2011 SEASONSPECIAL EVENT

THU 15 SEP 8PM | THU 22 SEP 8PM | SAT 24 SEP 8PM

WELCOME

David Livingstone Chief Executive Offi cerCredit Suisse, Australia

All of us at Credit Suisse warmly welcome you to tonight’s Sydney Symphony gala concert, featuring the world-famous Russian pianist, Evgeny Kissin.

Since making his concert debut at the age of ten playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D minor, K466, Kissin has delighted audiences from Moscow and Tokyo to London and New York, receiving numerous accolades and awards along the way. Now, he is making his Australian debut tour, giving audiences here a chance to experience his astonishing talent.

It is not without reason that Kissin is considered a legendary artist. He combines a phenomenal, perhaps superhuman, pianistic technique with extraordinary musicianship and interpretative instinct. A recent performance in London of his Liszt recital program was praised for its matching of ‘visionary fl amboyance with breathtaking intimacy’.

At Credit Suisse, we believe in nurturing young talent and supporting excellence. We are very proud to be the Premier Partner of the Sydney Symphony and to be closely involved with helping develop young musicians through our support of the Sydney Symphony Fellowship, now in its tenth year, and the Associate Conductor position. We are also proud to be supporting the engagement of such artists as Evgeny Kissin, ensuring that Australian music-lovers can experience world-class artistry in concert halls at home.

Kissin’s Australian debut has been long awaited. It is to Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony’s credit that these concerts are being presented and we are delighted to have been able to support this exciting and signifi cant event.

Please enjoy your evening.

2011 SEASON

Evgeny Kissin with the Sydney Symphony

Evgeny Kissin appears in these concerts by arrangement with HarrisonParrott. He records for EMI Classics, Deutsche Grammophon and RCA Red Seal/Sony BMG Masterworks.

In these performances the piano has been serviced by Global Piano Services, Ltdwww.globalpianoservices.com

PREMIER PARTNER

PROGRAM CONTENTS

Evgeny Kissinpage 6

Thursday 15 September | 8pmEvgeny Kissin in Recital page 9

The Pursuit of Excellencepage 14

Thursday 22 September | 8pmEvgeny Kissin plays Griegpage 15

More Musicpage 22

Saturday 24 September | 8pmEvgeny Kissin plays Chopinpage 23

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Evgeny Kissin piano

Evgeny Kissin’s musicality, the poetic quality of his interpretations and his extraordinary virtuosity have earned him admiration as one of the most gifted pianists of his generation. He is in demand the world over and has appeared with many of the great conductors – including Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Carlo Maria Giulini, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa and Zubin Mehta – as well as all the leading orchestras of the world.

He was born in Moscow in 1971 and began to play by ear and improvise on the piano at the age of two. At six years old, he entered the Moscow Gnessin School of Music, where he was a student of Anna Pavlovna Kantor, who has been his only teacher. At ten, he made his concerto debut playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D minor, K466, and he gave his fi rst solo recital in Moscow a year later. He came to international attention in 1984 when he performed both the Chopin concertos with the Moscow State Philharmonic.

Evgeny Kissin’s fi rst appearances outside Russia were in 1985 in Eastern Europe; he toured Japan in 1986; and in 1988 he performed with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic

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S in a New Year’s concert broadcast internationally. In 1990 he made his BBC Proms debut and his North American debut, performing with the New York Philharmonic and opening Carnegie Hall’s centennial season with a spectacular debut recital.

His musical awards and tributes include the Crystal Prize of the Osaka Symphony Hall for the Best Performance of the Year in 1986. He was special guest at the 1992 Grammy Awards and in 1995 became Musical America’s youngest Instrumentalist of the Year. And in 1997 he received the Triumph Award for his outstanding contribution to Russia’s culture, the youngest-ever recipient of one of the highest cultural honours to be awarded in the Russian Republic.

His recordings have also received numerous accolades, including the Edison Klassiek (The Netherlands), Grammy awards, Diapason d’Or and the Grand Prix of La Nouvelle Académie du Disque.

This is Evgeny Kissin’s Australian debut tour, with recital appearances in Brisbane and Sydney and concertos with the Sydney Symphony and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

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Mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter makes her Australian debut performances performing Songs of the Auvergne and Broadway melodies with the Sydney Symphony.

KRÁSA Overture for small orchestraRAVEL Tzigane for violin and orchestraCANTELOUBE Songs of the Auvergne: HighlightsMILHAUD The Creation of the WorldBroadway Melodies – including songs by George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Kurt Weill

Thu 3 Nov 8pmPremier Partner Credit Suisse

Anne Sofie von Otter mezzo-sopranoPekka Kuusisto violinBengt Forsberg pianoNicholas Carter conductor

*Selected performances. Booking fees of $7-$8.95 may apply.Free programs and pre-concert talks 45 mins before selected concerts.Listen to audio clips and read programs at sydneysymphony.com Sydney symphony concerts on demand at bigpond/sydneysymphony

TICKETS START AT $49*SYDNEYSYMPHONY.COM8215 4600 | MON-FRI 9AM-5PM

SYDNEYOPERAHOUSE.COM9250 7777 | MON-SAT 9AM-8.30PM SUN 10AM-6PM

9 | Sydney Symphony

Pre-concert talk by David Garrett at 7.15pm in the Northern Foyer.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Approximate durations: 10 minutes, 29 minutes, 20-minute interval, 13 minutes, 15 minutes, 15 minutes.

The recital will conclude at approximately 10pm.

2011 SEASON GALA

Thursday 15 September | 8pmSydney Opera House Concert Hall

EVGENY KISSIN IN RECITAL

FRANZ LISZT (1811–1886)

Ricordanza from the Transcendental Etudes, S139

Sonata in B minor, S178

Lento assai – Allegro energico – Grandioso – Recitativo –Andante sostenuto –Allegro energico – Andante sostenuto – Lento assai

INTERVAL

Funéraillesfrom Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S173

Vallée d’Obermannfrom the Years of Pilgrimage, First Year – Switzerland, S160

Venezia e Napoli, S162from the supplement to the Years of Pilgrimage, Second Year – Italy

Gondoliera (Quasi allegretto) –Canzone (Lento doloroso) –Tarantella (Presto)

PREMIER PARTNER

10 | Sydney Symphony

The Pianist of the Future

Next month Franz Liszt (or ‘Ferenc Liszt’ as he preferred) would have turned 200. Not so long ago his reputation as a supreme virtuoso of the keyboard overshadowed his creative legacy, but taking stock in this anniversary year, it’s impossible to deny him his place as a central, and infl uential, fi gure of 19th-century music-making and musical thought.

Liszt was a Romantic. He was also a Modern. As a virtuoso he pushed technical and expressive boundaries, exploiting the technology of the piano. As an interpreter he championed both new music and older repertoire that had been dismissed as too perplexing. And although he sometimes pandered to popular taste, Liszt’s best compositions have the audacity and radical vision of a genius. He plays with texture, harmony and structure in ways that stretched his listeners, just as his piano writing stretched performers. Liszt led the way. Berlioz went so far as to call him ‘the pianist of the future’.

Liszt was also the fi rst to give an entirely solo public piano concert, in Rome in 1839. The following year the English dubbed the same gimmick ‘recitals’ – confusing an audience who would have expected dramatic readings. Meanwhile, Liszt adopted the more poetic phrase monologues pianistiques.

Even more remarkable in Rome was the ‘all-Liszt’ program, made up entirely of original pieces and arrangements by the composer. His private name for this: a soliloquy! Again, Liszt was ahead of his time. Only in the 20th century did the single-composer format become prominent in recital programming, sharing the platform with the historical survey and the practice of performing complete sets of works – Chopin waltzes, for example.

It’s appropriate, then, that this celebration of Liszt’s legacy take the form of a modern recital in a modern format. And Evgeny Kissin has chosen music that reveals Liszt’s vast imagination and absolute mastery of both instrument and ideas.

All fi ve works in this recital were composed or brought to their fi nal form during the years Liszt spent in Weimar, 1847–1859. He’d been a child prodigy, he’d toured Europe from Istanbul to Dublin, he’d enjoyed the adulation of women, aroused admiration and courted scandal. But in 1847, tired of the ‘Lisztomania’ and encouraged by his lover, Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, he retired from his life as a touring concert artist to concentrate on composing.

ABOUT THE MUSIC

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Liszt was the fi rst to give an entirely solo public piano concert.

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Ricordanza from the Transcendental Etudes, S139

1851

This program represents the 19th-century recital in microcosm. The rhythmic fl exibility and poetic rippling of Ricordanza could be heard as ‘preluding’, the long-gone art of improvising before a work to set mood and tonality. This piece might belong to a set of formidable technical studies, but Liszt’s contemporaries were right to call it a ‘piano-poem’ and it lives up to its name as the perfect souvenir – ‘like a packet of yellow love letters,’ said Busoni.

At the other end of the program is a built-in encore: Venezia e Napoli. Here the inspiration is Italian popular song, music heard on the canals or in the streets. Gondoliera quotes a gently rocking barcarolle by the Cavaliere Peruchini; there is a blond girl, a gondolier and virtue at stake, but all ends well. The doleful Canzone borrows its dark theme from Rossini’s Otello (Nessùn maggior dolore – ‘There is no greater suff ering’) and calls on the piano to adopt its best ‘sobbing Italian tenor style’. Liszt then turns from Venice to Naples for an exhilarating interpretation of the famous tarantella dance, using themes by Guillaume Louis Cottrau.

