Dvořák’s Violin Concerto

Sunday, November 20, 2011, 2:00 pm

Enmax Hall, Winspear Centre

Dvořák’s Violin Concerto

2011-12 Sunday Showcase

  • William Eddins, conductor
    Benjamin Beilman, violin
    Jeremy Spurgeon, organ
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Details

About this Concert
Two charming romantic opera overtures set the stage for two superlative and seldom-heard works for soloist and orchestra. Among his many accomplishments, American violinist Benjamin Beilman makes his Edmonton debut with the too often overlooked charm of Dvořák’s enchanting Violin Concerto. One of Edmonton’s finest musicians, Jeremy Spurgeon, gets a well deserved spotlight in Respighi’s melodic and virtuosic work for organ and strings.

Featured Repertoire
DVOŘÁK: Violin Concerto
RESPIGHI: Suite for Organ and Strings
REZNICEK: Overture to Donna Diana
THOMAS: Overture to Mignon		 Additional Activities
Join us at 1:15pm in the Third Level (Upper Circle) Lobby for Sunday Prelude, a casual, informative half-hour examination of the works and composers to be heard that afternoon.

Next Sunday Showcase
January 22, 2012
Haydn's Trumpet Concerto

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rbc foundation
Series Sponsor
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Ticket Information

$65 Dress Circle (A)
$53 Terrace (B)
$39 Orchestra (C)
$25 Upper Circle (D)
$20 Orchestra Front (F)
Tickets subject to applicable service charges.
This performance is part of the Sunday Showcase series.

Program Info

Program

LAVALLÉE (arr. Gilliland)
O Canada
 
REZNIČEK
Donna Diana: Overture (6’)*
 
RESPIGHI
Suite in G Major for Organ and Strings (23’)*
 
THOMAS
Mignon: Overture (8’)*
 
INTERMISSION
 
DVOŘÁK
Violin Concerto in A minor, Op.53 (32’)*
 
Program subject to change.
*indicates approximate performance duration
 

Program Notes

Donna Diana: Overture
Emil Nikolaus von Rezniček (b. Vienna, 1860 / d. Berlin, 1945)
 
First performance of the opera: December 16, 1894 in Prague
Last ESO performance of the overture: October 2005
 
Emil Rezniček is one of the many composers who share the same fate. Distinguished and noted composers during their lifetimes, their music has fallen into disuse, and today Rezniček – along with composers such as Fibich, Dukas, Addinsell, Ponchielli, and Pachelbel – is known chiefly by only one work.
 
While his operatic output encompassed a wide range of stories, Rezniček’s Donna Diana, and particularly its overture, is the work by which we best know him. The opera premiered in Prague in 1894 and is the story of a haughty heroine with many suitors, who ultimately succumbs to the hero after rejecting him, along with all the others, for as long as she can. The sparkling overture captures the merry tempests of the opera’s whimsical moods.
 
 
Suite in G Major for Organ and Strings
Ottorino Respighi (b. Bologna / d. Rome)
 
Like so many of Respighi’s treasured works, the Suite for Organ and Strings harkens back to early music – in this case, the music of the Baroque. Written over the course of the years 1901 to 1905, Respighi’s suite is not designed as a virtuoso showcase for the organ; rather the organ and strings are each given substantial moments, and are blended in lush ensemble as well.
 
Respighi originally wrote one of the movements – the Aria – separately, later working it into the suite. The bright, opening Preludio is very much in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), though the string textures are quite contemporary. The haunting Aria beautifully balances an older music style with string writing reminiscent of Edward Elgar (1857-1934, an influential contemporary of Respighi). The Pastorale has a gentle rhythm to it, though the often modal-sounding harmonies cast it in muted colours; the music is often hushed in the call-and-response exchange between organ and strings. The final movement, Cantico, is a surprisingly serious and even sombre finale – marked Grave, it opens with a declamatory solo for the organ, followed by a sober processional in the strings, in which the organ joins in a stately conclusion.
 
 
Mignon: Overture
Ambroise Thomas (b. Metz, France, 1811 / d. Paris, 1896)
 
First performance of the opera: November 17, 1866 in Paris
While an aria from the opera Mignon was previously performed by the ESO (October 1999), this is the ESO premiere of the overture.
 
Ambroise Thomas was nothing if not expedient as a composer. In his opera based on the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet, he actually gave it the happy ending he knew his French audience would want – though when he brought the opera to England, he modified it for that audience. With his most famous opera, Mignon (premiered in 1866), he had no problem creating multiple versions of his take on the Goethe story; the French got a happy ending, the English got a reduced version in which a key character never appears, and for the Germans used to the Goethe original, Thomas kills off his heroine. None of these alterations affects the overture, which has proved a popular concert staple. Woodwinds dominate the pastoral opening, though the lower strings usher in harp arpeggios, all leading to a lush romantic melody first presented on horn. After this slow first half, a long-held horn note ushers in a strongly contrasting section, a syncopated rustic dance, gloriously restated at the overture’s climax.
 
