Ravinia 2021 - Issue 2

5:00 PM SUNDAY, AUGUST 15, 2021 CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA GEORGE STELLUTO, conductor Tchaikovsky Spectacular TCHAIKOVSKY Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 Andante—Allegro con anima Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza Valse: Allegro moderato Finale: Andante maestoso TCHAIKOVSKY 1812 Overture (with cannons) There will be no intermission in this program. Ravinia expresses its appreciation for the generous support of Featured Sponsor The Negaunee Foundation and The Tchaikovsky Consortium . The Tchaikovsky Consortium comprises an anonymous donor, Earl Abramson and Sheila Schlaggar, Azure Consulting, Carol and Douglas Cohen, Winnie and Bob Crawford, Bobbie and Charlie Denison, Jack and Donna Greenberg, Howard and Roberta Goss, The Hirschmann Family Foundation, David and Susan Kreisman, Sheila and Harvey Medvin, Kenneth and Jodi Meister, The Sedge and Henry Plitt Charitable Trusts, The Prussian Family, The Reid-Anderson Family, he Rosenberg-Frazer Families, Judy and David Schiffman, and Bobette Takiff and the Takiff Family Foundation. Ravinia is proud to feature “Charlie’s Cannons” in tonight’s performance of the 1812 Overture. PAVILION PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840–93) Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, harp, and strings Tchaikovsky composed the first of his three symphonic fantasies inspired by the plays of William Shakespeare— Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and Hamlet —on the advice of Mily Balakirev. A member of the so-called Mighty Handful (or “The Five”) of Russian national- istic music, Balakirev had recently completed a King Lear piece when he submitted the Ro- meo and Juliet scenario and theme sketches to Tchaikovsky. Then, Balakirev dispatched him on a creative promenade through Moscow: “Arm yourself with galoshes and a walking stick and set out for a walk along the boule- vards, starting with the Nikitsky; let yourself be steeped in your plan, and I am sure that by the time you reach the Sretensky Boulevard some theme or episode will have come to you.” The subject of ill-fated love undoubtedly at- tracted Tchaikovsky to Romeo and Juliet . He had become infatuated with the Belgian mez- zo-soprano Désirée Artôt in 1867. Despite his family’s urgent pleas, Tchaikovsky considered proposing marriage, but Désirée’s sudden elopement with the Spanish baritone Mario Padilla y Ramos on September 15, 1869, dashed his secret plans. Romeo and Juliet re- sulted from a fitful six-week outpouring end- ing on November 18, while the wounds of the Artôt affair still festered. Following the 1870 premiere, Tchaikovsky incorporated several changes suggested by Balakirev. He produced a third version of the fantasy overture for a planned Romeo and Juliet opera a decade lat- er, in the wake of his disastrous marriage to Antonina Milyukova. Outlines of Shakespeare’s drama trace through this single-movement “fantasy,” neatly constructed as a sonata form with slow introduction. Friar Lawrence offers comfort Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1888) to the young lovers in solemn hymn-tones. This serenity remains a deceptive facade, for around the corner lurks misfortune and death. Mortal combat between the Capulets and Montagues spills into the streets of Ve- rona. The tumult momentarily subsides with the passionate love theme, only to erupt more violently. Lovers struggle desperately against their undeserved fate, but the evil feud claims two more innocent victims. Friar Lawrence’s utterances transform into Requiescat in pace . Tragedy prevails in the ominous final chords. Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64 Scored for three flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings After an exhilarating tour of Germany during early spring 1888, Tchaikovsky returned to Russia in April and impulsively rented a house in Frolovskoye, near the Taneyev es- tate. The idyllic surroundings diverted his attention from music to gardening, later expressing to his benefactress Nadezhda von Meck, “When I am quite old and past composing, I shall devote myself to growing flowers.” By mid-May, a complete disinterest in composition had overtaken Tchaikovsky. “To be honest, I have not yet felt the desire to create anything. What does it mean? Surely, not that I am finished? No ideas, no moods at all! But I still hope that, little by little, materi- al for a symphony will come,” he wrote to his brother Modest. The composer projected a deeper sense of desperation in a letter to Meck at about the same time: “I shall work very hard to prove not only to others but to myself that I am not yet played out. Very often, doubt seizes me and I ask myself, isn’t it time to stop writ- ing music, haven’t I overstrained my imagi- nation, hasn’t the wellspring itself dried up? This must happen sometime if I live on for ten or twenty years, and how do I know the time is not arrived when I should lay down my arms.” Tchaikovsky then informed her that progress on a new symphony had gained momentum. A sketchy, enigmatic program—not nearly so detailed as the Fourth Symphony’s—guided this project. Tchaikovsky confided its hid- den meaning to his patroness: “Introduction. Complete resignation before Fate, or, which is the same, before the inscrutable predesti- nation of Providence. Allegro (I) Murmurs, doubts, plaints, reproaches against XXX. (II) Shall I throw myself in the embrace of faith?” The specter of Fate—“the fatal force which prevents our hopes of happiness from being realized”—also had cast its shadow over the Fourth Symphony. Did the new symphony offer the composer “complete resignation” to this same unnamed Fate or to another mys- terious destiny? Tchaikovsky shrewdly left that question unanswerable, though more RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 24 – AUGUST 15, 2021 68