Ravinia 2021 - Issue 1

ALLISON MICHAEL ORENSTEIN (BULLOCK) occasionally placed composition on hold, but his creative drive never entirely disappeared. During his 1899 summer vacation, Mahler began sketching a new project, a six-move- ment program symphony with three song movements based on Wunderhorn poems. He envisioned a lighthearted work entitled “Hu- moreske.” Mahler ultimately reconsidered this large-scale design, reducing the number of movements to four (three purely instrumen- tal) and retaining the joyous orchestral song “Wir genießen die himmlischen Freuden” as a vocal finale. Soon after making final revi- sions to the score in 1901, Mahler described his new work as an expression of joy “coming from another sphere, and hence terrifying for humans: only a child can understand and ex- plain it, and a child does explain it in the end: a child who, if only at the chrysalis stage, al- ready belongs to this superior world.” In the opening section of his Symphony No. 4, Mahler unveils several important musical ideas—a folkish sleigh bell motive, an oboe melody related to the “Wir genießen” vocal line, and other thematic fragments—which reappear throughout the symphony as uni- fying cyclic devices. The relatively brief and carefree opening movement is followed by a more ominous essay. Mahler apparently envi- sioned this scherzo (with two trios) as a sin- ister Ländler, or slow waltz, in which Death himself “strokes the fiddle most strangely [the concertmaster occasionally plays a violin tuned one step higher than usual] and plays us up to heaven.” Deathly anxieties disappear in the peaceful slow movement, and the finale opens up a comforting, one might say entic- ing, vision of heaven. –Program notes © 2021 Todd E. Sullivan Das himmlische Leben Wir genießen die himmlischen Freuden, D’rum tun wir das Irdische meiden, Kein weltlich’ Getümmel Hört man nicht im Himmel! Lebt alles in sanftester Ruh’! Wir führen ein englisches Leben, Sind dennoch ganz lustig daneben! Wir tanzen und springen, Wir hüpfen und singen! Sankt Peter im Himmel sieht zu! Johannes das Lämmlein auslasset, Der Metzger Herodes drauf passet! Wir führen ein geduldig’s, Unschuldig’s geduldig’s, Ein liebliches Lämmlein zu Tod! Sankt Lucas den Ochsen tät schlachten, Ohn’ einig’s Bedenken und Achten, Der Wein kost’ kein Heller Im himmlischen Keller, Die Englein, die backen das Brot. Gut’ Kräuter von allerhand Arten, Die wachsen im himmlischen Garten! Gut’ Spargel, Fisolen Und was wir nur wollen! Ganze Schüsseln voll sind uns bereit! Gut’ Äpfel, gut’ Birn’ und gut’ Trauben! Die Gärtner, die Alles erlauben! Willst Rehbock, willst Hasen Auf offener Straßen Sie laufen herbei! Sollt’ ein Fasttag etwa kommen, Alle Fische gleich mit Freuden angeschwommen! Dort läuft schon Sankt Peter Mit Netz und mit Köder Zum himmlischen Weiher hinein. Sankt Martha die Köchin muß sein. Kein’ Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden, Die uns’rer verglichen kann werden. Elftausend Jungfrauen Zu tanzen sich trauen, Sankt Ursula selbst dazu lacht! Cäcilia mit ihren Verwandten Sind treffliche Hofmusikanten! Die englischen Stimmen Ermuntern die Sinnen, Daß Alles für Freuden erwacht. The Heavenly Life We enjoy the pleasures of heaven and shun those that are worldly. No wordly tumult is heard in heaven! Everyone lives in the most gentle peace! While we lead an angelic life, we are nevertheless quite happy; we dance and leap, we skip and sing! Saint Peter in heaven looks on! Saint John released the little lamb, the butcher Herod watches. We lead a patient, blameless, forebearing, a lovely little lamb to his death! Saint Luke slaughters the oxen without thought or concern. The wine does not cost a penny in the heavenly cellar, and angels bake the bread. Good vegetables of all kinds grow in the heavenly garden! Fresh asparagus, beans, and whatever we want! All dishes are prepared for us! Good apples, good pears, and good grapes! The gardeners allow us everything. If you want deer or hares, in the open streets they run past! When a fast-day comes, all the fish will wash ashore with pleasure! Then, Saint Peter runs with net and bait to the heavenly fishpond. Saint Martha shall be the cook! There is no music on earth that can be compared to ours. Eleven thousand maidens venture to dance while Saint Ursula herself laughs! Cecilia with her relations are wonderful court musicians! Their angelic voices so incite our feelings, that everyone awakens with joy. MARIN ALSOP, conductor For Marin Alsop’s biography, see page 62. JULIA BULLOCK, soprano Named a 2021 Artist of the Year by Musi- cal America , who hailed her as an “agent of change,” Julia Bullock has been applying her voice on the professional performance since high school, when she joined the artist train- ing program at Opera Theatre of Saint Lou- is, in her home town. She went on to earn degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Bard College, and The Juilliard School, as well as such honors as a 2015 Leonore An- nenberg Arts Fellowship and the 2016 Sphinx Medal of Excellence. An innovative curator with arts presenters, museums, and schools, Bullock is currently a collaborative partner at the San Francisco Symphony, where she was Artist-in-Residence last season, a role she previously held at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and carries through 2022 at London’s Guildhall School. Following her first US recital tour in 2014, capped by her Kennedy Center debut, Bullock has also per- formed at Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Cal Performances, and the Mostly Mozart and Ojai Music Festi- vals, where she joined Roomful of Teeth and the International Contemporary Ensemble for the premiere of Josephine Baker: A Por- trait . The work prototyped her collaboration with Peter Sellars on Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine , written for her by MacArthur Fellows Tyshawn Sorey and Claudia Rankine. Bullock created the leading role of Dame Shirley in John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West in her San Francisco Opera debut, and she has recently debuted at Santa Fe Opera (Adams’s Doctor Atomic ), Festival d’Aix-en- Provence and Dutch National Opera (Stra- vinsky’s The Rake’s Progress ), and English National Opera, Spain’s Teatro Real, and the Bolshoi Theatre (Purcell’s The Indian Queen ). This year Bullock stars in Michel van der Aa’s Upload for its staged premieres at the Bre- genzer Festspiele and Dutch National Opera, where she performed in the film premiere in the spring. In concert, she has collaborated with the Los Angeles and New York Philhar- monics, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Boston and NHK Symphony Orches- tras, among other ensembles. Julia Bullock is making her Ravinia and Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 59