Becoming Beethoven. intermission. Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, Eroica BEETHOVEN

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1 Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 2:30 PM Concert Conversation at 1:15 PM Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 7:30 PM Concert Conversation at 6:15 PM Merrill Auditorium 90th Season, Robert Moody, conductor Kevin Cole, piano MICHAEL-THOMAS FOUMAI (b. 1987) Becoming Beethoven GEORGE GERSHWIN Rhapsody in Blue ( ) Mr. COLE Orchestration by Ferde Grofé intermission LUDWIG VAN Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, Eroica BEETHOVEN I. Allegro con brio ( ) II. Marcia funebre: Adagio assai III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace IV. Finale: Allegro molto This program is made possible with corporate support from RBC Wealth Management and underwriting from Carolyn N. Foster, Bill & Jacky Thornton, and individual donors to the Annual Fund, as well as guest artist underwriting from Jane G. Briggs. It is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Art Works. Please join Maestro Moody for our PostConcert Q&A in Merrill Auditorium immediately following tonight s performance. This concert can be heard on the Maine Public Broadcasting Network over the radio on Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 8pm. As a courtesy to the musicians and other audience members, please remember to turn off all cell phones, watch signals, and other electronic devices. The use of photographic and recording equipment during the performance is strictly prohibited. This concert will last approximately an hour and a half, including intermission. 25

2 About the Music February 15 & 17, 2015 George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1898 and died in Hollywood in He composed Rhapsody in Blue in 1924 and before the ink was dry it was performed by the Paul Whiteman big band in New York with Gershwin as soloist. The work was later scored for orchestra by Ferde Grofé. The Rhapsody calls for solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 3 saxophones, 3 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, banjo and strings. More than anything, George Gershwin wanted to bring the folk music of America jazz to the concert hall. But despite his enormous success on Broadway, Gershwin was highly selfconscious about his lack of formal training so much so that he actually sought lessons from the best classical composers around. This amused them: Ravel reportedly asked him, Why do you want to be a Ravel when you are a perfectly fine Gershwin? In a story that is almost certainly apocryphal, Gershwin is said to have written Stravinsky asking for lessons and what fee the composer charged. Stravinsky replied by asking what annual salary Gershwin made. When Gershwin supplied a nifty six-digit figure, Stravinsky is said to have written back, How about my taking lessons from you? Gershwin was able to shake off his perceived inadequacies and compose big, Tchaikovsky-esque works that used popular music elements as their basic materials. Classical composers had been able to dabble in jazz before, but Gershwin proved that the street ran both ways. It turned out that band leader Paul Whiteman shared Gershwin s desire to bring jazz to the concert hall, and was acting on it. He had already scheduled a concert of symphonic jazz for New York s Aeolian Hall when he asked the 25 year-old Gershwin to supply a jazz concerto. Gershwin had only a month to compose the work and he was already busy, but inspiration came on a train trip to Boston: I suddenly heard and even saw on paper the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end I heard it as sort of a musical kaleidoscope of America of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness. Gershwin completed the Rhapsody in a week, except for some of the solo piano parts: I was so pressed for time that I left them to be improvised at the first concert. I could do that as I was to be the pianist. The Rhapsody s first performance was an enormous success. It took place before an audience of luminaries from the world of serious music, and it made Gershwin a name to be taken as seriously in the concert hall as it was in the musical theater. 26

3 Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, Eroica Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770 and died in Vienna in He completed this work in 1804, and led the first public performance in Vienna the following year. The symphony calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings. Beethoven s own copy of this score is well-thumbed through, full of changes and annotations in the composer s hand. Its title page reads: Grand Symphony, Entitled Bonaparte, by Mr. Louis van Beethoven. The words Entitled Bonaparte have been scratched out so violently that a hole was ripped through the paper. Witnesses say that when Beethoven learned that Napoléon, the hero of this work, had crowned himself emperor, he flew into a rage: Is he, then, too, nothing more than an ordinary human being? Now he, too, will trample on all the rights of Man and indulge only his ambition. He will exalt himself above all others, become a tyrant! Beethoven changed the dedication to Heroic Symphony Composed to Celebrate the Memory of a Great Man. To Beethoven, Napoléon was already a memory. Beethoven had been ambivalent about Napoléon all along. He heartily endorsed the ideals of the French Revolution, and Napoléon seemed to be its champion. The military exploits were troubling it was one thing to welcome the Revolution, quite another to come under fire from its troops yet he was still ready to dedicate his symphony to Napoléon even after the general had conquered Beethoven s own Austria. Beethoven was ready to adapt to French rule, if necessary, and delighted in the prospect that the loathsome Viennese aristocracy would finally get what they deserved. But all was rendered moot when Napoléon had a crown put on his head. What remains is the music itself, and in this Beethoven proved himself to be the most revolutionary of all. The Eroica was longer, more structurally complex and harmonically sophisticated than anything that came before. It was a symphony that redefined the term. A comprehensive list of its innovations would fill a sizable volume. In the first movement, for example, the usual slow introduction to a sonata-allegro form is condensed all the way down to two short, sharp chords. A new theme that never appeared in the exposition inserts itself into the development. The French horn anticipates the recapitulation by several bars, over the wrong harmony. Its coda is nearly as long as the exposition. The list could go on and on. The second movement funeral march opens with complete simplicity, but it is only the beginning of a long, complex journey through grief and nobility. Berlioz called it a last farewell of the warriors to their fallen comrades in arms. It came to mean something else for Beethoven: when informed of Napoléon s death in 1821, the composer responded, I have already composed the proper music for that catastrophe. Beethoven had written scherzos in 27

