Tuesday, December 12, 2023
7:00 PM — 9:00 PM
Cordiner Hall (map)
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Not sure what to wear? Where to park? When to clap? Check out our Concert Guide!
Mr. Wilson appears courtesy of Arts Management Group, Inc.
“Travel with us on an aural expedition of orchestral beauty, grace, and intense emotion that showcases the magic of the orchestra. The evening begins with Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s only orchestral composition, the Overture in C major, featuring a slow and elegant introduction followed by lively and rhythmic outbursts from the strings. The vitality of Hensel’s overture is matched by one of the world’s most recognized concerti for piano: Edvard Grieg’s explosive Piano Concerto in A minor. The concerto opens with a majestic timpani roll and a three-note folk-inspired melody that permeates the entire work. Closing the evening’s exploration of colorful soundscapes are the rich melodies and harmonic mastery of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s epic Symphony No. 5 in E minor. From the tender horn melody in the second movement to the triumphant finale, you will experience an unforgettable musical journey.”
– Antoine T. Clark
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel - Overture in C Major
Edvard Grieg - Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16
Terrence Wilson, piano
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64
Terrence WIlson’s appearance is made possible by the WW Symphony Guest Composer/Artist Fund - Underrepresented Voices
Antoine T. Clark’s appearance is made possible by the Katherine and Walter Weingart Guest Artist Endowment
Subscriptions are now on sale. Single tickets will be available on Monday, October 16.
WINE SPONSOR
Wine from our wine sponsor will be available before the concert and during intermission for $5/glass (all proceeds benefit the Walla Walla Symphony).
About the Guest Artist
Terrence Wilson, piano
Terrence Wilson, hailed as one of America's premier pianists, has graced the stages of major orchestras worldwide. He has performed with acclaimed conductors, including Christoph Eschenbach and Yuri Temirkanov, and collaborated with esteemed ensembles like the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and the Malaysian Philharmonic.
As a recitalist, Wilson has captivated audiences at renowned venues like the 92nd Street Y in New York City and the Louvre in Paris. His chamber music endeavors include collaborations with the Ritz Chamber Players and appearances at prestigious festivals such as Tanglewood and Wolf Trap.
Recent highlights include performances with the Alabama and Nashville Symphony Orchestras, as well as engagements with the Roanoke Symphony and the Boulder Philharmonic. In May 2021, Wilson performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, K.467 with the New Jersey Symphony (NJS), of which a video was produced and is available for viewing on the NJS’s YouTube channel.
Wilson's career has earned him accolades like the SONY ES Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. He was even nominated for a Grammy for his world premiere recording of Michael Daugherty's Deus ex Machina, which was written for Wilson in 2007.
Terrence Wilson is a graduate of The Juilliard School. In March 2021, Wilson was appointed to the piano faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Program Notes
© John David Earnest, 2023
FANNY MENDELSSOHN HENSEL
Overture in C Major
Date of Composition: 1830-1832
Last WWS performance: First performance at this concert
Approximate length: 10 minutes
Fanny Mendelssohn and her younger brother, Felix, were born into an affluent Jewish family that cherished intellectual and cultural development, qualities inherited from the patriarch of the family, Moses Mendelssohn, a distinguished philosopher of the 18th century German Enlightenment. Fanny and Felix were educated in the humanities, fine arts, and sciences. The rigor of their education was nurtured by both their parents and produced in the siblings an extraordinary capacity for creativity, especially in music. Both Fanny and Felix began composing and performing at an early age: Felix, at age nine gave public concerts, and Fanny, age twelve, played twenty-four preludes by Bach, all from memory, for a private audience. It wasn’t until 1838 that she gave a public performance of her brother’s first piano concerto at a charity event. From childhood, she had a close relationship with her famous brother and encouraged him by offering musical advice and critique of his work, acting as a beloved mentor to his renowned career. Fanny was an excellent pianist and had musical ambitions as a composer/performer which could never be fully realized in the cultural milieu in which she lived. Social values of the time prohibited women from pursuing professional careers; consequently, Fanny’s remarkable talent as a composer never had the opportunity to flourish through performances of her work. Nevertheless, she continued to compose and a few of her many compositions were published. In 1829, she married the painter Wilhelm Hensel and continued to compose many piano pieces as well as chamber music, choral music, and over two hundred fifty songs. She died in the same year as her brother, Felix.
The Overture in C Major is Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s only extant orchestral work. At just under ten minutes, the overture opens quietly, even tentatively, as short phrases seem to be asking in which direction the orchestra should proceed. Gradually gaining confidence, the work builds to an exuberant presentation of the principal theme, a rollicking idea in the strings. Built on the rhythmic vitality created by fast repeated notes that alternate with short lyrical statements, the effect is both energetic and tuneful, skillfully expressed through the clarity of the orchestration, the inventive counterpoint, and the clearly defined structure. As an orchestral work from the first half of the 19th century, the overture exemplifies one of the keystone concepts of early Romanticism, a passionate declaration of personality. Fortunately, the fact that this excellent work was composed by a woman is now celebrated and, at long last, recognized as a significant contribution to the symphonic literature.