Sitting inside this exquisite frame of prelude and encore are three of Liszt’s fi nest creations: the great Sonata in B minor, Funérailles and Vallée d’Obermann.

Among the collections Liszt assembled for publication while in Weimar is the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (1853). It was inspired by a volume of poems by Alphonse de Lamartine, but Funérailles was a late addition, unrelated to the poetry. The title means ‘funeral’ and the inspiration – revealed in the subtitle ‘October 1849’ and the working title ‘Magyar’ – was the failed Hungarian uprising, which had culminated in Austria’s execution of the prime minister Lajo Batthyány and 13 of his generals.

By coincidence, October 1849 was also the month of Chopin’s death. A suggestion in the music of the left-hand octaves from Chopin’s Polonaise in A fl at (Op.53) may well represent another layer of tribute and mourning in this monumental work.

Funérailles begins in the depths of the keyboard – a tolling bell overlaid with relentless striding, bass to treble. In this a dramatic symphonic poem for the piano, Liszt evokes the muffl ed drums of a funeral procession, the anguish of the mourners and the nobility of the martyrs. His ear for orchestral colouring emerges in the central melody, which he said should have the sound of a clarinet, and the music builds to a climax of orchestral proportions –

Venezia e Napoli, S162 from the supplement to the Years of Pilgrimage, Second Year – ItalyGondoliera (Quasi allegretto) – Canzone (Lento doloroso) – Tarantella (Presto)

1840–59

Funérailles from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S173

1849–53

12 | Sydney Symphony

Vallée d’Obermann from the Years of Pilgrimage, First Year – Switzerland, S160

1835–1854

something at which Liszt-the-pianist excelled. When all is spent, the music ends with one last tap from a muffl ed drum.

Vallée d’Obermann maintains the gloomy intensity. The remote Alpine valley it captures is described in the pages of Senancour’s novel Obermann, which Liszt had read in 1835 during a fortnight spent in the Rhône Valley with his lover at the time, Marie d’Agoult. After a secret aff air, the pair had decided to elope to Switzerland, leaving behind in Paris the scandal of an abandoned home, husband and child.

Early on in their acquaintance, the Countess d’Agoult had noticed how Liszt ‘detested moderation’ and was drawn to extremes of opinion, expression and innovation. Books such as Byron’s Childe Harold and Manfred, and Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther ‘were the companions of his sleepless nights’. And Vallée d’Obermann captures not only a landscape but the concerns of the Romantic spirit: nature, beauty in wilderness, literature, and the elevation of personal feeling.

Liszt prefaces the music with existential questions from Senancour: ‘Que veux-je? Que suis-je? Que demander à la nature?’ (What do I want? What am I? What to ask of nature?) Lines from Childe Harold follow:

Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me, – could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe – into one word, And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; But as it is, I live and die unheard. With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

Vallée d’Obermann begins with a sombre, descending motif in the left hand, which Liszt proceeds to expand and transform – taking motif and listeners on a sublime journey. As in the B minor Sonata, completed two years earlier, Liszt pursues the idea of thematic transformation in the context of a single-movement, loosely adopting the principles of sonata form. After the melancholy opening, the musical ideas are developed in a fi ery central section; when the storm subsides they emerge once more in luminous expression.

The Sonata in B minor (1853) is distinctive in Liszt’s output in taking a generic rather than an evocative title. It was simply called ‘Grande Sonate pour le pianoforte’

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and the composer gave no hint of a program or literary inspiration, although this hasn’t stopped others hearing narratives in the music.

Unlike the other works on the program, the sonata off ers a purely musical drama. It is cast in a single movement with a powerful guiding principle: thematic transformation. Liszt takes this to new lengths, creating two levels of structure. On the one hand, the music follows the shape of a movement in sonata form, with the traditional exposition of themes, development and recapitulation. On the other, the shifts in tempo and character allow the music to be heard as a multi-movement sonata, its opening allegro followed by a slow movement (Andante sostenuto), fugal ‘scherzo’ and fi nale.

Liszt introduces three key motifs in succession at the outset. The fi rst is ambiguous and ominous, a slow, descending idea in the bass of the keyboard. The key of B minor is then established with a dramatic leaping motif, bold and emphatic, and this is immediately followed by a repeated note gesture, once more in the depths of the keyboard. Transformed, developed and disguised, these underpin the entire sonata.

Two more signposts stand out: a few minutes in, the Grandioso theme is heard – a radiant melody sustained over pulsing chords; midway through the sonata the Andante sostenuto introduces a fresh theme of marvellous simplicity. Originally Liszt had planned to end the sonata with thundering octaves – a showy and crowd-pleasing conclusion – but in an inspired afterthought he added a serene coda. This fi nal transformation of themes is quiet and prayer-like, returning to the Andante sostenuto melody and, in its last moments, the gesture from the opening bars.

Not only is the B minor Sonata Liszt’s most successful application of sonata form structure, it became a template for works of this type, both abstract and narrative. Works such as the Richard Strauss tone poems are perhaps inconceivable without this pivotal creation showing the path for the future.

YVONNE FRINDLE SYDNEY SYMPHONY ©2011

Sonata in B minor, S178Lento assai – Allegro energico – Grandioso – Recitativo – Andante sostenuto – Allegro energico – Andante sostenuto – Lento assai

1852–53

…the sonata offers a purely musical drama.

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The Magic of Excellence

Hands up if you went to a school where ‘the pursuit of excellence’ was part of the ethos, if not the actual motto… Excellence is something we’re encouraged to strive for from a very young age, to admire and to seek out. One of the things that is so attractive about the arts (and sport!) is that it’s a realm of endeavour in which excellence is paramount. When you attend a concert it’s there in abundance: excellence in composition, excellence in conception and interpretation, excellence in execution.

But what is excellence exactly? How do we recognise it? Sometimes it’s easy; we simply know. To be in the presence of a musician like Evgeny Kissin is to know excellence. More than excellence – genius. There’s an unmistakeable aura that comes from a combination of talent, insight, intelligence, imagination and – with any artist – thousands of hours of dedicated work.

Peter Czornyj, the Sydney Symphony’s artistic planner, points to three factors in artistic excellence: commitment, engagement and positively formed aspirations. ‘In musical performance,’ he says, there is a rigour and discipline at the core of all activity that succeeds, at its best, with deeper personal commitment and consistency of intention.’ We’ll hear it, he explains, in the purely focused sound or the exquisitely shaped phrase. Then there will be the ‘magic of that moment when excellence is achieved’, a moment to be shared with a musical colleague or our audience.

It’s not so very diff erent from excellence in other walks of life. To the extent that sport is a kind of performance, the factors are nearly identical: commitment and discipline – and the magic of the moment when excellence is achieved.

And in business? We asked David Livingstone, CEO of Credit Suisse Australia what constituted true excellence in banking. From his perspective, it’s a relative concept, but at its simplest it’s ‘an absolute level of very high performance’. Most interesting, though, is what he says next: ‘Whether we

attain excellence at Credit Suisse is judged by clients and counterparties with whom we interact daily.’ The goal is to be ‘the world’s most admired bank’ and for that to happen excellent performance is needed. But if the label is granted, he says, it ‘will have been judged by others’.

Whatever our fi eld of endeavour, we know what’s needed for excellence and we recognise the magical moments when they come. But it’s also true that ‘excellence’ is a label granted by others. Some years ago, an Australian arts manager made it his goal to have his orchestra judged ‘the best chamber orchestra on earth’. When did he conclude he’d succeeded? When the London Times declared it in print. We’re judged by others.

For our gala concerts this season and in 2012, we’re very pleased to have been able to engage four musicians who without question represent excellence in their fi eld: Lang Lang, who visited Sydney in June; Evgeny Kissin in these concerts; and over the next six months, mezzo-soprano Anne Sophie von Otter and the ‘queen of violin-playing’ Anne-Sofi e Mutter. The musical world has acclaimed their excellence and these promise to be concerts that will yield the ‘magic of the moment’ – for us in the orchestra and for you in the audience.

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ©2011

Premier Partner Credit Suisse is supporting the Sydney visits of four musicians at the pinnacle of excellence: pianists Lang Lang and Evgeny Kissin, Anne Sofi e von Otter and Anne-Sophie Mutter.

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Pre-concert talk by Kim Waldock at 7.15pm in the Northern Foyer.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Approximate durations: 45 minutes, 20-minute interval, 30 minutes.

The performance will conclude at approximately 9.45pm.

2011 SEASON GALA

Thursday 22 September | 8pmSydney Opera House Concert Hall

EVGENY KISSIN PLAYSGRIEGVladimir Ashkenazy conductorEvgeny Kissin piano

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897)Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op.68

Un poco sostenuto – Allegro Andante sostenutoUn poco allegretto e graziosoAdagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio

INTERVAL

EDVARD GRIEG (1843–1907)Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16

Allegro molto moderatoAdagio –Allegro moderato molto e marcato

PREMIER PARTNER

16 | Sydney Symphony

Keynotes

BRAHMS

German composerborn 1833, Hamburgdied 1897, Vienna

Brahms might not have considered himself primarily an orchestral composer, but his symphonies occupy a fi rm place in the orchestral repertoire. Brahms took 14 years to write his fi rst symphony, completing it in 1876. But in the meantime he composed a piano concerto, two orchestral serenades, the Haydn Variations and A German Requiem – a symphonic apprenticeship. All the while he was haunted by Beethoven’s legacy, ‘the thunderous step of a giant’ behind him.

