Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season September-October 2015 | Page 22

{ program notes
CH R IS LEE

Jonathan
Carney

Concertmaster
Jonathan Carney is
in his 14th season with
the BSO, after 12 seasons in the same
position with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Born in New Jersey,
Mr. Carney hails from a musical family
with all six members graduates of The
Juilliard School. Following his studies
with Ivan Galamian and Christine
Dethier, he was awarded a Leverhulme
Fellowship to continue his studies in
London at the Royal College of Music.
After enjoying critically acclaimed
international tours as both concertmaster
and soloist with numerous ensembles,
Mr. Carney was invited by Vladimir
Ashkenazy to become concertmaster of
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in
1991. He was also appointed concertmaster
of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
in 1994 and the Basque National Orchestra
in 1996. Recent solo performances have
included concertos by Bruch, Korngold,
Khachaturian, Sibelius, Nielsen, the
Brahms Double Concerto and Vaughan
Williams’ The Lark Ascending, which
was featured as a live BBC broadcast
from London’s Barbican Hall. 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. New releases
include Beethoven’s Archduke and Ghost
trios, the cello quintet of Schubert and a
Dvořák disc with the Terzetto and four
Romantic pieces for violin.
Mr. Carney is passionate about music
education and currently serves as Artistic
Director for the Maryland Classic Youth
Orchestras. He is also an artist-in-residence at the Baltimore School for the
Arts, one of the country’s premier high
schools and also serves on its Board
of Directors.
Jonathan Carney last appeared
as a violin with the BSO in July 2015
as leader and soloist in Vivaldi’s
The Four Seasons.

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ABOUT THE CONCERT:
Symphony No. 1 in D Major,
“Classical”

Sergei Prokofiev

Born in Sontsovka, Ukraine April 23, 1891;
died in Moscow, March 5, 1953

Although his earliest works had been
aggressively modern, in 1917, Prokofiev
decided to try his hand at a symphony in
neo-Classical style, anticipating a movement his archrival Igor Stravinsky would
popularize just a few years later. As Prokofiev explained in his autobiography, his
First Symphony was also an experiment
in composing away from the piano. “Up
to that time, I had usually composed at
the piano, but I had noticed that thematic
material composed without the piano was
often better in quality.”
He wrote, “So this was how the project
of writing a symphony in the style of
Haydn came about … it seemed it would
be easier to dive into the deep waters of
writing without the piano if I worked
in a familiar setting. If Haydn had lived
in our era, I thought, he would have retained his compositional style but would
also have absorbed something from what
was new. That’s the kind of symphony I
wanted to compose: a symphony in the
classical style.” The result was a witty,
bright-spirited work that combined
Classical form and musical material with
rhythmic and harmonic twists that were
pure 20th century.
Retreating back to an earlier musical
era also provided a welcome escape for
the composer, for 1917 was the year of the
Russian Revolution. Prokofiev managed
to largely ignore it from various country
retreats, where he composed prolifically,
producing not only the “Classical” Symphony, but also his First Violin Concerto.
The fiery upward rush that opens the
Allegro con brio first movement was
known in Haydn’s day as the “Mannheim
skyrocket,” because it was one of the virtuoso effects associated with the celebrated
German orchestra of Mannheim. The effervescent principal theme it introduces is
initially in the home key of D Major, but
in a 20th-century maneuver, Prokofiev

promptly drops it down to C Major.
More memorable is the second theme —
a mincing 18th-century dance made more
comical by a sly bassoon accompaniment.
Notice the marvelously bright and sassy
writing for woodwinds throughout this
movement and the symphony as a whole.
Movement two has all the grace and
charm of Haydn’s lighter slow movements.
Violins, in the very high range Prokofiev
loved throughout his career, sing a theme
of beguiling sweetness, which grows lovelier still when a flute is added. In the more
animated middle section, the bassoon
again moves into the spotlight.
Throughout his career, Prokofiev loved
the vigorously rhythmic gavotte dance,
and in the third movement, he substitutes it for the minuet Haydn would have
written. This gavotte opens clumsily with
an exaggerated stress on all the strong
beats of its angular melody. But after a
middle section led by woodwinds over a
bagpipe drone in strings, the flute reprises
it with enchanting gentleness and grace.
The Molto vivace finale is like
movement one on amphetamines. More
Mannheim skyrockets, a comical repeated-note theme, and a whimsical little
melody for flute fly by at breakneck speed.
Along with an abundance of comic spirits,
this whirlwind movement demands the
orchestra’s utmost virtuosity.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.

Violin Concerto in A Minor

Alexander Glazunov

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, August 10, 1865;
died in Paris, March 21, 1936

While prodigy instrumentalists are
relatively common, prodigy composers
are much rarer beings. Like Mozart and
Mendelssohn, Russia’s Alexander Glazunov launched his professional composing
career at a very young age. At 13, he
began lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov,
who exclaimed that Glazunov made
progress “not from day to day, but from
hour to hour.” When he was 16, his