and evocations of lost worlds. here rachmaninov introduces the four-note Dies irae motif of which he was so fond. (it is found also in his First Symphony, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, The Isle of the Dead, and even the lovely Vocalise, among many other works.) But shortly before the end of the movement, the word “alliluya” appears in the score. This provided a clue that led to geoffrey norris’ discovery that the coda is derived from the russian chant Blagosloven esi Gospedi, which rachmaninov had used in his All-Night Vigil, op. 37. michael steinberg sums up the importance of this fact by stating: “given what we know of rachmaninov’s state of mind in 1940, it is likely that he thought of this as his last composition even as he was getting it onto paper with such intensity and speed. We see him then taking leave of his craft with a hymn of thanks and praise. perhaps it is not too much to imagine that the symbolic victory of the Blagosloven theme over the Dies irae is rachmaninov’s own affirmation of the faith that ‘Death shall be swallowed up in Victory’.” The Symphonic Dances end in a blaze of spectacular colours that bring to mind some of the most memorable pages of ravel and rimsky-korsakov.

Programme notes by Robert Markow

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