HUANG PLAYS BRAHMS' VIOLIN CONCERTO
Dallas Symphony Orchestra Paul Huang, violinAcclaimed Taiwanese-American violinist Paul Huang returns to Bravo! Vail, performing Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major with Luisi and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, in a program that includes two of Richard Strauss' masterpieces, the Suite from Der Rosenkavalier and Don Juan.
Did you know?
Brahms opened doors for young Richard Strauss, and they met on multiple occasions. As Strauss’s fervor for Wagner and his “Music of the Future” grew, his enthusiasm for Brahms decreased, and these two titans of German music ended up estranged.
Featured Artists
Fabio Luisi
Paul Huang
Fabio Luisi
conductor
GRAMMY Award winner Fabio Luisi launched his tenure as Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) at the start of the 2020-21 season. In January 2021, the DSO and Luisi announced an extension of the music director’s contract through the 2028-29 season. A maestro of major international standing, the Italian conductor is also set to embark on his sixth season as principal conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and in September 2022 he assumed the role of principal conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. He previously served for six seasons as principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and nine seasons as general music director of the Zurich Opera.
In September 2022, Luisi and the Dallas Symphony released their first recording project together. Brahms’s First and Second Symphonies is available through the DSO’s in-house DSO Live label.
The conductor received his first GRAMMY Award in March 2013 for his leadership of the last two operas of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, when Deutsche Grammophon’s DVD release of the full cycle, recorded live at the Met, was named Best Opera Recording of 2012. In February 2015, the Philharmonia Zurich launched its Philharmonia Records label with three Luisi recordings: Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, a double album surveying Wagner’s Preludes and Interludes, and a DVD of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Subsequent releases have included a survey of Rachmaninov’s Four Piano Concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with soloist Lise de la Salle, and a rare recording of the original version of Bruckner’s monumental Symphony No. 8. Luisi’s extensive discography also includes rare Verdi operas (Jérusalem, Alzira and Aroldo), Salieri’s La locandiera, Bellini’s I puritani and I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Anna Netrebko and Elīna Garanča for Deutsche Grammophon, and the symphonic repertoire of Honegger, Respighi and Liszt. He has recorded all the symphonies and the oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln by neglected Austrian composer Franz Schmidt, several works by Richard Strauss for Sony Classical, and an award – winning account of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony with the Staatskapelle Dresden.
Born in Genoa in 1959, Luisi began piano studies at the age of four and received his diploma from the Conservatorio Niccolò Paganini in 1978. He later studied conducting with Milan Horvat at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Graz. Named both Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana and Commendatore della Stella d’Italia for his role in promoting Italian culture abroad, in 2014 he was awarded the Grifo d’Oro, the highest honor given by the city of Genoa, for his contributions to the city’s cultural legacy. Off the podium, Luisi is an accomplished composer whose Saint Bonaventure Mass received its world premiere at St. Bonaventure University, followed by its New York City premiere in the MetLiveArts series, with the Buffalo Philharmonic and Chorus. As reported by the New York Times, CBS Sunday Morning and elsewhere, he is also a passionate maker of perfumes, which he produces in a one-person operation, flparfums.com.
Paul Huang
violin
Recipient of the prestigious 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 2017 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, violinist Paul Huang is considered to be one of the most distinctive artists of his generation. The Washington Post remarked that Mr. Huang "possesses a big, luscious tone, spot-on intonation and a technique that makes the most punishing string phrases feel as natural as breathing," and further proclaimed him as "an artist with the goods for a significant career" following his recital debut at the Kennedy Center.
Known for his "unfailing attractive, golden, and resonant tone" (The Strad), Mr. Huang's recent highlights have included acclaim debut at Bravo! Vail Music Festival stepping in for violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter in the Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.4 with Chamber Orchestra Vienna-Berlin, Rotterdam Philharmonic with Lahav Shani, Detroit Symphony with Leonard Slatkin, Houston Symphony with Andres Orozco-Estrada, Baltimore Symphony, and Seoul Philharmonic with Markus Stenz, and recital debuts at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland and Aspen Music Festival.
