{ program notes
Marco Borggreve
Vadim Gluzman
Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman collaborates regularly with leading conductors including Semyon Bychkov , Sir Andrew Davis , Neeme Jarvi , Paavo Jarvi , Hannu Lintu , Peter Oundjian , Michael Tilson Thomas , Jukka-Pekka Sarasate and Christoph von Dohnanyi . He has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic , Boston Symphony , Cleveland Orchestra , Chicago Symphony , Philadelphia Orchestra , London Philharmonic , Israel Philharmonic , London Symphony , Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and other major symphony orchestras . Mr . Gluzman ’ s festival appearances include performances at Tanglewood , Verbier , Ravinia , Lockenhaus and the North Shore Chamber Music Festival in Illinois , which was founded by Gluzman and pianist Angela Yoffe , his wife and recital partner .
Highlights of the 2016 – 2017 season include appearances in London at The Proms with the BBC Symphony , with the Chicago Symphony , the NDR Elbphilharmonie Hamburg , the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin , and with the Orchestre de Paris . Mr . Gluzman appears in New York ’ s Carnegie Hall with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and leads performances of the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus , OH , where he continues his third year as creative partner and principal guest artist .
This season , Mr . Gluzman also gives world premieres of concertos by Sofia Gubaidulina with the NDR Radio Philhamonic in Hannover , and by Elena Firsova with Deutsches Symphonie- Orchester Berlin .
Accolades for his extensive discography for the BIS label include the Diapason d ’ Or of the Year , Gramophone ’ s Editor ’ s Choice , Classica Magazine ’ s esteemed Choc de Classica award , and Disc of the Month by The Strad , BBC Music Magazine , ClassicFM and others .
Vadim Gluzman plays on the legendary 1690 “ ex-Leopold Auer ” Stradivarius on extended loan to him through the generosity of the Stradivari Society of Chicago .
Vadim Gluzman is making his BSO debut .
About the concert :
Le Tombeau de Couperin
Maurice Ravel
Born in Ciboure , France , March 7 , 1875 ; died in Paris , December 28 , 1937
During the 16 th century in France , a literary tradition developed of creating poetic tributes to deceased luminaries that were known as tombeaux or “ tombstones .” By the 17 th century , composers had adopted the concept as well . So when Maurice Ravel decided to compose his own tombeau in honor of the French Baroque composer François Couperin ( 1668-1733 ), whose music he admired , he was reaching back to a very old form .
Emphasizing woodwinds and especially solo oboe , the Menuet has a lovely rustic charm evoking an idealized past .
However , by 1917 , when Ravel created his first version of Le Tombeau de Couperin — a suite of six short piano pieces based on Baroque dance forms — he was thinking of tombeau in a much broader sense . The First World War had been an agonizing time for him . Too small to be a soldier , he enlisted as a frontline ambulance driver and medic , and he was now literally surrounded by tombstones . Ravel decided to dedicate each movement to a different friend who had been killed in the war . He also stated that his suite was not so much a tribute to Couperin “ as to 18th-century French music in general .” All his life , Ravel saw the 18 th century as an aesthetic ideal , and the period seemed particularly precious to him at this time of death and destruction . When he decided to orchestrate four of Le Tombeau ’ s movements in 1919 , he chose a small ensemble that , except for the addition of a harp and an English horn , closely resembled the standard 18 th -century court orchestra .
Rather than being the stately processional of the Baroque era , the opening Prélude is all high-speed lightness : like a breeze of fresh air blowing through a window . The whirling theme introduced by the oboe dominates the music , as does that instrument ’ s spicy color .
In the Forlane , formerly an elegant court dance , the top note of the upwardbounding idea that serves as a refrain is always marvelously colored by mysterioussounding harmonies . In the intervening episodes , Ravel devises some extraordinary woodwind combinations , especially a pungently bright ensemble of oboe , English horn and clarinets — later joined by flutes — over the magical chiming of the harp .
Emphasizing woodwinds and especially solo oboe , the Menuet has a lovely rustic charm evoking an idealized past . But its middle trio section — in the style of a peasant musette dance with the strings mimicking the bagpipe drone — becomes something darker , almost threatening . Then the Menuet music returns , now made more lush by strings and ending in a tremulous discord .
The small brass section of trumpet and two horns jumps into the foreground to fuel the brilliance of the lively closing Rigaudon . But this movement , too , contains something more serious : a pensively melancholy middle section featuring a lovely oboe solo over delicate pizzicato strings that speaks of beauty that can never be recovered .
Instrumentation : Two flutes including piccolo , two oboes including English horn , two clarinets , two bassoons , two horns , trumpet , harp , strings .
Violin Concerto No . 2
Sergei Prokofiev
Born in Sontsovka , Ukraine , April 23 , 1891 ; died in Moscow , U . S . S . R ., March 5 , 1953
“ I have become simpler and more melodic . We want a simpler and more melodic style for music , a simple , less complicated emotional state , and dissonance again relegated to its proper place as one element of music … I think we have gone as far as
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