October 21 & 23, 2010
Thursday-7:30pm | War Memorial Auditorium
Saturday-8:00pm | Dana Auditorium
Classical Voice of North Carolina review>>>
Moscow Nights
Julie Albers, cello
Dmitry Sitkovetsky, conductor
Modest Mussorgsky
Dawn on the Moscow River
Dmitri Shostakovich
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107
Allegretto
Moderato
Cadenza – attacca
Allegro con moto
Julie Albers, cello
Intermission
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Manfred Symphony in B minor, Op. 58
Lento lugubre
Vivace con spirit
Andante con moto
Allegro con fuoco
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Julie Albers is recognized for her superlative artistry, her charismatic and radiant performing style, and her intense musicianship. She was born in 1980 to a musical family in Colorado and began violin studies at the age of two with her mother, switching to cello at four. She moved to Cleveland during her junior year of high school to attend the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music and studied with Richard Aaron. Miss Albers was awarded the Grand Prize at the XIII International Competition for Young Musicians in Douai, France and toured France as soloist with Orchestre Symphonique de Douai.
Julie made her debut with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1998, and thereafter performed recitals and with orchestras in the U.S., Europe, Korea, Taiwan and New Zealand. In 2001 she won Second Prize in Munich’s Internationalen Musikwettbewerbes der ARD, and the Wilhelm-Weichsler-Musikpreis der Stadt Osnabruch. Afterward, she recorded solo and chamber music of Kodaly for the Bavarian Radio, performances heard throughout Europe. In November, 2003, Miss Albers was named the first Gold Medal Laureate of South Korea’s Gyeongnam International Music Competition, winning the $25,000 Grand Prize.
Her 2009–2010 North America engagements included performances with the Florida, Utah, Vancouver, San Diego, Edmonton, Memphis, Syracuse, West Virginia, Santa Rosa and Brevard Symphony Orchestras and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two. She is a member of the Albers String Trio with her two sisters and the cello quartet CELLO.
October, 2005 marked the release of Miss Albers’ debut album on the Artek label. Julie performs on a N. F. Vuillaume cello made in 1872 and lives in New York City with her husband, Bourbon, and their dog, Dozer.
Program Notes:
Modest Mussorgsky
Dawn on the Moscow River
Dawn on the Moscow River is the introduction to Khovanshchina, a five-act opera by Mussorgsky written between 1872 and 1880, but never finished. The opera is the story of the Moscow Uprising of 1682, with the struggle between different political factions during reign of Peter the Great. Khovanshchina was never performed during Mussorgsky’s lifetime; Rimsky-Korsakov finished the opera and this version was first performed in 1886.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107
The virtuoso Soviet cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich was a big fan of Shostakovich’s music and wanted the composer to write a cello concerto for him. When Rostropovich asked Shostakovich’s wife about it, she advised him not to ask the composer about it directly. Some time later, the cellist read a newspaper report saying that Shostakovich has indeed written a cello concerto. Composer and cellist met later that day and Shostakovich asked Rostropovich if the piece could be dedicated to him. Rostropovich got his wish after all.
The premiere was in Leningrad on October 4, 1959. Rostropovich, of course, was the soloist, and had ust memorized the concerto in the preceding four days. The overall form of the work is similar to many concerti: three movements arranged fast, slow, fast. But added to these movements is an extended cadenza after the second movement that leads directly into the finale.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Manfred Symphony in B minor, Op. 58
Manfred is a dramatic poem written by Lord Byron in 1816-17. It tells the story of the supernatural Manfred who is tortured by guilt, defies redemption, and commits suicide. Tchaikovsky knew the story and set it to music in 1885. Although it is considered a “programmatic symphony” and was written between his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, the Manfred Symphony is the composer’s only symphony that remained unnumbered.
Tchaikovsky took the Byron’s story and broke it into four sections, which he used as the program of the four movements of the work.
- Manfred wanders in the Alps. Weary of the fatal question of existence, tormented by hopeless longings and the memory of past crimes, he suffers cruel spiritual pangs. He has plunged into occult sciences and commands the mighty powers of darkness, but neither they nor anything in this world can give him the forgetfulness to which alone he vainly aspires. The memory of the lost Astarte, once passionately loved, gnaws his heart and there is neither limit nor end to manfred's despair.
- The Alpine fairy appears before Manfred in the rainbow from the spray of a waterfall.
- A picture of the bare, simple, free life of the mountain folk.
- The subterannean palace of Arimanes. Infernal orgy. Appearance of Manfred in the middle of the bacchanal. Evocation and appearance of the shade of Astarte. He is pardoned. Death of Manfred.
Preludes
Learn more about the evening’s music with Dr. Joan Titus, Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Prelude on Thursday, October 21 begins at 6:45 p.m. on the Mezzanine level of the War Memorial Auditorium. The Prelude on Saturday, October 23 begins at 7:00 p.m. in the Moon Room at Dana Auditorium.
Meet the Artist
Join us after the Thursday
evening concert for a brief question and answer
session held at the front of the stage with our
guest artist and Dima.
Radio Broadcast
WFDD will broadcast this
concert on Sunday, January 16 at 8:00 p.m.
“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”
SERGEI RACHMANINOV