In fall 2021, Paul also became the first classical violinist to perform his own arrangement of the National Anthem for the opening game of the NFL at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, to an audience of 75,000. An exclusive recording artist with France's Naïve Records, his debut album “Kaleidoscope" was released worldwide in October of 2023. His recording of Toshio Hosokawa's Violin Concerto Genesis with Residentie Orkest Den Haag will be released on NAXOS in June of 2024.
During the 2023-24 season, Mr. Huang appears with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan with Jun Markl, Pacific Symphony with Matthew Halls, and makes debuts with Dallas Symphony Orchestra and NHK Symphony with Fabio Luisi, Vancouver Symphony with Otto Tausk, and San Francisco Symphony with Mei-Ann Chen. Other highlights will include engagements with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Brevard, and Augusta Symphonies.
2023-24 season recital, chamber music, and festival performances will include Mr. Huang’s return to both the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Camerata Pacifica, and his much-anticipated recital return at the Kennedy Center (Washington Performing Arts Presents) and his recital debut in Singapore at the Victoria Concert Hall. Mr. Huang will also return to Bravo! Vail, North Shore, and Rockport Music festivals. In January 2024, Mr. Huang will launch the 2nd edition of "Paul Huang & Friends" International Chamber Music Festival in Taipei, Taiwan, in association with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.
Mr. Huang's recent recital engagements included Lincoln Center's "Great Performers" series and debuts at the Wigmore Hall, Seoul Arts Center, and the Louvre in Paris.
A frequent guest artist at music festivals worldwide, he has performed at the Seattle, Music@Menlo, Savannah, Caramoor, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Moritzburg, Kissinger Sommer, Sion, Orford Musique, and the PyeongChang Music Festival in South Korea. His chamber music collaborators have included Gil Shaham, Cho-Liang Lin, Nobuko Imai, Mischa Maisky, Jian Wang, Lynn Harrell, Yefim Bronfman, Kirill Gerstein, and Marc-Andre Hamelin.
Winner of the 2011 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Mr. Huang made critically acclaimed recital debuts in New York at Lincoln Center and in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center. Other honors include first prize at the 2009 Tibor Varga International Violin Competition Sion-Valais in Switzerland, the 2009 Chi-Mei Cultural Foundation Arts Award for Taiwan’s Most Promising Young Artists, the 2013 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and the 2014 Classical Recording Foundation Young Artist Award.
Born in Taiwan, Mr. Huang began violin lessons at the age of seven. He is a recipient of the inaugural Kovner Fellowship at The Juilliard School, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees under Hyo Kang and I-Hao Lee. He plays on the legendary 1742 “ex-Wieniawski” Guarneri del Gesù on extended loan through the Stradivari Society of Chicago and is on the faculty of Taipei National University of the Arts. He resides in New York.
Program Highlights
- Fabio Luisi, conductor
- Paul Huang, violin
BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D major
STRAUSS Suite from Der Rosenkavalier
STRAUSS Don Juan
Program Notes
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 (1878-79)
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-97)
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77
Allegro non troppo
Adagio
Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace—
Poco più presto
Johannes Brahms was the figure who most fully adapted the models of Beethoven (via Mendelssohn and Schumann) to the evolving esthetics of the mid-to-late 19th century. He was reluctant to sign off on works in genres that invited direct comparison to Beethoven, especially string quartets and symphonies. He did, however, manage to bring his First Piano Concerto to completion in 1858. Between 1878 and 1881 he followed up with his Second Piano Concerto, and at about the same time he also set to work on his transcendent Violin Concerto. He numbered among his closest friends Joseph Joachim, one of the most eminent violinists of his time. Brahms consulted with him closely while writing the piece and there is no question that Joachim’s influence on the final state of the violin part, and on the work’s orchestration overall, was substantial.
