Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Anne Manson, Music Director
Karl Stobbe, Concertmaster
Westminster United Church
25 May 2010

James Ehnes, guest conductor and violin soloist

 

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Romance no. 1, in g major, op. 40

James Ehnes

Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Serenade for strings in c major, op. 48

1. Pezzo in forma di Sonatina: Andante non troppo — allegro moderato
2. Waltz: Moderato, Tempo di valse
3. Élégie: Larghetto elegiaco
4. Finale (Tema Russo): Andante — Allegro con spirito

Intermission

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
The Four Seasons

Concerto no. 1, in e major (spring)

1. Allegro
2 . Largo e pianissimo sempre
3. Danza pastorale — allegro

Concerto no. 2, in g minor (summer)

1. Allegro non molto
2. Adagio — presto
3. Presto

Concerto no. 3, in f major (autumn)

1. Allegro
2. Adagio molto
3. Allegro

Concerto no. 4, in f minor (winter)

1. Allegro con molto
2. Largo
3. Allegro

James Ehnes

Concert sponsor / Drs. Bill Pope & Elizabeth Tippett-Pope
and Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP
Season sponsor / The Great-West Life Assurance Company
Print media sponsor / Winnipeg Free Press
Radio media sponsors / CBC Radio 2 98.3, CBC Radio One 990,
Espace musique 89,9 and Golden West Radio

 

James Ehnes

"The Ehnes package, revealed immediately in the melodious opening andante of the Leclair, consists of palpable joy in the instrument, intonation so sweet in its perfection that you feel it physically, a strong, relaxed bow arm which wet-moulds every phrase — and a total lack of distracting ego-projection.(London Times, March 2009)

Hailed as “the Jascha Heifetz of our day” (Globe and Mail), violinist James Ehnes is widely considered one of the most dynamic and exciting performers in classical music. He has performed in over 30 countries on five continents, appearing with many of the world's most well-known orchestras and conductors, including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Ivan Fischer, Lorin Maazel, Michael Gielen, Hans Graf, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, the late Richard Hickox, Paavo Järvi, Andrew Litton, Zdenek Macal, Sir Charles Mackerras, David Robertson, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Christian Thielemann, Bramwell Tovey, and Bobby McFerrin.

Following a busy summer featuring appearances in Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa, Seattle, the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and his debut at the Salzburg Festival, the 2009/10 season takes James Ehnes to Japan, the Netherlands, the US, Canada and Germany.

In Europe, James will be featured in concerts with the BBC Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, London Philharmonia, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and the Netherlands Philharmonic. In the US, he will be seen in concerts with the Baltimore, St. Louis, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle, Columbus, Houston, Dallas and San Francisco symphony orchestras and return to the San Diego Mostly Mozart Festival.

In addition to his many concert appearances, James will appear in recital in Detroit, Toronto, Vancouver, Brandon, Montreal, and Glasgow.

Future seasons see James return to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan in addition to many performances throughout Canada, the US and in Europe.

An extremely prolific and multi-award-winning recording artist, with a Grammy, a Gramophone, and six Juno Awards, James Ehnes will add to his impressive discography of over 20 recordings with a new recording of the 24 Paganini Caprices (Onyx) due to be released in fall 2009. James’s first recorded the Paganini Caprices in 1995 for Telarc. His Juno Award-winning release of Homage, a CD/DVD set featuring performances on 12 of the greatest violins and violas ever made, all belonging to the extraordinary Fulton Collection, continues to garner exceptional reviews.

Other recent releases include Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis on the Onyx label and a disc of works by Paul Schoenfield with pianist Andrew Russo (Black Box). James’s CD featuring the violin concertos of Korngold, Walton and Barber with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Bramwell Tovey conducting (CBC) was widely considered a highlight of 2006 and won the 2008 Grammy and Juno Awards.

In January 2006, he celebrated the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth with the release of a recording of Mozart's complete oeuvre for solo violin and orchestra. The five Violin Concertos and three single movement works — Adagio k261, Rondo k269, and Rondo k373 — features an ensemble of extraordinary musicians, including our own Concertmaster Karl Stobbe, which Ehnes gathered from around the world and directed himself (CBC Records) and has widely received top praise, making it “a clear first choice in the field” (Classic FM).

James Ehnes has recorded repertoire ranging from Bach Violin Sonatas to John Adams Road Movies. His CBC recordings with l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal of Max Bruch’s Concertos nos. 1 and 3 (with Charles Dutoit) and Concerto no. 2 with the Scottish Fantasy (with Mario Bernardi) won back-to-back Juno awards in 2001 and 2002 for Best Classical Recording. In January 2002, he was named Young Artist of the Year at the Cannes Classical Awards for his Six Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin by Bach (Analekta), which was also awarded a Juno award in 2001.

