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Geneva Concerts Presents:

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Thursday, 15 November 2001, 8:15 PM

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra

Daniel Hege, Music Director

Ravel, Debussy, and Strauss

Claude Debussy

Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Conductor Emeritus
Kathleen Clawson, Mezzo-Soprano
Carey Bell, Clarinet

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The Program

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Ravel: Valses Nobles et Sentimentales
Falla: El Amor Brujo
Debussy: Rhapsody for Clarinet & Orchestra

Intermission

Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier Suite

Kazuyoshi Akiyama

Kazuyoshi Akiyama has served as Music Director of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra since 1968 and is also Principal Conductor of the Sapporo Symphony. In 1968, Mr. Akiyama was appointed Music Director of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra; his first conducting appointment away from Japan came that same year when Seiji Ozawa engaged him as his assistant conductor with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Akiyama was Music Director of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 1993 and Music Director of the Vancouver Symphony from 1972 to 1985, where he still serves as Conductor Emeritus. He became the first conductor to be appointed Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra following Leopold Stokowski, a position he held from 1973 to 1977.

Kathleen Clawson

Kathleen Clawson has appeared throughout the United States in opera, on the concert stage and recital platform with a repertoire ranging from Bach and Berlioz to Verdi and Wagner. Recently, she made her debut at the Dallas Opera in Die Walküre and with the Santa Fe Opera in Les Dialogues des Carmelites; sang Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the New Mexico Symphony (where she was also heard in a special concert honoring departing Music Director David Lockington, and in student performances of Green Eggs and Ham), and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Santa Fe Symphony.

In addition to frequent appearances with the New Mexico Symphony, Miss Clawson has been guest soloist with the Symphony Orchestras of Evansville, Midland, North Arkansas, Sacramento, Santa Fe and Southeast Kansas, among others, as well as the Berkshire Choral Festival and the Orchestra of San Antonio. Her opera credits include the Banff Festival of the Arts, New England Lyric Operetta Inc., Four Corners Opera, Dallas Lyric Opera, Southwest Opera and Theater Basel. She presented the world premiere of Lanham Deal's Weather Songs at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival accompanied by Janos Starker, has recorded De Falla's El Amor Brujo for the recent United States tour by Maria Benitez' Teatro Flamenco and sung the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music with Debby Boone across America and Japan. She made her New York debut at Lincoln Center as soloist in A Herbert Centennial with The Little Orchestra Society.

Kathleen Clawson received her training at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the University of Southern California and the University of New Mexico and participated in the Merola Program of the San Francisco Opera and the Banff Centre Fine Arts Opera Program. She was a Metropolitan Opera Auditions National Finalist and won the Dewar's Profiles in Performance Award.

Maurice Ravel

The ballet Adelaide, ou Le langage des fleurs, choreographed to Valses nobles et sentimentales, premiered at Le Châtelet, Paris, on April 22, 1912. Most recently performed in November of 1980 with Calvin Custer conducting. First performed at a quiz concert series in Paris in 1911 (a kind of 'guess the composer' program), these Valses received a mixed reception. As Ravel later wrote: "The title...sufficiently indicates my intention of writing a cycle of waltzes after the example of Schubert...I use here a distinctly clearer style of writing. This makes the harmony more concrete and causes the profile of the music to stand out...The audience voted the authorship of each piece. By a minute majority the paternity of waltzes was ascribed to me. The seventh strikes me as the most characteristic."

Some of those first listeners had thought the composer to be the Hungarian, Zoltan Kodaly; others Ravel's compatriot, the idiosyncratic Eric Satie. Even Mozart, Chopin, Gounod, Mendelssohn and Wagner were named! Only 3% guessed correctly - Ravel's "minute majority."

The source of inspiration, as Ravel indicates, are the many waltzes of Schubert, especially his 34 Valses sentimentales and his 12 Valses nobles. The overall mood of Ravel's waltzes is best illustrated by the composer's quotation from Henri de Regnier's novel, Les Rencontres de Monsieur de Breot of 1904, which prefaces both the piano and later orchestral versions of the composition: "The delightful and always novel pleasure of a useless occupation." With such a quote as its premise, the mind can then play all manner of wonderful tricks with this evocative piece. Its seven waltzes may well conjure up reminiscences of memorable parties and social gatherings, of opulent ballrooms and richly spread banqueting tables. Indeed, soon after its composition the work was adopted into the theater as a ballet called Adelaide, ou Le langage des fleurs. Set in the Paris of 1820, the story centers on a beautiful courtesan and her amorous intrigues with a young ardent poet and a wealthy duke. The various emotions expressed within this triangle - love, deceit, hope, rejection and despair - are symbolized by the flowers the dancers exchange. The red rose ultimately triumphs as the poet's passion conquers Adelaide's fickle heart.