FIRST SYMPHONY

By the time he was 43, Brahms was already famous and his fi rst symphony was much-awaited. Appropriately it is monumental in character and proportions, at least in its outer movements. The inner movements (one not quite a slow movement, the other not quite a scherzo) wouldn’t seem out of place in the lighter context of a serenade, especially in the second movement when the concertmaster is given a solo. In the fourth movement Brahms turns around to face the ‘giant’ with a magnifi cent fi nale that celebrates the symphonic possibilities of the orchestra.

The First Symphony was premiered on 4 November 1876 by the court orchestra at Karlsruhe, Baden. The concert, conducted by Otto Dessof, also included Beethoven’s Ninth.

Johannes Brahms Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op.68

Un poco sostenuto – AllegroAndante sostenutoUn poco Allegretto e graziosoAdagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio

Brahms’ fi rst symphony begins with an afterthought – a powerful slow introduction devised years after he had conceived the main part of the fi rst movement. The whole symphony took more than 14 years to write, and by the time he completed it in 1876 Brahms was 43 years old. Beethoven, by comparison, was 30 when he composed his First, Schubert 16, Mozart not even 10.

The First Symphony was not Brahms’ fi rst essay in orchestral writing, nor was it his fi rst attempt at a symphony. Both honours go to his First Piano Concerto (1855), which began life as a symphony in D minor. Brahms had almost certainly been goaded into symphonic ambitions by Robert Schumann’s 1853 article ‘New Paths’, which hailed him in almost messianic terms as ‘the One who has been called’, a second Beethoven who would be the saviour of the declining symphony.

The article was a mixed blessing for Brahms. It attracted attention to his talent, but also invited ridicule from those who believed, with Wagner, that there was nothing more to be done with the symphonic genre that Beethoven had not already achieved.

Brahms was not the only composer conscious of Beethoven’s daunting legacy and the overwhelming challenge set down his Ninth Symphony, but he felt it more keenly than most: ‘I shall never write a symphony! You have no idea how it makes one feel to hear the thunderous step of a giant like him always behind you!’

No wonder Brahms spent nearly 20 years skirting around the symphony: he completed the piano concerto, two orchestral serenades and the Variations on a Theme of Haydn rather than commit himself to an actual symphony.

Brahms was a ruthless perfectionist, consigning to the fl ames works that failed to meet his high standards. But from a crucible fuelled by rejected drafts and sketches emerged a symphony that was extraordinary in its ingenuity and power of expression. Not without reason did Hans von Bülow dub Brahms’s First Symphony ‘the Tenth’ (observing that ‘the First’ was in fact Mozart’s last, the Jupiter).

ABOUT THE MUSIC

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In 1862 Brahms sent a draft of the fi rst movement to Clara Schumann. Without its slow introduction (Un poco sostenuto) the impetuous opening of the Allegro must have been startling, and Clara wrote to the violinist Joseph Joachim remarking on its harshness.

What Brahms added later is a more subdued introduction to the fi rst movement, with a remarkable haze of musical ideas that will emerge as individual themes. The throbbing timpani are a portent of struggle to come as the symphony mirrors Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth in their trajectory from minor to major. The tremendous momentum and sense of dramatic confl ict are then confi rmed by the stormy Allegro.

In contrast to the monumental weightiness of the fi rst movement, the two central movements are light in texture, as well as relatively short. They sound as if they would be more at home in one of Brahms’ serenades, especially when the concertmaster emerges as violin soloist at the conclusion of the second movement (Andante sostenuto).

There are no true scherzos in Brahms’ symphonies. For the third movement of the First Symphony he retains the scherzo’s dance structure with its contrasting central trio, but subdues the traditional whirlwind exuberance in favour of a more artless character. Lightness and grace is established by the clarinet, launching unpretentiously into a gentle, folk-like theme, accompanied by the horn. The resemblance this tune bears to the themes from the previous movement is just one instance of Brahms building long-range structural unity through motivic and harmonic links.

These three movements were the fi rst completed and circulated to friends and colleagues for their appraisal. By 1868 work on the fi nal movement was underway. The horn theme introduced in the Più andante became a birthday greeting for Clara set with the words: ‘High on the mountain, deep in the valley, I greet you many thousands of times!’

The fi nale would have given Brahms most cause for concern, for it was in its fi nale that, in the words of Hans von Bülow, Beethoven’s Ninth had ‘trespassed over music’s boundaries’, introducing voices, and text, into the absolute medium of the symphony. Other composers had since grappled with the idea of a symphony with voices – Mendelssohn in his symphony-cantata Lobgesang (Hymn of Praise), Berlioz in his dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette – but Brahms returns to a purely instrumental solution for

Brahms spent nearly 20 years skirting around the symphony…

18 | Sydney Symphony

Brahms’ passionate yet introverted voice emerges time and again…

his symphonic fi nale, and so confronts the legacy of Beethoven head on.

There is a portentous slow introduction (Adagio – Più andante) – a ‘magnifi cent cloudy procession’ of themes that will take full shape in the movement proper. It begins in the home key of C minor, then with a brave timpani roll shifts to C major for the entry of Clara’s birthday tune, a chiming ‘Alphorn’ theme. The sonority changes with the very fi rst entry of the trombones. They will carry the symphony to its conclusion, but for now a chorale fragment hints at the liturgical connotations of this instrument.

Brahms’ passionate yet introverted voice emerges time and again in his tempo directions, full of qualifi cations, and the fi nale is no exception: Allegro non troppo, ma con brio (Fast, not too much, but with life). At this point a broad, noble theme in the strings makes overt allusion – now famous – to Beethoven’s Ninth. Brahms’s retort to listeners who recognised its striking similarity to the ‘Ode to Joy’ became: ‘Yes indeed, and what is more remarkable is that every fool hears it immediately.’

Fools or not, the similarity we hear is almost as immediately abandoned. The allusion is not a sign of Brahms’ inability to escape the infl uence of Beethoven but his means of both embracing and distancing himself from the ‘giant’. And it is the ‘Alphorn’ tune rather than a Brahmsian ‘Ode to Joy’ that becomes the resplendent climax of the movement and the work. If this fi rst symphony is an allegory of the struggle between instrumental and vocal ideas then Brahms has given the orchestra the last word.

YVONNE FRINDLE ©2000/2011

Brahms’ First Symphony is written for two fl utes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and one contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.

The Sydney Symphony fi rst performed the symphony in 1933 with Bernard Heinze; and most recently in 2007 with Gianluigi Gelmetti.

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Keynotes

GRIEG

Born Bergen, 1843Died Bergen, 1907

Grieg excelled in the art of the musical miniature and the character piece in an era when there was a huge demand for charming and evocative music that could be played at home – sophisticated, yet not too diffi cult for amateurs. A signifi cant part of his output comprises sets of piano pieces and songs – sparkling, congenial and deftly characterised. But he is best known for his incidental music for Peer Gynt and for his Piano Concerto in A minor (championed by Australian Percy Grainger).

PIANO CONCERTO

The Piano Concerto in A minor is one of Grieg’s earliest major orchestral works; he was just 25 years old at the time. The concerto was a triumph at its fi rst performance and has more or less remained as a popular staple of the repertoire ever since. The concerto is in three movements, with the slow movement fl owing directly into the fi nale, which takes its inspiration from the Norwegian halling dance. The famous opening drum roll and piano fl ourish of the fi rst movement launches the whole concerto into a musical world that, while it contains no actual folksong material, unerringly evokes the spirit of Norway.

Edvard GriegPiano Concerto in A minor, Op.16

Allegro molto moderatoAdagio –Allegro moderato molto e marcato

Evgeny Kissin piano

After hearing a performance of Grieg’s piano concerto, Arnold Schoenberg is supposed to have remarked: ‘That’s the kind of music I’d really like to write.’ It wouldn’t have been the fi rst time that Schoenberg’s facetious humour was apparent, but one can’t help but feel that there was a wistful sincerity buried in the remark. Schoenberg, after all, believed that his experiments, fi rst in atonality and later the twelve-note serial method, were forced upon him by historical destiny rather than being the result of his own wishes. He also remarked that there was ‘still plenty of good music to be written in C major’ and his last word was, according to legend, ‘Harmony!’ Grieg’s concerto, while not in C major, is in its close relative, A minor, and is certainly full of good music. And it is, with good reason, popular – a fate not enjoyed by Schoenberg’s music.

Grieg himself was not so sure however. He composed the concerto at the age of 25 while on holiday in Denmark with his wife and young child, and he was at that stage relatively inexperienced in orchestral writing. In fact the only orchestral works dating from his early life are an ‘Ouverture’ which has been lost, and a Symphony in C minor which is hardly ever heard. Grieg tinkered endlessly with the orchestration of his concerto between the time of the work’s (triumphant) premiere and his death in 1907.

Grieg had studied at the Leipzig Conservatory from the age of 15 with the initial intent of becoming a concert pianist. Dissatisfi ed with his fi rst teacher, Grieg began lessons with E.F. Wenzel, a friend and supporter of Schumann’s; under his tutelage Grieg began writing piano music for his own performances and wrote passionate articles in defence of Schumann’s music.

