≈ 90 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: October 7, 2021
This concert pairs Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Symphony No. 4, both of which had their compositional origins in the year 1841, though he eventually revised them—in 1845 and 1851, respectively—to the final versions you’ll hear performed tonight. This bears mentioning, because these works shed light on some of Schumann’s aesthetic preoccupations in writing for the orchestral medium. Like many composers in the generation after Beethoven, Schumann was concerned with the future directions of the symphony and the concerto genres, and how he could make his own creative contribution. For these two works, it seems the idea of “fantasy” was at the core. Notably, Schumann himself referred to his Fourth Symphony as a “symphonic fantasy”, and his Piano Concerto originated as a Phantasie for piano and orchestra.
Repertoire
Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120
I. Ziemlich langsam – Lebhaft (Quite slow – Lively)
II. Romanze: Ziemlich langsam (Quite slow)
III. Scherzo: Lebhaft (Lively)
IV. Langsam – Lebhaft (Slow – Lively)
With this symphony, Schumann was interested in creating a large-scale work in which all the movements are unified by common thematic and harmonic threads and motives, as well as are linked together with no breaks in between. The composer’s model may well have been Franz Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy for solo piano, the four movements of which are played continuously, and are bound by all their themes coming from a single motive. (This would further clarify his reference to the D minor symphony as a “symphonic fantasy”.)
In the Fourth Symphony, the thematic “motto” on which the entire work’s musical material is based is the flowing melody presented at the beginning of the slow introduction. The ensuing main movement unfolds rather freely (again, in keeping with musical notions of “fantasy”), and is dominated by an energetic, restless theme of shifting character. Later, two other important ideas appear—one, a triumphant march-like motive that reaches two pauses, the other, a gracious lyrical theme. Before the movement’s close, all three themes return, in more closely integrated fashion.
Following a brief pause, the Romanze opens with oboe and solo cello singing a folk-like melody, after which the flowing “motto” from the symphony’s introduction makes a return. In the movement’s central section, the motto assumes a more uninhibited quality in the major mode, played by the strings with solo violin sinuously elaborating overtop.
The Scherzo introduces a vigorous new theme—it has an up-then-down shape that is the reverse of the motto’s. It returns between two Trios, which feature the winding solo violin melody from the middle of the Romanze, now played by the first violins. At the end of second Trio, the melody becomes fragmented, and its initial energy dissipates. Here, the music transitions from mystery to grandeur, with trombones and then all brass slowly intoning the march-like motive from the middle of the first movement, alongside an ascending figure in the violins from the end of the opening introduction. These ideas become the main themes of the Finale, now robust and triumphant. A culmination of all that has come before, the movement evolves into a joyous dance, gathering increasing energy, to bring the symphony to a thrilling finish.
Program notes by Dr. Hannah Chan-Hartley
Concerto in A minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 54
I. Allegro affettuoso
II. Intermezzo: Andante grazioso –
III. Allegro vivace
In May 1841, around the time he was also sketching his D minor symphony, Robert Schumann drafted a Phantasie in A minor for piano and orchestra. On August 13, his wife, the virtuoso pianist and composer Clara Schumann (née Wieck) gave two trial performances of this one-movement concert piece at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. She was keen about the work, commenting that “the piano is interwoven with the orchestra in the most subtle way—one cannot imagine the one without the other.” This would have encouraged Robert, who thought the future direction of the concerto laid, in part, in creating a new equal and more integrated relationship between soloist and orchestra.
Lack of interest from publishers and concert organizers led Robert to put the Phantasie aside. However, he picked it up again in the summer of 1845, when he reworked it into a concerto, adding a Rondo finale and an Intermezzo to come before, while the Phantasie, revised, became the first movement. In December, Clara, as the soloist, gave the first performance of the Concerto in Dresden, then in Leipzig a month later, to positive reviews. Since the late 19th century, it continues to be one of the most frequently performed and admired concertos.
The Concerto begins as a dramatic intrusion by orchestra and piano; the oboe then sings the tender first theme, to which the piano immediately responds. Soloist and orchestra continue in dialogue—subtly at first, more impassioned as the movement progresses, to finally, exuberance. The “fantasy” element is clearly borne by the piano part, with its rippling arpeggios and constantly evolving melodies.
The brief Intermezzo has a gracious elegance. There’s a gentle theme on tiptoe but the middle section is the movement’s emotional heart, with a luscious cello melody of yearning leaps, around which the piano weaves embellishments. The tiptoe theme returns but seems to lose its way. As if a summons, the opening theme from the first movement, in a brighter version, is recalled by clarinets and bassoons; the piano responds with delicately falling chords. Suddenly, the tempo rushes forward into the finale’s exuberant rondo theme (in fact a variant of the opening melody). Lively episodes ensue, including a playful use of metres and orchestral counterpoint. In the final minutes, the piano part becomes its most fantastical and virtuosic, driving the Concerto to an exhilarating conclusion.
Program notes by Dr. Hannah Chan-Hartley
Artists
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 UK and Artistic and Music Director of Artis—Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in the United States. 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. Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds and Principal Youth Conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser complement Shelley’s leadership. 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 United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.
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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).
Hélène Grimaud, piano
Renaissance woman Hélène Grimaud is not just a deeply passionate and committed musical artist whose pianistic accomplishments play a central role in her life. She is a woman with multiple talents that extend far beyond the instrument she plays with such poetic expression and peerless technical control. The French artist has established herself as a committed wildlife conservationist, a compassionate human rights activist, and as a writer.