Brahms spent the summer of 1878—the summer of the Violin Concerto—in Pörtschach, a bucolic lake town in southern Austria. When he wrote his Second Symphony there the summer before, he had remarked that beautiful melodies so littered the landscape that one merely had to scoop them up. Listeners today are likely to think that he scooped up quite a few for his Violin Concerto, too, but early listeners weren’t so sure. When it was presented by the Berlin Conservatory Orchestra, one newspaper complained that students should not be subjected to such “trash,” and Joseph Hellmesberger, Sr., who as one of Vienna’s leading violinists had much Brahmsian experience, dismissed it as “a concerto not for, but against the violin.” Brahms was a bit discouraged by the response and, to the regret of posterity, fed to the flames the draft he had already completed for his Violin Concerto No. 2. We can only mourn what must have been lost.
INTERMISSION
Don Juan (1888), Suite from Der Rosenkavalier (1909-10/1944)
RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Don Juan (18 minutes)
Suite from Der Rosenkavalier (21 minutes)
Strauss began writing operas at about the time he stopped composing symphonic poems, illustrative single-movement pieces developed from some literary or pictorial inspiration. After being introduced to this genre in the mid-1880s, Strauss wrote that this approach, “in which the poetic idea was really the formative element, became henceforward the guiding principle for my own symphonic work.” Don Juan (1888), written near the beginning of this procession, already revealed his distinct personality as a composer. The extramusical impetus for this work was the womanizer whose libertine exploits were chronicled in popular literature of the 17th century and then embroidered through generations of poets, playwrights, and novelists. Strauss based his symphonic poem on a version of the tale produced in 1844 by Austro-Hungarian poet Nikolaus Lenau. This Don Juan is a dreamer whose compulsion to seduce and desert a succession of women derives not from mere male chauvinism but rather from a Romantic quest for the ever-elusive ideal—in this case, “to enjoy in one woman all women, since he cannot possess them as individuals.”
Don Juan is portrayed as heroic—a real swashbuckler at the piece’s opening, where the strings suggest his leaping into action, then later when a quartet of horns emphasizes his noble bearing, fortissimo and in unison. The musical storytelling is carried out with clarity: seductions and interruptions, several episodes of love music that convey the disparate characters of the women he conquers. He meets his inevitable doom in the end. A violent crash in the orchestra represents the thrust of a sword being run through him by a father avenging the death of one of the Don’s victims, and his life slips away via a discordant note on the trumpet. Thus the piece achieves its final tableau.
The fifth of Richard Strauss’s 15 operas, Der Rosenkavalier immediately captured the hearts of opera-goers when it was unveiled, in 1911. At the center of the plot, set in mid-18th century Vienna, is the Marschallin, a princess who is having an affair with Octavian, an attractive young count. Her boorish cousin, Baron Ochs, hopes to ensnare Sophie, the lovely daughter of a nouveau riche gentleman with access to well-born circles. In an act of courtship, Octavian (disguised as a maid) is sent to offer Sophie a silver rose on behalf of Baron Ochs, but he and Sophie fall in love. The ardor of youth wins out: Ochs withdraws his bid for Sophie, realizing how ridiculously he has been behaving, and, with dignity and insight, the Marschallin accepts that young Octavian is better suited to love Sophie than a woman of her own advancing years.
The Viennese setting is suggested by the use of local dialect and seductive waltzes. The latter is an anachronism, since the action is set about a century before the “Waltz Era”—but, with music like this, who could complain? As one would expect from a commercial hit, the music was pressed into use through various arrangements and transcriptions. The first orchestral suite appeared in 1911, directly on the heels of the premiere, and quite a few others were released in ensuing decades. Strauss himself created two separate “waltz sequences” using music from his opera, the first in 1911, the second in 1944. The Rosenkavalier Suite played here was made by an unidentified arranger in 1944; it is widely held to be (at least in large part) the work of the conductor Artur Rodzinski. Strauss approved this arrangement, and it was published in 1945 by the firm of Boosey & Hawkes.
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