The infl uence of Schumann’s Piano Concerto, also in A minor, on Grieg’s work has been remarked on frequently, but apart from their similar three-movement design and opening gesture (in both works a full tutti chord of A minor releases a fl orid response from the keyboard soloist) the style of each is markedly diff erent. Both composers

20 | Sydney Symphony

were, however, primarily lyricists, and Grieg’s Concerto is certainly replete with exquisite tunes. Many of these echo some of the shapes of Norwegian folk music with which Grieg had become deeply familiar in 1864 when he had also become active in a society for the support of Scandinavian music. The piano’s opening gesture, for instance, recalls folk music in its use of a ‘gapped’ scale, and the origins of the fi nale in folk dance are clear.

Grieg was unable to attend the premiere of his concerto in Copenhagen in 1869, but it was an outstanding success, no doubt in part because Grieg’s cultivation of folk music struck a chord with the increasingly nationalist Scandinavian audiences. But in large part it was because the concerto was recognised as a youthful masterpiece. No less an artist than Anton Rubinstein, who attended the performance, described it as a ‘work of genius’. A year later Grieg and his wife travelled to Italy where Grieg met Liszt for the second time. Liszt had been encouraging of Grieg’s work some time before; now he allegedly sight-read Grieg’s concerto and said ‘you have the real stuff in you. And don’t ever let them frighten you!’

Grieg didn’t let them frighten him, and the Piano Concerto went on to establish his reputation throughout the musical world. Audiences responded, as they still do, to the charm of Grieg’s melodies, the balance of, it must be said, Lisztian virtuosity and Grieg’s own distinctive lyricism, and what Tchaikovsky, who adored the work, described as the concerto’s ‘fascinating melancholy which seems to refl ect in itself all the beauty of Norwegian scenery’.

One of Grieg’s greatest admirers described the ‘concentrated greatness and all-lovingness of the little great man. Out of the toughest Norwegianness, out of the most narrow localness, he spreads out a welcoming and greedy mind for all the world’s wares’. This was, of course, the Australian-born pianist-composer Percy Grainger who became one of the Grieg Concerto’s most celebrated exponents and one of the dearest friends of Grieg’s last years. Not only that – Grainger spent time with Grieg working on the concerto before the composer’s death, at which time Grieg was making the fi nal adjustments to the orchestration; with such ‘inside knowledge’ Grainger was able to publish his own edition of the work in later years. Sadly, a proposed tour with Grieg conducting and Grainger playing the Concerto never transpired.

GORDON KERRY ©2006

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Listening Guide

Right from the famous opening piano fl ourish, Grieg’s grasp of the melodic infl ections of Norwegian folk music is in evidence. The fi rst movement itself juxtaposes multiple themes without developing them in any formal sense. The prominent main theme is a typically haunting melody, which is stated fi rst in the strings and woodwinds before the piano takes it over to head in new directions. The secondary themes include a poignant melody that arises in the cellos before the soloist elaborates on it. The cadenza, which Grieg writes out in the score, is based on the main theme.

An early critic wrote, ‘Nothing could be more lovely than the orchestral introduction to the slow movement…a prelude illustrating Grieg’s gift of creating emotional atmosphere with the simplest means.’ The muted strings are joined by bassoons and horn at the beginning of this magnifi cent Adagio; the piano enters with a series of elaborate fi gures and eventually the soloist and orchestra work their way around to a full restatement of the main theme.

A fanfare and a descending scale passage from the soloist lead without pause from the Adagio into the fi nale. In rondo form, this fi nal movement is inspired by the spirited Norwegian dance known as a halling. The boisterous theme is contrasted with a more lyrical passage played fi rst by a solo fl ute. A brief cadenza leads to the return of the main rondo theme, now in triple time, and the fl ute theme reappears during the coda.

LISTENING GUIDE ADAPTED FROM A NOTE BY MARTIN BUZACOTTSYMPHONY AUSTRALIA ©1997

The orchestra for Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor comprises pairs of fl utes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns, two trumpets, three trombones and tuba; timpani and strings.

The Sydney Symphony fi rst performed the complete Grieg Piano Concerto in 1939 with George Szell conducting and Laurence Godfrey Smith as soloist, and most recently in 2008 with Eivind Gullberg Jensen and pianist Gabriela Montero.

Take the orchestra with youDownload our FREE mobile app for music excerpts, live webcasts, program books and more.

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‘fascinating melancholy which seems to refl ect in itself all the beauty of Norwegian scenery’TCHAIKOVSKY

22 | Sydney Symphony22 | Sydney Symphony

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MORE MUSIC

Selected Discography

EVGENY KISSIN…PLAYS LISZT

Two months ago Evgeny Kissin released the 2-CD set Kissin plays Liszt, marking the 200th anniversary of the composer. Featuring concert recordings made between 1987 and 2003, the disc brings together etudes, miniatures and transcriptions, together with Mephisto Waltz No.1.

SONY 783948

For more Liszt, look for Fantasy, another 2-CD set, this time featuring Liszt’s transcriptions of Schubert songs, as well as solo music by Schubert (Wanderer Fantasy) and Brahms. The Berlin Philharmonic accompanies Tchaikovsky’s fi rst piano concerto (with Herbert von Karajan) and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy.

DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 861102

…PLAYS CHOPIN

In 2004 the Brilliant Classics label assembled a 4-CD set, Historic Russian Archives: Kissin in Concert, which includes the Tchaikovsky fi rst concerto, Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.1, and both the Chopin concertos.

BRILLIANT CLASSICS 92118

…WITH ASHKENAZY

In a live recording from the Royal Festival Hall in 2008, Evgeny Kissin with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia Orchestra perform Prokofi ev’s second and third piano concertos.

EMI CLASSICS 2645362

For a full discography, visit Evgeny Kissin’s offi cial website: www.kissin.dk/discography

Selected Sydney Symphony concerts are webcast live on BigPond and made available for later viewing On Demand.

Next webcast: Beethoven’s Egmont (Thursday 20 October, 6.30pm)

Visit: bigpondmusic.com/sydneysymphony

Webcasts

2MBS-FM 102.5SYDNEY SYMPHONY 2011Tuesday 11 October, 6pm Musicians, staff and guest artists discuss what’s in store in our forthcoming concerts.

Broadcast Diary

OCTOBER

Wednesday 5 October, 8pmYOUNG GUNS (MEET THE MUSIC)

Thomas Dausgaard conductorDene Olding violinAustralian Youth OrchestraDebussy, Vine and Nielsen

Friday 14 October, 8pmDVORÁK’S NEW WORLD SYMPHONY

Mark Wigglesworth conductorStephen Hough pianoLutoslawski, Mozart, Dvorák

Thursday 20 October, 6.30pmBEETHOVEN’S EGMONT

Richard Gill, Nigel Westlake conductorsEddie Perfect narratorwith vocal soloists and Cantillation Ives, Westlake, Beethoven

Saturday 22 October, 8pmFREDDY KEMPF IN RECITAL

Beethoven, Liszt

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Pre-concert talk by Scott Davie at 7.15pm in the Northern Foyer.Visit sydneysymphony.com/talk-bios for speaker biographies.

Approximate durations: 39 minutes, 20-minute interval, 60 minutes.

The performance will conclude at approximately 10.10pm.

2011 SEASON GALA

Saturday 24 September | 8pmSydney Opera House Concert Hall

EVGENY KISSIN PLAYSCHOPINVladimir Ashkenazy conductorEvgeny Kissin piano

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810–1849)Piano Concerto No.1 in E minor, Op.11

Allegro maestosoRomance (Larghetto)Rondo (Vivace)

INTERVAL

RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943)Symphony No.2 in E minor, Op.27

Largo – Allegro moderatoAllegro moltoAdagioAllegro vivace

PREMIER PARTNER

24 | Sydney Symphony

ABOUT THE MUSIC

Keynotes

CHOPIN

Born near Warsaw, 1810Died Paris, 1849

Although he began his career as a concert pianist, Frédéric Chopin soon turned his focus to composing. With his brilliant technique and intimate knowledge of the instrument he brought new expressive and formal dimensions to the 19th-century piano tradition, establishing himself as one of the leading composers for the instrument. His two piano concertos are among the few works he wrote for piano and orchestra, and although his orchestral writing is not as dazzling or richly coloured as that of his contemporaries, the singing complexity of his piano parts more than compensates.

PIANO CONCERTO NO.1

This concerto unfurls in a cascading tangle of notes for the soloist above a clear and uncluttered accompaniment. In the fi rst movement especially, the orchestra presents themes which the piano picks up and expands in lengthy passages marked only by occasional interjections. A special moment occurs when the cellos and basses lead the piano to its second entry. The Romance features a tender lyricism, introduced by the strings, and the French horn and bassoon provide melodic punctuation for the expansive piano lines. A recurring dance-like theme in the effervescent Rondo draws the concerto to a buoyant yet brilliant close.

