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
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)
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
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
_cropped__square.jpg)
Alexander Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s NAC Orchestra in September 2015. The ensemble has since been praised as being “transformed... hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen) and Shelley’s programming credited for turning the orchestra into “one of the more audacious in North America” (Maclean’s).
Shelley is a champion of Canadian creation; recent hallmarks include the multimedia projects Life Reflected and UNDISRUPTED,and three major new ballets in partnership with NAC Dance for Encount3rs. He is passionate about arts education and nurturing the next generation of musicians. He is an Ambassador for Ottawa’s OrKidstra, a charitable social development program that teaches children life skills through making music together.
Alexander Shelley is also the Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and, starting with the 2024–2025 season, Artistic and Music Director of Artis-Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida, USA. In the spring of 2019, he led the NAC Orchestra on its critically acclaimed 50th Anniversary European tour, and in 2017, he led the Orchestra in a tour across Canada, celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary. Most recently, he led the Orchestra in its first performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 30 years.
He has made eight recordings with the NAC Orchestra, including the JUNO-nominated New Worlds, Life Reflected, ENCOUNT3RS, The Bounds of Our Dreams, and the acclaimed Clara, Robert, Johannes four-album series, all with Canadian label Analekta.
The Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., O.N.L., LL.D. (hc)
Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. He made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize.
The 2023–2024 season will focus on the world premiere of Anders Hillborg’s Piano Concerto commissioned for him by the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen, with subsequent performances in Stockholm and New York. A continuation of the Beethoven for Three touring and recording project, with partners Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma, will take him to the U.S. Midwest in January. In recital, he can be heard on the West Coast of the U.S. in the fall, and in the Midwest and on the East Coast of the U.S. in the spring, with the tour culminating in an appearance at Carnegie Hall in April 2024. An extensive European tour will include concerts in Holland, Italy, Germany, France, and the Czech Republic.
Emanuel Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987, and following the success of the Brahms Trios with Kavakos and Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios, as well as the symphonies (arranged for trio), of which the first two discs have recently been released. He has received GRAMMY Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. In the 2004–2005 season, he contributed to an International Emmy Award–winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Recently named one of CBC’s “30 hot classical musicians under 30,” mezzo-soprano Alex Hetherington is quickly establishing herself as a skilled interpreter of operatic and concert repertoire, with a specialty in contemporary music. She is in her second year of residency at the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio and has performed on major stages across Canada.
Operatic highlights include making her Canadian Opera Company (COC) debut as Mercédès in Carmen, singing the role of the Attendant in the COC’s production of Salome, and premiering the role of Riley in R.U.R. A Torrent of Light with Tapestry Opera, which won the 2022 Outstanding Ensemble Dora Mavor Moore Award. Other operatic credits include Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Carmen in La tragédie de Carmen (UofT Opera), and Nicklausse in Tales of Hoffmann (Toronto City Opera). Alex has also appeared in concert with the NAC Orchestra (Mozart’s Requiem; Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes), the Victoria Symphony (Songs from the House of Death), the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Neruda Songs), and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Tilly, in The Bear).
Alex holds a Master’s degree in Opera Performance from the University of Toronto, where she won the Jim and Charlotte Norcop Award in Art Song and completed a research-creation project examining art song performance practice through the lens of modern gender theory. Alex has a passion for contemporary music, composition, and innovative recital programming, and in her spare time she can be found reading, gardening, and admiring dogs.
Pianist, vocal coach, and pedagogue Liz Upchurch is currently in her 25th season as Music Director of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, Canada’s premier training program for young opera professionals. There, she has now trained a generation of Canadian artists.
She is a recent recipient of Canada’s prestigious Ruby Award for her outstanding contribution to the world of opera.
She performed her first piano recital at the age of eight, one year after having accepted a coveted place at the Centre for Young Musicians, a music school for gifted children in London, England. It was here that her passion for playing with other instrumentalists truly began. Her love of the human voice and its marriage to text was soon to follow. She came to Canada to study art song at the Banff Centre, where she met her mentor, the late Martin Isepp.
Since then, she has curated, performed, and collaborated in hundreds of recitals across Canada, working alongside artists and composers such as Adrianne Pieczonka, Barbara Hannigan, Kaija Saariaho, and Ana Sokolović.
Since its debut in 1969, the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra has been praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary educational programs, and its prominent role in nurturing Canadian creativity. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, reaching and representing the diverse communities we live in with daring programming, powerful storytelling, inspiring artistry, and innovative partnerships.
Alexander Shelley began his tenure as Music Director in 2015, following Pinchas Zukerman’s 16 seasons at the helm. Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and former Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra (2009–2017), he has been in demand around the world, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and Stockholm Philharmonic, among others, and maintains a regular relationship with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and the German National Youth Orchestra.
Each season, the NAC Orchestra features world-class artists such as the newly appointed Artist-in-Residence James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Joshua Bell, Xian Zhang, Gabriela Montero, Stewart Goodyear, Jan Lisiecki, and Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds. 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.
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
- Official Car of the NAC Orchestra