James Ehnes was born in 1976 in Brandon, Manitoba. He began violin studies at the age of four, at age nine he became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin. He studied with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music, then in 1993 at The Juilliard School. He graduated from Juilliard in 1997, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. Mr. Ehnes first gained national recognition in 1987 as winner of the Grand Prize in Strings at the Canadian Music Competition. The following year, he won the First Prize in Strings at the Canadian Music Festival, the youngest musician ever to do so. At age 13, he made his orchestral solo debut with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. He has won numerous awards and prizes, including the first-ever Ivan Galamian Memorial Award, the Canada Council for the Arts’ prestigious Virginia Parker Prize, and a 2005 Avery Fisher Career Grant. In October 2005, James was honoured by Brandon University with a Doctor of Music degree (honoris causa) and in July 2007 he became the youngest person ever elected as a Fellow to the Royal Society of Canada.

James Ehnes plays the ‘Marsick’ Stradivarius of 1715 and gratefully acknowledges its extended loan from the Fulton Collection. He currently lives in Bradenton, Florida with his wife Kate.

Romance no. 1, in G major, op. 40
Ludwig van Beethoven

The violin played a crucial role in Beethoven’s career. During his youth, he studied it and played it (as well as the viola). He went on to write for it brilliantly in a variety of settings, including his magnificent series of string quartets and sonatas for violin and piano. During the early 1790s, he began the opening movement of a concerto for violin and orchestra, but did not finish it. Little is known either about the circumstances of its creation, or the reasons why he left it incomplete, but it did gain him valuable experience. It drew him closer to the heart of the violin’s character and capabilities, and set him on the road to mastering the many intricacies of composing for solo instrument with orchestral accompaniment.

Beethoven gained further insight into these pursuits through the creation of his two Romances. Dating from the first years of the nineteenth century, their origins are as obscure as those of the unfinished concerto. Some writers believe that he wrote them as possibilities for a continuation of the earlier, incomplete concerto; others see them as prototypes for the slow movement of the masterful, full-scale Concerto in D Major, op. 61, which he composed in 1806. Whatever the case, both Romances are charming and gracious works. No. 1 starts quietly and gently, with an unaccompanied solo. Contrast appears mid-way through with a more animated, not-quite-anxious panel, but calm and serenity are restored with little stress or difficulty.

Serenade for strings, in C major, op. 48
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky

The cheery Mozart and the often melancholy Tchaikovsky might seem an odd pair, but they had more in common than one might think. Both were superb entertainers; each composed magnificent music for the dance; and they shared a flair for musical drama, with or without voices.

Besides, Tchaikovsky, like virtually all great composers, adored Mozart. “I not only like Mozart, I idolize him,” he wrote. “He captivates, delights and warms me. To hear his music is to feel that one has done a good deed. It is my profound conviction that Mozart is the culminating point of musical beauty. In Mozart I love everything, for we love everything in those we love truly. He was as pure as an angel, and his music is rich in divine beauty.”

Tchaikovsky paid his respects to Mozart several times. He did so as directly as possible through his Suite No. 4, Mozartiana (1887), which presents orchestrations of his idol’s music for piano and for voices. In terms of general Classical style, he made homage through the delicious Variations on a Rococo Theme, for cello and orchestra (1876), and this glowing Serenade for Strings (1880). For all its classical leanings, it is a romantic work, through and through.

He composed it immediately after the bombastic 1812 Overture, a commissioned work that he had written hastily and with little enthusiasm. “The overture will be very loud and noisy, but I wrote it without any warm feelings of love and so it will probably be of no artistic worth,” he confided to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck. “But the Serenade, on the contrary, I wrote from inner compulsion. This is a piece from the heart and so, I venture to say, it does not lack artistic worth.” Completed on November 4, 1880, it had only a month to wait for its first performance, given by students at the Moscow Conservatory on December 3 as a surprise gift to the composer. The public premiere followed in October 1881, and won a huge success.

Tchaikovsky told a friend that he intended the opening movement as a tribute to Mozart, whose opera The Magic Flute he had recently been studying for relaxation. A stately introduction in slow tempo leads to a vigorous and charming allegro. A gracious waltz, one of Tchaikovsky’s best, follows, then a sweet, heartfelt elegy. The finale makes use of two Russian folk songs. The first is treated as a slow, wistful introduction. The second kicks off the ensuing allegro with mischievous charm, a quality abetted by a gracious second theme of Tchaikovsky’s own invention. Near the close, the return of the first movement’s opening theme brings the serenade full circle.

The Four Seasons
Antonio Vivaldi

Vivaldi’s busy and productive career as composer, violinist and teacher drew its due share of acclaim. He played a major role in several significant musical developments, the rise of the concerto above all. His 500-plus concertos feature a wide variety of soloists. As you would expect, the lion’s share, more than 200, focus on the violin.

His reputation suffered a severe lapse following his death. His music’s return to widespread currency dates only from the years following the Second World War. During that “down time,” virtually his only pieces to remain in the standard repertoire were the four violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. Their enduring popularity has been based to great degree on their nature as descriptive or programmatic music, an area in whose orchestral division Vivaldi made pioneering efforts.

The concertos were published in 1725 by the Dutch firm headed by Michel Le Cène. They appeared as the first third in a collection of 12 that bears the overall title Il cimento dell’ armonia e dell’ inventione (The Contest Between Harmony and Invention), op. 8.

In the first edition, the solo violin part included four sonnets, one for each concerto, with block letters printed in the left margin of the individual musicians’ parts to indicate where Vivaldi intended the music to illustrate specific lines of the text. He may have written these verses himself.

The first movement of the ‘Spring’ concerto welcomes the season with bright rhythms and sweet birdcalls on the solo violin. Abruptly, the full ensemble imitates the sound and fury of a thunderstorm. The tempest passes quickly, ushering back the festive sounds of the opening pages. The second movement gently portrays a goatherd, drowsing in the sunshine. The viola gives voice to his faithful watchdog. Vivaldi concludes the concerto with the sprightly strains of a spring festival.

The serenity of much of the ‘Summer’ concerto mirrors the season’s heat and the slow tempo of life that results from it. The first movement begins with the strings of the orchestra evoking a hot summer day by heaving what sound like long, difficult breaths. The soloist bursts in with a passage of almost brutal speed and virtuosity. The opening mood returns, followed by warblings that Vivaldi intended to imitate specific birds: the cuckoo, the turtle dove and the finch. Stillness continues to alternate with agitation, concluding with a blustery foretaste of a full summer storm.

Rapid alterations in mood and texture continue to crop up in the second movement. Buzzing flies and bluebottles — portrayed through repeated notes on the orchestral strings — frustrate the attempts by the humans in this landscape to find genuine rest during the oppressive heat. The brusque finale fulfills the predictions and foreshadowings of the two previous movements, through a howling, full-blown tempest.

The summer doldrums give way to hearty autumn festivities in the ‘Autumn’ concerto. Vivaldi found ingenious ways of dividing the dancers at this harvest celebration into two groups: those who have had too much to drink, and those who refrain from the grape. The sober revellers refuse to let any distractions divert them from their square, regular rhythms. Their thirsty, hard-partying comrades dance more eccentrically, sometimes slowly, sometimes in stop-and-start antics, hiccupping as they weave about. Towards the close, the tempo slows completely, and the soloist takes on the role of a reveller who has passed out.

In the second movement, all the strings play with mutes in a placid depiction of the besotted party-goers lying in wine-induced slumber upon the ground. The third movement takes place on the morning of the following day. A strong, brass-like, dotted-note rhythm in the orchestral strings summons everyone to the hunt. The soloist imitates the sound of the traditional hunting instrument, the horn. In due course the prey takes flight, shots are fired, and the hunting dogs bay in excitement until the quarry is captured.

At the start of the ‘Winter’ concerto, the string orchestra enters gradually, almost nervously, vividly portraying a forbidding and chilly winter landscape. The soloist adds horrid, blustery winds to the scene, then combines with the orchestra to show the unhappy citizens, their legs shaking, their teeth chattering and their feet stamping, as they make their slow, reluctant way to their destinations.

Although the edges of the scene depicted in the second movement may be forbidding, with the orchestral violins playing pizzicato notes in imitation of raindrops striking sombrely against the window panes, the soloist’s theme remains contented, as those people who are fortunate enough to be inside warm themselves in front of a crackling fireplace.

At the start of the finale, the soloist undertakes in delicate fashion a slithering, treacherous walk across thin ice. People slip and fall, then the ice breaks with a snap. A brief, serene pause for breath precedes the bitter winds of the literally tempestuous conclusion, which despite the cheery words of the accompanying sonnet, sound not at all delightful!

 

 

Anne Manson / Music Director and Conductor

MCO's 2010/11 season is sponsored by The Great-West Life Assurance Company.
Support has been received from Media sponsors The Winnipeg Free Press, CBC Radio One 990,
CBC Radio 2 98.3, Espace musique 89,9 and Golden West Radio. Heartstrings gala sponsor:
Mann Financial Assurance Limited. Sponsor of open dress rehearsals: Canadian Bridge Federation.
Arts Accessibility Program: Sun Life Financial.

© 2010 Manitoba Chamber Orchestra