Edvard Grieg
Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16
Date of Composition: 1869
Last WWS performance: April 21, 2009
Approximate length: 30 minutes
Edvard Grieg, the revered national composer of Norway and a leading figure of the Romantic era, was an ardent admirer of the music of Robert Schumann, especially the composer’s Piano Concerto. After hearing Clara Schumann perform the work, Grieg remarked: “Inspired from beginning to end, it stands unparalleled in music literature and astonishes us as much by its originality as by its noble disdaining of an extravert, virtuoso style.” Grieg’s own Piano Concerto does, in several ways, emulate the qualities he admired in Schumann’s work: both are in A minor; both open with a dramatic passage of descending chords in the piano, followed by a simple statement of the principal theme; and both are the only concerti for the piano in the composers’ catalogs. But Grieg’s concerto still has a uniquely personal style all its own, and, despite his remark about “an extravert, virtuoso style,” it also has plenty of flashy virtuosic challenges for the piano solo. Moreover, Grieg’s personal style was notably influenced by the Norwegian folk culture that shaped some of the concerto’s thematic ideas. After the dynamic piano opening, the first movement presents an array of memorable melodies, each one a display of varying rhythms and textures. The short middle movement, a tranquil interlude of elegantly simple melodic beauty, is reminiscent of a lullaby tune that is transformed into a theme of declarative nobility. The movement ends quietly, but moves directly, without pause, into the lively final movement, Grieg’s nod to the traditional folk music of Norway. The solo piano presents a vigorously rhythmic theme derived from music played on the Hardanger fiddle (Hardingfele), the traditional Norwegian instrument resembling a violin that is played for the Hallingdans, an acrobatic folk dance. The composer frequently adapted Hardanger folk tunes for inclusion in his work, for instance, sections of the music for Ibsen’s Peer Gynt.
During a visit to Rome in 1870, Grieg met Franz Liszt. The elder composer admired young Grieg’s music and played the entire piano part of the concerto, even the difficult cadenza, without rehearsal. Grieg was amazed, especially when Liszt offered him advice: “Stay your course, you have the ability needed – let nothing frighten you!” Grieg later remarked: “I cannot express the importance of [Liszt’s] words. It was as though he initiated me. Many times, when disappointments or bitterness are about to overwhelm me, my thoughts return to what he told me then, and my remembrance of that moment enables me to keep up my courage.”
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64
Date of Composition: 1888
Last WWS performance: April 10, 2018
Approximate length: 50 minutes
Tchaikovsky is among the most famous and most frequently performed 19th century composers. His extraordinary gifts for ardent melody, rapturous expression, and dramatic fervor have drawn audiences to his music throughout the world. But during his lifetime that was not always the case. The composer’s work was often criticized in severe terms, and he suffered episodes of debilitating doubt about his abilities as a composer. After a performance of his Symphony No.5, he declared it a failure. But sometime later, heartened by the favorable opinion of Brahms, he said, “My earlier judgment was undeservedly harsh.” Despite Tchaikovsky’s denial that the Symphony had any programmatic content, this sprawling work, like so much of his music, is profoundly personal in its vast range of emotional colors: despair, elation, defiance, triumph, intimacy, longing, faith, failure, and joy. Anchoring this array is the theme that opens the Symphony, the ‘Fate’ motive, a simple repeated note idea that is both ominous and martial. The motive appears in each of the four movements, a portentous declaration that the entire Symphony is a journey of spiritual transformation.
True to his nature as a melodist, Tchaikovsky unfolds three successive themes in the first movement: the first invokes the character of the Fate motive; the second is a jaunty, repetitive tune; and the third is a passionate waltz built on sighing descending phrases. The second movement is yet another example of the composer’s abundant melodic gifts. It opens with dark funereal chords in the lower strings that gradually brighten to support the famous horn solo, full of longing nostalgia, that is the principal theme of the movement. Then follows a melody, one of the composer’s best, introduced in the oboe and horn, that unfolds in soaring splendor in the strings. Once again, the Fate motive interrupts momentarily. The third movement Waltz is charming and gracious, a respite from the emotional turmoil of the previous two movements. But the Fate motive makes its appearance once again, a reminder that the journey is not yet complete. The closing movement immediately states the motive in a bright major key, a change of character that, rather than being cloaked in foreboding, is now ceremonial, even majestic. A vigorously fast section then propels the movement to a breathtaking pause, after which the final, triumphant statement of the Fate motive in the brass section marches to a stunning orchestral conclusion. It’s important to note that there have been varying opinions about the ending of this Symphony, questioning whether it is entirely affirmative or not. One critic has written about the finale, “…the dramatic momentum arches toward a seemingly triumphant victory, the Fate motif now an exultant brass fanfare, hammered home with Beethovenian repetitions of tonic major harmony. And yet the Symphony’s conclusion feels less victorious than it should. Is it Tchaikovsky’s wishful thinking—a forced victory paralleling the composer’s own fears and hopes for this work? As a commentator of the day remarked, if Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was Fate knocking at the door, then Tchaikovsky’s Fifth might represent Fate trying to get out.”