PROGRAM NOTES
MARIN CONDUCTS TITAN
Maximilian Franz
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
BY JAMES KELLER
Huang Ruo
Born September 28 , 1976 , in Qionghai , Hainan Island , China Residing in New York City
TIPPING POINT [ 2022 ]
Born on an island at the southern tip of China the same year that the Cultural Revolution ended , Huang Ruo was able to pursue his interests in Chinese and Western music without the ideological obstruction that had previously been in force . He started learning the piano when he was six , and at 12 he enrolled in the composition program at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music . He absorbed the wide range of music that had become part of the musical landscape in his country , including classics like Bach and Mozart , modernists like Stravinsky and Lutosławski , jazz , rock , heavy metal . At the same time he remained culturally connected to Chinese musical traditions . Asked in an interview to cite his earliest musical recollection , he said : “ My first memory of music is a song written by my father , who is also a composer . I think I have been picking up music from his playing and composing since I was born .”
In 1995 , Huang Ruo was given the Henry Mancini Award of the International Film and Music Festival in Switzerland . On the heels of that honor , he moved to the United States , earning his bachelor ’ s degree from Oberlin Conservatory of Music and his master ’ s and DMA from The Juilliard School . He now teaches at the Mannes College of Music at the New School in New York and serves as artistic director and conductor of Ensemble FIRE ( Future In REverse ), which specializes in multimedia and cross-genre projects .
In the 2015-16 season , Huang Ruo was the first composer-in-residence of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam , a position he has also held with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan . His orchestral works have been performed by leading orchestras worldwide , including the New York Philharmonic , Philadelphia Orchestra , San Francisco Symphony , Seattle Symphony , National Polish Radio Orchestra , and Hong Kong Philharmonic . His stage works include many collaborations with the playwright / librettist David Henry Hwang , including the operas An American Soldier ( premiered by Washington National Opera in 2014 ) and M . Butterfly ( introduced by Santa Fe Opera in 2022 ).
Tipping Point grew out of a conversation in 2020 with Marin Alsop that touched on wildfires raging in California . That led to the idea of composing a piece that grappled with the climate crisis , which is now a race against time . “ With symphonic works ,” Huang Ruo observes , “ I often like to have some kind of narrative in my mind . A title not only helps me create a message but also to come up with the structure , the texture , even the harmonies . Here , the process is like a clock , a ticking sound that gets more and more intense , faster , stronger , to help the audience sense the urgency — experiencing it rather than observing it , being inside this giant clock . And there is also the suggestion of a heartbeat , which every living human shares in common . I feel art and music should connect with people to serve a function , to lead society forward . At about 15 minutes , this piece is not very long , but its message is important . I hope it will make people ask questions .”
Instrumentation Three flutes , three oboes , three clarinets , three bassoons , four horns , three trumpets , three trombones , tuba , percussion , and strings
Gustav Mahler
Born July 7 , 1860 , in Kalischt ( Kaliště ), Bohemia , near the town of Humpolec Died May 18 , 1911 , in Vienna , Austria
TITAN : A TONE POEM IN SYMPHONY FORM , IN TWO PARTS AND FIVE MOVEMENTS [ 1888 ]
Gustav Mahler ’ s Symphony No . 1 is very often purveyed with the subtitle Titan , almost always incorrectly . This is a distinction worth making . The Symphony No . 1 we know and love is a four-movement work the composer molded over the course of almost two decades , mostly from 1888 to 1906 . It was premiered and “ re-premiered ” at different points of evolution along the way . In this concert , we hear the state of the piece ( in five movements ) as Mahler conducted it in two performances , in October 1893 in Hamburg and in June 1894 in Weimar — the only two occasions on which it was presented in this form in his lifetime , and the only two when it was given under the title Titan .
The first stop in the path of what became the First Symphony came in the winter of 1888 , when , working from sketches that reached back a few years earlier , Mahler fashioned what he called Symphonic Poem in Two Sections , a work that had the general shape of the eventual Titan . Mahler was a famous conductor by then , having worked his way up through a quick succession of appointments that led to his becoming director of the Royal Hungarian Opera in Budapest in October 1888 . That is where he unveiled his Symphonic Poem in Two Sections a
36 OVERTURE / BSOmusic . org