This week at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra will present one of the programs they will play on tour, specifically in Maestro Noseda’s hometown of Milan at La Scala, and in Hamburg at the Elbphilharmonie. The program features Wake Up: A Concerto for Orchestra by Carlos Simon, Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with Seong-Jin Cho and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. What do these works signify in terms of cultural diplomacy? What picture of America, what message do they highlight when performed by our national symphony, from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and honoring President Kennedy’s artistic legacy? I think the answer is that music has the power to bridge all cultures. It is the perfect ambassador of goodwill.
Wake Up: A Concerto for Orchestra by Kennedy Center composer-in-residence Carlos Simon opens the program. Simon wrote the piece for the San Diego Symphony's new concert hall (an old movie theater) and thus it has a cinematic quality...quoting that great composer of film scores, Erich Korngold, and even incorporating some of the metal pipes used during construction into the percussion. Beneath the surface, however, the title’s message resounds: Wake Up, be present to our world.
South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho will accompany the NSO on tour, taking turns with violinist Hilary Hahn. He will play Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4. Cho won the 2015 International Chopin competition and has since risen to the top ranks of his profession. He has said that he likes to take 2 months to thoroughly learn a piece so he can truly understand where the composer was at the time of his life. Tragically, with the Fourth Piano Concerto, Beethoven, the great pianist, was losing his ability to perform in public. In fact, his appearance as soloist in the Fourth Concerto was his last. He premiered the work along with the Choral Fantasy, the 5th and 6th symphonies and other assorted works in an historic marathon concert on a freezing December evening in 1808, at the Theater an der Wien. As one wag put it, the concert was “too much of a good thing.”
Beethoven is the universal composer. His music unites us, and it’s interesting to note that even Stalin approved of Beethoven. He had his doubts about Dmitri Shostakovich, however. At the time of writing his 5th symphony, the Soviet composer had started sleeping outside his apartment so as not to wake up his family in case the police came to arrest him. With this symphony, carefully titled “a Soviet artist’s response to just criticism,” he was able to redeem himself in the eyes of the authorities. The work received a half-hour ovation at its premiere, somehow managing to satisfy both audience and official critics. Shostakovich, while remaining true to his own aesthetic, made sure to include all the elements that would satisfy Stalin and his minions: accessible music, and a rousing finale. It represents the triumph of art over ideology.
Program
Gianandrea Noseda, conductor
Seong-Jin Cho, piano
Carlos Simon: Wake Up! A Concerto for Orchestra (NSO Co-Commission)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor, op. 47
From February 16–28, Gianandrea Noseda leads a nine-city European tour, his first international tour with the NSO, and the orchestra’s first since 2016. The NSO will visit some of Europe’s most important concert halls performing for audiences in Spain, Germany, and Italy, joined by pianist Seong-Jin Cho and violinist Hilary Hahn.
The legendary Takács Quartet owes its founding to a soccer game. That’s where, back in 1975, three students at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest discovered their fourth member and became a quartet. Many international competition wins later, the quartet made its American debut in 1982, soon relocating to Boulder as the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado. Several personnel changes have occurred since their founding nearly 50 years ago, but their virtuosity continues to astound.
Thursday evening at the Terrace Theater, The Fortas Chamber Music Concerts at the Kennedy Center will present this “titan of string ensembles.” The program begins with Haydn’s “Sunrise,” the fourth of his last set of string quartets. Dr. Richard E. Rodda, writing in the program notes, has this lovely tribute to Haydn’s achievement in this quartet: “The adagio is an expression of thoughtful introspection such as could only have been composed by one whose long and rich experience of life is matched by a transcendent mastery of technique.”
In contrast, Schubert’s final string quartet which closes the program, is the work of a young man who has recently discovered the form. Young Franz received some much-needed cash after playing the first movement in public, enough to take his friends to the pub, pay off some debts and get a ticket to see Paganini in concert! Once again quoting Dr. Rodda: “this music of brilliance and energy and soaring spirits requires enormous feats of virtuosity, endurance and musicianship” which the Takács has in abundance. I can’t help but wonder to what heights Schubert’s genius would have taken us had he lived past the age of 31. This quartet gives us a dramatic hint.
The middle work in the program is Bartók’s highly innovative and challenging Quartet No.3, written 100 years after Schubert’s last quartet. Despite being his most modern work, whose performance he reserved for the most sophisticated audiences, it is based on two much older influences: Bach and folk music. As the composer wrote: “the melodic world of my string quartets does not essentially differ from that of folksong, only the framework is stricter.”
Program
Thursday January 25, 7:30 p.m.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
Joseph Haydn: String Quartet No.63 in B-flat Major, Op.76, No.4 “Sunrise”
Béla Bartók: String Quartet No.3
Franz Schubert: String Quartet No.15 in G Major
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