{ program notes
Robert Romik
Henning Kraggerud
Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud is artistic director of the Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra , with a tenure recently extended to 2020 .
He frequently joins orchestras around the world , this season including the Toronto , Vancouver and Baltimore symphony orchestras , and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra , as well as the Danish National Symphony and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra . This season he also debuts with the Brussels Philharmonic and the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna , and performs with the China NCPA and Macao orchestras .
Mr . Kraggerud has more than 200 compositions to his name ; among the ensembles that have commissioned or premiered his works are the Brodsky Quartet and Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra . The Britten Sinfonia gave the first performance of his The Last Leaf for violin and chamber orchestra in 2014 . In the same year , he premiered Equinox : 24 Postludes in All Keys for Violin and String Orchestra .
At the 2016 Risør Chamber Music Festival with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra , Mr . Kraggerud played the Johan Halvorsen Violin Concerto , a work originally premiered by 1909 , and subsequently considered lost until its rediscovery over 100 years later .
This season , he performs with Imogen Cooper and Adrian Brendel at London ’ s Kings Place , and is featured at Budapest ’ s kamara . hu festival , Trondheim Chamber Music Festival and West Cork Chamber Music Festival . His regular recital partners include Christian Ihle Hadland , Håvard Gimse and Kathryn Stott .
Mr . Kraggerud ’ s discography includes many recordings on the Naxos label , recently , Mozart Concertos Nos . 3 , 4 and 5 with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra , chosen as Classic FM ’ s Album of the Week and NDR Kultur ’ s CD of the Week .
Born in Oslo , Mr . Kraggerud is a recipient of Norway ’ s prestigious Grieg Prize and in 2007 , was awarded the Sibelius Prize for his interpretations and recording
of Sibelius ’ music . He is a Professor at the Barratt Due music conservatoire in Oslo , where he play / directs the Oslo Camerata . Since September 2015 , he has been international chair in Violin at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester .
Henning Kraggerud last appeared with the BSO in May of 2005 , performing Mozart Violin Concert No . 5 , Kwame Ryan , conducting .
About the concert :
Suite from Dardanus
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Born in Dijon , France , September 25 , 1683 ; died in Paris , September 12 , 1764
A contemporary of both Bach and Handel and the greatest of the French Baroque composers , Jean-Philippe Rameau lived long enough — to just days before his 81 st birthday — to combine two disparate musical careers into one lifetime . For his first career , he was one of France ’ s most renowned organists as well as one of the 18 th century ’ s most important music theoreticians . Rameau was largely self-taught as a composer , and his Treatise on Harmony and numerous other books about the principles of musical composition instructed musicians for generations to come .
In the early 1730s , when he had reached the age of 50 — an age when most people of this period would have already been in their graves — Rameau finally turned his attention to dramatic music for the Paris stage . Astonishingly , he then created some 60 operas , ballets and sets of theatrical incidental music before his death in 1764 , in the process expanding the emotional range and sheer musical quality of these genres .
His great tragic opera Dardanus , hampered by a fantastic and barely comprehensible libretto , is remembered today only for its rich and beautiful instrumental and dance episodes . In this story of love and war in ancient Greece , the warrior Dardanus loves the Grecian princess Iphise , daughter of his enemy . Iphise returns his love , but her father has promised her to an ally , Antenor . The rivals battle both for territory and Iphise ’ s hand , but Venus , the goddess of love , intervenes to ensure that Dardanus wins and true love is rewarded .
Rameau himself was so troubled by criticism of Dardanus ’ plot that he composed two different versions of the opera in 1739 and 1744 . The result is that we are left with even more wonderful music to choose from in assembling concert suites from this opera .
The opening “ Entry of the Warriors ” is the music for one of the opera ’ s grand tableaux , Act I ’ s procession of the troops arrayed against Dardanus . Marked “ majestically ,” it combines Baroque stateliness with a militant march beat .
In his dance episodes , Rameau features a number of tambourins . The tambourin is a high-spirited , leaping dance from Provence named for the Provençal drum that provided its traditional accompaniment .
The final “ Rondeau gai ” follows the rondo form that would be used in symphonic music of Mozart , Haydn and Beethoven . In this form , a refrain — here a gracious descending melody — keeps returning to link brief contrasting episodes . Throughout all this music , notice that Rameau does not use the elaborate contrapuntal style of many independent lines favored by Bach and Handel . Instead , he emphasizes appealing melodies crafted to capture the mood of each scene and strengthened by lively rhythmic play .
Instrumentation : Two flutes , two oboes . two bassoons , strings .
Violin Concerto in G Major , K . 216
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Born in Salzburg , Austria , January 27 , 1756 ; died in Vienna , December 5 , 1791
Throughout his career , Mozart would apparently fall in love with a particular musical genre and then explore its possibilities in a series of masterpieces created within a short period of time . An early explosion of such focused creativity produced his five violin concertos , composed between April and December 1775 , when the composer was only 19 . The external inspiration
36 Overture | bsomusic . org