CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Andreas Scholl

Zankel Hall
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 7:30 PM

Australian Chamber Orchestra
Richard Tognetti, Artistic Director
Andreas Scholl, Countertenor

HAYDN Symphony No. 44 in E Minor, "Trauer"
HANDEL "Va tacito e nascosto" from Giulio Cesare
HANDEL "Dove sei, amato bene?" from Rodelinda
HANDEL "Se parla nel mio cor" from Giustino
ROGER SMALLEY "Footwork" (US Premiere)
HANDEL "O Lord, whose mercies numberless" from Saul
HANDEL "Aure, deh, per pietà" from Giulio Cesare
HANDEL "Vivi tiranno!" from Rodelinda
PAVEL HAAS String Quartet No. 2, Op. 7, "From the Monkey Mountains" (arr. Tognetti)

Encore:
RAMEAU Bruit de guerre pour Entr'acte from Dardanus

Program Notes:

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN (1732–1809)
Symphony No. 44 in E Minor, “Mourning”

The choice of a minor key for a symphony was highly unusual for Haydn: only ten of his more than one hundred symphonies are in the minor mode, and of these only two predate the Symphony No. 44. It would be idle to associate the work’s feverishly impassioned mood with any specific event in the composer’s life. Throughout the 1760s and 1770s Haydn was busily and, by all accounts, happily engaged in his demanding duties as Kapellmeister at the remote Esterháza palace in Hungary. Yet the emotional turbulence of the Sturm und Drang movement penetrated even there, finding expression in both the “Mourning” Symphony and its sequel, the “Farewell” Symphony in F-sharp minor.

The two fast movements of the Symphony No. 44 are notable for their explosively dramatic outbursts, rhythmic vigor, and gloomy E minor intensity. It is here that what musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon called the “comfortlessness” of Haydn’s music is most apparent. The somber coloration of the outer movements is accentuated by the composition of the orchestra, which includes pairs of oboes and horns in addition to the usual strings, with a reedy bassoon adding definition to the bass. The Menuetto, a canon at the octave between the upper and lower strings, illustrates the contrapuntal mastery that Haydn displays more sparingly in the other movements. The horn’s burnished timbre imparts an extra measure of warmth to the E major Trio section.

The spacious Adagio, one of Haydn’s most beguiling slow movements, returns to the serenity of E major. Muted strings create an oasis of calm amid the storm and stress of the surrounding movements. (Years later, Haydn reportedly asked that the Adagio be played at his funeral, hence the symphony’s subtitle, “Mourning.”) By reversing the customary order of slow movement and minuet, Haydn threw the Adagio into higher relief. A brisk unison theme, recalling the unison motif that opened the Allegro con brio, announces the beginning of the terse and vigorous Finale. In the end, the symphony comes full circle, closing on a progression of emphatic chords in E minor.


GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685 –1759)
“Va tacito e nascosto” from Giulio Caesare; “Dove sei, amato bene?” from Rodelinda; “Se parla nel mio cor” from Giustino

One of Handel’s most sumptuously orchestrated operas, Giulio Cesare has been an audience favorite since its London premiere in 1724. The title role was created by the legendary castrato Senesino, whose onstage pursuit of Francesca Cuzzoni’s Cleopatra seems to have been as ardent as the offstage rivalry of their respective fan clubs. A man of imposing stature, Senesino was said to possess “a powerful, clear, equal and sweet contralto voice” and “sang allegros with great fire.” These qualities are very much on display in Caesar’s first-act aria “Va tacito e nascosto,” in which he serves notice on the wily Ptolemy that he is forearmed against any treachery. The confident swagger of Handel’s vocal line is reinforced by the martial timbre of an obbligato horn.

Rodelinda, first produced in 1725, presented Senesino in another heroic role, that of an exiled Milanese nobleman who is scouring the countryside in search of the wife he abandoned. Bertarido’s “Dove sei, amato bene?” a moving apostrophe to Rodelinda, is one of Handel’s most beloved arias. A tender largo in E major, it is cast in the conventional Baroque da capo (A-B-A) mold, with a contrasting middle section of a more intensely emotive character and a richly ornamented reprise.

Giustino reached the London stage in 1737, long after Senesino had defected to a rival opera company, and Handel awarded the title role to a comparatively obscure alto castrato named Domenico Annibale. The stout-hearted farmer Giustino sings the invigorating “Se parla nel mio cor” in the first act, upon being aroused by the goddess Fortuna. Proclaiming his “intrepid valor” in an outpouring of florid coloratura, he vows to take up arms in defense of Emperor Anastasio, thereby embracing fate and duty in one noble resolve.


