Chofu Series No.21

This concert is over. Date: Mon. 4. November 2019 14:00 (13:20)

Venue: Chofu Green Hall

Baby sitting Service

[PDF download]

Artists

Naoto OTOMO, Conductor
Miki KOBAYASHI, Violin

Profile

Naoto OTOMO (Conductor)

Since his debut with the NHK Symphony Orchestra at the age of 22, Otomo has led the highly competitive music scene of Japan. He currently serves as Music Director at the Ryukyu Symphony Orchestra (Okinawa) and Artistic Director of Takasaki City Theatre, and previously held the posts of Principal Conductor/Music Director at the Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo, Kyoto and Gunma Symphony Orchestras and Osaka Philharmonic.

Otomo has appeared repeatedly with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Romania, Indianapolis Symphony, Hawaii Symphony, and he led the Philharmonia Orchestra on its tour to Japan.

Otomo has performed with numerous world-renowned soloists, such as Radu Lupu, Mikhail Pletnev, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Nobuko Imai, Mstislav Rostropovich, among the others.

Well-known for his wide repertoire ranging from classical to contemporary works, Otomo has premiered numerous new works, conducting especially the first performances in Japan of several pieces by James MacMillan and the opera “A Flowering Tree” by John Adams. He was also awarded for his performance of Italian premier of Shigeaki Saegusa’s Jr. Butterfly at the Puccini Festival.

KOBAYASHI Miki (Violin)

Program

Glinka: Overture to "Russlan and Ludmila"

Program Notes
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor, op.64

Program Notes
Dvořák: Symphony No.9 in E minor, op.95 B.178, "From the New World"

Program Notes

Ⅰ Allegro molto appassionato
Ⅱ Andante
Ⅲ Allegretto non troppo — Allegro molto vivace
(played without pause)

Felix Mendelssohn: Born in Hamburg, February 3, 1809; died in Leipzig, November 4, 1847

Mendelssohn wrote his E-minor Violin Concerto for his friend Ferdinand David, concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. In July of 1838, the composer had written to David: “I’d like to write a violin concerto for you next winter; one in E minor sticks in my head, the beginning of which will not leave me in peace.” One year later Mendelssohn wrote again, saying that he needed only “a few days in a good mood” to write the concerto. “But it is not, to be sure, an easy assignment; you want it to be brilliant, and how should someone like me do that? The whole first solo will consist of high E’s.” Early sketches reveal that Mendelssohn had indeed written a large number of high E’s, but by the time of the finished product in 1844 he had obviously reconsidered. Along the way, while David waited and waited for his concerto, those “high E’s” seem to have become something of a private joke. Mendelssohn finally completed the work in September of 1844.

It was well worth the wait. The sense of facility and effortless grace, its polish and eternal freshness, and the amiable, genteel mood it generates totally belie Mendelssohn’s effort to compose it. Critic Philip Hale asserted that “the concerto always, under favorable conditions, interests and promotes contagious good feeling.” David was of course the soloist at the premiere, which took place at a Gewandhaus concert in Leipzig on March 13, 1845.

There is no opening orchestral introduction; the soloist enters with the main theme almost immediately. All three movements are joined, with no formal pauses to break the flow. Mendelssohn places the cadenza at the juncture of the development section and the recapitulation, with the soloist continuing on as accompanist after the orchestra reenters. Thus, the cadenza assumes a more important dramatic and structural role within the movement’s design. The term “well-bred” is often invoked to describe this concerto, and nowhere better does it serve than for the quiet rapture and poetic beauty of the second movement’s principal theme. A moment of sweet melancholy in A minor intrudes briefly, with trumpets and timpani adding a touch of agitation. The principal theme then returns in varied repetition and a gently yearning passage, again in A minor, leads to the finale. As in the two previous movements, the soloist gives the first presentation of the principal theme, one of elfin lightness and gaiety. The mood of this movement has often been compared to that of the fairyland world of an earlier Mendelssohn score, his music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Program notes by Robert Markow

Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.

Ⅰ Adagio - Allegro molto
Ⅱ Largo
Ⅲ Scherzo: Molto vivace
Ⅳ Allegro con fuoco

Antonín Dvořák: Born in Mühlhausen, Bohemia (today Nelahozeves, Czech Republic), September 8, 1841; died in Prague, May 1, 1904

Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, the “New World Symphony” to most listeners, received its world premiere in New York’s Carnegie Hall on December 16, 1893. Although the “New World” Symphony was written in the New World, it is not specifically about the New World. True, there are themes that could be construed as being “authentic” songs of the American Indians or African-Americans, but in fact, as in Dvořák’s Slavonic works, he did not actually quote directly from folksong but rather composed his own based on study of the source material.

One “New World” aspect of this symphony is the role played by Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha, which Dvořák had read in Czech translation some thirty years earlier. He re-read the poem in America and claimed that the scene of Minnehaha’s funeral in the forest inspired the Largo movement of his symphony, while the Indians’ Dance was responsible for the Scherzo. Dvořák actually visited Hiawatha’s land (Iowa and southern Minnesota), but the symphony was essentially complete by this time, so whatever influence Hiawatha had on him was purely literary, not geographical. Finally, it is worth noting that America was celebrating in 1892 (the year Dvořák arrived in America) the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the New World.

From the New World alone of Dvořák’s nine symphonies opens with a slow introduction. Within the space of just 23 measures, the composer incorporates moods of melancholic dreaming and tense foreboding, startling eruptions and a surging melodic line. The main Allegro section is launched by horns in an arpeggiated fanfare motif in E minor, a motif that will reappear in all remaining movements as well. Several additional themes follow.

The Largo contains one of the most famous themes in all classical music. Many listeners know it as the song “Goin’ home,” but Dvořák did not borrow the theme from a spiritual; it is his own, and the words were superimposed after the symphony was written by one of his students, William Arms Fisher. Although Dvořák himself claimed the movement was inspired by a passage from Longfellow’s poem, Otakar Šourek (himself a Czech), believes the listener is equally entitled to imagine instead Dvořák longing for his homeland: “the melancholy, wide expanses of the South Bohemian countryside, of his garden at Vysoka, of the deep solemn sighing of the pine forests, and the broad, fragrant fields.”

The Scherzo is one of the most energetic and exhilarating movements Dvořák ever wrote, and borders on the virtuosic as well for the dazzling orchestral display it entails. The contrasting Trio section is a charming rustic dance introduced by the woodwind choir and set to the lilting long-short-long rhythm of which Schubert was so fond.

The finale too contains its share of melodic fecundity and inventiveness. The development section develops not only material from this movement but from the three previous ones as well, especially the main theme of the Largo, which is fragmented and tossed about with almost reckless abandon. The grand climax of the long coda brings back the chordal sequence that opened the Largo, but now painted in broad, majestic strokes in the full brass and woodwind sections. The final chord is a surprise — not a predictably stentorian chord played fortissimo by the full orchestra, but a lovely, warm sonority of winds alone, a sound that lingers gently on the ears.
Program notes by Robert Markow

Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.

Limited number of tickets remaining at the door at 12:45 pm (cash only please).（111/1up）

Members: end of sale
Single ticket: end of sale

Purchase Ticket (Japanese)

Performers and programs are subject to change, or performances may be cancelled.
No refunds except for cancelled performances.
Please contact us for unsold seat situation.
TMSO Guide 0570-056-057 Hours: 10-18 MON-FRI Closed on SAT, SUN and NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

This number cannot be reached by international calls, some IP phones and prepaid mobile phones.