≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Last updated: December 30, 2019
Central to our continuing recording cycle of the Brahms and Schumann symphonies is the extraordinary figure who exerted such influence on (and held such fascination for) both of those men: Clara Schumann. Renowned across Europe for her skill as a piano soloist and improvisor, as a passionate champion of new music, and as a composer of note, her music will glue together our recording cycle, featuring today’s concerto as a crown jewel. I can think of no more perfect a pianist for this project than Gabriela Montero – a unique artist with an equally breathtaking array of gifts, talents and passions. And tonight’s performance shines a light not just on Clara Schumann, but also on her prodigiously talented contemporary Emilie Mayer. A feast of 19th-century Romantics. Enjoy!
I’m delighted to finally have Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in my repertoire. It is thanks to this project with Alexander Shelley and the NAC Orchestra that I’ve come to play and love this piece. As a woman, I can sense the urge of the young and precocious Clara to want to express her intimate inner thoughts and feelings in a work that is deeply romantic and sensitive – sometimes unabashedly so, but never falling prey to banality or cliché.
As a composer myself, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that both Clara Schumann and I premiered our first concerto at the Leipzig Gewandhaus! I only wish Clara had lived at a time when she could have fully developed her gifts and not been constrained by the times she lived in. She certainly deserves to be rightfully acknowledged as one of musical history’s great talents.
This is the first time the NAC Orchestra has performed Emilie Mayer’s Faust-Overture.
This is the first time the NAC Orchestra has performed Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor in full.
In 1975, Mario Bernardi was on the podium for the NAC Orchestra’s first interpretation of Robert Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony. The Orchestra’s most recent performance of this work took place in 2016, with Alexander Shelley conducting.
Repertoire
Faust-Overture, Op. 46
Many concertgoers can cite Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann as representative women composers of the 19th century. Another name to add to this list is that of Emilie Mayer (1812–1883), whose life spanned almost exactly that of Richard Wagner. Mayer was born in a small town in the extreme northeast of Germany, went to neighbouring Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) to study with Carl Loewe, and in 1847 moved to Berlin to study with Adolf Bernhard Marx and Wilhelm Wieprecht.
Her music was played and published throughout her lifetime, though often at her own expense. What sets Mayer apart from most other women composers of the time is the sheer size and breadth of her catalogue: eight symphonies, 15 concert overtures, 12 cello sonatas, nine violin sonatas, seven piano trios, an opera, songs, piano music, and more. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians calls her “the most prolific German woman composer of the Romantic period.” Following her death, Mayer’s music fell into obscurity; only in recent years has some of it resurfaced and been recorded.
Mayer’s Faust-Overture was published in Stettin in 1880. In mood and style it much resembles Robert Schumann’s Manfred Overture, whose subject is a restless, troubled soul. The slow introduction (Adagio) probably is meant to depict Faust alone in his study. The score’s sole programmatic indication comes near the end, where the words “Sie ist gerettet” (She [Margaret] is saved) appear at the point where the music moves from B minor to B major. Formally the main Allegro section of the 12-minute Overture is laid out in modified sonata form, with a first subject in the minor mode and a secondary one in the major. There is no development section to speak of. The coda returns to the minor mode up to the point where Margaret is “saved,” where B major once again prevails to the triumphant end.
Program note by Robert Markow
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7
Born in Leipzig, September 13, 1819
Died in Frankfurt, May 20, 1896
By any standard, Clara Schumann must be ranked as one of the most remarkable women in the history of music. In an age and land (mid-19th-century Germany) so inhospitable to the creative ambitions of women, she mustered the courage and determination to be both a composer and a traveling virtuoso. In the latter capacity she was the woman pianist of the century.
Taught by her father, she joined Mozart, Mendelssohn and a handful of others in the ranks of child prodigies, giving her first public performance at the age of nine in Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, and two years later her first complete recital in the same hall (complete recitals by a single artist were still rare events). Already as a teenager she had begun her lifetime career of touring the length and breadth of Europe. Her admirers included Goethe, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Paganini and Berlioz.