ROGER SMALLEY (b. 1934)
Footwork

Born near Manchester, England, in 1943, Roger Smalley belongs to the so-called post-Darmstadt generation of composers who came of age under the influence of the postwar European avant-garde. His early works, written for a wide range of ensembles and media (both acoustic and electronic), are decidedly tough-minded, being variously indebted to such composers as Anton Webern, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Peter Maxwell Davies. In the late 1960s, Smalley and three colleagues founded the new-music group Intermodulation, England’s answer to Pierre Boulez’s Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain. Throughout this period Smalley, inspired by what he called the “rigorous contemplation of essentials,” devoted himself to an exploration of serialism, indeterminacy, electronic manipulation of sound, and other “advanced” compositional techniques.

Since immigrating to Australia in the mid-1970s, Smalley has produced a body of music that is no less rigorously organized but considerably more eclectic and conservative in style. In Footwork, commissioned for the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s thirtieth anniversary in 2006, he let his hair down and wrote an old-fashioned foot-tapper. Originally titled Birthday Tango, this delightful romp is calculated to showcase the entire orchestra,.the strings often playing divisi style, one to a part. The double bass leads the way onto the dance floor with a slightly woozy tango in C minor. Little by little the music grows wilder and more complicated in texture and rhythm, as the tango beat chugs steadily along in the background. A fortissimo F-sharp major chord ushers in a new section, just as energetic as the first but less sharply defined rhythmically. (Smalley describes the central episode as a Milonga, a type of tango based on asymmetrical rhythmic units of 3 + 3 + 2.) At last the original tango reemerges in tentative snatches of melody, swells to an ecstatic climax, then dissolves into stillness.


GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
“O Lord, Whose Mercies Numberless” from Saul; “Aure, deh, per pietà” from Giulio Cesare; “Vivi, tiranno!” from Rodelinda

Handel’s oratorio Saul, set to a libretto by Charles Jennens (of Messiah fame) and first performed in London in 1739, recounts the final days of the biblical monarch. Embittered by young David’s triumphs against the Philistines, Saul vents his jealousy in “horrid Words, which Hell, no human Tongue, has taught him.” David responds to this torrent of abuse by turning the other check. “O Lord, Whose Mercies Numberless,” a tender paean to God’s patience in the face of man’s transgressions, illustrates the noble simplicity and unaffected grandeur of Handel’s oratorio style.

In contrast to “Va tacito e nascosto,” Caesar’s aria “Aure, deh, per pietà,” from the third act of Giulio Cesare, reveals a softer side of the hero’s nature as he prays for comfort and courage in rescuing Cleopatra from Ptolemy’s clutches. The limpid melody in F major opens with a messa di voce, the long-held crescendo and decrescendo on a single note that was a specialty of the great Baroque singers. Bertarido’s “Vivi, tiranno!” is a bravura showpiece that Handel added when Rodelinda was revived, presumably to gratify the capacious ego of the castrato Senesino. It is sung just before the end of the opera, when the valiant hero spares the life of the usurper Grimoaldo and magnanimously offers his own in exchange.


PAVEL HAAS (1899–1944)
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 7, “From the Monkey Mountains” (1925; arr. Tognetti)

Imagine a music that combines Prokofiev’s quirky, long-breathed melodies, Szymanowski’s luxuriant post-Romantic harmonies, Bartók’s twitchy nervousness, and Stravinsky’s spiky, irregular rhythms. Throw in a dash of jazzy syncopation and spice with Moravian folk tunes and you have something approximating the wildly eclectic yet strikingly individual musical language of Pavel Haas.

Born in Brno on the eve of the 20th century, Haas planted one foot in the fertile soil of Czech nationalism and the other in the shifting sands of international modernism. His String Quartet No. 2, Op. 7, subtitled “From the Monkey Mountains,” which Richard Tognetti has arranged for chamber orchestra, dates from 1925, three years after Haas completed his studies in Janáèek’s master class at the Brno Conservatory. Elements of his teacher’s style are apparent in this richly imaginative work, particularly Janáèek’s obsessive preoccupation with compact rhythmic and melodic cells. But Haas’s distinctive musical voice suggests that he was receptive to a far wider range of influences.

The quartet is a suite of four programmatic essays inspired by Haas’s holidays in the rustic Vysoèina highlands (popularly known as the Monkey Mountains), nestled between Bohemia and Moravia not far from Brno. Haas was a master tone painter. The first movement evokes colorful images of nature--chirping birds, mist-shrouded hills, and scudding clouds. The second movement brilliantly mimics the squeaks and groans of a wobbly cart careening down a country road. The third movement is a wistful meditation in the muted hues of a Whistler “nocturne,” the fourth a kind of modern-day Walpurgis Night. A romantic at heart, Haas composed his final piece--a set of four songs to Chinese poetry--just before he died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz.

