Presented by Audi

Emanuel Ax Plays Brahms

FOCUS: Clara, Robert, Johannes

2023-09-13 20:00 2023-09-13 23:00 60 Canada/Eastern 🎟 NAC: Emanuel Ax Plays Brahms

https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/33720

In-person event

Join us for a free pre-concert talk at Peter Herrndorf Place in the NAC, featuring Alexander Shelley and musicologist Hannah Chan-Hartley. For ticketholders, this concert will also be followed by a post-concert chat, onstage at Southam Hall, featuring Emanuel Ax and Alexander Shelley in conversation with journalist Paul Wells. *** Our season-opening festival FOCUS: Clara, Robert, Johannes​ celebrates the abiding friendship between Clara and Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms...

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Southam Hall,1 Elgin Street,Ottawa,Canada
Wed, September 13, 2023
Wed, September 13, 2023

Last updated: October 17, 2023

Program

CLARA SCHUMANN (8 min)

“Am Strande” (“On the shore”)
“Ich stand in dunkeln Träumen” (“I stood darkly dreaming”), Op. 13, No. 1
“Die Lorelei” (“The Loreley”)

ROBERT SCHUMANN Symphony No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 38, “Spring” (30 min)

I. Andante un poco maestoso – Allegro molto vivace
II. Larghetto –
III. Scherzo: Molto vivace –
IV. Allegro animato e grazioso

INTERMISSION

JOHANNES BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 (42 min)

I. Maestoso
II. Adagio
III. Rondo: Allegro non troppo

Am Strande 
German source: Wilhelm Gerhard 

Traurig schau ich von der Klippe 
Auf die Flut, die uns getrennt, 
Und mit Inbrunst fleht die Lippe, 
Schone seiner, Element! 
 
Furcht ist meiner Seele Meister, 
Ach, und Hoffnung schwindet schier; 
Nur im Traume bringen Geister 
Vom Geliebten Kunde mir. 
 
Die ihr, fröhliche Genossen 
Gold’ner Tag’ in Lust und Schmerz, 
Kummertränen nie vergossen, 
Ach, ihr kennt nicht meinen Schmerz! 
 
Sei mir mild, o nächt’ge Stunde, 
Auf das Auge senke Ruh, 
Holde Geister, flüstert Kunde 
Vom Geliebten dann mir zu. 

Clara Schumann Lieder - Texts and Translations

Ich stand in dunkeln Träumen 
German source: Heinrich Heine 

Ich stand in dunklen Träumen 
Und starrte ihr Bildnis an, 
Und das geliebte Antlitz 
Heimlich zu leben begann. 
 
Um ihre Lippen zog sich 
Ein Lächeln wunderbar, 
Und wie von Wehmutstränen 
Erglänzte ihr Augenpaar. 
 
Auch meine Tränen flossen 
Mir von den Wangen herab – 
Und ach, ich kann’s nicht glauben, 
Dass ich dich verloren hab! 

Die Lorelei 
German source: Heinrich Heine

Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, 
Daß ich so traurig bin; 
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten, 
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn. 
 
Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt, 
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein; 
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt 
Im Abendsonnenschein. 
 
Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet 
Dort oben wunderbar, 
Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet, 
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar. 
 
Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme 
Und singt ein Lied dabei, 
Das hat eine wundersame, 
Gewalt’ge Melodei. 
 
Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe 
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh; 
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe, 
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh’. 
 
Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen 
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn; 
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen 
Die Lorelei getan. 

Repertoire

CLARA SCHUMANN

Ich stand in dunkeln Träumen

“Ich stand in dunkeln Träumen” (“I stood darkly dreaming”), Op. 13, No. 1

“Die Lorelei” (“The Loreley”)

“Am Strande” (“On the shore”)

All throughout her career as a composer, Clara Schumann (née Wieck, 1819–1896) wrote Lieder (songs for voice and piano), from when she was a child right up until Robert Schumann’s death. Today’s audiences know 28 of her Lieder, but many more were lost. The three Lieder presented here are from the early days of her marriage, gifted to Robert for Christmas in 1840 (“Ich stand in dunkeln Träumen,” Op. 13, No. 1, and “Am Strande”) and for his birthday in 1843 (“Die Lorelei”).

