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NÉZET-SÉGUIN CONDUCTS RACHMANINOFF

The Philadelphia Orchestra Gil Shaham, violin
Orchestral Series
Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 6pm Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater

Legendary violinist Gil Shaham joins Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra in the Bravo! Vail premiere of Mason Bates’ explosive Nomad Concerto in a program that includes Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2.

Did you know?

A leading Russian critic, encountering Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony in 1908, wrote, “Despite his 34 years he is one of the most significant figures in the contemporary music world, a worthy successor to Tchaikovsky … in concentration, sincerity, and subjective delicacy.”

Featured Artists

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

conductor

Gil Shaham

violin

Program Highlights

  • Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor 
  • Gil Shaham, violin 

MASON BATES Nomad Concerto 

RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 2 

The Bates co-commission was made possible through the generous support of Joseph and Bette Hirsch and Carol Kaganov.

Lead support for the Rachmaninoff 150 Celebration is provided by Tatiana Copeland. Mrs. Copeland’s mother was the niece of Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Tatiana Copeland was named after the composer’s daughter, Tatiana Sergeyevna Rachmaninoff.

 

Program Notes

Nomad Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (2023)

(25 minutes)

MASON BATES (b.1977)

Nomad Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
     Song of the Balloon Man
     Magician at the Bazaar
     Desert Vision: Oasis
     Le Jazz manouche

Mason Bates studied composition with Schoenberg’s pupil Dika Newlin before pursuing degrees in composition from The Juilliard School and in English literature from Columbia University; earning a Ph.D. in composition from the University of California, Berkeley; and developing an individualistic voice that draws on both classical models and the sounds of electronica (the electronic sound production associated with the dance scene). He became enmeshed in the club culture of New York’s Lower East Side, and then of the Bay Area, gaining a reputation as a deejay under the name DJ Masonic.

His first opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, has been mounted several times since its 2017 premiere, and the Metropolitan Opera co-commissioned his next opera for presentation in the 2025-26 season—The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, after the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Chabon. He wrote the film scores for Gus Van Sant’s The Sea of Trees (2015) and Philharmonia Fantastique (2021), which he calls a “concerto for orchestra and animated film.” Named Musical America’s 2018 Composer of the Year, he has been composer-in-residence for the Chicago Symphony and the Kennedy Center, and for two seasons was the Pittsburgh Symphony’s “composer of the year.” He was given the Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities (2012) for his work with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the citation observing that “his music has moved the orchestra into the digital age and dissolved the boundaries of classical music.” While there, he introduced his Violin Concerto (2012); though not so-named, his new Nomad Concerto, premiered this past January by Gil Shaham and The Philadelphia Orchestra, is effectively his Violin Concerto No. 2.

He observed of Nomad Concerto: “Each movement is exploring different kinds of traveling cultures, to pay tribute to the power of migratory ideas. ... I’d like listeners to both have the experience of a virtuosic piece that showcases one of the great musicians of our time [and] to think about the role of the nomad in cultures around the world.” Bates wrote the piece with Gil Shaham in mind, specifically inspired by the violinist’s 2013 album Nigunim: Hebrew Melodies. In fact, the concerto’s third movement (“Desert Visions: Oasis”) incorporates the folk song “Ani Ma’amin,” which expresses principles of Jewish faith. Before we get there, though, we pass through other scenes: in the first movement (“Song of the Balloon Man”), a balloon seller whose sad song is repeated by the residents of a village he passes through; and in the second (“Magician at the Bazaar”), a vivacious illusionist. After “Desert Visions: Oasis” comes the finale (“Le jazz manouche”), inspired by the music of Django Reinhardt, the famous guitarist-composer of Romany heritage.

INTERMISSION

(18 minutes)

Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 (1906-08)

(60 minutes)

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943)

Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27
     Largo—Allegro moderato
     Allegro molto
     Adagio
     Allegro vivace

Sergei Rachmaninoff was very nearly undone by the mean-spirited criticism that greeted his First Symphony, unveiled in 1897—so much so that for the next three years he didn’t write a note and turned his focus instead to conducting. Daily visits with Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who was investigating psychological therapy through hypnosis, steered him back on track, and by 1906, feeling ready to confront whatever compositional demons were still lingering, he embarked on another symphony. He had recently moved with his wife and daughter to Dresden, hoping to escape some of the constant social and professional pressures that accompanied his mounting celebrity.

In February 1907 he wrote to a friend back in Russia: “A month ago, or more, I really did finish a symphony, but to this must be added the phrase ‘in draft.’ I have not announced it to ‘the world,’ because I want first to complete its final writing. While I was planning to put it in ‘clean’ form, it became terribly boring and repulsive to me. So I threw it aside and took up something else.” Nonetheless, word was out, and Rachmaninoff promptly received an invitation to conduct it during the upcoming season—before he was anywhere near polishing the piece. “I can tell you privately that I am displeased with it,” Rachmaninoff’s letter continued, “but that it really ‘will be,’ though not before autumn, as I shall not begin its orchestration until summer.” He toughed it out, finally vindicating himself as a gifted symphonist. His Second Symphony scored a popular success at its premiere, which he conducted in St. Petersburg in early 1908, and that December it was honored with a prestigious Glinka Award for symphonic composition.

The Second Symphony is indeed imbued with Rachmaninoff’s recognizable fingerprints, right from its brooding outset. That introduction contains melodic material that reappears transformed as the surging first movement unrolls, and it comes back again at the end of the second movement, which is an often boisterous scherzo that demands athleticism from all players. In the scherzo’s coda he works in a reference to the Dies irae chant from the Mass for the Dead, a Rachmaninoff signature, if a macabre one.

In the third movement Adagio, he spins out a rhapsody par excellence. The finale seems part tarantella and part march, with the tarantella winning out in the end. But the spirit of the dance is melded to Rachmaninoff’s trademark lyricism, which keeps the emotional pitch high right up to the final measure. There, the concluding rhythmic motif “TUM-ta-ta-ta-TUM” serves as a slight variation on Rachmaninoff’s usual sign-off of just “TUM-ta-ta-TUM.”