The imagination can never be far from the dance floor with such elegant, translucent and richly textured music. Each short waltz has its own special mood: the first bustling with energy, the second reflective and sad, the third airy and light, the fourth charmingly vivacious, the fifth languid and melancholy, the sixth spiraling ever upward, the seventh - with its rich harmonies, atmospheric contrasts and rhythmic hesitations - recalling the Vienna of the waltz-king, Johann Strauss, Jr. (to whom Ravel also paid homage in his grand and atmospheric orchestral work, La Valse.

Finally, in the gentle Epilogue, Ravel lingers over his waltzes as if unwilling to let them go. And, as always with Ravel, this tribute to the Waltz is accomplished with sparkle and elegance.

The instrumentation consists of two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, tamborine, triangle, keyglock, harps, celeste, and strings.

Manuel de Falla

Ballet With Songs premiered at Madrid's Theater Lara on April 2, 1915. Most recently performed in February of 1980 with Jean Loftus and Calvin Custer conducting.

Spain has been the source of inspiration for many composers, but perhaps no one has so imaginatively kindled its romantic spirit as has Manuel de Falla. Those who have visited the region of Andalusia in particular (where the medieval world of Islamic Spain still seems to linger) will sense in his ballet, El Amor Brujo, that peculiarly exotic atmosphere which gives Spain a different feel from other European countries.

Falla's more immediately personal inspiration came from one of Spain's great gypsy dancers and singers, Pastora Imperio. Although the composer used no original Spanish folk music in the score, his own themes were influenced by Pastora's songs, while Martinez Sierra's scenario derived from the vast store of folk tales related by Pastora's mother, Rosario de la Mejorana. The story centers upon the beautiful gypsy Candelas who, when her captivating but dissolute and jealous lover dies a violent death, soon falls in love with a handsome and gallant youth, Carmelo. She continues to be fearfully haunted by the spirit of her former lover, however. Carmelo plans a ruse whereby the young and pretty friend of Candelas, Lucia, will seduce the terrifying specter of Candelas' first love. The coquettish Lucia successfully frustrates the amorous ghost's unwelcome attentions, and the lovers are at last able to exchange the kiss that defeats the specter's evil influence, putting it to rest forever.

The work was first produced as a ballet with songs, in one act with two scenes, later to be transferred into a vocal-orchestral Suite. The music is extremely emotional and atmospheric - from the passionate, almost savage outbursts of the singer to the gently romantic orchestral interludes of "The Magic Circle" and the "Pantomime" sequence. And then there is the ever-popular "Ritual Fire Dance" which is often performed as a solo concert item. In the context of the ballet this is the evocative music that accompanies the exorcism' of the specter. Throughout, Falla's music burns with an incandescent glow, as he captures the intensity of feeling and the brightness of the Andalusian scene. Here is the very essence of old Spain.

The instrumentation consists of two flutes including piccolo, oboe and English horn, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, timpani, orchestra bells, piano and strings.

Text:

1. Canción del Amor Dolido (Song of Heartsick Love)

Ay!  Yo no se que siento,
ni se que me pasa cuando este mardito gitano me farta.
Candela que ardes,
mas arde el infierno que toita mi sangre abrasa de celos!
Ay!  Cuando el rio suena que querra decir?
Ay!  Por querer a otra se orvia de mi!
Ay!  Cuando el fuego abrasa,
Cuando el rio suena,
si el agua no mata el fuego a mi el penarme condena!
A mi el querer me envenena!
A mi me matan las penas!  Ay!  Ay!

Ay! I don't know what I feel,
I don't know what happens to me
When this accursed gypsy's away.
Only Hell's fire burns hotter
Than all my blood burning with jealousy!
Ay! When there are rumors, what could they mean? Ay!
For the love of another, he forgets me! Ay!
When the fire burns, When the rumors start . . .
If they cannot kill the fire,
Suffering condemns me!
Love poisons me!
Sorrow kills me!
Ay! Ay!

