SMETANA AND DVOŘÁK (17 MAY)

Musicians of the SSO with Albert Tiu

THE PAVEL HAAS QUARTET

(19 MAY)

Victoria Concert Hall

SMETANA AND DVOŘÁK

PROGRAMME

Musicians of the SSO

With Albert Tiu piano

SMETANA

Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15

Ye Lin violin

Christopher Mui cello

30 mins

Albert Tiu piano Intermission 20 mins

DVOŘÁK

String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 77

Chan Yoong-Han violin

Sayuri Kuru violin

Gu Bing Jie viola

Ng Pei-Sian cello

Yang Zheng Yi double bass

31 mins

CONCERT DURATION: approximately 1 hr 40 mins (including 20 mins intermission)

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Since its founding in 1979, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) has been Singapore’s flagship orchestra, touching lives through classical music and providing the heartbeat of the cultural scene with its 44-week calendar of events. The SSO is led by Music Director Hans Graf, the third in the orchestra’s history after Lan Shui (1997-2019) and Choo Hoey (1979-1996).

In addition to its subscription series concerts, the orchestra is well-loved for its outdoor and community appearances, and its significant role educating the young people of Singapore. The SSO has also earned an international reputation for its orchestral virtuosity, having garnered sterling reviews for its overseas tours and over 50 recordings, culminating in its 3rd place win in the prestigious Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award 2021. In 2022, BBC Music Magazine named the SSO as one of the 23 best orchestras in the world.

The SSO performs over 60 concerts a year at such venues as the Esplanade Concert Hall and Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore. Bridging the musical traditions of East and West, Singaporean and Asian musicians and composers are regularly showcased in its concert seasons. Its versatile repertoire spans alltime favourites and orchestral masterpieces to exciting cutting-edge premieres.

The SSO is part of the Singapore Symphony Group, which also manages the Singapore Symphony Choruses, the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, and the VCHpresents chamber music series, the Singapore International Piano Festival and the biennial National Piano & Violin Competition.

PROGRAMME NOTES

BEDŘICH SMETANA

(1824 – 1884)

Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15

I. Moderato assai

II. Allegro, ma non agitato

III. Finale: Presto

Smetana’s early life was distinguished by the fact that he remained alive at all: as the eldest, he witnessed almost his siblings die before they reached two years of age. Such was the quality of life in the early 19th century! His parents wished for him a white-collar career and sent him to Prague to study, but as a teenager he happened to hear Liszt play in concert and that sealed his fate as a musician. He was championed by the Schumanns as a pianist and encouraged by Liszt himself, but it remained for him to rediscover his Czech roots in his compositions before he would gain international fame.

The Piano Trio dates from shortly after he had lost his young daughter to scarlet fever, and it is a work that puts up a brave front in the face of personal tragedy. He would later describe the reception at the work’s first performance as “The audience was unresponsive and the critics hated it”, but at a later performance with Liszt in attendance, the elder musician was so moved by it that he arranged for future performances around Central Europe.

A solo violin melody opens this work, and the music audibly grieves: the piano interrupts the flow of music to extemporise on florid cadenzas, and the key never strays far from sombre G minor throughout. All three movements start in G minor, and the

second movement, though marked “Scherzo”, is decidedly not a musical joke. An early biographer of Smetana suggests that this is a musical portrait of the young daughter, with the “Alternativo” sections perhaps representing visions of her as a grown lady. The ferocious pace of the rondo-finale is frantic energy designed to wear itself out. There is a certain defiance to the relentless 2-against-3 rhythms that peters out into a much more peaceful, resigned tone, and in the contrasts to come the music eventually turns to G major for a bit of a smile through tears.

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841 – 1904)

String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 77

I. Allegro con fuoco

II. Scherzo. Allegro vivace

III. Poco andante

IV. Finale. Allegro assai

Antonín Dvořák’s augmenting of the string quartet with a double bass is not an unusual move by any means, but his extremely sparing use of fuller quasi-orchestral textures shows a master composer’s resistance to that temptation. Much of the music here remains fully “chamber” in scale, which has resulted in decades of critical abuse for its perceived lack of profundity. It was fashionable for a long time to talk about the “undistinguished material” and draw weird comparisons to comic opera and slander the whole as lacking in melodic charm.

