Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_JanFeb_19 | Page 31

RAVEL BOLERO
Medal-winner in music, a Gilmore
Young Artist, an Avery Fisher Career
Grant-winner and a Lincoln Center
Emerging Artist. The former prodigy
continues to emerge as a mature,
thoughtful and thought-provoking artist,
confidently pushing boundaries as a
leading performer, composer, curator
and commissioner, championing new
music while continuing to present core
repertoire in a new light.
His 2018 –19 season began with the
world premiere of Everything Must Go,
commissioned and performed by the
New York Philharmonic, as well as the
inauguration of their Nightcap series.
He makes his LA Opera debut in the
West-Coast premiere of David Lang’s,
the loser, in which he plays the onstage
role of the apparition and memory of
Glenn Gould. In January 2019, Tao and
dancer-choreographer Caleb Teicher
continue to develop More Forever as part
of Guggenheim’s Works & Process series.
Tao continues to perform concertos
with orchestras around the world
including returns to the Swedish
Radio, San Diego, Baltimore, Pacific,
and Colorado symphonies, as well as
with the Orchestra dell’Accademia
Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He also
performs duo chamber music concerts
with violinist Stefan Jackiw, including
a debut performance at 92Y, ensemble
engagements with the JCT Trio around
the world and solo recital programs.
Tao’s career as composer has garnered
eight consecutive ASCAP Morton
Gould Young Composer Awards and the
Carlos Surinach Prize from BMI, and
he has been commissioned by the Dallas
Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of
Philadelphia, Washington Performing
Arts Society, ProMusica Chamber
Orchestra and others. Tao is a Warner
Classics recording artist, and his first two
albums Voyages and Pictures have been
praised by NPR, New York Times and
The New Yorker’s Alex Ross.
Conrad Tao last appeared with the
BSO in November 2014, performing
Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1,
Hannu Lintu, conductor.
About the Concert
LE CORSAIRE OVERTURE
ROMAN CARNIVAL OVERTURE
Hector Berlioz
Born in La Côte-Saint-André, France,
December 11, 1803; died in Paris, France,
March 8, 1869
Hector Berlioz had no luck cracking the
Parisian musical establishment, especially
its capital, the Paris Opéra. Far too radical
in his ideas for his conservative home city,
he had to travel to Germany, Russia and
England to win enthusiastic audiences. His
best opportunity for a Parisian success came
with his 1838 opera Benvenuto Cellini. But
the Opéra gave Benvenuto Cellini a limp
production, and the work’s very public
failure barred Berlioz from any hope of
mounting another opera there.
Still believing in his opera’s quality,
Berlioz in 1843 fashioned the brilliant
Roman Carnival Overture from Cellini
material and unveiled it in Paris on
February 3, 1844. It was an immediate
success and became one of his most
popular pieces.
The overture’s authentic Italian
atmosphere comes from Berlioz’s stay in
Rome in 1831–32 as winner of the coveted
Prix de Rome. The work begins with a short
burst of the Mardi Gras carnival music: an
Italian saltarello dance sung in the opera by
the chorus. Then the tempo slows, and the
English horn begins a lovely, ardent melody;
it is the music Cellini sings to his beloved,
Teresa. Ultimately, the vivacious Mardi Gras
music returns for the spectacular conclusion.
1844 was an exhausting year for Berlioz.
After a long period of deterioration, his
“dream” marriage to the Irish actress
Harriet Smithson finally collapsed. As fans
of the Symphonie fantastique will remember,
Berlioz fell madly in love with her in 1827,
and that spectacular symphony expressed
his frustrated passion.
Berlioz also organized and conducted
one of his mammoth concerts to celebrate
the close of the international Festival of
Industrial Products in Paris on August 1.
At this extravaganza before an audience of
8,000, he nearly collapsed on the podium,
and his doctor immediately ordered a rest

cure in the warm sunshine of Nice on the
French Riviera.
There, the composer regained both his
health and creative energies, composing the
last of his colorful concert overtures: the
fiery Le corsaire (“The Pirate”). He initially
called it Le Corsaire rouge in honor of James
Fennimore Cooper’s novel Red Rover.
Another likely influence was the narrative
poem “The Corsair” by Lord Byron. When
he finally published the overture, the title
was shortened to match Byron’s.
Le corsaire opens with an arresting gesture:
a virtuosic whirlwind of string scales that
collides thrillingly with the syncopations
of the equally agitated woodwinds. Then,
Berlioz presents a slower adagio section,
featuring a pensively beautiful melody.
All too soon, this lovely music is broken
off and the main allegro section ensues
with a reprise of the whirling string
scales and syncopations. The brass hints
at the swashbuckling principal theme,
but the violins finally unfurl it. Almost
unrecognizable in the faster tempo, the
adagio melody returns for contrast. Despite
the lack of a true development section,
Berlioz keeps revisiting his bold theme
in new and exciting ways; the best being
the brass’s dashing, totally uninhibited
proclamation just before the end.
Le corsaire—instrumentation:
Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, four
bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two cornets,
three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.
Roman Carnival—instrumentation:
Two flutes including piccolo, two oboes
including English horn, two clarinets, four
bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two
cornets, three trombones, tuba, timpani,
percussion and strings.
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1
Franz Liszt
Born in Raiding, Hungary, October 22, 1811;
died in Bayreuth, Germany, July 31, 1886
Though born to poor parents on one of
the rural Esterházy (the princely family
that employed Haydn) estates, Franz Liszt
became the most cosmopolitan of all
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