Ravinia 2023 Issue 1

CARLIN MA (SUSSMANN) I upward. Development is not extensive, and both themes return in B- at major. The Andante is a broad, lyrical movement whose opening violin theme contrasts with a singing melody played rst by the piano and then by the violin. Development em- ploys expressive harmonies. Mozart’s nale is a lighthearted rondo, whose opening section returns like a refrain between other themes. SAMUEL ADLER (b. 1928) Lullaby (Based on an old Hebrew folk tune) Born on March , , in Mannheim, Ger- many, Samuel Hans Adler was, according to family legend, destined for a life in music. In addition to a coincidental connection to Mo- zart via his wife’s birthplace, both his parents had studied voice at the conservatory and were excellent keyboard players. e couple started Samuel with violin lessons at age , an instrument he grasped quickly. On the other hand, he found piano lessons tedious and generally avoided the instrument, much to his regret later in life: “I have never been able to play that instrument well.” Rising anti-Semitism and the events of Kristallnacht forced the Adlers to ee Germa- ny for the United States, where they arrived on January , , settling in Worcester, MA, a er a few months. At age , Samuel be- gan harmony and counterpoint lessons with Herbert Fromm, requiring a weekly commute by train to Boston, which eh continued a er entering Boston University. Adler complet- ed his undergraduate degree in , having formed a close, lifelong friendship with H.C. Robbins Landon, the renowned Haydn and Mozart scholar. e following fall, he entered the graduate program at Harvard University. The University of North Texas invited Ad- ler to join its music faculty as the founding member of a composition program in . He remained in that position for years—addi- tionally serving four years ( – ) as music director of Dallas Lyric eater and the Dallas Chorale—before being lured to the Eastman Samuel Adler School of Music composition faculty in . Adler chaired the composition department beginning in , and retired as professor emeritus in . He returned to teaching and served on the composition faculty at e Juil- liard School between and . Over his more-than-six-decade career in ed- ucation, Adler garnered widespread acclaim as a proli c composer of + works, com- missioned and performed by major artists around the world. Although Samuel Adler has retired (more than once) from academia, he remains highly active as a composer well into his s. Self-isolation and a daily compo- sition regimen during the pandemic resulted in an astounding creative outpour- ing, adding dozens of new compositions to his catalog. Members of the Berlin Philhar- monic recently performed Adler’s Just for Two for oboe and bassoon and Duo for Eight Strings for violin and viola on a musical trib- ute to Jewish Music with the honored com- poser in attendance. MIEC=<SúAWWEIN%ER* ɠ Rhapsody on Moldavian emes, op. , no. Members of the Weinberg family moved several times in the early th century in at- tempts to ee the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe. Originally settled in Mol- davia, the Weinbergs su ered greatly during the Kishinev Pogrom of , when hate- lled articles in the local newspaper incited violence against Kishinev’s Jewish residents— the family patriarch and his son Mojsze were killed. Mojsze’s son Shmuel evaded the bru- tality, having already launched a career as a traveling violinist and conductor. Poland be- came the center of his professional activity by the mid- s, rst in Łódź and later in War- saw, where he welcomed a son in , named in honor of his murdered grandfather (and later known by the Polish form, Mieczysław). Mieczysław entered the Warsaw Conservatory as a piano student at years old. Six days a er the German invasion of Poland began on Sep- tember , , Weinberg began his ight to the Soviet Union on foot, eventually settling in Minsk. ere he resumed studies with an in- creased emphasis on composition, and gradu- ated the Minsk Conservatory a er two years. His sojourn in the cosmopolitan Byelorussian capital ended abruptly with the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union on June , , just hours a er his graduation concert. Weinberg hasti- ly escaped to the relative safety of the Uzbek SSR, traveling , miles eastward by train via Moscow to Tashkent. Weinberg met his future wife, Nataliya Vovsi-Mikhoels—the daughter of Solomon Mikhoels, an actor, di- rector, political activist, and chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the