2. Canción del Fuego Fatuo (Song of the Will-o'-the-Wisp)

Lo mismo que er fuego fatuo,
Lo mismo es er quere.
Le juyes y te persigue le yamas y echa a corre.
Lo mismo que er fuego fatuo, lo mismito es er quere.
Malhaya los ojos negros que le alcanzaron a ver!
Malhaya er corazon triste que en su llama quiso arde!
Lo mismo que er fuego fatuo se desvanece er quere.

Like the will-o'-the-wisp,
The very same is to love.
Like the will-o'-the wisp,
The very same is to love.
You run from if, and it follows you,
You call it, and it runs away.
Like the will-o'-the-wisp,
The very same is to love.
Accursed the dark eyes
That succeeded in seeing him!
Accursed the saddened heart
That wanted to burn in his flame!
Like the will-o'-the-wisp
Love vanishes the same.

3. Danza del Juego de Amor (Dance of the Game of Love)

Tu eres aquel mal gitano que una gitana queria;
El quere que ella te daba tu no te lo mercias!
Quien lo habia deci que con otra la vendias!
Soy la voz de tu destino!
Soy er fuego en que te abrasas!
Soy er viento en que suspiras!
Soy el mar en que naufragas!

You are the evil gypsy
That a gypsy girl loved;
The love that she gave you,
You did not deserve!
Who could have thought
That with another you would betray her!
I'm the voice of your destiny!
I'm the fire in which you burn!
I'm the wind in which you sigh!
I'm the sea in which you drown!

4. Las Campanas del Amanecer (The Bells of Dawn)

Ya esta despuntando el dia!
Cantad, campanas, cantad!
Que vuelve la gloria mia!

Dawn is breaking!
Sing, bells, sing!
That my glory is returned!

Claude Debussy

The lesser works of a major composer can be easily overlooked, and such is the case with this Rhapsody. Look for it in the books on Debussy and it isn't there, or at best it receives a mere mention. But as French conductor and composer, Pierre Boulez, writes: "Often the secondary or minor works [of a major composer]...interest me more than the major works of a minor composer...I cannot help thinking that a great composer also reveals himself -- and often most engagingly -- in the works that seem like snapshots of the family rather than in the formal portraits done for posterity. This is how I like to think of the Rhapsodie pour clarinette..."

Debussy composed this Rhapsody in December 1909 for a competition at the Paris Conservatoire, just at the moment when he was embarking upon his first book of Preludes for the piano. Since it was designed for a competition, naturally Debussy provides a fair number of challenges for the soloist, but never at the expense of musical interest. The remarkable feature of this short piece is the manner in which the music fluctuates quite abruptly between scherzo-like quirkiness (even flippancy) and poetic reverie. At one moment the music is full of rhythmic energy and the next it is gently fluent and serene. These quieter passages present a challenge, however, calling for delicate phrasing and a beautiful tone. Even on a smaller scale Debussy can still charm us, as he does here with his willowy motifs and shadowy textures.

The instrumentation consists of three flutes, three oboes including English horn, two clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, percussion, harp and strings.

Richard Strauss

A comic opera that looks back to the rococo opulence of mid-18th century Vienna, and that attempts to emulate Mozart's and Lorenzo da Ponte's success with The Marriage of Figaro using that opera for its model, might not seem set for immediate or lasting public and critical approval. Yet Der Rosenkavalier was an instant triumph at its Dresden premiere on January 26, 1911. Special trains from Berlin and neighboring towns were scheduled to bring people to those early performances. There was never any question that this theatrical anachronism, with its travesti role of Octavian descended from Cherubino and its rich waltz melodies (Bavarian parodies of the Viennese original), would not rank thereafter with the most popular comic operas in the international repertory. In its evocation of a bygone era Der Rosenkavalier mirrors not only the affectations, foibles and transient gaiety of a pre-1914 Europe on the verge of destruction, but the inherent decadence in any age that becomes over-ripe and too self-assured.