Clara Schumann’s technical abilities were matched by depth of interpretive insight, poetic feeling and respect for the composer's performance directions. She was also a champion of new music, and gave the first performances in Germany of many works by Chopin, Brahms and especially her husband Robert, whom she married in 1840.
But her career as a pianist was only one aspect of Clara Schumann’s life. She also achieved renown as a composer, with her first works appearing at the age of 11. As testimony to her precocity, the concerto we hear tonight was written while she was between 13 and 15 years old. Her catalogue includes 23 opus numbers plus another 30 or so unnumbered works. Like Chopin, everything she wrote was either for or with piano. Clara Wieck gave the first complete performance of her Piano Concerto in A minor on November 9, 1835 in the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Mendelssohn conducting.
The Piano Concerto Op. 7 was a strikingly bold statement from the young pianist-composer. Its third movement (Allegro non troppo) was composed first and was initially conceived as a standalone work, a Conzertsatz allowing the 14-year-old Clara Wieck to display both her virtuosity and her mastery of large-scale form. She enlisted Robert Schumann – her father’s former piano student, an emerging composer, and as yet only a good family friend – to orchestrate the Conzertsatz, though she later orchestrated herself the other two movements. The Allegro non troppo features energetic themes relieved by lyrical cascading gestures in the piano solo, and includes the many virtuosic episodes that an audience hungry for pianistic pyrotechnics demanded from Europe’s favourite Wunderkind.
When she decided to use the Concertsatz as the last movement of a fully-fledged concerto, Clara Wieck tackled the challenge of integrating a self-contained work into a coherent large-scale design. She did so not only through subtle thematic connections – the first movement sounds indeed as though it had been the original source for melodic ideas across the work – but also through a unique overarching design. Perhaps inspired by Mendelssohn’s G-minor Concerto, there are no breaks between movements; unlike Mendelssohn, however, the opening Allegro Maestoso is an abbreviated sonata form that dispenses with a recapitulation and defers any sense of closure to the end of the Finale.
The evocative, lyrical middle movement is scored for piano and solo cello, an intimate duet between the heftier outer movements. Its title, Romanze, was closely linked to a vocal genre, perhaps a nod to one of her father’s favourite pedagogical principles, namely that the art of singing was a necessary foundation for piano-playing—and indeed the Romanze foregrounds tone and touch rather than fiery virtuosity.
Unbeknownst to her, with this concerto, Clara Wieck was at the forefront of many innovative techniques which later Romantic composers continued to develop. She attempted only one other piano concerto in 1847, which remained unfinished.
– Program note by Robert Markow and Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 97, “Rhenish”
I. Lebhaft
II. Scherzo: Sehr mässig
III. Nicht schnell
IV. Feierlich
V. Lebhaft
In early September 1850, Robert and Clara Schumann moved to Düsseldorf, in the Rhineland, so Robert (1810–1856) could take up his position as the music director of the orchestra and chorus of the Allgemeiner Musikverein. Not long after they arrived, they went to Cologne where they visited the city’s monumental Cathedral, which in 1850, about 600 years after the laying of its foundation, was being completed to its original Gothic design. It made a significant impression on Robert, and, as confirmed by Josef von Waiselewski, the violinist and concertmaster of Schumann’s orchestra, became a source of inspiration for his Third Symphony (the fourth he would write). Soon after returning to Düsseldorf, Robert set to work on it. A few months later, on February 6, 1851, he led the premiere at the Musikverein there to warm reception, successful enough to merit a repeat performance within a month.
