SIBELIUS SYMPHONY NO . 1
Christine Goerke
BSO ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Soprano Christine Goerke has appeared in many of the most prestigious opera houses of the world , including the Metropolitan Opera , Lyric Opera of Chicago , San Francisco Opera , Royal Opera House , Paris Opera , Teatro alla Scala , Deutsche Oper Berlin , Teatro Real in Madrid , and the Saito Kinen Festival . She has sung much of the great soprano repertoire , beginning with the Mozart and Handel heroines and now moving into dramatic Strauss and Wagner roles .
Ms . Goerke has also appeared with a number of leading orchestras , including the New York Philharmonic , Boston Symphony Orchestra , Chicago Symphony Orchestra , Cleveland Orchestra , Los Angeles Philharmonic , Radio Vara , the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms , and both the Hallè Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Symphony at the Edinburgh International Festival .
Ms . Goerke ' s recording of Vaughan Williams ’ A Sea Symphony with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Classical Recording and Best Choral Performance . Her close association with Robert Shaw yielded several recordings including Brahms ' Liebeslieder Waltzes , Poulenc ' s Stabat Mater , Szymanowski ' s
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
By James M . Keller
Anna Clyne
Born March 9 , 1980 in London , England Residing in New York City
THIS MIDNIGHT HOUR [ 2015 ]
Anna Clyne is a native of London but has lived elsewhere for much of her career : in Scotland for her schooling at the University of Edinburgh , then in the United States , where she earned a master ’ s degree in composition at the Manhattan School of Music . She has earned a particular following for her instrumental works , including
Christine Goerke
Stabat Mater , and the Grammy-nominated recording of Dvorak ' s Stabat Mater . Other recordings include the title role in Iphigenie en Tauride for Telarc and Britten ’ s War Requiem , which won the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance .
This season Ms . Goerke returns to the Metropolitan Opera for Turandot and to the Houston Grand Opera for Parsifal . She will also be presented in recital by Cal Performances in Berkeley and appears with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in multiple concerts , serving as the orchestra ’ s Artists in Residence for the 2023 – 24 season season .
Ms . Goerke was the recipient of the 2001 Richard Tucker Award , the 2015 Musical
America Vocalist of the Year Award , and the 2017 Opera News Award .
notable symphonic pieces . Although she is principally involved in writing for acoustic instruments , she sometimes draws on electronic resources as well , and even on the resonant properties of the spaces in which her music is performed . She avidly collaborates with artists in other disciplines , including choreography , pop music , film , sound art , and visual arts .
She has served as composer-in-residence for numerous orchestras , among them the Chicago Symphony ( 2009 – 15 ), the Baltimore Symphony ( 2014 – 15 ), the Orchestra national d ’ Île-de-France ( 2014 – 16 , it premiered This Midnight Hour in 2015 ), and , currently , the Helsinki Philharmonic .
Arielle Doneson
Following an opening crafted to spotlight the lower strings , This Midnight Hour , she says , “ draws inspiration from two poems — one by Charles Baudelaire and another by Juan Ramón Jiménez .” She continues :
Whilst it is not intended to depict a specific narrative , my intention is that it will evoke a visual journey for the listener .
“ LA MUSICA ,” by Juan Ramón Jiménez ¡ La música ; — mujer desnuda , corriendo loca por la noche pura !—
Jiménez ’ s poem is very short and concise
( translated by Robert Bly ): “ MUSIC ” Music — a naked woman running mad through the pure night !
This immediately struck me as a strong image and one that I chose to interpret with outbursts of frenetic energy — for example , dividing the strings into sub-groups that play fortissimo , staggered , descending cascade figures from left to right in stereo effect . This stems from my early explorations of electroacoustic music .
There is also a lot of evocative sensory imagery in Baudelaire ’ s “ Harmonie du soir ,” the first stanza of which reads as follows ( translated by William Aggeler ):
The season is at hand when swaying on its stem
Every flower exhales perfume like a censer ;
Sounds and perfumes turn in the evening air ; Melancholy waltz and languid vertigo !
I riffed on the idea of the melancholic waltz about halfway into This Midnight Hour — I split the viola section in two and have one half playing at written pitch and the other half playing 1 / 4 tone sharp to emulate the sonority of an accordion playing a Parisian-esque waltz .
34 OVERTURE / BSOmusic . org