In This Program
The Concert
Sunday, November 10, 2024, at 2:00pm
Musicians of the San Francisco Symphony
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(arr. Katarzyna Bryla)
Variations on “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman,” K.265 (ca. 1781)
Jonathan Vinocour viola
Katarzyna Bryla viola
Maurice Ravel
Introduction and Allegro (1905)
Katherine Siochi harp
Blair Francis Paponiu flute
Matthew Griffith clarinet
Jessie Fellows violin
Olivia Chen violin
Leonid Plashinov-Johnson viola
Anne Richardson cello
Intermission
Richard Strauss
and Franz Hasenöhrl
Till Eulenspiegel einmal anders! (1895/1945)
Matthew Griffith clarinet
Steven Dibner bassoon
Jesse Clevenger horn
Jessie Fellows violin
Daniel G. Smith bass
Johann Sebastian Bach
(arr. Dmitry Sitkovetsky)
Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (1741)
Melissa Kleinbart violin
Katarzyna Bryla viola
Amos Yang cello
Program Notes
Variations on “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman,” K.265
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(arr. Katarzyna Bryla)
Born: January 27, 1756, in Salzburg
Died: December 5, 1791, in Vienna
Work Composed: ca. 1781
The French folk song “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman” (Oh, Shall I tell you, Mama) is the source of the familiar melody also common to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” “Baa Baa, Black Sheep,” and the “Alphabet” song (yes, they all have the same melody in case you never realized it). The tune first appeared in print in the 1760s, though it might have earlier origins among shepherds.
Mozart wrote 12 keyboard variations on the theme around 1781, publishing the piece four years later. His version offers a charming vehicle for adult musicians to play what is usually one of the first songs taught to children, and also led to enduring misconception that Mozart was the original composer of the song itself. The version for two violas on today’s program was arranged by SF Symphony violist Katarzyna Bryla.
— Benjamin Pesetsky
Introduction and Allegro
Maurice Ravel
Born: March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, France
Died: December 28, 1937, in Paris
Work Composed: 1905
Maurice Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro stands as one of two not-quite-matching keystones of the harp repertoire that were composed just a year apart. The other was Debussy’s Danses sacrée et profane, and together they document a curious moment of corporate competition in the harp-building industry. A historical challenge of harp-building has been engineering solutions that allow the instrument to emit all the notes of the chromatic scale efficiently and in every key. Of course, it would be possible to simply tune each consecutive string a semitone apart; but that yields too many strings for a player to navigate in the available space. Harp-builders over the years have come up with ingenious proposals for practical chromatic harps, ranging from parallel ranks of variously tuned strings to intricate pedal systems that shift the entire compass of the instrument at the touch of a toe.
The latter was the method endorsed by the instrument builder Sébastien Érard; his double-action pedal harp, patented in the early 19th century, evolved into the concert harp as we know it today. The strings of Érard’s harps were tuned only to the major scale while the seven pedals give access to the flat, natural, and sharp versions of every note-name. It is a good system for music that stayed in a single key for long stretches of time. But as the 19th century progressed, harpists’ feet were left scurrying to keep up with the pace of increasingly chromatic music.
In 1894, the rival firm Pleyel unveiled a new design involving two independent sets of strings that overlap within essentially the same space. They commissioned Debussy’s Danses to show off their instrument, and Érard countered by commissioning Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, which would be playable only on their pedal harp. In the end, Érard introduced enough technological improvements to win the harp war.
Ravel reported to a friend that he composed this work in the spring of 1905 “in a week of continuous work and three sleepless nights.” Albert Blondel, the director of the Érard Company, must have been deeply pleased with the result, not only because his name was affixed to it as dedicatee but also because the harp is shown off to beautiful effect. Ravel stresses the harp’s special prominence through his title, and the composition as a whole seems a subtle, ultra-refined, highly perfumed chamber concerto-in-miniature for harp, really consisting of only one full movement, since the Introduction proceeds without break into the Allegro. The Ravel biographer Norman Demuth summed up its character of restrained luxury: “It has all the attributes of a musical and sensitive soul and in spite of its charm and sensuousness it is never sensual or lascivious, and these elements might easily have slipped in with an instrumental medium of this nature.”
Till Eulenspiegel einmal anders!
Richard Strauss
Born: June 11, 1864, in Munich
Died: September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany
Work Composed: Original—1894–95
Franz Hasenöhrl
Born: October 1, 1885, in Maria Lanzendorf, Austria
Died: December 13, 1970, in Vienna
Work Composed: Einmal anders!—1945
Till Eulenspiegel was a presumably historical figure of northern Germany whose escapades made him a staple of folklore. The oldest surviving version of the story dates from 1510–11, after which the tall tales proliferated with amazing vigor. No matter the specifics, Till invariably played practical jokes on unsuspecting victims, often getting the better of more privileged citizens, such as clergymen or bourgeois businessmen. Richard Strauss went so far as to sketch a scenario for an opera on the subject, but in the end he channeled his efforts into a symphonic poem, Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks). For the 1895 premiere he declined to provide a written guide to the episodes depicted in this work, but some years later one of his colleagues did prepare exactly such a document. Strauss apparently considered it authoritative since he penciled phrases from it at appropriate places in his score: Till racing on horseback through the market, Till the cavalier exchanging courtesies with beautiful girls, and so on to his arrest, trial, conviction, and hanging.
