Late Night 1900s

June 3, 2011, 9:30 pm

Enmax Hall, Winspear Centre

Late Night 1900s

2010-11 Late Night with Bill Eddins

  • William Eddins, conductor
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The 20th century was a time of exciting innovation, and you will hear music performed to illustrate the mood of this era. Composed at the height of World War II, Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony glorifies the power of the human spirit with a sound that is bright and heroic. Stravinsky’s suite from the ballet Pulcinella led him into the “neo-classical” style which dominated his compositions for decades. Swiss-born Arthur Honegger was one of the darlings of the avant-garde with his work, Pacific 231, a work inspired by the power and mechanical marvel of a train engine.

Following the performance, mingle in our lobby while sipping on a cocktail and listening to live music.

click for detailed seating mapTicket Information

$40 Dress Circle (A)
$30 Terrace (B)
$25 Orchestra & Choir Loft (C & G)
$20 Orchestra Front (F)
Tickets subject to applicable service charges.

Thank you to our Late Night series sponsor: lexus of edmonton

Thank you to our media sponsor: ckua

Program Info

Program

STRAVINSKY
Pulcinella: Suite (excerpts)  (14’)*
 
PROKOFIEV
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, Op.100 (excerpts) (20’)*
 
HONEGGER
Pacific 231 (Mouvement symphonique No. 1) (12’)*
 
There will be no intermission during tonight’s performance. Please join us in the Main Lobby following the concert.
 
Program subject to change
*indicates approximate performance duration
 

Program Notes

Pulcinella: Suite
Igor Stravinsky (b. Oranienbaum, 1882 / d. New York, 1971)
 
First performance of the ballet: May 15, 1920 in Paris
Last ESO performance of the suite: January 2003
 
It was probably only a matter of time before two of the darlings of the arts scene in early 20th-century Europe were brought together. It was Eugenia Errazuriz – a patron of both men – who first tried to unite Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso. “One day…you must collaborate with him,” she wrote Stravinsky in early 1917. “What a genius! As great as you are, cher maître.”
 
Sergei Diaghilev first conceived of having Picasso do scenes for Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, but Stravinsky balked at the idea. Gradually, the creation of Pulcinella took shape, with designs by Picasso, and with Stravinsky using unknown music by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736). The original playbill for Pulcinella said “Music by Pergolesi, arranged and orchestrated by Igor Stravinsky.” But there are two reasons why that billing is inaccurate. The first is that Stravinsky did much more than arrange and orchestrate – he completely re-imagined the music, making it very much his own piece. And secondly, it was soon learned that the reason that the music Stravinsky chose was so “unknown” was that almost none of it was actually composed by Pergolesi, but by Domenico Gallo, Fortunato Chelleri, Alessandro Parisotti, and perhaps others.
 
Fortunately, none of this has any bearing on this delightful score. The full ballet calls for three solo voices in addition to the orchestra, but Stravinsky took 11 movements of his work, and fashioned them into an orchestra-only suite for the concert hall. The Overture has a beguiling sense of the old-fashioned to it, while the Serenata which follows it is a tender courtly dance begun and ended on oboe (Lidia Khaner). It leads without a break into the three-part third movement, a Scherzino (or “little Scherzo”) followed by a darting Allegro section, concluding with an Andantino with a gentle, outdoors feeling to it. A mercurial Tarantella is next, with steps far too quick to actually be danced to, followed without a pause by a trumpet-announced Toccata (“touch piece”). Next is a Gavotta, a gentle dance movement presented as a theme followed by two variations in different tempos. A broadly-humoured Vivo is next, with strident announcements in the lower brass. The final movement is in two parts; a Minuetto begins almost tentatively, but becomes ennobled as it emerges. The lively Finale is a brisk and bright conclusion.
 
 
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, Op.100
Sergei Prokofiev (b. Sontsovka, Ekaterinoslav, 1891 / d. Moscow, 1953)
 
First performed: January 13, 1945 in Moscow
Last ESO performance: October 2003
 
Sergei Prokofiev returned to Russia in 1932, his dreams of making it in Europe or the United States dashed. He found a way to make sure his music conformed to acceptable standards for the Soviet regime he chafed under, and earned enough favour from the powers that be to spend the summer and fall of 1944 in Ivanovo, a haven for artists set up by the Kremlin. It was there, with the spectre of the Second World War finally ebbing away, that he composed his Fifth Symphony.
 
The war had been horrific for the Russian people, so while this symphony deals in part with the victory visible on the horizon, it also bears the stamp that the war’s toll has taken. There is darkness to the work, though it is not black. There is tension and sharpness, but a conclusion that rings with triumph. Flute and bassoon open the formally-constructed opening movement, in which a series of short musical ideas (rather than an extended theme) are presented, then developed – followed by a second group, now in F Major.
 
The second movement is the work’s Scherzo, a march presented in a more or less rondo form. We get a little of Prokofiev’s “Age of Steel” past here, with the varying rhythms suggesting mechanization and the chugging of engines. The movement which follows is a total contrast. A long and detailed main theme is laid atop a comparatively simple underlying structure, and while it is beautiful, it is here that the sadness of the war’s price is given vent.
 
The final movement begins out of the preceding movement’s subdued tones, but after a reference to the opening movement, its joy cannot be held back, and the rest of the thrilling movement is cathartically joyous and triumphant.
 
 
Pacific 231 (Mouvement symphonique No. 1)
Arthur Honneger (b. Le Havre, 1892 / d. Paris, 1955)
 
First performed: May 8, 1924 in Paris
Last ESO performance: April 1992
 
A member of the famous group of young French composers known as Les Six, Arthur Honegger was actually born in Switzerland. As with the other composers in his circle, Honegger was thrilled by the modern world, and not just what was musically modern. “I have always had a passionate liking for locomotives,” he once wrote about the powerful new engines that were transforming travel throughout the world, “for me they are living things.” And they inspired his brief “symphonic movement,” as he called it, named for a locomotive.
 
“What I have endeavoured to portray in Pacific (231) is not an imitation of the noises of the locomotive, but the translation into music of the visual impression made by it and the physical sensation of it.” Presented at a time and place when the machine age was the rage of the art world, Pacific 231’s vivid and excitingly dissonant noises made it a concert hall thrill from its 1924 premiere.
 
Program Notes © 2011 by D.T. Baker

Artist Bios

William Eddins, conductor

william eddins

William Eddins is in his sixth season as Music Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. During his tenure, he has made it a priority that he conduct performances in nearly every subscription series the orchestra has presented, as well as a wide variety of special concerts and galas.

Bill Eddins began playing the piano at age five, but was bitten by the conducting bug while in his sophomore year at the Eastman School of Music. In 1989, he decided to begin conducting studies with Daniel Lewis at the University of Southern California. Assistant Conductorships with both the Minnesota Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony (the latter under the leadership of Daniel Barenboim) honed his skills even further.

Mr. Eddins has many interests outside music. He is fond of biking, tennis, reading, pinball, and cooking. He recently completed building his own recording studio at his home in Minneapolis, where he lives with his wife Jen (a clarinetist), and their sons Raef and Riley. While conducting has been his principal pursuit, he continues to perform on piano in Edmonton and elsewhere. He accepts a limited number of guest appearances each year. In 2008, he conducted a rare full staging of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for Opéra de Lyon, which won him great acclaim, leading to a repeat engagement in Lyon in July and September 2010, as well as Edinburgh in August 2010, and in London in September 2010. During August 2009, Bill toured South Africa, conducting three gala concerts with soprano Renée Fleming and the kwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra.

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