A P R O F . J O H N S O N 2 4 - B I T R E C O R D I N G

MICHAEL STERN

KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY

HINDEMITHSymphonic Metamorphosis

of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber

PROKOFIEVThe Love for Three Oranges—Suite

BARTÓKThe Miraculous Mandarin—Suite

MIRACULOUS METAMORPHOSES

lmost as soon asHindemith arrived inAmerica as a refugee

from Nazi Germany, in February1940, he was contacted by thedancer/choreographer LéonideMassine; the two had collaboratedin creating the ballet Nobilissimavisione two years earlier, and hadsigned an agreement to undertakeanother joint effort, tentativelytitled The Parable of the Blind, forwhich Hindemith had devised ascenario based on certain paintingsby Pieter Brueghel (following theexample of his own Mathis derMaler, based on a triptych byMathis Grünewald). Now, however, Massine proposed deferring the Brueghel projectfor an idea of his own, with music to be derived from works by Weber. Hindemith atfirst agreed, after steering the choice of specific pieces from those suggested by Massineto selections of his own, but he soon abandoned the project altogether, as he did notcare for Massine’s plotless outline, or for the notion of his own contributions beingnothing more than mere orchestration, and he was further put off by Massine’s choiceof Salvador Dalí as designer for the nebulous undertaking.

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What had interested Hindemith was the prospect of providing himself with a concert suite, as he had done with his music for Nobilissima visione, which might helphim, as both composer and conductor, meet his expenses in his new American setting.He did not abandon that idea, or that of having some orchestral fun with some of theWeber piano duets he and his wife had enjoyed playing together for years, but he didnothing about this until 1943, when he took up his musical outline again to composethe Symphonic Metamorphosis—which, to round the circle, did eventually become themusic for a ballet, George Balanchine’s Metamorphoses, introduced by the New YorkCity Ballet on September 25, 1952.

Hindemith’s full title is a little misleading, in that he did not select mere themesfrom Weber’s works, but produced settings in his own style of four complete pieces,chosen from two of Weber’s three sets of piano duets and an almost totally forgotten setof theater music. Hindemith’s treatment of this material—the sort of thing Liszt and hiscontemporaries called “paraphrase”—is neither a solemn act of homage to the past nor anirreverent burlesque, but reflects his affection for a revered musical forebear in the mostvital way, with a vigor, warmth of heart and abundant humor to match Weber’s own.

The first of the Symphonic Metamorphosis’s four movements is an ALLEGRO in Aminor, the fourth of the Eight Pieces, Op. 60, which Weber composed in 1818-1819,while working on Der Freischütz. Hindemith’s harmonic and rhythmic treatment givesthe music a quasi-Oriental character, as if by way of prelude to the succeeding movement.

TURANDOT, SCHERZO, an all-out show-stopper, is an adaptation of the marchWeber composed in 1809 as part of his incidental music for Carlo Gozzi’s playTurandot, which was being performed in Schiller’s German translation. Weber foundthe theme, which he used in his overture as well, in Rousseau’s Dictionnaire de musique;Rousseau picked it up from a history of Chinese culture by Jean-Baptiste de Halde,

published in 1735. Hindemith puts the march tune through a sequence of eight variations,in the course of which he gives the percussion a stunning workout. The variation thatfunctions as the scherzo’s trio is a jazz-inflected fugato for the trombones.

As a tranquil interlude between two boisterous sections, Hindemith fashioned the lyricalANDANTINO from a piano duet which Weber composed in the same year as his Turandotscore, the Andantino con moto in C minor, Op. 10, No. 2. For the concluding movement hereturned to the Op. 60 duets and chose No. 7, a rumbustious MARCH in G minor, whichhe transposed to B-flat minor. Following a curt fanfare from trumpets and horns, themomentum builds quickly, and Weber’s outdoorsy trio is given to the horns in full cry. Anenlivening coda consolidates the warm-hearted good humor of what has gone before.

Over the years since this ingratiating work was first heard, there has been someconfusion over its proper title. Hindemith himself affixed the English title as given here,and, as the late Ian Kemp pointed out in his illuminating preface to the score, “he wasextremely annoyed when his German publishers issued the score with his originalEnglish title translated into German.”

