Subscription Concert A Series

【Sold Out】Subscription Concert No.1017 A Series

This concert is over. Date: Fri. 14. March 2025 19:00 (18:00)

Venue: Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Venue Info Seat

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Artists

Kazushi ONO, Conductor
Stefan DOHR, Horn

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/

Stefan DOHR (Horn)

“King of his instrument” , Stefan Dohr is widely regarded as one of the worldʼs greatest horn players. In addition to being Principal Horn of Berliner Philharmoniker, Stefan has collaborated as a soloist with conductors such as Rattle, Abbado, and Barenboim. He has performed with orchestras including Berliner Philharmoniker, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony. Stefan is a permanent member of Ensemble Wien-Berlin and Philharmonisches Oktett Berlin. He has appeared at Lucerne, Salzburg, Rheingau, and Baden-Baden Festivals.
He studied in Essen and Cologne, starting his professional career at the age of 19 as Principal Horn of Frankfurt Opera. He held the position of Principal Horn in Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Festival Orchestras of Bayreuth and Lucerne before taking up his current post in 1993. Visiting Professor at Royal College of Music, Sibelius Academy, and a permanent faculty member at Karajan Academy and Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin.

photo©Simon Pauly

Program

Jörg Widmann: Horn Concerto (2024) [Co-commissioned by Berliner Philharmoniker, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Japan Premiere]

Program Notes
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6 in B minor, op.74, “Pathétique”

Program Notes

Jörg Widmann: Horn Concerto (2024)

　It has been a long-standing dream of mine to write a horn concerto one day. I have loved the horn since my earliest youth. In Stefan Dohr I have found the ideal horn player to realise this dream. In many conversations and sessions with him, I was able to delve even deeper than before into the peculiarities and characteristics of the hornʼs sound.
　The result is a 7-movement horn concerto lasting almost 40 minutes. The number seven has become a central number for me, at least since my Babylon opera. After the introductory Traumbild (dream picture), the second movement Andantino grazioso is characterised by my admiration for the music of Carl Maria von Weber – I lovingly circle and vary a theme from his Horn Concertino. In its exaggerated virtuosity, both for the horn and the orchestra, the third movement Scherzo à la surprise has a (deceptive) final character in itself. The emotional centrepiece, however, is the Adagietto, a movement for solo horn alone with strings, harp and celesta. In the fifth movement, Zwischenwelt (Intermediate World), the orchestra takes control of the action in dense clusters of sound until the movement sinks into alienated harmonic structures and fanfare gestures in sounds of noise and air. The enigmatic sixth movement Vorahnung (Premonition) is followed by one of the few genuine Finales I have written. Here, the attempt is made to bring together and concentrate elements from all the preceding movements and organically lead them into a condensation of the simultaneously dark and abysmal and exuberantly light.
(Jörg Widmann, in May 2024)

Jörg Widmann
　Clarinetist, composer, and conductor Jörg Widmann is one of the most versatile and intriguing artists of his generation. He was born in Munich in 1973.
　His chamber music performances include concerts with long-standing chamber music partners such as Barenboim, Kozhukhin, and Hagen Quartet at Philharmonie Essen, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, and Wiener Konzerthaus amongst others. Continuing his intense activities as a conductor, Widmann performs with National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, as Visiting Composer with Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Finnish Radio Symphony and Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France.
　Widmann studied clarinet with Gerd Starke in Munich and Charles Neidich at Juilliard School. He performs regularly with orchestras, such as Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestre National de France, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Wiener Philharmoniker, and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. He gave the world premiere of Mark Andreʼs Clarinet Concerto über in 2015. Other clarinet concerti dedicated to and written for him include Wolfgang Rihmʼs Musik für Klarinette und Orchester (1999) and Aribert Reimannʼs Cantus (2006).
　Widmann studied composition with Kay Westermann, Wilfried Hiller and Wolfgang Rihm. His compositions are performed regularly by conductors such as Barenboim, Harding, Gergiev, Kent Nagano, Thielemann, Jansons, Nelsons and Rattle and premiered by orchestras such as Wiener and Berliner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris and many others. Am Anfang was premiered in 2009 as part of the 20th anniversary of the Opéra Bastille. Welser-Möst and Cleveland Orchestra gave the world premiere of Flute Concerto, Flûte en suite in 2011. His opera Babylon was premiered in 2012/13 at Bayerische Staatsoper. 2021/22 season sees the world premiere of trumpet concerto Towards Paradise (Labyrinth VI), commissioned by Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Boston Symphony.
　Widmann is professor for composition at the Barenboim-Said Academy, Berlin. He will be in Japan to serve as a juror for the 2026 Toru Takemitsu Composition Award (Tokyo Opera City).

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6 in B minor, op.74, Pathétique

Ⅰ Adagio - Allegro non troppo
Ⅱ Allegro con grazia
Ⅲ Allegro molto vivace
Ⅳ Finale: Adagio lamentoso

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Born in Votkinsk, May 7, 1840; died in St. Petersburg, November 6, 1893

　Tchaikovsky began working on his last symphony in February of 1893, and conducted the first performance on October 28 in St. Petersburg. It was only mildly successful, due to a puzzling Adagio finale that ended softly, an indifferent orchestra, and the composerʼs consequent lack of enthusiastic leadership. Nevertheless, he felt that it was “the best and especially the most sincere of my works. I love it as I have never loved any of my other musical creations.”
　Much conjecture has surrounded the “program” of Tchaikovskyʼs Sixth Symphony. He initially called the work Program Symphony, but then decided that with no declared program to go with it, the title was a contradiction in terms. He then considered calling it the “Tragic,” but when his brother Modeste suggested “patetichesky,” the composer exclaimed, “Excellent, Modya, bravo, patetichesky!” The word was inscribed immediately on the scoreʼs title page and taken to the publisher Jurgenson. One day later, the composer had a change of heart and asked Jurgenson to remove the word “if itʼs not too late.” But Jurgenson, no doubt with an eye towards sales from a catchy title, let the work go out as “Symphonie pathétique,” and as such the name has stuck. The word pathétique, incidentally, derives from the Greek patheticos, and has a different flavor than in most modern English and French contexts, where it usually implies inadequacy and pity, as in “a pathetic attempt.” In Russian, the word patetichesky refers to something passionate, emotional, and, as in the original Greek, having overtones of suffering.
　The introductory bassoon solo, which crawls slowly through the murky depths of the orchestra, becomes the melodic material for the Allegro sectionʼs principal theme. The second theme, presented by the violins, is probably the most memorable of the entire work − haunting in its beauty, poignancy and sad lyricism.
　The second movement is the famous “broken-backed waltz,” limping yet graceful, in 5/4 meter. A Trio section in the middle, also in 5/4, is noteworthy for the steady, pulsing notes in the bassoons, double basses and timpani.
The third movement combines elements of a light scherzo with a heavy march. So festive and exuberant does the march become that one is tempted to stand and cheer at the end, making all the more effective the anguished cry that opens the finale.
　The finaleʼs infinitely warm and tender second theme in D major works itself into a brilliant climax and crashes in a tumultuous descent of scales in the strings. The first theme returns in continuously rising peaks of intensity, agitation and dramatic conflict. Finally the energy is spent, the sense of struggle subsides, and a solemn trombone chorale leads into the return of the movementʼs second theme, no longer in D major but in B minor − dark, dolorous, weighted down in inexpressible grief and resignation. The underlying heart throb of double basses eventually ceases, and the symphony dies away into blackness … nothingness.
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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