But what audiences love about the piece is less the story, which adds up to very little, than the music, which is at once charming and sophisticated. Strauss underscores the insouciant spirit by casting his piece in the most carefree of classical forms, the rondo (at least a freely evolved form of one), with its recurring refrains. Within this structure he offers a stream of astonishing metamorphoses of what boils down to very few themes. The famously optimistic “Till motif” articulated by the horn near the beginning, for example, is transformed into something sarcastic and insolent or into a yearning love-song.
The piece became an audience favorite, such that an official at Vienna’s Society for the Friends of Music feigned outrage when a musician there was unable to identify it. He determined to rectify this by having the piece arranged for five of the orchestra’s players (violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, and horn)—a study version for the benighted musician, one might say. For the arranger, he enlisted Franz Hasenöhrl, who had studied with composer Robert Fuchs at the Vienna Conservatory and with musicologist Guido Adler at the University of Vienna, which in 1927 awarded him a doctorate for his dissertation on the solo compositions of pianist Carl Czerny. His own oeuvre would grow to encompasses three symphonies, concertos for piano and for violin, and three string quartets, among many other works, and in 1961 he would be awarded the National Culture Prize of Lower Austria. In his setting, Strauss’s 15-minute symphonic poem work for large orchestra is telescoped into a nine-minute quintet that manages to encapsulate the spirit of the original. It was published in 1954 under the name Till Eulenspiegel einmal anders!—it might be translated as Till Eulenspiegel, Different for a Change!—with the subtitle Grotesque musicale.
Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Johann Sebastian Bach
(arr. Dmitry Sitkovetsky)
Born: March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Germany
Died: July 28, 1750, in Leipzig
Work Composed: 1741 (arr. 1984–2009)
From 1726 to 1741, Johann Sebastian Bach, the distinguished Thomaskantor and Director chori musici of the city of Leipzig, composed and published four collections of compositions under the title Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Practice). The fourth (1741) contained a single large-scale harpsichord piece, the title page reading “Keyboard exercise, consisting of an ARIA with diverse variations for harpsichord with two manuals. Composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits, by Johann Sebastian Bach.” The legend promulgated in Johann Nikolaus Forkel’s sometimes fanciful Bach biography of 1802 held that Bach wrote it for his pupil Johann Gottlieb Goldberg to play for his insomniac employer, Russia’s envoy to the Dresden Court, on sleepless nights. This may be an amalgam of various true tales, but, in any case, the pupil’s name would become attached to the beloved Goldberg Variations.
The work consists of a 32-measure bass line, simple but elegant, over which Bach composes a gracious aria; 30 variations are successively superimposed above (or around) it, culminating in a quodlibet (a comical free-for-all combining bits of various melodies); and then the original Aria returns unadorned. The 30 variations are arranged in sets of three, with each of those sets (except for the last) ending in a canon. Bach takes the particularly impressive tack of showing how a set of canons can successively start at the same level of the scale (Variation 3: Canone all’unisono), then at the pitch interval of a second (Variation 6: Canone alla seconda), a third (Variation 9: Canone alla terza), and so on, step by step, up to the distance of a ninth (Variation 27: Canone alla nona). The achievement is as impressive as it sounds. The non-canonic variations are not less marvelous. Usually grouped so a more virtuosic variation follows a less virtuosic one, they build in a great arc of momentum, cresting in the immense and tragic adagio of Variation 25. Bach divides the 30 variations into two symmetrical halves; and he starts the second half with what he actually labels an Ouverture—a French-style overture which by virtue of its very genre is understood to signify a beginning.
Harpsichordists have first dibs on this piece, since it was written expressly for a two-manual form of that instrument; but pianists have come to possess it, too, and instrumentalists of many other varieties have also laid claim to the Goldbergs over the years. The violinist Dmitri Sitkovetsky recounted: “When I first wrote my transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for String Trio, in 1984, it was both a labor of love and an obsession with the 1981 Glenn Gould recording. For two months I probably had the time of my life, musically speaking, being in the constant company of Johann Sebastian Bach and Glenn Gould.” He went on to create an arrangement for string orchestra in 1992, and then a substantial re-thinking of the string trio version in 2009. Assigning Bach’s melodic lines to individual instruments helps audiences follow the counterpart more easily than when the piece is played on a keyboard instrument.