Soviet Union—during his two years in Tashkent. Moscow became Weinberg’s home for the - nal two years of the war. A er a brief period focused on physical reconstruction of the country, the Soviet political machine launched an aggressive anti-cosmopolitan campaign in . is thinly veiled anti-Semitic crusade against Jewish artists and intellectuals brand- ed them “antipatriotic.” Increasingly paranoid, Joseph Stalin imagined a “doctor’s plot” against his life and ordered the murder of the supposed conspirators, including Weinberg’s father-in-law, whose body was found on a street in Minsk on January , . Weinberg came under suspicion by association and was kept under surveillance for ve years. Folk music provided a musical safe haven for Weinberg during this tumultuous period. Between and , he compiled a some- what unusual collection of four orchestral works under a single opus number (op. ). e opening composition is the Rhapsody on Moldavian emes for orchestra. A version of the same music for violin and orchestra (also arranged by the composer for violin and pia- no with ngerings by David Oistrakh) occu- pies third position in the set. e Polish Tunes (no. ) and Serenade in A major (no. ) round out the set. In the Rhapsody, Weinberg hear- kened back to his family roots, incorporating folk-in uenced melodies and culminating in a klezmer-style tune. Tragically, Weinberg su ered further politi- cal persecution. e Rhapsody on Moldavian emes was premiered on February , (less than a month a er the h anniversa- ry of his father-in-law’s murder) at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall with Oistrakh as soloist. Weinberg returned home with his wife and friends for a post-concert celebra- tion. Insistent ringing of the doorbell dis- turbed their revelry. Two KGB agents entered the house and arrested Weinberg on charges of “Jewish bourgeois nationalism.” Friends, including Shostakovich, petitioned for his release but Weinberg remained incarcerated until April —six weeks a er Stalin’s death. –Program notes © Todd E. Sullivan 0Lec]\VûDZ :eLQEeUJ ARNAUD SUSSMANN Winner of a Avery Fisher Career Grant, violinist Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself around the world through perfor- mances with such ensembles as the Bu alo Philharmonic, Paris Chamber Orchestra, and American, NewWorld, Paci c, Jerusalem, and Vancouver Symphonies. Recent seasons have included concerto engagements with the Ma- riinsky Orchestra and the Alabama, Albany, Grand Rapids, Jacksonville, and Santa Rosa Symphonies, as well as solo appearances on tour in Israel and at Alice Tully Hall, Dresden Music Festival, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. Sussmann regularly per- forms at Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, the Beare’s Premiere and Moab Music Festivals, and the Seattle and Saratoga Springs Chamber Music Festivals, and he has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Cham- ber Music Northwest, and Moritzburg Festi- vals. In recital, he has been a guest of interna- tional series in Boston, Denver, New Orleans, and Palm Beach, as well as at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and Paris’s Louvre Museum. A dedicated chamber musician, Sussmann has been a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since , touring to such venues as Colombia’s Teatro Mayor, Korea’s LG Arts Center, Shanghai’s Oriental Center, and Hong Kong’s Music Academy in addition to regularly playing in New York. He has also collaborated on programs with pia- nist Menahem Pressler, cellists Gary Ho man and Jan Vogler, violinists Itzhak Perlman and Shmuel Ashkenasi, pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel, and members of the Emerson String Quartet. Sussmann has been featured on multiple PBS Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts and numerous albums. His debut solo disc, featuring Brahms sonatas with pi- anist Orion Weiss, was released in , and he most recently recorded works by Beetho- ven, Bloch, Fauré, and Mendelssohn in . Having trained at the Paris Conservatory and e Juilliard School with Boris Garlitsky and Itzhak Perlman, Sussmann currently teaches at Stony Brook University and is co-artistic di- rector of Music@Menlo’s International Music Program and artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach. Arnaud Suss- mann was a Ravinia Steans Music Institute fellow in and , and he has returned to join an RSMI Spring Tour in . RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE