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Brahms' Third

Featured as part of the Classic Series
Friday February 27, 2009 8:00PM
Saturday February 28, 2009 8:00PM
The Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle
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Stefan Sanderling, conductor
Kirk Toth, Violin
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Description:

"In the violin concerto, as in many other of Shostakovich’s works, I am attracted by the amazing seriousness and profundity of the idea, the true symphonic thinking. There is nothing accidental in the score of the concerto, nothing that is used for its outward effect and is not supported by the inner logic, by the development of the material. Behind Shostakovich’s symphonic thinking you can always sense the profoundest meditation on life, on the fate of mankind".
                      - David Oistrakh
In 1948, as the great Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was writing his first violin concerto, Andrei Zhdanov, cultural commissar under the Stalin regime, issued the Zhdanov Decree, accusing Shostakovich, among other composers, of “formalistic perversions and anti-democratic tendencies.” Though Shostakovich continued to work on the piece, he would hide it from the public for seven years, until Stalin’s death. Upon listening to this immensely powerful work, arguably the greatest violin concerto of the twentieth century, one can hear why. Amidst the virtuoso writing, breathtaking technical demands, and immense, almost Shakespearean emotional range, the numerous musical codes that pervade many of Shostakovich’s most private works abound, particularly in the central Passacaglia. An incredibly dramatic utterance, Shostakovich uses themes representing the invasion of Leningrad (from his Seventh Symphony), subjugation (from his opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District), his own name (the musical anagram D – E-flat (S) – C – H) and Fate (Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony).
Brahms’s Third Symphony is undoubtedly the hardest of his symphonies to perform, and the combination of Olympian formal scope and the detailed subtlety of its voicing makes it a test for conductors as well.   Notwithstanding these challengings, the critic Eduard Hanslick hailed Brahms’s Third Symphony as “artistically the most perfect” of all of the great composer’s symphonic works, and an equal delight for both musician and music-lover alike.  
Points of interest:
·         The Shostakovich First Violin Concerto is a particular favorite of our concertmaster, Kirk Toth. He last performed the work in Toledo under the direction of the composer’s son, Maxim Shostakovich.
·         For our Principal Conductor, Stefan Sanderling, the music of Shostakovich is intensely communicative, and extremely personal. He remembers the composer’s presence as a regular guest of his father’s, and recalls how “he was nervous that anyone would monitor him while he was talking. He would take the telephone off the hook so no one would intercept the conversation.”
·         To many, Brahms was seen as the successor to Beethoven, and while he always sought to be examined on his own merits, he ultimately came to hold a somewhat similar position to that once held by Beethoven…as a great performer and compositional genius whose exceptional music managed to overshadow his gruff idiosyncrasies.   Very aware of his own reputation, he once quipped while leaving a party, “if there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.”

Program:

Shostakovich     Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor 44'

INTERMISSION

Brahms            Symphony No. 3 in F Major      35'