Overture Magazine 2013-2014 March-April 2014 | Page 40

{ Program Notes

Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes
plus off-stage oboe, English horn, two clarinets,
piccolo clarinet, four bassoons, four horns, two
trumpets, two cornets, three trombones, two tubas, timpani, percussion, two harps and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2014

38 O v ertur e |

www. bsomusic .org

Jo s e ph Meye rho ff Sym pho ny Hall

B a l t i mo r e S y m p h o n y O r c h e s t r a
Marin Alsop
Music Director • Harvey M. And Lyn P. Meyerhoff Chair

Mahler’s Titan

Thursday, April 24, 2014 — 8 p.m.
Sunday, April 27, 2014 — 3 p.m.
Marin Alsop, Conductor
Yekwon Sunwoo, Piano

Sergei Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, opus 43
YEKWON SUNWOO

INTERMISSION

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 1 in D Major, "Titan"
Langsam. Schleppend
Kräftig bewegt
Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen

Stürmisch bewegt

The concert will end at approximately 9:45p.m.
on Thursday and 4:45 p.m. on Sunday.

Marin Alsop
For Marin Alsop’s bio., please see pg. 12.

Pe te Ch ecch ia

used in so many classical compositions],
Sabbath round-dance…”
Berlioz called the five movements inspired by this program: “Reveries and Passions,” “A Ball,” “In the Country,” “March
to the Scaffold” and “Dream of the
Witches Sabbath.” All of the symphony’s
innovations — the radical orchestration,
eerie harmonies, eccentric rhythms, and
the idée fixe representing the beloved (a
theme recurring in all movements) —
derive from Berlioz’s imaginative search
for the right musical devices to express
this Romantic fantasy.
The full idée fixe is presented as a long,
yearning melody in the violins and flutes
at the beginning of the first movement’s
Allegro section. Its most striking reappearances come in the “March to the
Scaffold,” where, sung by a solo clarinet,
it is abruptly silenced by the fall of the
guillotine; and in the “Witches Sabbath”
finale, where a shrieking E-flat clarinet
presents a demonic version.
But Berlioz’s most extraordinary innovation is his use of the orchestra, which,
in Michael Steinberg’s words, “sounds and
behaves like nothing heard before. His
orchestra is as new as Paganini’s violin and
Liszt’s piano.” Berlioz introduced instruments unknown in previous symphonies:
the English horn (movement three), two
harps (movement two), the grotesque
E-flat clarinet (finale), and a fantastic
array of percussion including an unprecedented four timpani (movements 4 and
5). And he used traditional instruments
in ways seldom heard before: listen for the
snarling stopped horns at the beginning of
“March to the Scaffold” and the bonerattling sound of violins being played
with the wood of the bow in the “Witches
Sabbath.” Even today, more than 180
years after its composition, the Symphonie
fantastique retains its radical edge and its
ability to set our spines tingling.

Yekwon
Sunwoo

As winner of the 2013
Sendai International
Music Competition
and 2012 William Kapell International
Piano Competition, Yekwon Sunwoo has
performed as a soloist with orchestras such
as the Orchestre National de Belgique
with Marin Alsop, the Orchestre Royal de
Chambre de Wallonie with Paul Goodwin, Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra
with Christopher Wilkins, l’Orchestre

Philharmonique du Maroc, Incheon Philharmonic Orchestra and the Daegu City
Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Sunwoo made his New York City
debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie
Hall in 2009 as winner of the Florida
International Piano Competition. Other
awards include First Prize in the 2012
Piano Campus International Concours,
a laureate in the 2010 Queen Elisabeth
Competition in Brussels, First Prize in the
2009 Concours International de Piano
“Interlaken Classics,” First Prize in the
Daegu Broadcasting Competition, First
Prize in the Ewha-Kyung Hyang Competition and Grand Prize in the Kukmin-Ilbo/
Hansei University Competition.