{ program notes
Ms. Montero is celebrated for her ability to improvise. In recital and following a concerto performance, she frequently invites audiences to choose themes on which she composes and plays new works in real time.
An award-winning recording artist, Ms. Montero’ s Bach and Beyond held the top spot on the Billboard classical charts and won two Echo Klassik Awards. Her follow-up recording, Baroque, received a Grammy ® nomination. In 2010, Ms. Montero released Solatino, inspired by her Venezuelan homeland and devoted to works by Latin American composers.
Ms. Montero’ s“ Ex Patria,” a tone poem for piano and orchestra about Venezuela’ s descent into corruption and violence was recorded and released internationally with the YOA Orchestra of the Americas and conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto.
Ms. Montero was recently named an Honorary Consul by Amnesty International and was also a nominee for Outstanding Work in the Field of Human Rights by the Human Rights Foundation, in recognition of her commitment to human rights in Venezuela and beyond. She was awarded the 2012 Rockefeller Award and was a featured performer at Barack Obama’ s 2008 Presidential Inauguration.
Born in Venezuela, Ms. Montero gave her first public performance at the age of 5. At 8, she made her concerto debut in her hometown of Caracas, which led to a scholarship from the government to study in the USA.
Gabriela Montero is making her BSO debut.
About the concert:
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Born in Salzburg, Austria, January 27, 1756; died in Vienna, Austria, December 5, 1791
Even in the midst of its glorious partners, Mozart’ s Piano Concerto in C minor reduces sober analysts to awe— and superlatives. Beethoven loved this concerto and took inspiration from it for his own
Third Piano Concerto, also in C minor. At a performance of the work, he exclaimed to a colleague,“ Oh, my friend, we shall never get any idea like this!” The British scholar Sir Donald Francis Tovey called this concerto“ perhaps the most sublime of all Mozart’ s instrumental works.”
Mozart traverses all 12 tones of the chromatic scale, an act of harmonic daring extraordinary indeed for 1786.
Mozart seldom wrote in the minor mode; only one other piano concerto, the fiery No. 20, is in the minor. Minor keys seemed to have held a powerful personal meaning for him, and he used them to explore his inner demons: grief, anger, frustration, the specter of death. Yet despite its frequently disturbing tone, K. 491 was written at a time of great artistic and professional success. It was completed on March 24, 1786, just three weeks after Mozart composed his sunny Concerto No. 23, and while he was finishing his ebullient operatic comedy The Marriage of Figaro. Yet with Mozart’ s art there always seemed to be a delicate balancing act, and after so much joyous music, perhaps he felt a need to explore life’ s darker side.
What could be more disturbing than the stark unison theme opening the first movement? In just 11 bars, Mozart traverses all 12 tones of the chromatic scale, an act of harmonic daring extraordinary indeed for 1786. Against the intensity of the orchestra’ s exposition, the piano enters with a gentler, more diatonic theme: an octave leap and turn figure plus three repeated notes. But soon the soloist is caught up in the chromatic turbulence.
Much later in the movement, after the customary solo cadenza, comes a haunting closing coda in which, unusually, the pianist continues to play with the orchestra; thus, soloist and orchestra are fully integrated throughout the concerto.
The second movement, in E-flat Major, provides an island of peace in this sea of turbulence. In a straightforward rondo form, it features a refrain theme of naive simplicity. Woodwinds dominate the two episodes between the returns of the refrain; blessed with a full wind complement of flute, and pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns, Mozart gives us his most colorful, intricate woodwind writing.
A lightweight rondo finale would not have served Mozart’ s big vision for this concerto; instead, he chose an imposing theme-and-variations form. The theme, presented in two parts with each repeated, is oddly ambiguous; Girdlestone suggests it is both“ a march and a hymn” – Mozart used both as inspiration. Variation 3 exploits the march in an assertively martial treatment, worthy of Beethoven. Variation 4, on the other hand, suggests Bach in the soloist’ s elegant four-part counterpoint. After another solo cadenza, Mozart switches to a bouncing meter for his final variation, but refuses to give us the expected“ happy ending” in C Major. The tragic vision persists to the end, with stinging chromatic writing for the soloist and a heroic close that awards victory to C minor.
Instrumentation: Flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings.
Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major,“ Romantic”
Anton Bruckner
Born in Ansfelden, Austria, September 4, 1824; died in Vienna, October 11, 1896
Labeled by his contemporaries“ the Wagner symphonist,” Anton Bruckner did indeed, like Richard Wagner, emphasize majestic brass and lusciously chromatic harmonies in his music somewhat like his older colleague, whom he enormously admired. Nevertheless, Bruckner’ s symphonies embody something quite different from the Wagnerian operatic celebration of self; instead, they are spiritual quests, homages to God in whom he fervently believed and whom he sought to glorify in his music.
The man Bruckner was as unusual as his music. Born in rural Upper Austria to a family of sturdy peasant origins, he was the latest bloomer of all the major
January – February 2017 | Overture 29