Frédéric ChopinPiano Concerto No.1 in E minor, Op.11

Allegro maestosoRomance (Larghetto)Rondo (Vivace)

Evgeny Kissin piano

David Bollard writes…

My fi rst contact with Chopin’s E minor concerto was as a naïve youngster in New Zealand. Somehow or other a scratchy vinyl disc of the piece appeared in our house, with Alexander Brailowsky playing the solo part in collaboration with William Steinberg and the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra. I was overwhelmed by this performance, but then I had nothing to pit against it. Fortunately, the intervening years have provided many opportunities for diff erent perspectives. Brailowsky’s interpretation, ruthlessly effi cient and essentially infl exible, positively wilts in comparison with subsequent renditions – by artists such as Lipatti, François, Vasary, Gulda, Arrau, Pollini, Argerich, and Zimerman – which reveal far more the essential poetry of the work, and that poetic quality is one of the reasons why Chopin continues to fascinate professional musicians and public alike. Whether we consider this unique fi gure as composer, pianist, or teacher, his importance is as strongly felt today as ever.

Chopin’s two piano concertos fi ll a special niche, not merely in their composer’s output but also in relation to the genre itself. That they are products of his late teenage years is miraculous enough, bearing witness to uncommon natural gifts, but if we are to place them in their true historical context, we must fi rst consider the cultural environment which rendered their creation possible.

The Warsaw which Chopin knew in the 1820s supported a reasonably varied musical life: there were symphonic and choral concerts, appearances by touring virtuosi such as the violinist Paganini, and performances given by visiting Italian opera companies, which probably instilled in the young Pole a lifelong love of the human voice and a desire to incorporate the spirit of bel canto into his new piano compositions. Sometimes works by Haydn, Mozart and even Beethoven (or excerpts thereof ) could be heard, and we know that Chopin played concertos by composers such as Ries, Moscheles and Hummel before leaving Poland in 1831 for Paris, where he was to spend the rest of his life.

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Indeed, Johann Nepomuk Hummel is one of that group of composers (others include the Irishman John Field and the Germans Carl Maria von Weber, Louis Spohr and Friedrich Kalkbrenner) who are often quoted as defi ning infl uences on Chopin’s writing.

It is tempting to declare that certain passages in the Hummel and Field concertos sound like pure Chopin, yet they pass quickly and are surrounded by musical procedures which frequently lack the harmonic daring, melodic beauty and variety of piano texture found in the Chopin works. It is not that these are more technically demanding than, say, the Hummel A minor concerto, where virtually every page bristles with technical nightmares. No: the diff erence lies in the way Chopin utilises cascades of scales, awkward leaps, arpeggiated fi gurations and diffi cult trills for artistic ends, of a type of musical expressiveness which already bears his personal stamp. All the characteristics of his later compositions, his playing style and his teaching principles are in evidence: colour and constantly shifting nuance, the need for tempo rubato, elegance of phrasing, lovely singing tone, legato touch and imaginative pedal eff ects. It was the nocturnes of Field which inspired Chopin to write works bearing the same title, and there are unmistakable similarities with both composers’ concertos: compositional fl uency, the capacity to explore the entire range of the

Chopin’s two piano concerts fi ll a special niche…

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keyboard and an underlying streak of wistful melancholy. Yet the fact remains that Field was a remarkable talent whereas Chopin was simply a genius.

There is another way in which Chopin’s concertos are diff erent: they were written by a young composer infl uenced by the surge of Polish nationalism which had aff ected artistic ideals since the beginning of the 19th century. Their fi nal movements are cast in the form of Polish folk dances (a krakowiak and a mazurka respectively), full of colour and infectious vitality expressive of nationalistic fervour. Unlike the fi nales of many other piano concertos, they are strong movements which complement perfectly their companions.

It has long been fashionable to deride Chopin’s orchestrations as colourless and inept, and it is well known in the profession how orchestral players shudder when they see one of the concertos scheduled for performance. It must be admitted that Chopin limited the role of the orchestra as Liszt, Schumann and even Mendelssohn did not, letting it provide a sonorous backdrop for the solo part rather than engage in a genuine dialogue. However, Chopin always thought in pianistic terms and did not feel inclined to abandon his natural territory. Various attempts to reorchestrate the concertos (by musicians such as Karl Klindworth and Karl Tausig) have generally not proved successful, and they are usually performed in their original form.

Although the E minor concerto is known as the fi rst and bears a considerably lower opus number in the list of Chopin’s works, it was actually written after the F minor but published fi rst, hence the numbering with which we are familiar. The E minor dates from 1830 and appeared in print three years later; the F minor was begun in 1829, completed the following year but not published until 1836.

DAVID BOLLARD ©1998

David Bollard is well known in Australian musical life as performer, teacher, writer, broadcaster, adjudicator and examiner. A founding member of the Australia Ensemble, he is currently adjunct professor of piano at the University of Tasmania.

The orchestra for Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.1 calls for pairs of fl utes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns, two trumpets and one bass trombone; timpani and strings.

The Sydney Symphony fi rst performed the concerto in 1946 in an ABC Patriotic Concert, conducted by Percy Code with soloist Gualtiero Volterra. The most recent performance was in 1996 with conductor Hermann Michael and soloist Nikolai Demidenko.

Chopin always thought in pianistic terms…

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Keynotes

RACHMANINOFF

Born Oneg (Novgorod region), 1873Died Beverly Hills CA, 1943

In 1892 Rachmaninoff graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with the Great Gold Medal. His future as a performer and a composer promised to be equally golden, and he did indeed fi nd success as a composer, pianist and conductor. Before leaving Russia in 1917, Rachmaninoff had already composed two symphonies and three piano concertos, among other works. Once in the West, he shifted his attention to building a career as a concert pianist and composed much less.

SYMPHONY NO.2

The premiere of Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony had been a debacle; the Second Symphony, ten years later in 1907, was warmly greeted in both St Petersburg and Moscow. It remains the best-loved of Rachmaninoff’s symphonies, and it would be so even if one of its most gorgeous gestures hadn’t been appropriated for a pop song.

As Rachmaninoff’s fi rst symphony after the creative hiatus that followed Symphony No.1, the Second Symphony refl ects a new-found confi dence of style and a powerful new lyricism. It is imbued with the Romantic spirit: expansive, intense, and direct in its emotions. At the same time Rachmaninoff retained the unifying strategies he’d adopted for his First Symphony, and the proportions and orchestration are classically inclined.

RachmaninoffSymphony No.2 in E minor, Op.27

Largo – Allegro moderatoAllegro moltoAdagioAllegro vivace

This fervent, warm-hearted symphony has never been out of fashion with the public that loves Rachmaninoff ’s music, but between the two world wars, perhaps until the 1970s, its emotional grandeur was mistrusted by many critics. It was also, for many years, the usual practice to perform it with disfi guring cuts. (Nowadays it is nearly always performed complete, though usually without the repeat of the exposition in the fi rst movement.)

The symphony is now established as one of the most popular of all Russian orchestral works. Max Harrison’s words about musical fashion seem particularly apt: ‘Composers great and less great win their place in music history through having ideas of their own, and as time passes it counts for little whether these were cast in an advanced or traditional language.’

The circumstances of the symphony’s composition are unremarkable: between 1906 and 1909 Rachmaninoff and his family spent much of each year in Dresden, where there was time to compose in peace, where he could hear fi ne performances in the city’s opera house, and where the concerts of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra were only a short journey away. These Dresden years were his most consistently fruitful as a composer: his First Piano Sonata and the tone poem The Isle of the Dead are among the works that date from this productive period.

A secretive composer at the best of times, he was particularly reluctant to discuss his work on this symphony with colleagues. The premiere of his Symphony No.1 in 1897 was a fi asco so shattering to Rachmaninoff that he composed almost nothing for three years. He was now cautious about its successor, and before he had fi nished orchestrating it in the fi rst months of 1907 he told friends that it was a repulsive work, that he was already sick of it, and that he did not know how to write symphonies anyway. But its fi rst performances, which Rachmaninoff conducted himself, were great successes, and the work was awarded a major Russian composition prize in 1908.

The Second is Rachmaninoff ’s only symphony to date from the years of his full-blown Romantic style, the period

28 | Sydney Symphony

which might be said to end with the growing astringency evident in the Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39, and with his fl ight from Russia shortly thereafter. At roughly 65 minutes, Rachmaninoff ’s Second is as expansive as the symphonies of his contemporaries Mahler and Elgar, but it is not of their kin – it is more direct in its expressive ambitions, throwing itself without reservation into each successive emotion. Although it has the emotional extravagance of the big Richard Strauss tone poems, this symphony declares less interest in their contrapuntal virtuosity. Rachmaninoff ’s counterpoint is concerned primarily with establishing a fi tting context for a wealth of melodic writing; and formally, there is none of the radical compression with which Sibelius was experimenting. In the boldness of its profi le and intensity of feeling, this symphony is the work of a profoundly original mind.

In one important characteristic, the Second is typical of its time – it is, like the symphonies of Bruckner, Mahler and Elgar, post-Wagnerian in its time-scale and ambitions, particularly in its frequent changes of key within movements, the long span of its melodies, the way Rachmaninoff creates harmonic tension by refusing to return to established keys at expected moments, and the use of motto themes to bind the individual movements together. Yet, structurally, the symphony is quite conventional: a fi rst movement in sonata form (complete with a slow introduction); a scherzo and trio; and, following the Adagio, a vigorous fi nale of well-bred Classical proportions.

Its orchestration, too, is classically inclined. ‘The weight of the argument is given to the strings’ is a phrase used repeatedly by annotators to describe Rachmaninoff ’s scoring of the Second Symphony, but this remark disguises the sensitivity with which the string voicings are placed. There is much expressive, high writing for the violas, particularly in the fi rst movement; the wealth of warm divisi writing for the violins is one of the symphony’s hallmarks; and the colours of the low strings vary with remarkable sensitivity.

It is the cellos and basses we hear fi rst, in the quiet opening bars of the Largo introduction. This is our initial encounter with the symphony’s three inter-related motto themes, and when the Allegro proper begins, we see that the movement’s main theme – a yearning, winding idea given to the violins – has been derived from the third of these.

Rachmaninoff’s Second…is more direct in its expressive ambitions, throwing itself without reservation into each successive emotion.

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There is also a short, suave second subject for oboes and clarinets, which is answered and extended by the strings. The development begins with brief solos for violin and clarinet – reminiscences of the movement’s main theme – that emerge between fragmentary orchestral quotations and transformations of the other themes we have already heard. The atmosphere becomes seriously tempestuous before we reach the recapitulation. The movement ends with a force and power very diff erent from the dark brooding with which it began.

The physical energy of the scherzo is a bright light after the shifting orchestral perspectives of the opening movement. In the middle of its festivities, a clarinet solo leads us to one of Rachmaninoff ’s glowing Romantic melodies, written in characteristic step-wise fashion, and stretching itself luxuriantly across 23 bars of music before we return to the scherzo music proper.

Rachmaninoff then pauses before announcing the beginning of the trio with a startling tutti exclamation. A vivid fugue, in which the movement’s main theme is passed fl eetingly around the whole orchestra, leads to a restatement of all the major scherzo material until, in the coda, the jaunty atmosphere is interrupted by solemn brass chantings of the symphony’s second motto theme, after which the movement seems to slither off into its own dark corner.

The glorious Adagio is indebted to Tchaikovsky, but at times it sounds like a Russian meditation on the world of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. This is Rachmaninoff the composer and conductor of operas, and here is perhaps the greatest love duet never written for the stage. The movement begins mid-phrase, almost as if we are eavesdropping, with the violins playing what we think will be the movement’s main tune. It is, in fact, the last phrase of the melody we are about to hear: one of Rachmaninoff ’s greatest creations, a long, sinuous clarinet solo, captivating in its ingenuity and length, fl oating on a bed of shifting, weaving harmonies. The violins then take up the theme we ‘overheard’ at the Adagio’s opening, before the cor anglais and oboe adopt an equally ‘vocal’, interrogative theme. At this point we are engulfed in a richly ambiguous, Tristan-esque world, with fl oating harmonies and key relationships. After a passionate climax, the dream continues with beautiful solos for violin, horn, fl ute, oboe and clarinet. The movement ends tranquilly.

The glorious Adagio is…perhaps the greatest love duet never written for the stage.

What tune is that?

The opening gesture of the Adagio of the Second Symphony was borrowed by songwriter Eric Carmen for his 1975 hit ‘Never Gonna Fall in Love Again’ – it made it to No.11 on the charts.

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The fi nale immediately establishes an atmosphere of frenetic jollity; indeed, the fi zzing triplets given to bassoons, fl utes, clarinets and strings seem to mimic the sound of laughter. Was Rachmaninoff ever again this unbuttoned? The mood soon becomes conspiratorial, however, as a march theme is announced by the brass. Then the main theme returns, before ascending stratospherically in preparation for a new melody of great lyrical beauty, given to the strings (minus the double basses) to play as a kind of impassioned chorale against throbbing triplets by the wind and brass. Then themes from previous movements are recalled before we reach a remarkable passage in which, gradually, the whole orchestra creates a vortex of scales, evoking the bell sounds so frequently heard in this composer. The exhilarating conclusion gives great and embracing prominence to the fi nale’s second theme, before racing to its shining, emphatic coda.

When this symphony was new, music critic Philip Hale declared that its early popularity revealed ‘a weakness in its composition’, and that one day the work would be ‘buried snugly in the great cemetery of orchestral compositions’. The increasing popularity of Rachmaninoff ’s Symphony No.2 since the 1970s is a victory for the broad commonwealth of music-lovers over the small, infl uential critical fraternity who once declared it obvious and naïve. It might even be a signal that a concern for human feeling is the primary value most audiences seek in music old and new.

ADAPTED FROM A NOTE BYPHILLIP SAMETZ ©1996/2007

The Second Symphony calls for three fl utes (one doubling piccolo), three oboes (one doubling cor anglais), two clarinets, bass clarinet and two bassoons; four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba; timpani and percussion (bass drum, cymbal, snare drum, glockenspiel); and strings.

The Sydney Symphony fi rst performed Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony in 1939 with Bernard Heinze, and most recently in 2007 with Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Lost and Found

Rachmaninoff’s manuscript score for the Second Symphony was long thought lost, but in 2004 it turned up in a Swiss cellar – missing its binding, title page and the opening pages of the music as well as the last page, but otherwise a complete score in the composer’s hand. The manuscript was authenticated by Geoffrey Norris – Rachmaninoff specialist, critic and lecturer at Goldsmiths College London – and is now on display at the British Library.

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ABOUT THE CONDUCTOR

Vladimir Ashkenazy conductor

In the years since Vladimir Ashkenazy fi rst came to prominence on the world stage in the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw he has built an extraordinary career, not only as one of the most renowned and revered pianists of our times, but as an inspiring artist whose creative life encompasses a vast range of activities.

Conducting has formed the largest part of his music-making for the past 20 years. He has been Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic (1998–2003), and Music Director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo (2004–2007). Since 2009 he has held the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Sydney Symphony.

Alongside these roles, Vladimir Ashkenazy is also Conductor Laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, with whom he has developed landmark projects such as Prokofi ev and Shostakovich Under Stalin (a project which he toured and later developed into a TV documentary) and Rachmaninoff Revisited at the Lincoln Center, New York.

He also holds the positions of Music Director of the European Union Youth Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He maintains strong links with a number of other major orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra (where he was formerly Principal Guest Conductor), San Francisco Symphony, and Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin (Chief Conductor and Music Director, 1988–96), as well as making guest appearances with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic.

Vladimir Ashkenazy continues to devote himself to the piano, building his comprehensive recording catalogue with releases such as the 1999 Grammy award-winning Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No.3 (which he commissioned), Rachmaninoff transcriptions, Bach’s Wohltemperierte Klavier and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. His most recent release is a recording of Bach’s six partitas for keyboard.

A regular visitor to Sydney over many years, he has conducted subscription concerts and composer festivals for the Sydney Symphony, with his fi ve-program Rachmaninoff festival forming a highlight of the 75th Anniversary Season in 2007. Vladimir Ashkenazy’s artistic role with the Sydney Symphony includes collaborations on composer festivals, recording projects and international touring.

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MUSICIANS

To see photographs of the full roster of permanent musicians and fi nd out more about the orchestra, visit our website: www.sydneysymphony.com/SSO_musicians If you don’t have access to the internet, ask one of our customer service representatives for a copy of our Musicians fl yer.

To see photographs of the full roster of permanent musicians and fi nd out more about the orchestra, visit our website: www.sydneysymphony.com/SSO_musicians If you don’t have access to the internet, ask one of our customer service representatives for a copy of our Musicians fl yer.

Vladimir AshkenazyPrincipal Conductorand Artistic Advisorsupported by Emirates

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Michael DauthConcertmaster

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Dene OldingConcertmaster

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Nicholas CarterAssociate Conductor supported bySymphony Services International & Premier Partner Credit Suisse

Performing in these concerts…

FIRST VIOLINS Sun Yi Associate Concertmaster

Kirsten Williams Associate Concertmaster

Katherine Lukey Assistant Concertmaster

Fiona Ziegler Assistant Concertmaster

Julie Batty Jennifer Booth Marianne BroadfootBrielle ClapsonSophie Cole Amber Davis Georges LentzNicola Lewis Nicole Masters Alexandra MitchellLéone Ziegler Freya Franzen†

SECOND VIOLINS Kirsty HiltonMarina Marsden Simeon Broom*Jennifer Hoy A/Assistant Principal

Susan Dobbie Principal Emeritus

Maria Durek Shuti Huang Stan W Kornel Benjamin Li Emily LongPhilippa Paige Biyana Rozenblit Maja VerunicaEmily Qin#

VIOLASRoger Benedict Tobias Breider Anne-Louise Comerford Robyn Brookfi eld Sandro CostantinoJane Hazelwood Graham Hennings Stuart Johnson Felicity Tsai Leonid Volovelsky Jacqueline Cronin#

Rosemary Curtin#

David Wicks#

CELLOSCatherine Hewgill Teije Hylkema*Leah Lynn Assistant Principal

Kristy ConrauFenella Gill Timothy NankervisElizabeth NevilleAdrian WallisDavid Wickham Rachael Tobin#

Rowena Crouch#

DOUBLE BASSESKees Boersma Alex Henery Neil Brawley Principal Emeritus

David Campbell Steven Larson Richard Lynn David Murray Benjamin Ward

FLUTES Janet Webb Emma Sholl Carolyn HarrisRosamund Plummer Principal Piccolo

OBOESDiana Doherty Shefali Pryor David Papp Alexandre Oguey Principal Cor Anglais

CLARINETSLawrence Dobell Christopher Tingay Craig Wernicke Principal Bass Clarinet

BASSOONSMatthew WilkieRoger Brooke Noriko Shimada Principal Contrabassoon

HORNSRobert Johnson Geoffrey O’Reilly Principal 3rd

Lee BracegirdleEuan HarveyMarnie Sebire

TRUMPETSDaniel Mendelow John FosterAnthony Heinrichs

TROMBONESRonald Prussing Scott Kinmont Nick Byrne Brett Page*

TUBASteve Rossé

TIMPANIRichard Miller

PERCUSSIONRebecca Lagos Mark Robinson Colin Piper Brian Nixon*

Bold = PrincipalItalic= Associate Principal* = Guest Musician # = Contract Musician† = Sydney Symphony Fellow

33 | Sydney Symphony

THE SYDNEY SYMPHONYPRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR AND ARTISTIC ADVISOR Vladimir Ashkenazy PATRON Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO

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Founded in 1932 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Sydney Symphony has evolved into one of the world’s fi nest orchestras as Sydney has become one of the world’s great cities.

