Tuesday, January 23, 2024
7:00 PM — 9:00 PM
Cordiner Hall (map)
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“From writing an overture for a non-existent operetta, to delivering a sardonic classically-scaled work instead of a promised grand victory symphony, to composing a concerto without an elaborate cadenza for its soloist, the three composers on this program defied societal and musical expectations to create memorable works filled with character and beauty.”
– Kelly Kuo
Quinn Mason - Toast of the Town Overture
Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Op. 70
Antonin Dvořák - Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104, B. 191
Nathan Chan, cello
Nathan Chan's appearance is made possible by the WW Symphony Guest Composer/Artist Fund - Underrepresented Voices
Kelly Kuo'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
Nathan Chan, cello
Nathan Chan's multifaceted cello career spans solo, chamber music, and orchestral realms, driven by his belief in music's power to invite camaraderie among musicians and patrons alike. Named a local Forbes 30 Under 30 for Seattle, he has attracted new audiences to classical music by embracing technology and social media with over 35 million views across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Nathan has performed as a soloist with renowned orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony and The Royal Philharmonic. He has enthusiastically participated in music festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival, where he collaborated with Mitsuko Uchida and Anthony McGill, and embraced growth at Fondation Louis Vuitton's Classe d'Excellence du Violoncelle with Gautier Capuçon. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman praised him for his "profound technical gift and… his mastery of musical narrative." Nathan earned his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Columbia University and his Masters of Music with Richard Aaron at The Juilliard School. In the 2023-2024 season, Nathan will perform Tan Dun’s and Gulda’s Cello Concertos. He currently serves as the Assistant Principal Cello of the Seattle Symphony. Visit him online at nathanchan.com.
Program Notes
© John David Earnest, 2023
Quinn Mason
Toast of the Town Overture
Date of Composition: 2016-2020
Last WWS performance: First performance at this concert
Approximate length: 7 minutes
Quinn Mason (b.1996) is a composer and conductor based in Dallas, Texas. He recently finished a successful tenure as Artist in Residence of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra for the 2022-2023 season. He also served as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Classical Roots composer in residence in 2022 and as KMFA's inaugural composer in residence. Quinn has been described as “a brilliant composer just barely in his 20s who seems to make waves wherever he goes.” His orchestral music has been commissioned and performed by orchestras in the US and Europe, including the San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.
As a conductor, Quinn has guest conducted numerous orchestras, including the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, Harmonia Orchestra, MusicaNova Orchestra, and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. In April 2023, he debuted with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and served as the Houston Ballet Orchestra's youngest guest conductor. Quinn studied conducting at the National Orchestral Institute with Marin Alsop and James Ross, at the Eastern Music Festival with Gerard Schwarz. Quinn studied composition at the SMU Meadows School of the Arts, with Dr. Winston Stone at University of Texas at Dallas, and has also worked closely with renowned composers David Maslanka, Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, David Dzubay, and Robert X. Rodriguez.
The following note is by the composer:
“Toast of the Town is a festive and fun overture to an operetta that doesn't exist. It is designed in the style of light operetta, comparable to Gilbert and Sullivan or Offenbach overtures. It has no story, so I often invite audiences to make up their own story while they are listening. I've gotten some fascinating results that way.”
This delightful work is vivacious and charming, full of exuberance and vitality. It springs from the tradition of comic opera overtures by Rossini and his many successors in both opera and operetta, up to and including Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide. Quinn Mason spent four years composing this overture, and it is a welcome addition to the repertoire of concert openers for symphony orchestras.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Op. 70
Date of Composition: 1945
Last WWS performance: February 28, 1995
Approximate length: 26 minutes
The idea of composing a ‘ninth symphony’ has long intimidated composers since the monumental Symphony No.9, Beethoven’s last before his death in 1827, loomed like a forbidding giant over all the composers who followed. Nevertheless, some composers faced the challenge: Franz Schubert, who never heard his ninth symphony, his last; Antonín Dvořák, whose Symphony No.9 (From the New World) was his last; Anton Bruckner, whose Symphony No.9, his last, was left incomplete when he died in 1896; Gustav Mahler, whose magnificent Ninth Symphony of 1909 was the composer’s final completed symphony before his death in 1911; and Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose Symphony No.9 was completed the year he died. Because all these last symphonies bear that fateful number, Leonard Bernstein observed that a “mystique had grown up around the number nine” when applied to a symphony, a kind of curse that suggested failure, at least, or probable doom, at most. By 1945, Dimitri Shostakovich, after having been severely censured nine years earlier by the Soviet regime’s oversight of the arts under Stalin, had been restored to favor. That same year, the Soviet army was marching into Nazi Germany and Shostakovich expressed his intention to write a monumental symphony celebrating the coming Soviet victory. But that’s not what he wrote. Instead of the expected majesty and celebration of his Ninth Symphony, the composer delivered a work that was compact, short, humorous, lean, sarcastic, non-heroic, and modeled on Haydn, the great Austrian master who possessed a fine musical sense of humor himself. Bernstein noted:
“In short, Shostakovich virtually thumbed his nose at the great tradition” of ninth symphonies. Shostakovich remarked: "Musicians will love to play it and critics will delight in blasting it."