4 lieu of minuets before, as had haydn and others. But the one he composed for the Eroica had such incredible energy, rhythmic vitality, and capacity for surprise that it made the more predictable minuet obsolete in a single stroke. The Eroica s Finale is a tour-de-force of symphonic development. At first it seems to be a theme-and-variations on the pizzicato bass-line. But it turns out that the bass-line belongs to a melody borrowed from Beethoven s ballet The Creatures of Prometheus; before long we hear the Prometheus tune itself, and the real theme-and-variations begin. There are eleven variations in all twelve, if you count the ebullient coda. The movement has unprecedented length and weight; in Beethoven s expanding universe the Finale has become not just a flourish tacked on to the first three movements but a fulfillment of their promise. From our vantage point it is easy to overlook just how shocking these things were to Beethoven s audience. It was as if the composer, with this symphony, had erected a signpost marking the arrival of romanticism and, consequently, the decline of Classicism. Composers thereafter could not ignore the Eroica, for Beethoven had permanently changed the rules and he knew it. When he had completed eight symphonies (including his monumental Fifth), a friend asked him which of them he preferred. Beethoven replied immediately: The Eroica. Mark Rohr is the bass trombonist for the PSO. Questions or comments? markrohrprogramnotes@gmail.com Visit Online Insights at PortlandSymphony.org to learn more about this concert. about the Artist America s pianist KEVIN COLE has delighted audiences with a repertoire that includes the best of 20th Century American Music. Kevin Cole s performances, especially his interpretation of Gershwin, have prompted accolades from some of the foremost critics in America. When Cole sits down at the piano, you would swear Gershwin himself was at work Cole stands as the best Gershwin pianist in America today, wrote howard reich, arts critic for the Chicago Tribune. Critic Andrew Patner wrote, A piano genius... he reveals an understanding of harmony, rhythmic complexity and pure show-biz virtuosity that would have had Vladimir horowitz smiling with envy. 28

5 Kevin performed with the Nashville Symphony in Gershwin at One Symphony Place, a concert which aired on PBS nationwide in March Other engagements for Cole include sold-out performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, BBC Concert Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall, National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra (London), Boston Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Edmonton Symphony (Canada) and many others. He has shared the concert stage with notables from opera greats William Warfield and Sylvia McNair to Broadway legends Barbara Cook and Marvin Hamlisch. Kevin Cole is an award-winning musical director, arranger, composer, vocalist and archivist who garnered the praises of Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg, Hugh Martin, Burton Lane, Stephen Sondheim and members of the Jerome Kern and Gershwin families. As vocal arranger/accompanist for opera and musical theatre performers, Kevin has worked with Sylvia McNair, Dawn Upshaw, Brian D Arcy James, Karen Morrow, Christine Andreas, Hollis Resnik, Kim Criswell and William Warfield. He has also given Master Classes in musical theatre vocal performance at Interlochen Center for the Arts and North Carolina School of the Arts. He has served as Musical Director for Pasadena Playhouse, Michigan Ensemble Theatre, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival and Royal George Theatre (Chicago). Kevin currently works with songwriting legend Hugh Martin (vocal coach to Lena Horne, Ethel Waters, Judy Garland and many others). Kevin s discography includes the 1995 Grammy-winning I Wish It So and Gershwin s Oh, Kay! (both with soprano Dawn Upshaw) and Lady Be Good First Recordings of the Unknown George Gershwin; The Song Is You with The Carolyn Mawby Chorale; his critically-acclaimed solo piano disc, Cole Plays Gershwin and his just released vocal debut album In The Words Of Ira The Songs of Ira Gershwin. Kevin will be in the lobby for CD signings immediately after the performance. Visit Kevin at: com 29