≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Repertoire
Don Juan, Op. 20
In 1888, Richard Strauss (1864–1949) became convinced that his artistic direction as a composer was to “create new forms for every new subject” and embarked on writing orchestral “tone poems.” A genre of instrumental music initially developed by Franz Liszt, the symphonic poem is a one-movement work that illustrates or evokes the content of an extra-musical source, be it a story, poem, or painting. It was a novel way to structure the experience of orchestral music compared to the traditional abstract forms of the four-movement symphony.
Strauss composed his first tone poems that year in quick succession, beginning with Macbeth, followed by Don Juan eight months later, and Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) in 1889. He conducted the premiere of Don Juan in Weimar, where he was Kapellmeister to the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. The work was a triumph, and quickly established Strauss’s international reputation as a young, boldly modernist composer. Within a decade, both Don Juan and Tod und Verklärung were firmly a part of the German performance repertory.
The striking appeal of Don Juan lies in Strauss’s ability to marshal orchestral forces into a remarkably effective medium for vivid musical storytelling—in this case, the romantic adventures of the legendary Spanish libertine. To convey the Don’s character through orchestral timbre, texture, and sonority, the score makes significant technical and artistic demands on the musicians.
Strauss based his Don Juan on the version portrayed in Nikolaus Lenau’s unfinished German verse play, published posthumously in 1851. Rather than a shameless seducer seeking romantic conquests (like in Mozart and Da Ponte’s opera Don Giovanni), Lenau’s Don is more of a dreamer, driven by an idealistic desire to find the perfect woman. But, as Lenau describes, “Because he does not find her, although he reels from one to another, at last Disgust seizes hold of him, and this Disgust is the Devil that fetches him.” Thus, there’s no divine retribution for Strauss’s/Lenau’s Don; rather, in realizing the pointlessness of his striving (“My deadly foe is in my power, and this, too, bores me, as does life itself”), he allows himself to be killed in a duel—a provocatively nihilistic end befitting a modernist approach.
An upward string flourish opens the tone poem, immediately conveying various aspects of the Don’s character—his romantic desire, sexual vigor, and reckless optimism in finding his ideal woman. The flurry of energy soon leads into a striving tune in the violins: it’s Don Juan the hero, brashly confident. Someone soon catches his eye—a little phrase in the first violins, like a flirtatious wink or smile. Then, scampering motifs—perhaps a giggling game of chase—rush to a held chord. With glints of glockenspiel and harp, the atmosphere becomes filled with romantic suspense as a violin solo evokes a long look at the new beloved, then the music emerges into a glorious sweeping melody. It builds in waves to a passionate climax but at the peak, the harmony turns to minor with ominous syncopated chords in the woodwinds and brass—the Don seems suddenly disenchanted with the woman before him. Hints of the opening flourish suggests that it doesn’t take long for him to extricate himself from the situation, and with the return of the striving theme, he heads off in search again.
In the developmental section, a moody melody appears, fervidly sung by violas and cellos—has the Don found someone else? Solo flute responds with plaintive sighs, and the melody is reiterated more ardently. Soon, he has her heart, and a romantic episode with his new love follows—a beautiful long-breathed melody intoned by the oboe, against a murmuring backdrop that evokes a tender night scene. Out of this moment of deep contentment, we are suddenly rushed into a bold heroic tune proclaimed by four horns in unison—the Don seems to have triumphed, and a playful episode ensues. Tension and momentum mount but eventually collapse in swirling figures of disillusionment, and a deep plunge of despair.
Like a flurry of reminiscences, various themes from earlier in the piece are reprised with greater brilliance than before, driving to another declamation of the heroic tune by the horns, which the violins then take up fervently. It reaches a massive climax, and the Don’s striving theme returns. It presses on but soon rushes to a complete stop; there’s silence, then a quiet chord as two trumpets deliver the fatal blow. With a final shuddering of strings, Don Juan’s life of passionate pursuit is over.
Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Piano Concerto in G major
Born in Ciboure, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, March 7, 1875
Died in Paris, December 28, 1937
Ravel toyed with writing a piano concerto as early as 1906, according to one source, and again in 1914, but the actual composition of what became the Piano Concerto in G was undertaken between 1929 and 1931, interspersed with work on the Concerto for Left Hand. The first performance was given in Paris by the Lamoureux Orchestra on January 14, 1932. Ravel had originally intended to play the piano part himself, but because of declining health, he granted the solo role to the concerto’s dedicatee, Marguerite Long, while he conducted. Ravel and Long then set out on a 20-city tour of Europe with the concerto; Long recorded it as well, with the Portuguese conductor Pedro de Freitas Branco.