Der Rosenkavalier is that rare operatic commodity - a superb score matched by a fine libretto. There is a well-organized plot, melodies that constantly sparkle, elegant wit combined with comic farce, and a wave of sentiment that carries underneath it currents of emotion hovering between laughter and tears. As with da Ponte's Figaro, so with Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Rosenkavalier; in each case the libretto has implications that lie deep below the superficial charm and humor. If the intentions of librettist and composer are scrupulously followed, the principal characters of Der Rosenkavalier are entirely believable. Early in his correspondence with Strauss concerning the opera, Hofmannsthal writes of "more subtle psychological contours...now already latent in the characters like Figaro, Susanna, Cherubino."

Although she does not appear in Act II and only toward the end of Act III, the central figure of the opera is the field marshal's wife, the Feldmarschallin, Maria Theresa, Princess von Werdenberg. Her musings and duets with Octavian in Act I, and her renunciation of Octavian in the final trio of Act III, are focal points of the opera. Embroiled in an extramarital affair, quite likely not her first, this attractive woman in her late 30s is tired and bored with her life. Deeply unsure of herself, she sees herself as soon being replaced in Octavian's affections by some younger woman. As with Mozart's Countess Almaviva, there is an underlying dignity and nobility in the Marschallin's character, and it is with a mixture of sadness and pleasure that we witness the growing love of Octavian for the younger Sophie.

Strauss's Suite takes several of the opera's big moments and melodies and weaves them together, substituting instruments for the human voice where necessary. Because of his orchestral mastery, he transcribes from voice to instrument with acumen, but instrumental substitutes can never really replace music specifically written for the human voice, as in the trio of the three women's voices near the close of the opera.

In the Suite, we hear first the opulent introduction, a prelude that captures both the sensuality and the tenderness of the relationship between the Marschallin and Octavian. Then we hear the romantic music Strauss provides for the supremely moving scene when Octavian presents a silver rose to young Sophie on behalf of the Marschallin's country cousin, the boorish Baron Ochs von Lerchenau, who has an eye for the pretty Sophie and expects to marry her. Strauss's music perfectly summarizes that moment when two young people meet for the first time and are instantly overwhelmed in each other's presence. The music explores their feelings, while presenting a musical image of the rose's silvery beauty.

A brief, frenetic passage from Act II prepares us for the central Waltz section of the Suite. It is during the time when Octavian plans to reveal the Baron's true nature (that of an oafish roue) to Sophie's father, Faninal, that these waltzes come into their own, providing the background for the schemings whereby the Baron is outwitted. They conclude with Baron Ochs's lively song and dance.

We now move toward the climax of the Suite and the entire opera - the glorious trio. The Baron has departed, suitably chastened, leaving the stage to the Marschallin, Sophie and Octavian. The older woman, younger woman and knight face each other and utter their private thoughts in an incredible outpouring of emotion. Now rejected by her lover and deeply hurt, the Marschallin is ready to let go; but, it is difficult. Without doubt this is one of the most affecting moments in all operatic literature. After the Marschallin makes a graceful exit, we hear the simple folk-like duet sung by the two young lovers at the opera's close. The Suite concludes with a rousing return of the waltzes, and finally a brief reference again to that sumptuous theme with which the opera opened - when all was sunlight in the Marschallin's bedroom.

The instrumentation consists of three flutes including piccolo, three oboes including English horn, three clarinets and e-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, three bassoons including contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, glock, ratchet, snare drum, tamborine, triangle, harps, celeste and strings.

The Syracuse Symphony Orchestra

Founded with a $50,000 grant from the Gifford Foundation, conductor Karl Kritz was named the Orchestra's first music director. The artistic core of the Orchestra strengthened quickly with key musicians assuming guaranteed annual positions, and by the end of the third season, permanent chamber groups had formed within the orchestra ensemble, an idea which was later copied by most other orchestras around the country.

Kritz was succeeded in 1971 by Frederik Prausnitz and, in 1975, Christopher Keene. Shortly thereafter, the Orchestra moved into its new home, the Crouse-Hinds Concert Theater at the John H. Mulroy Civic Center. Kazuyoshi Akiyama became music director in 1985, a post he held for eight years before becoming conductor emeritus. Fabio Mechetti served as music director from 1993 to 1999. Daniel Hege became the SSO's sixth music director with the 1999-2000 season.

Now the 45th largest orchestra in the United States, the SSO performs a vast array of programs, including classics, pops, family, chamber orchestra, educational youth programs, and free summer parks concerts. In addition, the SSO presents The Nutcracker with a visiting ballet company each December and also plays for Syracuse Opera performances. This is the Orchestra's forty-first Anniversary season.

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