—James M. Keller
About the Artists
Melissa Kleinbart joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1998 and holds the Katharine Hanrahan Chair. She was previously associate concertmaster with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and assistant concertmaster with the Vancouver Symphony. She has made solo appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, and New York Symphonic Ensemble; participated in the Marlboro and Tanglewood festivals; and performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She is a graduate of the Juilliard School.
Katarzyna Bryla joined the San Francisco Symphony viola section beginning with the 2022–23 season. She was born into a family of musicians and has earned more than two dozen awards in the United States, France, and her native Poland. In 2019 she became a coprincipal violist of Orchestra of St. Luke’s and has also been a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and the New York Pops.
Amos Yang joined the San Francisco Symphony in 2007 as Assistant Principal Cello and holds the Karel & Lida Urbanek Chair. He was previously a member of the Seattle Symphony and a member of the Maia String Quartet. Born and raised in San Francisco, he was a member of the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra and San Francisco Boys Choir, and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School.
Jessie Fellows is Acting Associate Principal Second Violin with the San Francisco Symphony and holds the Audrey Avis Aasen-Hull Chair. Prior to her appointment, she performed frequently with the St. Louis Symphony and New York Philharmonic. Born into a musical family, she began her studies at the age of three under the direction of her mother in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Daniel G. Smith was appointed Associate Principal Bass of the San Francisco Symphony in 2017. He previously served as principal bass of the Santa Barbara Symphony, and he was a member of the San Diego Symphony. He has served as guest principal and associate principal bass with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and guest principal of the Lakes Area Music Festival in Brainerd, Minnesota. He received his Bachelor of Music from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.
Matthew Griffith joined the San Francisco Symphony as Associate Principal and E-flat Clarinet at the beginning of the 2022–23 season. He previously served as acting assistant principal clarinet with the North Carolina Symphony and the Nashville Symphony and was a member of TŌN (The Orchestra Now), a graduate-level training orchestra based at Bard College. He has performed as guest soloist with the Boston Pops, Milwaukee Symphony, Ocean City Pops, Eastern Connecticut Symphony, United States Army Field Band, and “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band.
Steven Dibner served as Associate Principal Bassoon of the San Francisco Symphony from 1983 until his retirement from the Orchestra at the end of last season. He previously played with the New Jersey Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and has performed at the Aspen and Marlboro festivals. He studied at Indiana University and the Juilliard School.
Jesse Clevenger is Acting Assistant Principal Horn with the San Francisco Symphony and has been assistant principal with the Houston Symphony and Sun Valley Music Festival. He has also appeared with the Chicago Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Toledo Symphony.
Katherine Siochi joined the San Francisco Symphony as Principal Harp beginning in the 2023–24 season. She was previously principal harp of the Minnesota Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, and Sarasota Orchestra, and has appeared as a guest with the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic. She was the gold medalist of the 2016 USA International Harp Competition and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School.
Blair Francis Paponiu joined the San Francisco Symphony as Associate Principal Flute, holding the Catherine & Russell Clark Chair, at the beginning of the 2023–24 season. She was previously assistant principal and second flute with the Naples Philharmonic in Florida and performed with the New York Philharmonic for two seasons. She has also been a member of the Austin Symphony and has performed with the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and Oregon Symphony.
Olivia Chen joined the San Francisco Symphony’s second violin section at the beginning of the 2023–24 season. She was a Tanglewood fellow for two summers, serving as concertmaster of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. She has also performed with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and with the Baltimore Symphony. Chen pursued her undergraduate studies at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where she won the Marbury Violin Competition, the Melissa Tiller Violin Prize, and the Sidney Friedberg Prize.
Leonid Plashinov-Johnson joined the San Francisco Symphony viola section in 2022. Previously a member of the St. Louis Symphony, he is a laureate of multiple competitions, most recently the Primrose International Viola Competition, and has participated in the Yellow Barn, Ravinia, and AIMS festivals. Born in Russia, he graduated from New England Conservatory, where he won the concerto competition.
Anne Richardson joined the San Francisco Symphony as Associate Principal Cello at the beginning of this season and holds the Peter & Jacqueline Hoefer Chair. She was most recently an academy fellow with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and has performed with the Verbier Festival Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and Pittsburgh Symphony. As a soloist, she has appeared with the Louisville Orchestra, Massapequa Philharmonic, Bryan Symphony Orchestra, and Juilliard Orchestra. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, she studied at the Juilliard School and the University of Michigan.
Jonathan Vinocour joined the San Francisco Symphony as Principal Viola in 2009 and was previously principal viola of the St. Louis Symphony. As a chamber musician, he is a regular guest of the Seattle Chamber Music Society, La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Marlboro Music Festival, and has performed with Yefim Bronfman, Yo-Yo Ma, Augustin Hadelich, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Igor Levit, and James Ehnes. Vinocour graduated from Princeton University and New England Conservatory and plays on a 1784 Lorenzo Storioni viola on loan from the SF Symphony.