With the benefit of hindsight, the tentative musical opening can be seen as a developing introduction before the players seem to “settle” on a theme they deem suitable for an entire movement. In fact, the second theme draws from the rhythms of the first, and sets up a contrast between constant triplet quavers and occasional sections of polka rhythm (compound and simple time). Such musical analysis is only useful as a background to Dvořák’s sure musical craft and dramatic instinct, and the Scherzo proves infectious with its folk rhythms and modal harmonies.

Poco andante is an unusual marking, and a good indication that what is conventionally the “slow movement” is indeed not so slow. It is, rather, a lovely cantilena in the style of a simple song, and the pizzicato lightening

of texture is very welcome. There are beautifully sunny interludes in C major and some clever modulatory slips into flat keys, through the truly unexpected moment comes with the quiet arrival of E major, a gloriously bright key. The idyllic mood remains throughout, the easy pace of the whole movement feeling like an afternoon stroll. After this interlude, the high spirits that come with the finale are sustained through to the end, painting this work as one of good humour. It is little wonder that musicians addicted to the heaviness of orchestral music could scoff at this piece!

Programme notes by Thomas Ang

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TCHAIKOVSKY SYMPHONY NO. 6 "PATHÉTIQUE"

19 MAY 2024

THE PAVEL HAAS QUARTET

PROGRAMME

Pavel Haas Quartet

Veronika Jarůšková violin

Marek Zwiebel violin

Šimon Truszka viola

Peter Jarůšek cello

SUK

Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale “St. Wenceslas”, Op. 35a 8 mins

SMETANA

String Quartet No. 1 “From My Life”

JANÁČEK

String Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters”

CONCERT DURATION: approximately 1 hr 40 mins (including 20 mins intermission)

PAVEL HAAS QUARTET

The Pavel Haas Quartet is revered across the globe for its richness of timbre, infectious passion and intuitive rapport. Performing at the world’s most prestigious concert halls and having won five Gramophone Awards and numerous others for their recordings, the Quartet is firmly established as one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles.

They have performed in major venues including Wigmore Hall, London; Philharmonie, Berlin; Musikverein, Vienna; Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg; Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Tonhalle, Zürich; LG Arts Centre, Seoul and Carnegie Hall, New York. In celebration of its 20th anniversary, the Quartet was invited to be on the cover of The Strad’s June 2022 issue and featured in BBC Music Magazine. They were described by the publication as the “10 greatest string quartet ensembles of all time”.

In the 23/24 season, they return to the Wigmore Hall; Rudolfinum Prague; Teatro La Fenice; Liverpool Philharmonic Hall; Göteborgs Konserthus; National Concert Hall, Dublin; Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam; Philharmonie Luxembourg. Since September 2022, the Quartet has been Artist-in-Residence at the Dvořák Prague Festival.

The Pavel Haas Quartet records exclusively for Supraphon. Their recent recording of Brahms Viola and Piano Quintets (May 2022) with Boris Giltburg was released to critical acclaim. Their recordings of Dvořák, Smetana, Schubert, Janáček and Haas have received five Gramophone Awards –including Recording of the Year.

The Quartet is based in Prague and take their name from the Czech-Jewish composer Pavel Haas (1899 – 1944) who was imprisoned at Theresienstadt in 1941 and tragically died at Auschwitz three years later. His legacy includes three wonderful string quartets.

pavelhaasquartet.com pavelhaasquartet

PROGRAMME NOTES

JOSEF SUK (1874 – 1935)

Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale “St. Wenceslas”, Op. 35a

It is hard to start a discussion of Czech music without mentioning the two great leading lights of the 19th century: Smetana, with Má Vlast (“My Fatherland”), from which the famous Moldau tone poem comes, and Dvořák with his symphonies as a cornerstone of symphonic repertoire. But the most important contribution of these two men was in encouraging other countrymen to step up and become musical representatives of their burgeoning Czech identity, putting Bohemia on the musical map.

