Ravinia_2018_Issue_3_Week

1812

Festival Overture, op. 49

Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and

English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four

horns, two trumpets, two cornets, two tenor and

one bass trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle,

tambourine, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals,

cannons, chimes (bells), and strings

“The overture will be very loud, noisy, but I

wrote it without any warm feelings of love, so

it will probably be of no artistic worth.” Un-

questionably, Tchaikovsky produced an over-

ture with “very loud, noisy” portions, but the

rest of his assessment missed wide of the mark.

The

1812

Festival Overture ranks as perhaps

Tchaikovsky’s most popular composition for its

sentimental, as well as artistic, worth.

Nikolai Rubinstein requested a new work from

Tchaikovsky for an upcoming Exhibition of Arts

and Crafts in Moscow. This 1882 exhibition coin-

cided with the scheduled dedication of the new

Cathedral of the Redeemer and a 70th-anniver-

sary commemoration of the Russian resistance

to Napoleon’s assault. Tchaikovsky’s “festival

overture” was given a grand, open-air premiere.

A massive assemblage of instruments filled the

cathedral square with sound—a military band,

an enormous orchestra, a company of artillery,

and pealing bells from the church towers.

Tchaikovsky composed the

1812

Overture be-

tween October 12 and November 19, 1880, with

the Napoleonic defeat in mind. An old Russian

anthem—a patriotic prayer—serves as the slow

introductory theme: “Lord, save Thy people and

bless Thine heritage; grant victory to our land,

our sovereign and his warriors over the invad-

ers, and by the power of Thy cross preserve Thy

commonwealth.” The tempo increases as the

conflict builds. Among the main themes is a

Russian children’s folk song. French troops ad-

vance to the strains of the “Marseillaise,” but the

Russian anthem spurs the people to victory.

KEN-DAVID MASUR,

conductor

A graduate of Columbia University, conductor

Ken-David Masur founded its Bach Society Or-

chestra and Chorus and served as its music di-

rector from 1999 to 2002, touring Germany with

the ensemble and releasing a critically acclaimed

album of symphonies and cantatas by J.S., C.P.E.,

and W.F. Bach. He completed further studies at

Leipzig’s Mendelssohn University of Music and

Theater, the Detmold Academy, the Manhattan

School of Music, and Berlin’s Eisler University

of Music, where he was a five-year master stu-

dent of bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff. He

also studied with his father, Kurt Masur, as well

as such conductors as Christoph von Dohnányi,

Charles Dutoit, and Jorma Panula. Currently

associate conductor of the Boston Symphony

Orchestra, Masur was a Seiji Ozawa Conducting

Fellow at Tanglewood in 2011 and 2012, and he

previously held posts as associate conductor of

the San Diego Symphony, assistant conductor

of the French National Orchestra from 2004 to

2006, and resident conductor of the San Anto-

nio Symphony in 2007. Together with his wife,

pianist Melinda Lee Masur, he is co-founder and

artistic director of the Chelsea Music Festival, a

two-week multimedia production of music, art,

and cuisine in New York. He has previously

been a guest conductor for the Dresden, Israel,

and Japan Philharmonics; Hiroshima, Omaha,

and Memphis Symphonies; and Toulouse Na-

tional Orchestra, and over the past year he has

had weeklong engagements with the Milwau-

kee, Colorado, and Portland (ME) Symphonies,

and he also returned to the Chicago Civic Or-

chestra. Recent highlights have included lead-

ing a program of Aaron Jay Kernis, Prokofiev,

and Tchaikovsky with the Boston Symphony

at Tanglewood; the world premiere of a piano

concerto by Alan Fletcher with the Los Ange-

les Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl; and a

new production of Moto Osada’s chamber op-

era

Four Nights of Dream

at the Japan Society

in New York and at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan.

Ken-David Masur is making his Ravinia and

Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts.

INON BARNATAN,

piano

Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1979, Inon Barnatan

began playing the piano at age 3 after his par-

ents discovered that he had perfect pitch, and he

made his orchestral debut at age 11. In 1997 he

moved to London to study at the Royal Acad-

emy of Music, and after being invited by Leon

Fleisher to study and perform Schubert sonatas

as part of a Carnegie Hall workshop in 2004,

Barnatan relocated to New York in 2006 to

continue working with Fleisher. That same year

he released his debut CD on Bridge Records,

which featured Schubert’s final sonata and late

impromptus, and he quickly followed up with a

disc of works for violin and piano by Beethoven

and Schubert with Liza Ferschtman. After his

acclaimed 2012 album

Darknesse Visible

, mix-

ing French and British works exploring dark-

ness and light, Barnatan returned to Schubert’s

late sonatas in 2013 for Avie Records. He regu-

larly collaborates with cellist Alisa Weilerstein

on duo recitals, recording Rachmaninoff and

Chopin sonatas for Decca in 2015, and he most

recently released a disc of Messiaen’s

From the

Canyons to the Stars

, recorded live at the Santa

Fe Chamber Music Festival. Passionate about

contemporary works, Barnatan regularly com-

missions and performs music from the likes of

Thomas Adès, Sebastian Currier, Alasdair Nic-

olson, and Matthias Pintscher, and he partici-

pated in Carnegie Hall’s “Making Music: James

MacMillan” series, performing the composer’s

Piano Sonata and chamber piece

Raising Sparks

He recently completed his third and final sea-

son as the inaugural Artist-in-Association of the

New York Philharmonic in addition to making

debuts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orches-

tra; Hong Kong, London, and Helsinki Phil-

harmonics; and Chicago, Baltimore, and Seattle

Symphony Orchestras. In 2009 he was awarded

an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and in 2015 the

Lincoln Center bestowed him its Martin E. Se-

gal Award. He will become music director of the

La Jolla Music Society Summerfest in 2019. Inon

Barnatan attended Ravinia’s Steans Music Insti-

tute for three years between 2000 and 2003, also

performing solo recitals at the festival in 2002

and 2012.

Louis-François Lejeune’s

Battle of Moscow, 7th

September 1812

(1882)