 
Violin Concerto in A minor, Op.53
Antonín Dvořák (b. Nelahozeves, Bohemia, 1841 / d. Prague, 1904)
 
First performance: October 14, 1883 in Prague
Last ESO performance: October 1999
 
Johannes Brahms had proved invaluable in getting Antonín Dvořák’s music better known, recommending the young Bohemian to Brahms’ publisher Simrock. So it’s probably no surprise that Brahms’ good friend Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), one of Europe’s finest violinists, was the one to ask Dvořák for a concerto. They initially consulted in 1879, but when Dvořák sent Joachim a draft, the violinist suggested so many revisions that Dvořák pretty re-composed the entire work, telling Simrock there would be an unavoidable delay.
 
That delay lasted years, with Dvořák and Joachim going back and forth – Joachim insisting on a more distinctive violin part, and Dvořák making cuts and scaling back some of the heavier orchestral textures. It was not until 1883 that the score was published in time for the concerto’s premiere – which was not given by Joachim! In fact, the man who had been so vital to the work’s genesis never got an opportunity to play the work himself. Instead, Bohemian violinist František Ondřiček gave the first performance.
 
A brief orchestral opening brings in a folk-tinged solo instrument, alternating with the orchestra. A number of musical ideas are presented by both orchestra and solo violin, though the violin at last dominates the landscape, playing without pause over a delicate orchestral backdrop, gradually building in intensity and leading into the surprisingly truncated recapitulation, where the orchestra once again presents music from the opening moments. Violin and orchestra join in the impassioned conclusion.
 
The second movement is tied to the first without a pause – woodwinds and violin take measures from part of the first movement’s opening to bridge into the Adagio ma non troppo. Listen for a lovely duet with the horns and the soloist in the opening section, while the long, liquid song sung by the violin takes unexpected, but never unwelcome, twists. The contrapuntal writing for winds is also an important feature in the movement.
 
The final movement begins with a gossamer presentation of what will form the rousing main theme of the rondo movement – a Czech dance known as a Furiant. Each return of this dance theme is cleverly redressed in new orchestral colours. The soloist has many challenges here; from rapid-bowing variations on the Furiant theme to leading the rhythmic interplay with the orchestra. The whole movement has a folksong feel, even the double-stopped slower contrasting section about midway through.
 
Program notes © 2011 by D.T. Baker

Artist Info

William Eddins, conductor

william eddins

William Eddins is in his seventh 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.

Benjamin Beilman, violin

benjamin beilman violinViolinist Benjamin Beilman is rapidly gaining attention for his "impeccable" playing and "eloquence and flair" (MusicalAmerica.com). In 2010, he captured First Prize in the Montréal International Music Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and Bronze Medal at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. He also received Philadelphia's prestigious Musical Fund Society Career Advancement Award. Mr. Beilman joins the roster of Chamber Music Society Two in the 2012/13 season. This season sees him at Astral's Philadelphia Brahms Festival, and at the Kimmel Center. He makes his debut with l'Orchestre metropolitain de Montréal, l'Orchestre symphonique de Québec, and the Kansas City and South Dakota Symphonies.
 
Mr. Beilman also gives recitals this season for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Montréal Bach Festival, and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (University of Illinois). He also performs as part of the Young Concert Artist Series in New York, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in Boston. He recently released his debut album, of the complete violin sonatas of Prokofiev, on the Analekta label. He has been heard on National Public Radio's Performance Today and From the Top, the McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase on WQXR New York, and Chicago WFMT's Impromptu. Benjamin Beilman works with Ida Kavafian at the Curtis Institute of Music. He previously studied with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago. www.BenjaminBeilman.com
 
This is Mr. Beilman's debut with the ESO.
jeremy spurgeon organ

Jeremy Spurgeon, organ

British-born Jeremy Spurgeon won scholarships to study both piano accompaniment and organ at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester and later studied organ with Lionel Rogg at the Geneva Conservatoire where he gained the Premier Prix de la Classe de Virtuosité.
 
In 1980 he came to Edmonton as director of music at All Saints' Cathedral and has since appeared in concert with many Canadian and international ensembles, singers and instrumentalists, including the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Richard Eaton Singers, Pro Coro Canada and Edmonton Opera. Jeremy has performed as piano accompanist and organist across Canada and Europe.
 
Mr. Spurgeon last appeared with the ESO in May 2010.
 

Multimedia

Benjamin Beilman at Montreal restaurant Bocata:

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