Josef Suk, as student and then son-in-law to Dvořák, was also a strong Czech nationalist. When this piece was written, in August 1914, it was a common Czech belief that the Great War would result in their independence from Austria-Hungary. By drawing upon an old folk hymn, specifically one whose lyrics state “do not let us and future generations perish”, and performing this piece with his string quartet throughout the Czech lands during the war, Suk imprinted strongly upon the national consciousness. A string-orchestra arrangement he made later would become a musical rallying cry during World War II, especially during the German occupation.

BEDŘICH SMETANA (1824

– 1884)

String Quartet No. 1 “From My Life”

I. Allegro vivo appassionato

II. Allegro moderato à la Polka

III. Largo sostenuto

IV. Vivace

Smetana’s explicitly programmatic “From My Life” comes from his desire to paint a tone picture of himself. Writing to a musicologist friend, he specifically stated that the first movement represents “youthful leanings towards art”, the second a time when he was “known as a passionate lover of dancing”, the third of his first wife, and the last his “discovery” that he could weave Czech elements into his music, a fruitful path that was cut short by deafness.

The music fully reflects this: the optimistic, Romantic mood of the first movement goes into the joyful polka of the second. The Largo sostenuto slow movement opens with a pleading cello solo that goes into a deeply heartfelt chorale, and while there is turbulence in this movement, it still forms the quiet emotional centre of the entire quartet. A boisterous folk dance sets off the finale, but Smetana’s deafness is represented by an abrupt interruption. Composer and fate come to terms in a melancholy lullaby that closes the work.

LEOŠ JANÁČEK (1854 – 1928)

String Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters”

I. Andante – Con moto – Allegro

II. Adagio – Vivace

III. Moderato – Andante – Adagio

IV. Allegro – Andante - Adagio

The second string quartet of the more esoteric composer Leoš Janáček might as well be titled the same, with movements all depicting real or imagined events in his relationship with his muse Kamila Stösslová: a relationship that took off roughly at the same time as his career did, around the formation of an independent Czechoslovakia. She was already married and stayed dutiful, though Janáček ended up writing her hundreds of letters over the next dozen years.

This is music that draws from the deep intimacy he imagined they shared, and in one of his last chamber works he stretches his musical language to breaking point, with sudden silences interrupting phrases, abrupt changes of register, tremolos, trills, and obsessive ostinato patterns. While the melodic conception is ultimately lyrical, he places demands on the players so as to make the music sound coarse and nervous. The music is at turns petulant and doubtful, insistent and hesitant. At the end of his life, his yearning for his mysterious lady went unfulfilled, and the music falls into introspection and, ultimately, silence.

Programme notes by Thomas Ang

UPCOMING CONCERTS

at the Victoria Concert Hall

VCHpresents Chamber: Poetry of the Harp –Xavier de Maistre

22 May, 7.30pm

Xavier de Maistre harp

The Poetry of Song

25 May, 7.30pm

Singapore Symphony

Children’s Choir

Wong Lai Foon Choirmaster

VCH Open House

26 May, 9am – 6pm

Various performances and activities by the Singapore National Youth Sinfonia, Singapore Symphony Choruses, and more.

The vision of the Singapore Symphony Group is to be a leading arts organisation that engages, inspires and reflects Singapore through musical excellence. Our mission is to create memorable shared experiences with music. Through the SSO and its affiliated performing groups, we spread the love for music, nurture talent and enrich our diverse communities.

The SSO is a charity and not-for-profit organisation. You can support us by donating at www.sso.org.sg/donate

30th Singapore International Piano Festival

6 – 9 Jun

Jin Ju piano

Yeol Eum Son piano

Ashley Wass piano

Mei Yi Foo piano

SSO Organ Series: Musical Souvenirs with re: mix and Jia Hwei

21 Jul, 4pm

Koh Jia Hwei organ re: mix ensemble

Foo Say Ming violin/ conductor