Among Schumann’s orchestral works, the Third Symphony remains a favourite with audiences for its picturesque qualities, while also admired by academics and critics for Robert’s distinctive approach to symphonic structure and formal process. Its subtitle “Rhenish”, although not the composer’s, does point to the background inspiration that evidently shaped the pictorial aspects of the piece. At the same time, Schumann uses the recall and development of motivic elements to create a sense of coherence through the Symphony’s movements in a purely structural way that was hitherto unprecedented. It would significantly influence the “developing variation” technique that characterizes the symphonies Johannes Brahms wrote three decades later.
The five movements of the “Rhenish” unfold like a series of “sonic pictures”—or as music scholar John Daverio aptly puts it, like a group of paintings in a highly curated exhibition. Each contains dynamic content that is internally unified within the bounds of their “frame” and is connected to the others in the symphonic “gallery” more through motivic allusion than conveying a narrative progression. The opening movement seems to depict the start of a grand adventure—it launches immediately (without a slow introduction) into an exuberantly swinging theme propelled by energetic cross-rhythms. Woodwinds briefly introduce a graceful winding melody, with a touch of melancholy, but the energy dominates. Later, in the middle section, the winding theme develops more of a presence amid vigorous passages. The swinging tune soon returns but it’s not yet the real reprise. Building through a four-horn proclamation of the tune in a broadened version, the music peaks at the true recapitulation. The main themes proceed as before, and the movement, never lagging in energy, reaches a glorious finish.
Robert initially called the second movement “Morning on the Rhine”; the main melody possibly evokes the river’s flow, which is more like a gently lilting dance than a quicksilver scherzo. Then, a variation in sprightly figuration, after which a mellifluous new idea in the minor mode is presented by the horns, over quiet strings. Additional returns of the lilting theme (in a bright, bold guise) and the sinuous horn tune follow, leading to a full reprise of the scherzo.
A sense of flow continues into the third movement, which features three main elements that first appear in succession: 1) a singing clarinet melody whose leaping intervals allude to the symphony’s opening theme, accompanied by violas with undulating figures; 2) a tiptoe motif with sighing phrases played by violins and horns; and 3) a descending line of devotional character in the violas and bassoons. After the latter two are further developed, the clarinet melody returns, this time combined with the tiptoeing strings. In a neat act of summation, all three elements appear in the coda, which winds down on the tiptoe motif and sighs.
Before the finale, Schumann inserts a remarkable fourth movement. In November, amidst his work on this symphony, he returned with Clara to Cologne Cathedral to witness the elevation of Archbishop Johannes von Geissel to cardinal. His experience made its way into this movement, which he had originally titled “In the style of a solemn procession”, though he later replaced this with the word “feierlich” (“solemnly”). Bassoons, trombones, and horns intone a contrapuntal chorale, to which woodwinds and strings add their voices. As musicologist Michael Musgrave has described, “The form of the main part…does not as much suggest the drama of a service as the metaphor of a building: its developing sections and overtly contrapuntal working seem to suggest the creation of the successive levels and spans of a great physical structure”—indeed, like that of Cologne Cathedral itself.
Returning to lightness, the finale is an inventive summary of what came before. Several motifs—the extroverted first theme, the horn fanfare, and a rising arpeggio in the horns—all subtly reference those that have appeared in earlier movements: the slow movement’s tiptoe figure, the leaping first movement melody, and the scherzo’s first theme, respectively. In the recapitulation, a climactic brass fanfare recalls the ones in the fourth movement, after which the music picks up speed and rushes headlong to a joyous close.
Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Artists
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“A natural communicator, both on and off the podium” (The Telegraph), Alexander Shelley performs across six continents with the world’s finest orchestras and soloists.
With a conducting technique described as “immaculate” (Yorkshire Post) and a “precision, distinction and beauty of gesture not seen since Lorin Maazel” (Le Devoir), Shelley is known for the clarity and integrity of his interpretations and the creativity and vision of his programming. He has spearheaded over 40 major world premieres to date, including highly praised cycles of Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms symphonies, operas, ballets, and innovative multi-media productions.