Grimaud’s musical career is characterized by concerts with most of the world’s major orchestras and many celebrated conductors, as well as extensive tours she undertakes as a soloist and recitalist. Her prodigious contribution to and impact on the world of classical music were recognized by the French government when she was admitted into the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur (France’s highest decoration) at the rank of Chevalier (Knight).
Hélène Grimaud has been an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2002. Her recordings have been critically acclaimed and awarded numerous accolades, among them the Cannes Classical Recording of the Year, Choc du Monde de la musique, Diapason d’or, Grand Prix du disque, Record Academy Prize (Tokyo), Midem Classic Award and the Echo Klassik Award. Recent releases include Perspectives (2017), a two-disc personal selection of highlights from her DG catalogue, and Memory (2018), which explores music’s ability to bring the past back to life. In her latest recording The Messenger, released in October 2020, Grimaud has created an intriguing dialogue between the composers Silvestrov and Mozart.
In 1999, Grimaud established the Wolf Conservation Center, her love for the endangered species sparked by a chance encounter with a wolf in northern Florida. She is also a member of the organization Musicians for Human Rights. For a number of years she also found time to pursue a writing career, publishing three books that have appeared in various languages: Variations Sauvages (2003), and the semi-autobiographical novels Leçons particulières (2005) and Retour à Salem (2013).
Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Robert Schumann was a German composer and music critic. Many of his works—including piano pieces, art song (lieder), symphonies, chamber music, oratorio, opera, dramatic music, and church music—are considered major contributions to their respective genres and significantly influenced subsequent generations of European composers, such as Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, and Gustav Mahler. Stylistically, Schumann’s lifelong love of literature frequently shaped his musical compositions, with traditional structures infused with narrative techniques drawn from literary models, leading to often bold and innovative conceptions. He also developed a new kind of music criticism, which took a historically informed, multi-perspective approach to describing musical processes that involved close analyses of works.
Born in Zwickau, Saxony on June 8, 1810, the youngest of five children, Schumann showed a talent for music at an early age—initially in singing, then on piano; his first compositions included piano miniatures and songs. To fulfill his family’s wishes, he went to Leipzig in 1828 for a course in law, though he left a year later to devote himself to composition lessons and studying piano with Friedrich Wieck.
During the 1830s, after hopes of being a concert pianist were dashed by a weakened middle finger on his right hand, Schumann sought a full-time career as a composer. While it progressed in starts and stops, he carved another intellectual and creative path as a music journalist, eventually founding the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, for which he was editor from 1835 to 1844. Meanwhile, he and Wieck’s daughter, Clara, already a highly lauded, touring concert pianist and composer, had fallen in love. After a protracted battle with Wieck who had forbidden them to marry, they were finally granted legal permission to do so and wedded in September 1840.
The 1840s were artistically fruitful years for Robert as he and Clara settled into family life while also continuing their respective professional careers. With Clara as muse and with her encouragement, Schumann composed numerous songs and completed major works for orchestra during this period, as well as made forays into other genres, such as his opera Genoveva. In 1850, he became Düsseldorf’s municipal music director; in this role, he made his début as a conductor and led the orchestra and the chorus of the Allgemeiner Musikverein in subscription concerts. He continued to compose prolifically, completing close to 100 new works between 1849 and 1854.
Throughout his adult life, Schumann suffered progressively worsening episodes of depression. Eventually, his mental condition deteriorated to the point that on February 27, 1854, he threw himself into the Rhine river, but he was rescued by local fishermen. To protect Clara and his children, he insisted on being placed in an asylum, and was admitted to a private sanitorium at Endenich, near Bonn. He died there on July 29, 1856.
By Dr. Hannah Chan-Hartley
NAC Orchestra
FIRST VIOLINS
Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster)
Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster)
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster)
Marjolaine Lambert
Jeremy Mastrangelo
Manuela Milani
Leah Roseman
Erica Miller*
Annie Guénette*
SECOND VIOLINS
Mintje van Lier (principal)
Winston Webber (assistant principal)
Mark Friedman
Carissa Klopoushak
Frédéric Moisan
Edvard Skerjanc
Karoly Sziladi
Andréa Armijo-Fortin*
Renée London*
Heather Schnarr*
VIOLAS
Jethro Marks (principal)
David Marks (associate principal)
David Goldblatt (assistant principal)
Paul Casey
Ren Martin-Doike
David Thies-Thompson
Sonya Probst*
CELLOS
Soo Gyeong Lee*
Rachel Mercer (principal / solo)
John Corban*
DOUBLE BASSES
Hilda Cowie (acting assistant principal)
Marjolaine Fournier
Vincent Gendron
Joel Quarrington*
Paul March*
FLUTES
Joanna G'froerer (principal)
Stephanie Morin
OBOES
Charles Hamann (principal)
Anna Petersen
CLARINETS
Kimball Sykes (principal)
Sean Rice
BASSOONS
Christopher Millard (principal)
Vincent Parizeau
HORNS
Lawrence Vine (principal) (Symphony)
Julie Fauteux (associate principal) (Concerto)
Elizabeth Simpson
Louis-Pierre Bergeron
Micajah Sturgess*
Olivier Brisson* (Symphony)
TRUMPETS
Karen Donnelly (principal)
Steven van Gulik
TROMBONES
Donald Renshaw (principal)
Colin Traquair
Douglas Burden
TIMPANI
Feza Zweifel (principal)
PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN
Nancy Elbeck
ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN
Corey Rempel
PERSONNEL MANAGER
Meiko Lydall
*Additional musicians
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees