Subscription Concert C Series

Subscription Concert No.957 C Series

This concert is over. Date: Sat. 3. September 2022 14:00 (13:00)

Venue: Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Venue Info Seat

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Artists

Kazushi ONO, Conductor
Alina IBRAGIMOVA, Violin

Profile

Kazushi ONO (Music Director)

Kazushi Ono is the definitive musical citizen of the world, having been born in Tokyo, studied in Munich and forged his early career in Zagreb, Karlsruhe and Tokyo. This variety of influences has shaped an inquiring and profound musical intellect and an ability to communicate meaning across languages and cultures, leading to longstanding relationships around the world.
Ono trained in Europe under Wolfgang Sawallisch and came to public attention winning first prize in the 1987 Toscanini Competition. Since his first appointment at Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1992 he has held continuous positions, including at Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, Karlsruhe Opera, La Monnaie, Opéra National de Lyon, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and currently, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, New National Theatre Tokyo and Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra.
A favourite of orchestral players, he has lasting friendships with orchestras around the world and regularly guest conducts groups such as London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
His passion and curiosity for repertoire takes him in different directions – to the standard classics but also to new music. He often commissions works and has collaborated several times with Mark-Anthony Turnage, including on Silent Cities, Hibiki (which won a Royal Philharmonic Society award) and Time Flies, which was originally commissioned for the 2020 Tokyo Olympiad. Recent commissions at NNTT include Asters by Akira Nishimura and Dai Fujikura’s A Dream of Armageddon. His programming there also includes Baroque, 20th-century and bel canto masterpieces.
In Europe he conducted the world premieres of Toshio Hosokawa’s Hanjyo in Aix-en-Provence, Arnulf Hermann’s Der Mieter at Oper Frankfurt and Kaija Saariaho’s Emilie at Opéra de Lyon, as well as new productions of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole and L’Enfant et les sortilèges at Glyndebourne and Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher at Opéra de Lyon. He has worked closely with boundary-breaking directors such as Dmitri Tcherniakov, Romeo Castellucci, Pierre Audi, William Kentridge and Mariusz Treliński
Ono is a vocal advocate for the role of culture in all our lives. During his time in Lyon he took part in a programme bringing opera to prisons and at TMSO he leads the inclusive SaLaD Music Festival, as well as working with community organisations for people with disabilities. In his new role in Brussels he will be part of an integration scheme for refugees. During the initial stages of the pandemic, he led ground-breaking research into the transmission of particles and the use of ventilation that meant that orchestras could get back to playing for audiences safely.
In 2017 he was awarded ‘Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ by French cultural minister Françoise Nyssen, adding to the prestigious Asahi Prize in January 2015, for his contribution to the development and progress of Japanese society.
https://www.kazushiono.com/

Alina IBRAGIMOVA (Violin)

Performing music from baroque to new commissions on both modern and period instruments, Alina Ibragimova has established a reputation for versatility and the “immediacy and honesty” (The Guardian) of her performances. The 2023/24 season sees Alina return to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre national de Belgique, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and to the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as artist-in-residence at their Hitzacker Festival. Recent seasons have seen Alina perform with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, London Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Swedish Radio Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich; collaborating with conductors Sir John Elliot Gardner, Bernard Haitink, Jakob Hrůša, Daniel Harding, and Vladimir Jurowski.
Alina’s many awards include the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2010, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award 2008. She was made an MBE in the 2016 New Year Honours List.

Photo by Joss Mckinley

Program

Brahms: Violin Concerto in D major, op.77

Program Notes
Brahms: Symphony No.2 in D major, op.73

Program Notes

Ⅰ Allegro non troppo
Ⅱ Adagio
Ⅲ Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace

Johannes Brahms: Born in Hamburg, May 7, 1833; died in Vienna, April 3, 1897

　Brahms spent the summer of 1878 at Pörtschach on Lake Wörth in southern Austria. It was a region, he once said, where melodies were so abundant that one had to be careful not to step on them. Here Brahms began work on his only violin concerto, completing it by early fall. As was his custom, Brahms conferred with the eminent violinist Joseph Joachim on technical and musical matters. Biographers disagree on the extent to which Brahms heeded Joachimʼs advice (many difficult, awkward passages for the soloist remain), yet, as was only to be expected, he dedicated the score and entrusted the premi-ere to Joachim, his friend and adviser of 25 years. The first performance took place on New Yearʼs Day, 1879, with Brahms conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.
　The concertoʼs technical difficulties did not encourage further performances, nor did audiences re-spond kindly. As with many of Brahmsʼs large-scale works, it was considered dry and pedantic; even the critic and long-time Brahms supporter Eduard Hanslick didnʼt appreciate it. But that is all history now. Brahmsʼs concerto is ranked today alongside Beethovenʼs (also in D major) as one of the two greatest ever written. Hubert Foss states the case eloquently: “Of all Brahmsʼs major works, this is the one which shows in the highest degree of perfection the reconciling of the two opposites of his creative mind − the lyrical and the constructive: Brahms the song writer and Brahms the symphonist. For this concerto is a song for the violin on a symphonic scale − a lyrical outpouring which nevertheless exer-cises to the full his great powers of inventive development. The substance of it is, throughout, the growth of the themes; they blossom before us like opening flowers in a richly stocked garden. It is Brahmsʼs most lovable work of extended design.”
　The concerto opens with a relaxed theme in the violas, cellos, bassoons, and horns − a characteristically warm, Brahmsian scoring. It takes only a few moments to realize that this is going to be a concerto on a grand scale. After presentation of several more thematic ideas, the soloist enters with a flourish, which develops into a long, quasi-cadenza before eventually settling down to repeat the themes first heard in the long orchestral exposition. Additionally, the violin first presents a new theme, rapturously flowing and waltz-like. Brahms left the cadenza to the discretion of the soloist. Many have been written since the original one by Joachim.
　The sustained, serene oboe solo that begins the second movement is one of the most gorgeous melodies Brahms ever wrote, and it serves to remind us that Brahms was one of the great song writers of the nineteenth century. The central portion of the movement shifts to the minor mode, and has been de-scribed as soaring into “impassioned melancholia.” The final part of the ternary-form (ABA) move-ment begins with a re-statement of the oboe theme accompanied by new figurations from the violin. The soloist forms a tight bond with the orchestra, yet interestingly enough never plays more than the first three notes of the main theme in unadorned fashion.
　The bold and fiery finale, the only movement full of virtuosic display, is a slightly modified rondo structure (ABACBA) whose principal theme is marked by a Hungarian gypsy flavor. Thus Brahms pays fitting tribute to two Hungarian violinists who played significant roles in his life: Joseph Joachim and Eduard Reményi, who “discovered” Brahms and presented him to the European music world.

　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 Allegro non troppo
Ⅱ Adagio non troppo
Ⅲ Allegretto grazioso (Quasi Andantino)
Ⅳ Allegro con spirito

　After the massiveness and severity of Brahmsʼs First Symphony, the idyllic, pastoral Second, with its wealth of singable melodies, made a strong popular appeal. Whereas Brahms had toiled for twenty years over his First Symphony, the Second was written in the space of a mere three months during the summer of 1877 − one year before and in the same place (the Wörthersee) as the Violin Concerto. The warmly lyric and relaxed character, the gracefulness of the many melodies, and a positive outlook are all attributable in some measure to the charms of the south Austrian countryside. In its pastoral quality, many listeners find a parallel to Beethovenʼs Sixth Symphony which, like Brahmsʼs Second, followed a grim, darkly serious and heroic symphony in C minor.
　Brahms completed the symphony at Lichtenthal near Baden-Baden in October. The first performance was given by the Vienna Philharmonic, led by Hans Richter, on December 30, 1877. Although the Viennese liked it, the symphony rode a rocky course towards critical acceptance in other cities. One smiles in amusement to read that, for example, in Leipzig, which first heard the symphony in 1880, a critic felt it was “not distinguished by inventive power.” Two years later, in Boston, the Post called it “coldblooded” and the Traveler proclaimed that the symphony lacked “a sense of the beautiful.” So much for the perspicacity of critics!
　Right from the very opening notes, the listener is caught up in the symphonyʼs gentle, relaxed mood. The first two bars also provide the basic motivic germs of the entire movement and for much of the material in the other movements as well. The three-note motto in the cellos and basses and the follow-ing arpeggio in the horns are heard repeatedly in many guises − slowed down, speeded up, played up-side down, buried in the texture or prominently featured. All the principal themes of the movement are derived from these motto-motifs. The second theme is one of Brahmsʼs most glorious, sung by violas and cellos as only these instruments can sing.
　The second movement is of darker hue and more profound sentiment. The form is basically an A-B-A structure, with a more agitated central section in the minor mode. Throughout the movement, the lis-tenerʼs attention is continually focused as much on the densely saturated textures as on the themes.
　The genial, relaxed character returns in the third movement, not a scherzo as Beethoven would have written, but a sort of lyrical intermezzo, harking back to the gracious eighteenth-century minuet. The forces are reduced to almost chamber orchestra proportions, and woodwinds are often the featured sonority. This movement proved so popular at its premiere that it had to be repeated.
　The forthright and optimistic finale derives heavily from the melodies of the first movement, though as usual with Brahms, this material is so cleverly disguised that one scarcely notices. The coda calls for special comment. Brahms usually made scant use of trombones and tuba, writing for these instruments with skill but also with reserve. Yet from time to time he calls upon them for stunning effects, and one such moment occurs in the Second Symphonyʼs coda, a passage as thrilling for audiences as it is for trombonists, every one of whom looks forward to a role in bringing this joyous work to its blazing D-major conclusion.

　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.
　

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