Since 2015, he has served as Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In April 2023, he was appointed Artistic and Music Director of Artis–Naples in Florida, providing artistic leadership for the Naples Philharmonic and the entire multidisciplinary arts organization. The 2024–2025 season is Shelley’s inaugural season in this position. In addition to his other conducting roles, the Pacific Symphony in Los Angeles’s Orange County announced Shelley’s appointment as its next Artistic and Music Director. The initial five-year term begins in the 2026–2027 season, with Shelley serving as Music Director-Designate from September 2025.
Additional 2024–2025 season highlights include performances with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony, the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, the Seattle Symphony, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland). Shelley is a regular guest with some of the finest orchestras of Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australasia, including Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Helsinki, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Malaysian, Oslo, Rotterdam and Stockholm philharmonic orchestras, and the Sao Paulo, Houston, Seattle, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Montreal, Toronto, Munich, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, and New Zealand symphony orchestras.
In September 2015, Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, the youngest in its history. The ensemble has since been praised as “an orchestra transformed ... hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen), and his programming is credited for turning the orchestra “almost overnight ... into one of the more audacious orchestras in North America” (Maclean’s). Together, they have undertaken major tours of Canada, Europe, and Carnegie Hall, where they premiered Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 13.
They have commissioned ground-breaking projects such as Life Reflected and Encount3rs, released multiple Juno-nominated albums and, most recently, responded to the pandemic and social justice issues of the era with the NACO Live and Undisrupted video series.
In August 2017, Shelley concluded his eight-year tenure as Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, a period hailed by press and audiences alike as a golden era for the orchestra.
Shelley’s operatic engagements have included The Merry Widow and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet (Royal Danish Opera), La bohème (Opera Lyra/National Arts Centre), Louis Riel (Canadian Opera Company/National Arts Centre), lolanta (Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen), Così fan tutte (Opéra national de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon), The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North), Tosca (Innsbruck), and both Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni in semi-staged productions at the NAC.
Winner of the ECHO Music Prize and the Deutsche Grunderpreis, Shelley was conferred with the Cross of the Federal Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in April 2023 in recognition of his services to music and culture.
Through his work as Founder and Artistic Director of the Schumann Camerata and their pioneering “440Hz” series in Dusseldorf, as founding Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen’s “Zukunftslabor” and through his regular tours leading the National Youth Orchestra of Germany, inspiring future generations of classical musicians and listeners has always been central to Shelley’s work.
He regularly gives informed and passionate pre- and post-concert talks on his programs, as well as numerous interviews and podcasts on the role of classical music in society. In Nuremberg alone, over nine years, he hosted over half a million people at the annual Klassik Open Air concert, Europe’s largest classical music event.
Born in London in October 1979 to celebrated concert pianists, Shelley studied cello and conducting in Germany and first gained widespread attention when he was unanimously awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conductors Competition, with the press describing him as “the most exciting and gifted young conductor to have taken this highly prestigious award.”
The Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., ONL, LL.D. (hc).
Gabriela Montero’s visionary interpretations and unique compositional gifts have garnered her critical acclaim and a devoted following on the world stage. Anthony Tommasini remarked in the New York Times that “Montero’s playing had everything: crackling rhythmic brio, subtle shadings, steely power…soulful lyricism…unsentimental expressivity.”
Montero’s 2023–2024 season will feature performances of her own “Latin” Concerto on an extensive U.S. tour with Mexico City’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería and Carlos Miguel Prieto, as well as with the New World Symphony, the Polish National Radio Symphony, the Antwerp Symphony, and the NAC Orchestra, the latter with which she continues a flourishing four-year Creative Partnership through 2025.
Celebrated for her exceptional musicality and ability to improvise, Montero has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. A graduate and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, she is also a frequent recitalist and chamber musician, having given concerts at such distinguished venues as Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus, Sydney Opera House, and the National Concert Hall in Taipei.
An award-winning and bestselling recording artist, her most recent album, released on the Orchid Classics label, features her own “Latin” Concerto and Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, recorded with the Orchestra of the Americas in Frutillar, Chile. Montero made her formal debut as a composer with Ex Patria, a tone poem designed to illustrate and protest Venezuela’s descent into lawlessness, corruption, and violence.
Winner of the 4th International Beethoven Award, Montero is a committed advocate for human rights whose voice regularly reaches beyond the concert hall. She was also awarded the 2012 Rockefeller Award for her contribution to the arts and was a featured performer at Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Inauguration.
Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra is praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary learning and engagement programs, and its unwavering support of Canadian creativity. The NAC Orchestra is based in Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, and has grown into one of the country’s most acclaimed and dynamic ensembles since its founding in 1969. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, engaging communities from coast to coast to coast through inclusive programming, compelling storytelling, and innovative partnerships.
Since taking the helm in 2015, Shelley has shaped the Orchestra’s artistic vision, building on the legacy of his predecessor, Pinchas Zukerman, who led the ensemble for 16 seasons. Shelley’s influence extends beyond the NAC. He serves as Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the U.K. and Artistic and Music Director of Artis—Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. Shelley’s leadership is complemented by Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds, an internationally renowned conductor and violinist who has led some of the world’s finest ensembles, and Principal Youth Conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, known for creating innovative and engaging community programming. In 2024, the Orchestra marked a new chapter with the appointment of Henry Kennedy as its first-ever Resident Conductor.
The Orchestra has a rich history of partnerships with renowned artists such as James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Renée Fleming, Hilary Hahn, Jeremy Dutcher, Jan Lisiecki, Ray Chen and Yeol Eum Son, underscoring its reputation as a destination for world-class talent. As one of the most accessible, inclusive and collaborative orchestras in the world, the NAC Orchestra uses music as a universal language to communicate the deepest of human emotions and connect people through shared experiences.
A hallmark of the NAC Orchestra is its national and international tours. The Orchestra has performed concerts in every Canadian province and territory and earned frequent invitations to perform abroad. These tours spotlight Canadian composers and artists, bringing their voices to stages across North America, the U.K., Europe, and Asia.
The NAC Orchestra has also established a rich discography, including many of the over 80 new works it has commissioned. These include:
- The 2024 album Truth in Our Time, including the premiere recording of Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 13, commissioned by the National Arts Centre Orchestra
- Clara - Robert - Johannes: a multi-year, multi-album exploration of the music of Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, featuring pianists Angela Hewitt, Stewart Goodyear, and Gabriela Montero
- The groundbreaking Life Reflected, which includes "My Name is Amanda Todd" by the late Jocelyn Morlock (winner of the 2018 JUNO for Classical Composition of the Year)
- Ana Sokolović’s "Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes," 2019 JUNO Winner for Classical Composition of the Year (from the 2019 JUNO-nominated New Worlds)
- The 2020 JUNO-nominated The Bounds of Our Dreams, featuring pianist Alain Lefèvre
- Angela Hewitt’s 2015 JUNO Award-winning album of Mozart Piano Concertos
The NAC Orchestra’s Learning and Community Engagement initiatives are rooted in creating inclusive and accessible programs for audiences in the National Capital Region and across Canada. These initiatives include family-focused performances, Music Circle workshops specifically designed for individuals on the autism spectrum, and sensory-friendly concerts. Additionally, the Orchestra offers exceptional programming for students, teachers, and learners of all ages, including matinee performances, open rehearsals, instrumental workshops, and digital resources, ensuring that arts learning and engagement in music remain a priority for young audiences and the broader community. The Orchestra’s annual Mentorship Program brings 50 early-career orchestral musicians from around the world to participate in a three-week professional development experience with the world-class NAC Orchestra. Through these efforts, the NAC Orchestra continues to foster meaningful connections with diverse audiences, making music a shared and inclusive experience.
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