Resident at the iconic Sydney Opera House, where it gives more than 100 performances each year, the Sydney Symphony also performs in venues throughout Sydney and regional New South Wales. International tours to Europe, Asia and the USA have earned the orchestra worldwide recognition for artistic excellence, most recently in a tour of European summer festivals, including the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh Festival.

The Sydney Symphony’s fi rst Chief Conductor was Sir Eugene Goossens, appointed in 1947; he was followed by Nicolai Malko, Dean Dixon, Moshe Atzmon, Willem van Otterloo, Louis Frémaux, Sir Charles Mackerras, Zdenek Mácal, Stuart Challender, Edo de Waart and, most recently, Gianluigi Gelmetti. The orchestra’s history also boasts collaborations with legendary fi gures such as George Szell, Sir Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer and Igor Stravinsky.

The Sydney Symphony’s award-winning education program is central to its commitment to the future of live symphonic music, developing audiences and engaging the participation of young people. The Sydney Symphony promotes the work of Australian composers through performances, recordings and its commissioning program. Recent premieres have included major works by Ross Edwards, Liza Lim, Lee Bracegirdle, Gordon Kerry and Georges Lentz, and a recording of works by Brett Dean was released on both the BIS and Sydney Symphony Live labels.

Other releases on the Sydney Symphony Live label, established in 2006, include performances with Alexander Lazarev, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Sir Charles Mackerras and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Currently the orchestra is recording the complete Mahler symphonies. The Sydney Symphony has also released recordings with Ashkenazy of Rachmaninoff and Elgar orchestral works on the Exton/Triton labels, and numerous recordings on the ABC Classics label.

This is the third year of Ashkenazy’s tenure as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor.

34 | Sydney Symphony

SALUTE

PRINCIPAL PARTNER GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

The Sydney Symphony is assisted by the NSW Government through Arts NSW

The Sydney Symphony is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the

Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body

PREMIER PARTNER

PLATINUM PARTNERS MAJOR PARTNERS

GOLD PARTNERS

EmanateBTA Vantage

2MBS 102.5 Sydney’s Fine Music Station

BRONZE PARTNER MARKETING PARTNER

REGIONAL TOUR PARTNERS

SILVER PARTNERS

Television - Audio

35 | Sydney Symphony

PLAYING YOUR PART

The Sydney Symphony gratefully acknowledges the music lovers who donate to the Orchestra each year. Each gift plays an important part in ensuring our continued artistic excellence and helping to sustain important education and regional touring programs. Please visit sydneysymphony.com/patrons for a list of all our donors, including those who give between $100 and $499.

PLATINUM PATRONS $20,000+Brian AbelGeoff Ainsworth AM & Vicki AinsworthRobert Albert AO & Elizabeth AlbertTerrey Arcus AM & Anne ArcusTom Breen & Rachael KohnSandra & Neil BurnsIan & Jennifer BurtonMr John C Conde AO

Robert & Janet ConstableIn memory of Hetty & Egon GordonThe Hansen FamilyMs Rose HercegThe Estate of Mrs E HerrmanJames N. Kirby FoundationMr Andrew Kaldor & Mrs Renata Kaldor AO

D & I KallinikosJustice Jane Mathews AO

Mrs Roslyn Packer AO

Dr John Roarty in memory of Mrs June RoartyPaul & Sandra SalteriMrs Penelope Seidler AM

Mrs W SteningMr Fred Street AM & Mrs Dorothy StreetIn memory of D M ThewMr Peter Weiss AM & Mrs Doris WeissWestfi eld GroupRay Wilson OAM in memory of James Agapitos OAM

Mr Brian and Mrs Rosemary WhiteJune & Alan Woods Family BequestAnonymous (1)

GOLD PATRONS $10,000–$19,999Alan & Christine BishopThe Estate of Ruth M DavidsonThe Hon Ashley Dawson-DamerPaul R. EspieFerris Family FoundationDr Bruno & Mrs Rhonda GiuffreRoss GrantMr David Greatorex AO & Mrs Deirdre GreatorexHelen Lynch AM & Helen BauerMrs Joan MacKenzieRuth & Bob MagidTony & Fran MeagherMrs T Merewether OAM

Mr B G O’ConorMrs Joyce Sproat & Mrs Janet CookeMs Caroline WilkinsonAnonymous (1)

SILVER PATRONS $5,000–$9,999Mr and Mrs Mark BethwaiteJan BowenMr Robert BrakspearMr Donald Campbell & Dr Stephen FreibergMr Robert & Mrs L Alison CarrBob & Julie ClampettMrs Gretchen M DechertIan Dickson & Reg HollowayDr Michael FieldJames & Leonie FurberMrs Jennifer HershonMichelle HiltonStephen Johns & Michele BenderJudges of the Supreme Court of NSWMr Ervin KatzGary LinnaneMr David LivingstoneWilliam McIlrath Charitable FoundationEva & Timothy Pascoe

Rodney Rosenblum AM & Sylvia RosenblumSherry-Hogan FoundationDavid & Isabel SmithersMrs Hedy SwitzerIan & Wendy ThompsonMichael & Mary Whelan TrustDr Richard WingateJill WranAnonymous (2)

BRONZE PATRONS $2,500–$4,999Dr Lilon BandlerStephen J BellMr David & Mrs Halina BrettLenore P BuckleHoward ConnorsEwen & Catherine CrouchMr Erich GockelMr James Graham AM & Mrs Helen GrahamKylie GreenJanette HamiltonAnn HobanIrwin Imhof in memory of Herta ImhofR & S Maple-BrownDr Greg & Mrs Susan MarieMora MaxwellJ A McKernanJustice George Palmer AM QC

James & Elsie MooreBruce & Joy Reid FoundationMary Rossi TravelGeorges & Marliese TeitlerGabrielle TrainorJ F & A van OgtropGeoff Wood & Melissa WaitesAnonymous (1)

BRONZE PATRONS $1,000–$2,499Charles & Renee AbramsAndrew Andersons AO

Mr Henri W Aram OAM

Claire Armstrong & John SharpeDr Francis J AugustusRichard BanksDoug & Alison BattersbyDavid BarnesMichael Baume AO & Toni BaumePhil & Elese BennettNicole BergerMrs Jan BiberJulie BlighColin Draper & Mary Jane BrodribbM BulmerIn memory of R W BurleyEric & Rosemary CampbellDr John H CaseyDr Diana Choquette & Mr Robert MillinerJoan Connery OAM & Maxwell Connery OAM

Debby Cramer & Bill CaukillMr John Cunningham SCM & Mrs Margaret CunninghamLisa & Miro DavisMatthew DelaseyJohn FavaloroMr Edward FedermanMr Ian Fenwicke & Prof N R WillsFirehold Pty LtdWarren GreenAnthony Gregg & Deanne WhittlestonAkiko GregoryIn memory of the late Dora & Oscar Grynberg Janette Hamilton

Barbara & John HirstDorothy Hoddinott AO

Paul & Susan HotzBill & Pam HughesThe Hon. David Hunt AO QC & Mrs Margaret HuntDr & Mrs Michael HunterMr Peter HutchisonDr Michael Joel AM & Mrs Anna JoelThe Hon. Paul KeatingIn Memory of Bernard M H KhawJeannette KingAnna-Lisa KlettenbergJustin LamWendy LapointeMacquarie Group FoundationMr Robert & Mrs Renee MarkovicKevin & Deidre McCannRobert McDougallIan & Pam McGawMatthew McInnesMrs Barbara McNulty OBE

Harry M. Miller, Lauren Miller Cilento & Josh CilentoMiss An NhanMrs Rachel O’ConorMr R A OppenMr Robert Orrell Mr & Mrs OrtisMaria PagePiatti Holdings Pty LtdAdrian & Dairneen PiltonMr & Ms Stephen ProudMiss Rosemary PryorDr Raffi QasabianErnest & Judith RapeeKenneth R. ReedPatricia H Reid Endowment Pty LtdMr M D SalamonJohn SaundersJuliana SchaefferMr & Mrs Jean-Marie SimartCatherine StephenJohn & Alix SullivanThe Hon. Brian Sully QC

Mildred TeitlerAndrew & Isolde TornyaGerry & Carolyn TraversJohn E TuckeyMrs M TurkingtonIn memory of Dr Reg WalkerHenry & Ruth WeinbergThe Hon. Justice A G WhealyMr R R WoodwardDr John Yu & Dr George SoutterAnonymous (12)