A number of elements combined to influence the style and form of the Concerto. Music of the Basques is immediately evident in the opening bars, for instance, where the exuberant piccolo theme bears strong relation to the folksong style of the Basques. The second theme, played first by the piano, suggests the influence of neighbouring Spain. Ravel had spent much time in the Basque country during the summer and autumn of 1929, when he began to write the Concerto. Ravel’s Basque hometown of Ciboure (a tiny seacoast town on the Bay of Biscay where France and Spain meet) honoured him the following year, strengthening the composer’s ties to his homeland.
The jazz influence is even more pronounced, stemming from Ravel’s tour throughout the United States in 1928. He visited the jazz clubs of New Orleans and Harlem and no doubt heard, among others, Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. He struck up a mutually admiring friendship with George Gershwin. The influence of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F can be felt in Ravel’s Concerto, especially in the first movement with its “blue” notes, jazz harmonies and rhythms.
Ravel professed that “the music of a concerto should, in my opinion, be light-hearted and brilliant, and not aim at profundity or at dramatic effects.” In this respect, his Concerto in G succeeds splendidly, and Ravel liked to refer to it as a divertissement de luxe.
— Program notes by Robert Markow
Dark Nights, Bright Stars, Vast Universe (NACO commission)
With music described as “breathtaking” (Kitchener-Waterloo Record), “imaginative and expressive” (The National Post), “a pulse-pounding barrage on the senses” (The Globe and Mail), and “Bartok on steroids” (Birmingham News), Kelly-Marie Murphy’s voice is well known on the Canadian music scene. She has created a number of memorable works for some of Canada’s leading performers and ensembles, including the Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, The Gryphon Trio, James Campbell, Shauna Rolston, the Cecilia and Afiara String Quartets, and Judy Loman.
Kelly-Marie Murphy was born (in 1964) on a NATO base in Sardegna, Italy, and grew up on Canadian Armed Forces bases all across Canada. She began her studies in composition at the University of Calgary with William Jordan and Allan Bell, and later received a PhD in composition from the University of Leeds, England, where she studied with Philip Wilby. After living and working for many years in the Washington, D.C. area where she was designated “an alien of extraordinary ability” by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, she is now based in Ottawa, quietly pursuing a career as a freelance composer.
Commissioned by the NAC Orchestra and composed in 2023, Dark Nights, Bright Stars, Vast Universe is Murphy’s response to Richard Strauss’s orchestral work Don Juan. As she reveals in her note to her piece, “in considering how to respond to this iconic tone poem, I decided to look at what else was happening in the world while Strauss was composing. One significant event for me was Vincent van Gogh’s painting Starry Night in 1889. Another was the discovery of the Horsehead Nebula by Williamina Fleming in 1888. Mrs. Fleming was one of the “Harvard Computers”, a group of women who were taught to analyze stellar spectra and catalog stars for astronomers at the Harvard College Observatory. Her extraordinary life became the subject of my tone poem.”
“Dark Nights, Bright Stars, Vast Universe has a few main themes throughout,” she further describes: “questioning, searching, and curiosity; perseverance and determination; and the beauty of the starry sky. The piece begins with a questioning theme in the harp, answered by solo woodwinds. As the questioning and searching intensifies, it leads to the driving themes of perseverance and determination. This is fast and relentless and, at times, turbulent. Doubt creeps in for a moment with trumpet and oboe solos. Gradually, confidence and strength are regained, and a calm focus is revealed with a brass chorale. The main theme of perseverance returns, eventually leading to success and discovery. Throughout the piece, we are aware of the stars: shining, calling, guiding.”
Biography and program note provided by the composer
Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Op. 24
Richard Strauss was only 24 years old when he completed and conducted the very successful premiere of Don Juan, the orchestral tone poem that would make his name. Within less than a year, he followed with another hit: Tod und Verklärung, or Death and Transfiguration. During the summer of 1888, Strauss was employed as a répétiteur (or vocal coach) at the Bayreuth Festival, where Richard Wagner’s music drama Tristan und Isolde was being performed. While absorbing the work in this context, he became fascinated by the opera’s ending, in which Isolde is “transfigured” in death to be mystically united with her lover, Tristan. It inspired Strauss to explore the concept of “death and transfiguration” in his own tone poem, the narrative of which he described as “a dying artist, obsessed by an artistic Ideal, is transfigured at death to recognize his Ideal in eternity.”
Along with the subject matter, Death and Transfiguration owes its sound world in part to that of Tristan und Isolde. Employing a large orchestra, it’s rich and sonorous; furthermore, the tonal ambiguity that underscores the feeling of longing experienced by Wagner’s two lovers is also used in Strauss’s piece though for a different dramatic purpose. As the work progresses, two main musical motifs—one representing death and another representing transfiguration—essentially do “battle” with each other, thus evoking the artist’s struggle on his death bed, with harmonies not firmly resolving until the very end.
When he had completed the score to Death and Transfiguration in 1889, Strauss asked his friend and professional associate Alexander Ritter to compose an explanatory poem expanding on his narrative sketch, to be distributed at the first performance and published with the score. Ritter’s text is provided in quotations below, interleaved with commentary as to what to listen for as each of the four sections of the piece unfolds.
I. Largo. “In a small bare room, dimly lit by a candle stump, a sick man lies on his bed. Exhausted by a violent struggle with death, he lies asleep. In the stillness of the room, like a portent of impending death, only the quiet ticking of a clock is heard. A melancholy smile lights the invalid’s pale face: does he dream of golden childhood as he lingers on the border of life?”
Muted violins and violas introduce a pulsating pattern that many have interpreted as the death motif, connoting the ticking of the clock, laboured breathing, or the irregular beat of a failing human heart. Later, wistful strains of a melody appear over rippling harp accompaniment, shifting from flute, to oboe, to a muted violin, and back to the woodwinds.
II. Allegro molto agitato. “But death grants him little sleep or time for dreams. He shakes his prey brutally to begin the battle afresh. The drive to live, the might of death! What a terrifying contest! Neither wins the victory and once more silence reigns.”
A loud strike of the timpani (sounding with the orchestra’s bass instruments) signals the start of the man’s struggle. The syncopated motif, now sped up, is passed between the instruments, and leads into a deeply agitated theme. The mass of orchestral sound includes swirling chromatic fragments punctuated by more ominous strokes of the timpani. At the terrifying climax, we hear the brass proclaim for the first time the beginning of the transfiguration theme—a climbing theme characterized by a giant upward leap. But death doesn’t yet come (resolution is not achieved), and the music returns to an ethereal calm.
III. Meno mosso, ma sempre alla breve. “Exhausted from the battle, sleepless, as in a delirium, the sick man now sees his life pass before him, step by step, scene by scene. First the rosy dawn of childhood, radiant, innocent; then the boy’s aggressive games, testing, building his strength—and so maturing for the battles of manhood, to strive with burning passion for the highest goals of life: to transfigure all that seems to him most noble, giving it still more exalted form—this alone has been the high aim of his whole existence. Coldly, scornfully, the world set obstacle upon obstacle in his way. When he believed himself near his goal, a thunderous voice cried: ‘Halt!’ But a voice within him still urged him on, crying: ‘Make each hindrance a new rung in your upward climb.’ Undaunted he followed the exalted quest. Still in his death agony he seeks the unreached goal of his ceaseless striving, seeks it, but alas, still in vain. Though it grows closer, clearer, grander, it never can be grasped entire or perfected in his soul. The final iron hammer blow of death rings out, breaks his earthly frame, and covers his eyes with eternal night.”
This section begins quietly with solo instruments trading phrases of the wistful melody from the opening—the man reflecting on his life. They eventually build to a march-like section that evokes his maturation into adulthood. As the orchestra surges forward, the syncopated death motif, in the trombones and timpani, disrupts the texture with increasing vehemence. Waves of struggle culminate in ever grander presentations of the transfiguration theme, signaling that the end is near. After a final outburst, the orchestra’s stormy fury gradually dissipates, and with the toll of the gong, the death knell sounds.
IV. Moderato. “But from the endless realms of heavenly space a mighty resonance returns to him bearing what he longed for here below and sought in vain: redemption, transfiguration.”
The tone poem’s concluding section builds on the transfiguration theme, itself undergoing its own transformation into a grand apotheosis. In the final moments, the violins sing the theme one last time, its leaping arc finally resolving on a serene chord.
Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Artists
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Alexander Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s NAC Orchestra in September 2015. The ensemble has since been praised as being “transformed, hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen) and Shelley’s programming credited for turning the Orchestra into “one of the more audacious in North America” (Maclean’s).
Shelley is a champion of Canadian creation. Recent hallmarks include multimedia projects Life Reflected and UNDISRUPTED and three major new ballets in partnership with NAC Dance for Encount3rs. He is passionate about arts education and nurturing the next generation of musicians. He is an Ambassador for Ottawa’s OrKidstra, a charitable social development program that teaches children life skills through making music together.
In April 2022, Alexander Shelley made his debut at Carnegie Hall with the NAC Orchestra in its long-awaited return, and in the spring of 2019, he led the Orchestra on its critically acclaimed 50th-anniversary European tour, with stops in London, Paris, Copenhagen, and Stockholm.
Shelley is also the Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Artistic and Music Director of Artis-Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida, USA. Previous releases with the NAC Orchestra include the Juno-nominated New Worlds, Life Reflected, ENCOUNT3RS, The Bounds of Our Dreams, the acclaimed multi-volume Clara - Robert - Johannes series, all with Canadian label Analekta, as well as Truth in Our Time with Orange Mountain Music.
The Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., ONL, LL.D. (hc).
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Pianist Yeol Eum Son, born in South Korea in 1986, is renowned for her exceptional artistry and captivating performances. From a young age, she displayed remarkable talent, beginning piano lessons at just three-and-a-half years old. Yeol Eum has captivated audiences worldwide with her boundless artistic exploration and profound musicality, establishing herself as one of the foremost pianists of her generation.
Yeol Eum’s playing is marked by its poetic elegance, nuanced expressiveness, and a gift for conveying dramatic contrasts. Her artistry is underpinned by breathtaking technical prowess and a deep emotional connection to the music she interprets. She possesses an insatiable curiosity that drives her to explore a diverse range of musical genres and styles, always striving to reveal the pure essence of each piece.
Her extensive repertoire spans classical masterpieces by composers such as J.S. Bach and Mozart to contemporary works by Shchedrin and Kapustin, chosen for their quality and depth. Yeol Eum Son is highly sought after as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber musician, earning critical acclaim for her intelligent interpretations.
Throughout the 2023–2024 season, Yeol Eum collaborates once again with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern at home in Germany and on tour in South Korea, as well as the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and Auckland Philharmonia. She will debut with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the NAC Orchestra, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. She also returns to the Melbourne Recital Centre and Adelaide International Piano Series. She will also have recital debuts at the Singapore International Piano Festival, the Risør Chamber Music Festival, the International Piano Festival of Oeiras, and the Mänttä Music Festival.
Since its debut in 1969, the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra has been praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary educational programs, and its prominent role in nurturing Canadian creativity. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, reaching and representing the diverse communities we live in with daring programming, powerful storytelling, inspiring artistry, and innovative partnerships.
Alexander Shelley began his tenure as Music Director in 2015, following Pinchas Zukerman’s 16 seasons at the helm. Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and former Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra (2009–2017), he has been in demand around the world, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and Stockholm Philharmonic, among others, and maintains a regular relationship with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and the German National Youth Orchestra.
Each season, the NAC Orchestra features world-class artists such as the newly appointed Artist-in-Residence James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Joshua Bell, Xian Zhang, Gabriela Montero, Stewart Goodyear, Jan Lisiecki, and Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds. As one of the most accessible, inclusive, and collaborative orchestras in the world, the NAC Orchestra uses music as a universal language to communicate the deepest of human emotions and connect people through shared experiences.
One of Canada’s most versatile and sought-after young composers, Kevin Lau (b. 1982), has been commissioned by some of Canada’s most prominent artists and ensembles, and his work has been performed internationally in the USA, France, Denmark, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. A prolific composer of orchestral, chamber, ballet, opera, and film music, he served as Affiliate Composer of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 2012 to 2015. To date, he has produced seven works for the TSO. Shortly after, he was commissioned to write two ballets with choreographer Guillaume Côté: a full-length ballet (Le Petit Prince) for the National Ballet of Canada and a half-hour ballet (Dark Angels) for the National Arts Centre Orchestra. He served as Composer in Residence for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra from 2021 to 2023.
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