“Ich stand in dunkeln Träumen” (“I stood darkly dreaming”) is a tender, melancholic meditation on a man overcome by memories while mourning over a portrait of his lost beloved. The piano and vocals arch delicately and eloquent appogiaturas adorn the score, accentuating his nostalgic reflection. The middle section is in a minor key, more chromatic and agitated, representing tears the narrator thinks he sees in the portrait, tears that are in fact his own, running down his own cheeks.

“Am Strande” (“On the shore”) and “Die Lorelei” (“The Loreley”) evoke the power of the elements and splendors of nature, namely bodies of water. Natural imagery is typically Romantic, intended to represent human emotions. In “Am Strande,” the ebb and flow of the endless sextuplets represents both the tides separating two lovers and the character’s emotions that oscillate between hope and despair. In “Die Lorelei,” based on Heinrich Heine’s famous poem, Clara Schumann eloquently reimagines the famous legend of a baneful nymph, the Loreley, who lure sailors on the Rhine to their deaths. Schumann clearly delineates between the narrator of the poem, the sailor, and the Loreley by creating distinct tones and textures. She employs an emotional and musical crescendo that builds throughout the Lied until it comes to a climax at the end of the song. The roiling piano score in these two Lieder are a credit to Schumann’s talents as a virtuoso.

Program note by Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers (translated from the French)

ROBERT SCHUMANN

Symphony No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 38, “Spring”

I. Andante un poco maestoso – Allegro molto vivace
II. Larghetto –
III. Scherzo: Molto vivace –
IV. Allegro animato e grazioso

Robert Schumann’s (1810–1856) First Symphony came to fruition in a burst of productive creativity in 1841, during the first months of his marriage to Clara Wieck. Over four days in late January, he feverishly sketched out the entire work. Within another month, he had orchestrated it. (Even Clara was not prepared for the intensity of her husband’s activity, even though she had long encouraged him to write for orchestra. Unable to practice on the piano while he was composing and feeling overlooked, she admitted in their joint diary, “when a man composes a symphony, one really can’t expect him to concern himself with other things—thus even his wife must accept herself as set aside!”) The premiere took place on March 31 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, with Felix Mendelssohn conducting, and was warmly received by the audience. As was to become his practice, Robert made revisions after the first performances—to the first movement, scherzo, and finale—before the symphony’s publication.

Like many composers after Beethoven, Schumann was concerned with the future direction of the symphony and how to make his own contribution. As a critic reviewing the music of his contemporaries, Robert was aware of the prevailing “Beethovenian” methods of developing musical motifs to generate the “content” for a whole symphony, and of using inter-movement thematic recall to achieve coherence and to convey an emotional or psychological narrative, be that abstract (as in “absolute music”) or explicit (as in “program music”). For better or worse, how effectively composers employed these techniques in their works became a critical benchmark to which they were upheld. As music theorist Scott Burnham has noted, Schumann, in his four symphonies, appears to have carved a singular path that escapes easy classification. His music, and notably his First Symphony, lies “between worlds”: between lyricism and drama, between long-breathed melodies and motivic dynamism, between absolute and program music.

Robert called his first symphony “Spring” after a poem by Adolph Böttger. The text addresses the “spirit of the cloud”, imploring it to leave so spring can be revealed; as the final lines read: 

O wende, wende deinen Lauf [Oh turn, turn aside your course]
Im Thale blüht der Frühling auf! [In the valley spring is coming into bloom!]

Struck by these particular words, Schumann generated a musical motto based on the rhythm of the line “O wende, wende deinen lauf”, which is intoned by trumpets and horns at the beginning of the symphony. (He said he wanted it “to sound as if from on high, a call of awakening.”) Thereafter, the first movement proceeds with a vigorous energy that persists throughout. It adheres, for the most part, to formal conventions: two contrasting themes in the exposition, followed by a central section in which the snappy rhythm of the first theme is developed. But just at the start of the recapitulation, when we’d expect to hear the return of the first main theme, we get instead a grand statement of the musical motto by full orchestra, after which there's a pause, then the bustle resumes. At a similar point in the fourth movement, Schumann adds a bird-like flute cadenza, prefaced by a horn call. Such disruptions to expected symphonic processes is one innovative strategy he employed to imbue the form with a poetic sensibility.

Indeed, Robert had originally planned to give descriptive titles to each of the First Symphony’s movements: 1. The beginning of spring 2. Evening 3. Merry playmates 4. Full spring. However, not wanting to make it a work of “program music”, he dropped them, but knowing this now gives us an inkling of the ideas that inspired the piece. The second movement has a warm beauty while the third is a rustic dance of a serious air, with two contrasting trios. In between them is Schumann’s inventive approach to achieving large-scale unity: transitions that feature thematic recall and dramatic foreshadowing. Listen for how the trombone chorale at the slow movement’s conclusion anticipates the main theme of the ensuing scherzo. Near the end of the third movement, there are reminiscences of the scherzo and the first trio, before the music pauses expectantly. Then, a musical scenic change, as if the merry playmates are tiptoeing off the stage, and we arrive at an upward curtain-raising motif to introduce the finale. As the movement progresses with a spirited reveling in orchestral sonority, the motif’s rhythm becomes dominant, eventually joyously striding forward to bring the symphony to a jubilant finish.

Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15

I. Maestoso
II. Adagio
III. Rondo: Allegro non troppo

The genesis of Johannes Brahms’s (1833–1897) First Piano Concerto arose from the wake of tragic and complex circumstances in February 1854: the attempted suicide of Robert Schumann. In the aftermath, Robert was removed to an asylum in Endenich; in agony over the psychological state of his mentor, Brahms had meanwhile also fallen in love with Robert’s wife, Clara, the celebrated pianist. Forbidden from seeing her husband and pregnant with what would be their seventh surviving child, Clara leaned heavily on Johannes for emotional support. The situation ignited intense feelings between them, with which they both wrestled and endured as Robert languished, and eventually died in 1856.

Initially, whatever the 20-year-old Brahms was feeling found a creative outlet in the form of a D minor sonata for two pianos. He worked furiously, no doubt to distract himself, completing three movements by March 1854. By July though, he determined that it was too grand for just two pianos and set out to orchestrate the first movement. Not yet having the maturity and skill to write in the symphonic medium, he toiled stubbornly on it for months. A turning point came the following year, in February, when Brahms told Clara he had a dream: he saw himself performing his “unfortunate symphony” as a piano concerto, and as soloist and audience, was “completely enraptured.” Inspired, he decided to recast the sonata/symphony into a piano concerto.

The D minor Concerto preoccupied Brahms for the next three years. As he worked, he consulted Clara and the violinist Joseph Joachim. From the original sonata, he kept only the first movement, and added a new slow movement and finale. Orchestration was completed in May 1857, but Brahms continued to obsess over it right up to the premiere in January 1859, with the Hanover court orchestra conducted by Joachim and the composer as soloist. Whereas that performance was greeted with polite applause, the audience at the prestigious Leipzig Gewandhaus for its second presentation a few days later erupted into hisses at the conclusion. As Brahms recounted to Joachim, although he felt the sting of his “brilliant and decisive failure,” he firmly believed that after some revisions, his concerto “will please someday.”

Today, Brahms’s First Piano Concerto is firmly established in the orchestral repertoire. Yet, it continues to stand out among other concertos of its time—for its length (clocking in at three-quarters of an hour in performance, longer than many symphonies!), overtly tragic tone (especially in the first movement), and the difficult and musically weighty but not showy solo piano part. These distinctive aspects for which the work is now appreciated had in fact went against what critics and audiences then felt a concerto should be like.

The substantial first movement begins brutally in the orchestra—with a menacing low D minor chord, a loud drumroll, and a theme of anguished defiance. (Scholars and writers have generally agreed that given the context in which this music emerged, it evokes the tragedy of Robert Schumann’s leap into the Rhine.) It continues in this turbulent vein; when the piano finally enters, it responds with a ruminating tune, plaintive at first, then intensifying to forceful trills. Later, a yearning second theme appears, but soon leads into another new melody: a sonorous chorale for piano, which the orchestra subsequently takes up. After things wind down, the piano plays a cascade of double octaves that leads into the central section in which the main themes are developed. Together, soloist and orchestra reach a bold climax, and the piano initiates the recap playing the defiant opening theme. The ruminating melody, now impassioned and pleading, returns in the orchestra, then the piano. Following a reprise of the chorale, the piano, instead of a dazzling cadenza, introduces an agitated transformation of its ruminating tune and with the orchestra, wraps up the movement with a thunderous coda.

Worlds away from the first movement’s tumult, the ensuing “Adagio” is serene and reverent. “I’m painting a tender portrait of you,” is what Johannes wrote to Clara when he was composing it. A spiritual atmosphere is evoked in its hymn-like theme, first played by muted strings, then solo piano (in the manuscript, not for the published score, Brahms had inscribed the words Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini—Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord). Meditative passages eventually build to a new intensity with the chorale in the woodwinds as the piano accompanies with trills and rippling arpeggios. When tranquility returns, the piano’s musings unwind out into a cadenza with shimmering trills, like time suspended, which then relax into the calm procession that draws the movement to a peaceful close.

Modelled on the rondo finale of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, the third movement features a brusque recurring tune, first introduced by the piano. Later, the piano also presents the contrasting second theme—an expressive song richly harmonized, after which the music continues to bustle along. A bravura passage leads us back to the rondo theme, which in the middle section, undergoes further transformations: first, as a lyrical melody in the violins, then as a fugal subject in the strings. After returns of the principal theme and the expressive song (now in the minor mode), the piano plays a cadenza “quasi fantasia” that is more sonorous than virtuosic flash. An expansive episode of thematic reminiscences brings us to the coda, with the rondo theme transformed into a high-spirited tune in the major mode. Before the end, the piano sweeps through with another cadenza, banishing any further dark thoughts, and soloist and orchestra drive this monumental work to a euphoric conclusion.

Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD

Artists

  • conductor Alexander Shelley
  • emanuel-ax
    piano Emanuel Ax
  • Mezzo-Soprano Alex Hetherington
  • piano Liz Upchurch
  • bio-orchestra
    Featuring NAC Orchestra

Credits

NAC Orchestra

First Violins  
Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster) 
Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster) 
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster) 
Jeremy Mastrangelo 
Marjolaine Lambert 
Emily Westell 
Manuela Milani 
Zhengdong Liang 
*Erica Miller 
*Martine Dubé 
*Oleg Chelpanov 
*Renée London 

Second Violins 
*Jeffrey Dyrda (guest principal) 
Emily Kruspe 
Frédéric Moisan 
Carissa Klopoushak 
Winston Webber 
Leah Roseman 
Mark Friedman 
Karoly Sziladi 
**Edvard Skerjanc 
*Andréa Armijo Fortin 
*Heather Schnarr 

Violas 
Jethro Marks (principal) 
David Marks (associate principal) 
David Goldblatt (assistant principal) 
Tovin Allers 
David Thies-Thompson 
Paul Casey 
*Sonya Probst 

Cellos 
Rachel Mercer (principal) 
**Julia MacLaine (assistant principal) 
Leah Wyber 
Marc-André Riberdy 
Timothy McCoy 
*Karen Kang 
*Desiree Abbey 
*Daniel Parker 

Double Basses 
Max Cardilli (assistant principal) 
Vincent Gendron 
Marjolaine Fournier 
*Paul Mach 
*Doug Ohashi 

Flutes 
Joanna G'froerer (principal) 
Stephanie Morin 

Oboes 
Charles Hamann (principal) 
Anna Petersen 

English Horn 
Anna Petersen 

Clarinets 
Kimball Sykes (principal) 
Sean Rice 

Bassoons 
Darren Hicks (principal) 
Vincent Parizeau 

Horns 
*Nicholas Hartman (guest principal) 
Julie Fauteux (associate principal) 
Lawrence Vine 
Lauren Anker 
Louis-Pierre Bergeron 

Trumpets 
Karen Donnelly (principal) 
Steven van Gulik 

Trombones
*Steve Dyer (guest principal) 
Colin Traquair 

Bass Trombone 
Zachary Bond 

Timpani 
*Simón Gómez (guest principal)

Percussion
Jonathan Wade 

Principal Librarian 
Nancy Elbeck 

Assistant Librarian 
Corey Rempel 

Personnel Manager 
Meiko Lydall 

Orchestra Personnel Coordinator 
Laurie Shannon 

*Additional musicians 
**On leave 

International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees