≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Repertoire
Fairytale Poem for orchestra
Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina is one of today’s preeminent musical figures. Born in Chistopol, a small town in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, she celebrated her 90th birthday in 2021, a milestone that was commemorated with performances of her music by ensembles and organizations throughout the world. For decades in the latter part of the 20th century, she had dared to defy the Soviet cultural authorities, in exploring spiritual topics and ideas in her works, as well as her use of modern compositional techniques including alternative tunings and 12-tone serialism. She continues to evolve and integrate such aspects with elements of her Tatar heritage, to forge a distinctively powerful compositional style.
Gubaidulina composed Fairytale Poem for orchestra in 1971. The score was originally for a children’s radio program based on the fairy tale, The Little Piece of Chalk, by the Czech writer Mazourek. At the time, Gubaidulina said she was pleased to transform it into an independent orchestral piece because “I liked the fairy tale so much and it seemed so symbolic of an artist’s destiny that I developed a very personal relationship with this work.” It received its first performance in 1992, by Hanover’s NDR Radiophilharmonie conducted by Bernhard Klee.
As Gubaidulina described the story that her music brings to sonic life:
“The piece of chalk dreams of drawing wonderful castles, beautiful gardens with pavilions, and the sea. But day after day, it is forced to draw boring words, numbers, and geometric figures on the blackboard, and in doing so every day, it becomes smaller and smaller, unlike the children who grow every day. Gradually, the piece of chalk is in despair, increasingly losing hope it will be allowed at some point to draw the sun or the sea. Soon it becomes so small it can no longer be used in the school class and is thrown away. After which the chalk finds itself in total darkness and thinks it has died. This assumed darkness of death, however, turns out to be a boy’s pocket. The child’s hand takes the chalk out into the daylight and begins to draw castles, gardens with pavilions, and the sea with the sun on the pavement. The chalk is so happy it does not even notice how it is dissolving in the drawing of this beautiful world.”
On a “blank slate” of sustained tones, flute, violins, and solo clarinet individually add line and colour—an arcing phrase reaching longingly upwards, the tension then subsiding on an extended trill. Out of an otherworldly transition, a lively fugue on plucked strings emerges (the chalk springs to life) and reaches a peak only to tumble down chromatically. The violins then take up the upward arcing melody, developing it further with more intensity. A series of brief episodes follows, with different instruments playing various figurations that evoke the chalk’s forced submission into writing “boring words, numbers, and geometric figures.” Each spurt of activity, however, disintegrates into a haunting soundscape suggesting the chalk’s growing despondency. Then, a turning point: sinewy motifs in the flutes tentatively intertwine upwards, arriving at atmospheric piano chords and harp scales; solo flute and bass clarinet muse. Suddenly, the music blooms with vibrancy, the violins singing the arcing melody against a pulsating backdrop of lush harmonies, followed by jagged phrases—the chalk’s ecstatic strokes. The marimba’s ascending scale leads into the piece’s final moments: a simple piano melody against very quiet strings. Strokes on the vibraphone complete the ethereal fadeout.
Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra
Symphony No. 4
I. Andante sostenuto – Moderato con anima
II. Andante in modo di canzona
III. Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato
IV. Finale: Allegro con fuoco
Tchaikovsky composed his Fourth Symphony in 1877, amidst a major turning point in his life. The movements were sketched in May and June, but their completion was interrupted by his disastrous marriage to Antonina Milyukova; the composer, who was homosexual, suffered a nervous breakdown. He eventually emerged out of the crisis, no doubt helped by Nadezhda von Meck, an extremely wealthy widow and an enthusiast for Tchaikovsky’s music, who began to provide him with an annual allowance that enabled him to focus entirely on composing without financial concerns. Under this arrangement, Tchaikovsky completed his Symphony No. 4 in January 1878.
The work follows an emotional journey of “darkness to light” or “victory over struggle”, not unlike Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5; indeed, Tchaikovsky admitted, in a letter to composer Sergei Taneyev, that his Fourth was obviously “a reflection” of Beethoven’s C minor symphony. It opens with an ominous brass fanfare (“Fate”, as Tchaikovsky described it to von Meck), which becomes a recurring “motto” in the work. Notably, in the first movement, it returns dramatically at key moments; listen throughout for its brutal intrusion, just when the music seems to become more optimistic and overcome its nervous anxiety. The second movement begins as if resigned over what has come before—a melancholy melody first presented by the oboe. But all does not seem to be lost, as a hopeful new theme in the middle section develops into a passionate orchestral outpouring.
The Scherzo, plucked entirely by the strings, offers a playful respite. It frames a central Trio, featuring an elegant dance for the woodwinds that becomes awkwardly fast when it is humorously interrupted by the brass playing the Scherzo’s theme as a march. The finale starts with a full-orchestra crash (cymbals and bass drum included!); a running whoosh of a theme follows, and then a naïve though somewhat sombre tune, based on the Russian folksong “In the field a little birch tree stood”. Alternating with returns of the first theme, the folk tune is developed in extended episodes, the second of which breaks into the menacing motto fanfare of the first movement. This time, however, it poses no more threat, and the symphony rushes, unfettered, to an exuberant close.
Program notes by Dr. Hannah Chan-Hartley