BRONZE PATRONS $500–$999Mr C R AdamsonMr Peter J ArmstrongMs Baiba B. Berzins & Dr Peter LovedayDr & Mrs Hannes Boshoff Minnie BriggsDr Miles BurgessPat & Jenny BurnettIta Buttrose AO OBE

Stephen Byrne & Susie GleesonHon. Justice J C & Mrs CampbellPercy ChissickMrs Catherine J ClarkMr Charles Curran AC & Mrs Eva CurranGreta DavisElizabeth DonatiDr & Dr Nita DurhamGreg Earl & Debbie CameronMr & Mrs FarrellRobert GellingDr & Mrs C GoldschmidtVivienne Goldschmidt

Mr Robert GreenMr Richard Griffi n AM

Jules & Tanya HallMr Hugh HallardMrs A HaywardRoger HenningRev Harry & Mrs Meg HerbertSue HewittMr Joerg HofmannDominique Hogan-DoranAlex HoughtonBill & Pam HughesGeoff & Susie IsraelIven & Sylvia KlinebergMr & Mrs Gilles T KrygerDr & Mrs Leo LeaderMargaret LedermanMartine LettsAnita & Chris LevyErna & Gerry Levy AM

Dr Winston LiauwMrs Helen LittleSydney & Airdrie LloydMrs A LohanCarolyn & Peter Lowry OAM

Dr David LuisMrs M MacRae OAM

Melvyn MadiganDr Jean MalcolmAlan & Joy MartinGeoff & Jane McClellanMrs Helen MeddingsMrs Inara MerrickDavid & Andree MilmanKenneth N MitchellHelen MorganChris Morgan-HunnNola NettheimMrs Margaret NewtonSandy NightingaleMr Graham NorthDr M C O’Connor AM

A Willmers & R PalDr A J PalmerMr Andrew C. PattersonDr Kevin PedemontRobin PotterLois & Ken RaePamela RogersAgnes RossIn memory of H.St.P ScarlettDr Mark & Mrs Gillian SelikowitzCaroline SharpenMrs Diane Shteinman AM

Robyn SmilesDoug & Judy SotherenMrs Elsie StaffordMr D M SwanMr Norman TaylorDr Heng & Mrs Cilla TeyMs Wendy ThompsonKevin TroyJudge Robyn TupmanGillian Turner & Rob BishopMr Robert & Mrs Rosemary WalshRonald WalledgeDavid & Katrina WilliamsAudrey & Michael WilsonDr Richard WingMr Robert WoodsMr & Mrs Glenn WyssAnonymous (17)

To fi nd out more about becoming a Sydney Symphony Patron please contact the Philanthropy Offi ce on (02) 8215 4625 or email philanthropy@sydneysymphony.com

36 | Sydney Symphony36 | Sydney Symphony

MAESTRO’S CIRCLE

Peter Weiss AM – Founding President & Doris Weiss John C Conde AO – ChairmanGeoff & Vicki AinsworthTom Breen & Rachael KohnThe Hon. Ashley Dawson-DamerIn memory of Hetty & Egon Gordon

Andrew Kaldor & Renata Kaldor AO

Roslyn Packer AO

Penelope Seidler AM

Mr Fred Street AM & Mrs Dorothy StreetWestfi eld GroupRay Wilson OAM

in memory of the late James Agapitos OAM

SYDNEY SYMPHONY LEADERSHIP ENSEMBLE David Livingstone, CEO, Credit Suisse, AustraliaAlan Fang, Chairman, Tianda GroupMacquarie Group Foundation

John Morschel, Chairman, ANZAndrew Kaldor, Chairman, Pelikan ArtlineLynn Krause, Sydney Offi ce Managing Partner, Ernst & Young

We also gratefully acknowledge the following patrons: Ruth & Bob Magid – supporting the position of Elizabeth Neville, cello Justice Jane Mathews AO – supporting the position of Colin Piper, percussion.

For information about the Directors’ Chairs program, please call (02) 8215 4619.

01Richard Gill OAM

Artistic Director Education Sandra and Paul Salteri Chair

02Jane HazelwoodViolaVeolia Environmental Services Chair

03Nick ByrneTromboneRogenSi Chair

04Diana DohertyPrincipal Oboe Andrew Kaldor and Renata Kaldor AO Chair

05Shefali Pryor Associate Principal OboeRose Herceg Chair

06Paul Goodchild Associate Principal TrumpetThe Hansen Family Chair

07Catherine Hewgill Principal CelloTony and Fran Meagher Chair

08Emma Sholl Associate Principal FluteRobert and Janet Constable Chair

09 Lawrence DobellPrincipal ClarinetAnne & Terrey Arcus Chair

DIRECTORS’ CHAIRS03 04 01

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37 | Sydney Symphony

BEHIND THE SCENES

Geoff AinsworthAndrew Andersons AO

Michael Baume AO*Christine BishopIta Buttrose AO OBE

Peter CudlippJohn Curtis AM

Greg Daniel AM

John Della BoscaAlan FangErin FlahertyDr Stephen FreibergDonald Hazelwood AO OBE*Dr Michael Joel AM

Simon Johnson

Yvonne Kenny AM

Gary LinnaneAmanda LoveHelen Lynch AM

Ian Macdonald*Joan MacKenzieDavid MaloneyDavid Malouf AO

Julie Manfredi-HughesDeborah MarrThe Hon. Justice Jane Mathews AO*Danny MayWendy McCarthy AO

Jane Morschel

Greg ParamorDr Timothy Pascoe AM

Prof. Ron Penny AO

Jerome RowleyPaul SalteriSandra SalteriJuliana SchaefferLeo Schofi eld AM

Fred Stein OAM

Gabrielle TrainorIvan UngarJohn van Ogtrop*Peter Weiss AM

Anthony Whelan MBE

Rosemary White

Sydney Symphony Council

* Regional Touring Committee member

Sydney Symphony Board

CHAIRMAN John C Conde AO

Terrey Arcus AM

Ewen CrouchRoss GrantJennifer HoyRory Jeffes

Andrew KaldorIrene LeeDavid LivingstoneGoetz RichterDavid Smithers AM

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE TRUSTMr Kim Williams AM (Chair)Ms Catherine Brenner, Rev Dr Arthur Bridge AM, Mr Wesley Enoch, Ms Renata Kaldor AO, Mr Robert Leece AM RFD, Ms Sue Nattrass AO, Dr Thomas (Tom) Parry AM, Mr Leo Schofi eld AM, Mr Evan Williams AM

EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENTChief Executive Offi cer Richard Evans Chief Operating Offi cer David Antaw Chief Financial Offi cer Claire Spencer Director, Building Development & Maintenance Greg McTaggart Director, Marketing Communications & Customer Services Victoria Doidge Director, Venue Partners & Safety Julia Pucci Executive Producer, SOH Presents Jonathan Bielski

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSEBennelong Point GPO Box 4274, Sydney NSW 2001Administration (02) 9250 7111 Box Offi ce (02) 9250 7777Facsimile (02) 9250 7666 Website sydneyoperahouse.com

PAPER PARTNER

All enquiries for advertising space in this publication should be directed to the above company and address. Entire concept copyright. Reproduction without permission in whole or in part of any material contained herein is prohibited. Title ‘Playbill’ is the registered title of Playbill Proprietary Limited. Title ‘Showbill’ is the registered title of Showbill Proprietary Limited. By arrangement with the Sydney Symphony, this publication is offered free of charge to its patrons subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s consent in writing. It is a further condition that this publication shall not be circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it was published, or distributed at any other event than specifi ed on the title page of this publication 16556 — 1/150911 — 27 S76/77/79

Clocktower Square, Argyle Street, The Rocks NSW 2000GPO Box 4972, Sydney NSW 2001Telephone (02) 8215 4644Box Offi ce (02) 8215 4600Facsimile (02) 8215 4646www.sydneysymphony.com

All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily refl ect the beliefs of the editor, publisher or any distributor of the programs. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of statements in this publication, we cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, or for matters arising from clerical or printers’ errors. Every effort has been made to secure permission for copyright material prior to printing.

Please address all correspondence to the Publications Editor: Email program.editor@sydneysymphony.com

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Managing Director Michael Nebenzahl Editorial Director Jocelyn Nebenzahl Manager—Production & Graphic Design Debbie ClarkeManager—Production—Classical Music Alan ZieglerOperating in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart & Darwin

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Rory JeffesEXECUTIVE TEAM ASSISTANT

Lisa Davies-Galli

ARTISTIC OPERATIONSDIRECTOR OF ARTISTIC PLANNING

Peter Czornyj

Artistic AdministrationARTISTIC ADMINISTRATION MANAGER

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LibraryLIBRARIAN

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DEVELOPMENTHEAD OF CORPORATE RELATIONS

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Stephen Attfi eldHEAD OF PHILANTHROPY & PUBLIC AFFAIRS

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Lucy McCulloughDATA ANALYST

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Box Offi ceMANAGER OF BOX OFFICE SALES & OPERATIONS

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Natasha PurkissCUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES

Steve Clarke – Senior CSRMichael DowlingLisa MullineuxDerek ReedJohn RobertsonBec Sheedy

COMMUNICATIONSHEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS

Yvonne ZammitPUBLICIST

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PublicationsPUBLICATIONS EDITOR & MUSIC PRESENTATION MANAGER

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HUMAN RESOURCESHUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER

Anna Kearsley

Sydney Symphony Staff