—Harry Haskell

A former music critic and editor, Harry Haskell is the author of The Early Music Revival: A History, The Attentive Listener: Three Centuries of Music Criticism, and Boss-Busters and Sin Hounds: Kansas City and Its "Star." 

© 2009 The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Australian Chamber Orchestra
Richard Tognetti, Artistic Director
The Australian Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1975 in Sydney. It presents performances of the highest standard to audiences around the world, including 10,000 subscribers across Australia each year. The ACO’s unique artistic style encompasses not only the masterworks of the classical repertoire, but innovative cross-art-form projects and a vigorous commissioning program.

The outstanding Australian musician Richard Tognetti was appointed as Artistic Director and Lead Violin in 1990. Under his inspiring leadership, the ACO has performed as a flexible and versatile “ensemble of soloists,” on modern and period instruments, as a small chamber group, a small symphony orchestra, and as an electro-acoustic collective. In a nod to past traditions, only the cellists are seated, resulting with a sense of energy and individuality that is one of the most commented-upon elements in an ACO concert experience.

Regular international tours to Asia, Europe, and the US have drawn outstanding reviews for the ACO’s performances at many of the world’s prestigious concert halls, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Vienna’s Musikverein, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, and Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center. Recent festival appearances include the BBC Proms, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Interlochen, and New York’s Mostly Mozart. The Australian Government recognizes the ACO’s achievements by designating it as an international flagship arts company.

The ACO’s dedication and musicianship has created warm relationships with such celebrated soloists as Steven Isserlis, Dawn Upshaw, Imogen Cooper, Angela Hewitt, Ivry Gitlis, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and Emmanuel Pahud. In 2008, guest artists include Melvyn Tan, Katie Noonan, Alina Ibragimova, and John Storgårds.

In recent years, the ACO has made a number of acclaimed recordings for labels including Sony, Channel Classics, Hyperion, EMI, Chandos, and Orfeo. In 2005 the Orchestra collaborated with pianist Angela Hewitt on the final installment of her 10-year project to record all of Bach’s keyboard music. This double-CD set for Hyperion was CD of the Month for Gramophone magazine. Similar critical praise was lavished on the ACO’s recording with Emmanuel Pahud of Vivaldi’s flute concertos for EMI. Richard Tognetti and the ACO have recorded Bach’s violin concertos for ABC Classics (2006), including the ‘double’ concertos with Helena Rathbone, violin and with Diana Doherty, oboe. In 2008 the Orchestra appeared on another recording for BIS with Christian Lindberg.

Andreas Scholl, Countertenor
A committed recital artist, Andreas Scholl performs in the world's leading concert halls and festivals. Concert performances have included appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Freiburger Barockorchester, Münchner Philharmoniker, and at the 2005 Last Night of the Proms. Operatic engagements include Bertarido (Rodelinda) at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and The Metropolitan Opera, and Giulio Cesare at Royal Danish Opera, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, and Opéra de Lausanne.

Season highlights include a new production of Partenope at Royal Danish Opera, Messiah
with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ton Koopman, and a European
concert tour with the Kammerorchester Basel.

Scholl has released a series of extraordinary solo recordings. Arias for Senesino, for which he won the 2006 Classical Brit Singer of the Year award; Heroes, a disc of arias by Handel, Mozart, Hasse, and Gluck; Robert Dowland's A Musicall Banquet; Vivaldi Motets with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra; Wayfaring Stranger, a selection of specially arranged English and American folksongs with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; and Arcadia, a collection of rare and unpublished cantatas by composers from Rome’s Arcadian Circle—are all released on the Decca label. His discography also includes Solomon and Saul under Paul McCreesh for Deutsche Grammophon. Recordings for Harmonia Mundi include the Gramophone Award–winning Stabat Mater and Caldara's Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo, Il duello amoroso, a selection of Handel’s Italian cantatas with the Accademia Bizantina, and Crystal Tears—his latest recording.

Born in Germany, Andreas Scholl's early musical training was with the Kiedricher Chorbuben.
He later went on to study under Richard Levitt and René Jacobs at the Schola Cantorum
Basiliensis. He is a winner of the 1999 ECHO Awards, Prix de l'Union de la Presse Musicale
Belge and the Middle Ages / Renaissance category of the 2002 Edison Awards for his recording of A Musicall Banquet. He won a second ECHO Award in 2005 for his composition
for Deutsche Grammophon's audio-book of Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes and The Nightingale.