TMSO Special（3/28）
≪Mysteries of Ligeti - ＃Ligeti100≫

This concert is over. Date: Tue. 28. March 2023 19:00 (18:00)

Venue: Suntory Hall

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Artists

Kazushi ONO, Conductor
Patricia KOPATCHINSKAJA, Violin & Voice*/**
Ritsuyu-kai, Chorus

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/

Patricia KOPATCHINSKAJA (Violin)

Highlights of the 2020/21 season included residencies with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Fesival d’Aix-en-Provence, Bamberg Symphony, SWR Symphony Orchestra, and her debut at the BBC Proms. Kopatchinskaja also gave recitals in venues across Europe at the Wiener Konzerthaus, DR Koncerthuset in Copenhagen, Liszt Academy of Music, Passau Festival, DeDoelen in Rotterdam, and Gstaad Festival.

The forthcoming 2021/22 season features engagements with top level orchestras including residencies with Berlin Philharmoniker and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a tour with Budapest Festival Orchestra, appearances with Toronto Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, and her continued residency as Artistic Partner with Camerata Bern.

Kopatchinskaja continues to showcase living composers such as Luca Francesconi, György Kurtág and Márton Illés in her innovative projects like Dies Irae, Bye Bye Beethoven, and her video recording of Kurt Schwitters’ surreal Dadaist poem Ursonate.

Recent CD releases include Les Plaisirs Illuminés with Sol Gabetta and Camerata Bern, and Francisco Coll’s Violin Concerto with Orchestra Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Gustavo Gimeno. Kopatchinskaja and Gabetta will tour Europe in 2021 ahead of their forthcoming duos album. Kopatchinskaja’s project with Il Giardino Armonico, “What’s Next Vivaldi?” received an Opus Klassik award in autumn 2021. In 2018 she won a Grammy for Death and the Maiden with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Ritsuyu-kai (Chorus)

Ritsuyukai consists of 4 mixed choirs, 6 female choirs and 2 male choirs with KURIYAMA Fumiaki as music director and conductor. Each group also acts as the Ritsuyukai while performing concerts, performing trips and recording. In recent years, he has performed with major orchestras such as the New Japan Philharmonic and Beethoven's "Ninth" special concert, Britten's "War Requiem" and Mahler's "Symphony No. 8" by Harding, Orff's "Carmina Burana" by Kamioka Toshiyuki, Haydn's "Four Seasons" by Yeannin, Brahms's "Germany Requiem" by Billy, and Mendelssohn's "Symphony No. 2 Hymn" by Numajiri Ryusuke. And with Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra Rabel’s "Daphnis and Chloe," by Lotto and Bartok’s " The Miraculous Mandarin," by Ono Kazushi, etc.

http://www.ritsuyukai.com/

photo:©渡辺力

Program

Ligeti (arr.by Abrahamsen): Études pour piano, Arc-en-ciel [Japan Premiere]

Program Notes
Ligeti: Violin Concerto*

Program Notes
Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin, op.19 Sz.73***

Program Notes
Ligeti: Mysteries of the Macabre**

Program Notes

György Ligeti

Born in Dicsöszentmárton, Transylvania (formerly in Hungary, now Târnǎveni, Romania), May 28, 1923; died in Vienna, June 12, 2006

　　György Ligeti, whose centenary we celebrate this year, followed in the line of distinguished twentieth-century Hungarian composers that runs from Bartók and Kodály through Sándor Veress and Miklós Rózsa. When Ligeti died seventeen years ago at the age of 83, he was internationally recognized as one of the leading composers of his generation. Right up until his death he remained active, teaching at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg and composing. Norman Ryan assessed his contribution to contemporary music as follows: “[He] was an adventurer in form and expression and a great visionary.”
　　Since the early 1960s, Ligeti (pronounced LIG-ih-tee) had been on the cutting edge of experimental music as one of the leaders in the emancipation of sound effects, timbres and textures from their traditionally subordinate roles, giving them a raison dʼêtre of their own. Many of us became aware of his music through Stanley Kubrickʼs 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the instrumental sonoric tapestries of Atmosphères (1961), the Requiem for voices and orchestra (1965), and the choral Lux aeterna (1966) were used as fitting backdrops for desolate moonscapes. Fourteen years later, Kubrick used Ligetiʼs Lontano to help create the eerie, spooky atmosphere in The Shining.

Ligeti (arr.by Abrahamsen): Étude pour piano, Arc-en-ciel [Japan Premiere]
(Andante con eleganza, with swing)

Ⅰ Allegro
Ⅱ Romance
Ⅲ Rondo: Allegro assai

　　Ligetiʼs eighteen piano etudes, divided into three books, occupied the composer from the mid 1980s to the first years of the present century. The first six were published in Germany in 1985 by Schott and quickly assumed a secure place in the repertory of late twentieth-century piano music. Another measure of the success of the first book of etudes is their having won the $150,000 1986 Grawemeyer Award from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, one of the most prestigious and lucrative prizes in classical music. In these pieces − more exercises in composition than in keyboard dexterity − Ligeti explores the compositional processes of highly complex polyrhythms.
　　The title for the fifth Etude of Book I might be interpreted as a reflection of the multi-textured writing, always at least four layers, and sometimes up to eight all blurring one into another much as do the colors of a rainbow. In 2012, the Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen (b. 1952) transcribed this etude for an ensemble (or orchestra) that includes celesta, xylophone, vibraphone, glockenspiel, harp, and tubular bells − all instruments that produce sparkling, glistening sounds. These, in conjunction with the remaining instrumental colors (woodwinds, brass, strings), give new perspective to the original piano score, which by nature is monochromatic. Reinbert de Leeuw conducted the first performance of Abrahamsenʼs orchestration on April 27, 2012 in Witten, Germany. The score is dedicated “to the memory of György Ligeti in the greatest admiration.”

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.

Ligeti: Violin Concerto

Ⅰ Praeludium: Vivacissimo luminoso – [attaca]
Ⅱ Aria, Hoquetus, Choral: Andante con moto – [attaca]
Ⅲ Intermezzo: Presto fluido
Ⅳ Passacaglia: Lento intenso
Ⅴ Appassionato: Agitato molto

　　Ligetiʼs Violin Concerto went through several metamorphoses before arriving at its final form. It began as a three-movement work that was premiered in Cologne on November 3, 1990. Two years later, Ligeti replaced the first movement and added two new ones. This 28-minute, five-movement version was premiered on October 8, 1992, also in Cologne. The final version, with reorchestrated third and fourth movements, was first performed on June 9, 1993 with Pierre Boulez conducting the Ensemble InterContemporain. In all three cases, the soloist was concertmaster of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, Saschko Gawriloff, to whom the concerto is dedicated. The overall layout of the five movements is an arch form consisting of fast-slow-fast-slow-fast. The first three movements are played without pause.
　　The concerto incorporates a number of unconventional elements. The string section consists of a mere handful of players (five violins, three violas, two cellos, one double bass); of these, one of the violins and one of the violas are tuned differently from the others (a technique called scordatura). The horns are instructed to play without valves, resulting in some pitches that sound out of tune. In addition to an usually large percussion section the score requires a pair of slide whistles and a quartet of ocarinas. The ocarina is a wind instrument of great antiquity, usually made of clay and having four to twelve finger holes. In shape it might be compared to a fat, compressed flute with an extended mouthpiece.
　　The first movement consists of a single arch that begins in near silence, rises to a great climax, then recedes into the silence from which it began. There are no themes, as such; instead, we hear a progression of arpeggios, trills, and other effects, all woven into what Ligeti called “a glassy, shimmering character, an expression of fragility and danger.”
　　The second movement follows without pause. It too is an arch form, beginning and ending with the unaccompanied solo violin playing a slow, quiet melodic line. In between come passages involving the slide whistles and ocarinas, against which the soloist strums four-part chords like a guitar.
　　The brief third movement begins (again without pause) with the solo violin singing a sweetly yearning melody in the upper range against a high drone from the woodwinds and a fine mist of filigree from the string section. Eventually a horn enters into dialogue with the solo violin, the texture grows ever denser, and the movement “crashes” fortississississisimo (ffffff).
　　For much of the fourth movement the solo violin assumes an accompaniment role. Clarinets, later joined by other wind instruments, begin a long, slow ascent through the range, a note at a time. Eventually the solo violin enters into dialogue with the rest of the ensemble. Flashes of extreme intensity, blinding colors, and explosive outbursts become increasingly frequent. Like the previous movement, this one ends abruptly.
For a finale, Ligeti incorporates elements of the previous four movements into a kaleidoscopic montage, concluding with a cadenza lasting several minutes. Ligeti invites each soloist to create his or her own, an event that essentially brings this extraordinary concerto of color fields, shimmering textures, microtonal polyphony, and startling juxtapositions to its 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.

Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin,, op.19 Sz.73

Béla Bartók: Born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary (now Sinnicolau Mare, Romania), March 25, 1881; died in New York City, September 26, 1945

　　Macabre, gruesome, lurid, grotesque, devastating, and sensuous are just some of the terms often used to describe Bartókʼs ballet score The Miraculous Mandarin. All are appropriate, yet none of them does full justice to the qualities of this uniquely bizarre work. The scenario Bartók used for his ballet was written by Menyhért (Melchior) Lengyel and published in a literary magazine in 1917. It involves muggers, a pimp, a prostitute, a love-starved young man, an old roué, and a supernatural creature (the mandarin) all mixed up in robbery, murder and almost uncounted acts of violence. One wonders why, in our sensation-ridden times, The Miraculous Mandarin is not staged more often.
　　Bartók began work on his third and final stage work (following Bluebeardʼs Castle and The Wooden Prince) in August of 1917, and completed the first version in May of 1919. The score then underwent extensive revisions in 1924, with the final orchestration completed in November of that year. But no stage performance was yet in sight, though attempts had been made in Berlin in 1921 and every year in Budapest between 1922 and 1926.The first performance of any kind was a radio broadcast on April 8, 1926, on which Bartók and György Kósa played part of the score in the composerʼs original version for two pianos. Not until November 27 of that year was the Mandarin finally produced on stage, and then not in Bartókʼs native Hungary but in Cologne, conducted by Jenö Szenkár. Predictably enough, something of a scandal ensued in this conservative city, and Mayor Konrad Adenauer personally took Bartók to task. Further performances were banned. A watered-down and vastly altered version was prepared for Budapest, but when Bartók saw the travesty he protested so strongly that the production was cancelled. The Miraculous Mandarin was never given in Hungary in Bartókʼs lifeline.
　　In January, 1927, Bartók prepared a suite from the thirty-minute score; this is the music most often heard in the concert hall and on recordings. At this TMSO concert, however, we are afforded a rare opportunity to experience the complete score. In fact, many of the most fantastical and sensational moments, some of them including wordless chorus, occur in the last third of the score, which is not in the suite.
　　The prelude depicts the noisy, frenzied world of a modern metropolis. In a shabby room on a back street, three tramps appear. They force a girl to entice men into her room so they can be mugged and robbed. Three victims in turn are lured in by the girlʼs “Decoy Game” or “Song of Seduction,” played each time by the solo clarinet. First to arrive is an old fellow who turns out to be penniless. This episode is depicted by English horn and snarling trombones. Next comes a timid youth (oboe), with whom the girl dances awkwardly (bassoon). He too has no money, and is tossed out by the tramps. The third visitor is the Mandarin, whose approach is signaled in the orchestra by a lurching, sinister, pseudo-oriental theme in the brass. The orchestra explodes fortissimo in a thousand dazzling colors as the door opens to reveal the strange, impressive, horrific figure standing motionless in the doorway. The girl is terrified. The tramps watch from their hiding place.
　　Eventually the girl begins to dance, tremulously, to a halting waltz tune. The Mandarin watches without passion. The orchestral textures and colors here are among the most extraordinary ever conceived: glistening arabesques in the celesta and piano, squeals from the woodwinds, cascades of harp glissandos, and the tingling triangle.
　　The waltz resumes, building to a great climax. When the girl goes to embrace the mandarin, hitherto showing no passion except for his burning eyes, he begins to tremble in great excitement (wild glissandos in the horns and woodwinds). She tries to escape his sudden feverish attraction to her, and the great chase scene begins to a viciously articulated, erratic theme in the violas over a heavy, pounding accompaniment. The orchestral writing is of utmost virtuosity, rhythmic ferocity and textural complexity, sweeping the listener along in its inexorable drive and overwhelming sonorities. This is not music for the timid!
　　To ever more macabre and fantastically scored music, the tramps try various means of killing the Mandarin, none of which works: suffocation under the bedclothes, stabbing with a rusty sword, and hanging. As the Mandarin dangles from a rope, we hear one of the most memorable episodes in a score crowded with memorable episodes – the haunting, eerie sound of a wordless chorus. The Mandarinʼs body glows with a greenish-blue light. Each time the Mandarin has recovered from his ordeal and has remained totally consumed with passion for the girl, incapable of dying. Now, having finally embraced the girl, he is capable of dying. His wounds only now start to bleed, and he collapses to ghastly shudders in the orchestra.

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.

【Soloist Encore】（3/28up）
Ligeti：Baladă şi joc(Ballad and Dance)
　（Patricia KOPATCHINSKAJA、Kyoko SHIKATA, Violin）

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