{ Program Notes
the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
in 1994 and the Basque National Orchestra in 1996. Mr. Carney has performed with many of the world’s great
conductors including Maestri Haitink,
Abbado, Solti, Tennstadt, Maazel,
Gergiev and Sawallisch. He has made
a number of recordings, including concertos by Mozart, Vivaldi and Nielsen,
sonatas by Brahms, Beethoven and
Franck, and a disc of virtuoso works by
Sarasate and Kreisler with his mother
Gloria Carney as pianist.
Mr. Carney is an avid music educator and currently serves on the board
of the Baltimore School for the Arts, as
well as being the school’s artist-in-residence. He is also the artistic director
of the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra at Strathmore.
Jonathan Carney’s violin is a 1687
Stradivarius, the Mercur-Avery, on which
he uses “Vision” strings by ThomastikInfeld. Mr. Carney’s string sponsor is
Connolly & Co., exclusive U.S. importer
of Thomastik-Infeld strings.
The BSO
34 O v ertur e |
in 1843 fashioned this brilliant concert
overture from Cellini material and unveiled
it at a concert in Paris on February 3, 1844.
It was an immediate success and became
one of his most popular pieces.
The Overture’s authentic Italian atmosphere comes from Berlioz’s stay in Rome
in 1831–32 as winner of the coveted
Prix de Rome. The work begins with a
short burst of the Mardi Gras carnival
music: an Italian saltarello dance sung by
the chorus at the end of Act 1. Then the
tempo slows, and the English horn begins
a lovely, ardent melody; it is the music
Cellini sings to his beloved, Teresa, earlier
in Act 1. Ultimately, the vivacious Mardi
Gras music — glittering with tambourines, triangle, and cymbals — returns for
the spectacular conclusion.
Roman Carnival Overture
Hector Berlioz
Born in La Côte-Saint-André, France,
December 11, 1803; died in Paris, France,
March 8, 1869
Hector Berlioz had no luck cracking the
Parisian musical establishment, especially
its capital, the Paris Opéra. Far too radical
in his ideas for his conservative home city,
he had to travel to Germany, Russia, and
England to win enthusiastic audiences.
His best opportunity for a Parisian success
came with his 1838 opera Benvenuto Cellini, based on the life of the 16th-century
sculptor (Cellini’s most famous work was
a golden statue of Perseus), bon vivant,
and writer of a famously flamboyant autobiography. But the Opéra gave Benvenuto
Cellini a limp production, and the work’s
very public failure barred Berlioz from any
hope of mounting another opera there.
More than a blow to his ego, Benvenuto
Cellini’s failure forced Berlioz to look beyond composing to make his living. By the
1840s, he had become one of the first great
orchestral conductors, both of his own and
other composers’ works, and was especially
in demand in Germany. Still believing in
his opera’s quality and in need of showy
orchestral pieces for his concerts, Berlioz
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes,
English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four
horns, two trumpets, two cornets, three trombones, timpani, percussion and strings.
Violin Concerto No. 3 in B Minor
Camille Saint-Saëns
Born in Paris, France, October 9, 1835; died in
Algiers, Algeria, December 16, 1921
Dave H o ffman n
Jonathan Carney last appeared as a
soloist with the BSO in December 2013,
leading and performing Vivaldi’s Four
Seasons and Piazzolla’s Four Seasons
of Buenos Aires at the Music Center
at Strathmore.
About the concert:
www. bsomusic .org
One day in 1859, a 15-year-old Spanish
violin prodigy came calling on Camille
Saint-Saëns, then just 24 himself and
only recently out of his own prodigy years
when he had astounded Parisian music
lovers with his un-childlike prowess at the
piano. The violinist was Pablo de Sarasate,
and he would become one of the legendary virtuosos of the 19th century. “He had
come to ask me, in the most casual manner imaginable, to write a concerto for
him,” the French composer remembered.
“Greatly flattered and delighted at the
request, I gave him a promise and kept my
word with the Concerto in A Major [the
Violin Concerto No. 1].”
A friendship immediately developed
between the two artists that would
continue for decades and inspire three
more major works for Sarasate, including
the very popular Introduction and Rondo
capriccioso of 1863 and Saint-Saëns’ finest
violin concerto, the Third of 1880, which