From the very first note of the symphony, it’s clear that we have stumbled into a carnival. Fast and energetic, the first movement is playful and satirical, laced with hints of dark humor. This is Shostakovich at his “nose-thumbing” best, mustering all his gifts for sardonic caricature. One of the many delightful touches is the frustrated fanfare, two notes played over and over by one trombone. The slow second movement is brief, with woodwind solos prominently featured in spare textures and hushed dynamics. The main theme, introduced by the solo clarinet, is a teasingly innocent melody that harbors a mischievous, slightly menacing grin. A riotously fast scherzo follows, a ferocious gallop that gradually loses momentum as it leads directly into the fourth movement. A boldly ominous exclamation in the low brass opens the movement, followed by a forlorn bassoon solo; the low brass returns with another portentous blast, again answered by the bassoon solo. Supported by quiet strings, the bassoon solo turns from severity to playfulness as it moves directly into the final movement, an allegretto. A quirky bassoon melody partners with the woodwinds, the puckish rascals that jostle with two roguish melodies. The strings join in the game and, as the tempo and volume increases, the orchestra reaches its explosive climax: a pugnacious march on scrappily militant rhythms (a trademark of Shostakovich’s music) racing to an abrupt finish. The Soviet critics and public were splintered in their reactions: puzzled, delighted, appalled, amused, disgruntled. But whatever the past has made of it, Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony has endured as a work of revelry, of melancholy, of fun, and most of all, extraordinary creative integrity.
Antonín Dvořák
Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104, B. 191
Date of Composition: 1895
Last WWS performance: October 30, 1990
Approximate length: 40 minutes
For several centuries, the Kingdom of Bohemia in Central Europe was part of the Holy Roman Empire. In the early 19th century, it was absorbed into the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire; after World War I it became the sovereign country of Czechoslovakia, and in 1992, the Czech Republic. This checkered history bred a strong sense of national identity which culminated in the nationalistic fervor which swept across Europe in the 19th century. It was in this socio-political climate that the young Antonín Dvořák was making his way playing viola in a theatre orchestra for over a decade, followed by employment as an organist at a large church in Prague, all the while honing his crafts as a composer, writing music that was rooted in his Bohemian heritage. In the years that followed, his music gained recognition and his fame grew. Then, in 1891, he was offered the directorship of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, founded by the philanthropist, Jeannette Thurber. Dvořák and his family relocated to New York in 1892, where he was artistic director of the Conservatory until 1895. While in America, the composer wrote his masterpiece, the Symphony No.9 (From the New World) in 1893, two string quartets during a summer in Spillville, Iowa, and began his cello concerto in 1894, completing it in 1895. All these works are influenced by the Czech folk music tradition, especially the concerto. It reflects Dvořák’s deep attachment to his native Bohemia and “the Czech flavor of many of the concerto’s themes reflect a nostalgic longing for his homeland.” The concerto thus becomes a valiant statement of the composer’s ardent nationalism.
The cello concerto is a lengthy work, compared to other concerti of the time, and its structure is conventional in many respects and unique in others. The melodic motive which appears at the beginning is the grounding idea of the entire work. The motive is in two short phrases, bold and resolute, with a strong rhythmic punch. This motive is used throughout the concerto in various altered forms, sometimes dynamic and forceful, and at other times quietly subdued. The most tuneful section of the opening movement follows, a caressing melody of lyrical warmth and consolation, played as a horn solo, answered by the solo cello. A hushed, gentle tune in clarinet opens the slow movement, and is then picked up by the solo cello. A series of sighing figures lend poignance; but the quietude is suddenly interrupted by the entire orchestra, mounting to an impassioned cry from the cello, then returning, exhausted, to the comfort of the opening melody and a quiet ending. The final movement is a march that begins in the low strings; the solo cello introduces the martial theme, again modeled on the strong motive from the opening movement. There’s a feeling of confidence in the face of adversity, a courageous march toward victory. The section that follows is quiet and reflective; it pulls the movement away from its opening dynamism and lingers in stasis, reprising the concerto’s opening, until a sudden crescendo swells to an abruptly stormy conclusion. An unusual feature of this work is that there is no virtuosic cadenza for the cello soloist, as was customary for Romantic era concerti. The cellist who premiered the work was greatly disappointed by the composer’s decision to exclude one.