While the German titles affixed to this work—and there have been at least threeslightly different ones—all use the plural form Metamorphosen, this does not seem tohave been the basis for Hindemith’s objection: apparently he simply wanted this“American” work to bear an American (i.e., English-language) title. The singular-or-plural controversy over the word Metamorphosis, however, has carried over into pre-sentations of the work under its English title as well, as more than a few musicians andcommentators have regarded the work as a collection of four individual metamorphoses,each of them a treatment of a complete piece and therefore complete in itself. (This wasapparently Balanchine’s interpretation in creating his ballet.) Others, however, arguejust as energetically and just as reasonably in support of the composer’s own original title,

suggesting that the entire work is a single collective metamorphosis, transforming theindividual Weber pieces into a truly symphonic whole, and in fully Hindemithian terms.

This is an issue that may never be fully resolved, and one that could hardly be ofless importance. “Metamorphosis” or “Metamorphoses,” the work is a joy, built on farmore than mere cleverness or technical skills—–a brilliant and ingratiating example ofan esthetic objective clearly defined and superbly realized.

ne link between theHindemith and Prokofievworks offered here is the

18th-century Venetian playwrightCarlo Gozzi. As already noted, Weber’sincidental music for Gozzi’s Turandotprovided Hindemith with the materialfor the most striking section of hisSymphonic Metamorphosis; another Gozziwork, The Love for Three Oranges, servedas the inspiration, and the very name,for a whole community of imaginativeyoung Russian musicians and dramatistsin the years just before the 1917Revolution, when they used the play’stitle as the name of the magazine theypublished, with the scenario of the playprinted in one of the early issues.

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Prokofiev was intrigued by the play’s absurd plot: he found it choice material foran opera, and when he left Russia for the West in May 1918 he took with him a completelibretto which he had written himself, with considerable help from the dramatistVsevolod Meyerhold, who added some colorful characters to those provided by Gozzi.Barely a year later he was delighted to receive a commission from the Chicago GrandOpera Company, which enabled him to go to work on the score. He completed it inOctober 1919, and the opera’s premiere took place in Chicago, with Prokofiev conducting,on December 30, 1921, exactly two weeks after he played the solo part in the premiereof his Third Piano Concerto, in the same city.

Neither “fantasy” nor “absurdity” is a strong enough term to characterize the opera’splot, peopled with witches, monsters, buffoons, and curious refugees from the commedia dell’arte—but then, there is another link with the Hindemith work: the element of charm,which, when applied as effortlessly as here, simply turns the piece into a lovable fairy tale.A handsome young Prince, physically unable to laugh, is in danger of dying of melancholy,despite the most resourceful efforts of all the king’s jesters. An involuntary somersault bythe witch Fata Morgana provides the cure, but she is furious over being laughed at, andplaces the Prince under a curse causing him to fall in love with the description of three hugeoranges, which he sets out to find. When his adventures lead him to the oranges, his servant,Truffaldino, impatiently opens two of them, revealing a beautiful princess inside each—butthe princesses die as soon as they leave their citrus shelter. The Prince himself opens thethird orange, finding a still more beautiful princess (the Princess) inside: he sings a love duetwith her, and then proceeds to deal with the scheming Prime Minister and other adversaries.At the end, the Odd Fellows, who have observed and commented on the action from a boxat one side of the stage throughout the preceding sections of the opera, take an active partin eliminating the obstacles in the way of the young couple’s happiness. In 1925 Prokofiev

selected six episodes of the opera which he rearranged and reorchestrated to form anorchestral suite that was to become one of his most popular works. The suite, all tooseldom heard in full now, exudes a spirit of robust satire as undated as Gozzi’s own and,like Gozzi’s, at once biting and delicious. The sequence is as follows:

THE ODD FELLOWS (or “Eccentrics,” labeled Les Ridicules in the Frenchscore). The opera’s opening fanfare and music from Act I constitute this group portrait.

INFERNAL SCENE. An underworld card game in which Fata Morgana, the powerbehind the Prime Minister, and Celio, the King’s sorcerer, gamble for supreme power.The witch’s triumph is celebrated by a dance of little devils.

MARCH. This piece, which has become notoriously popular on its own,depicts Truffaldino dragging the Prince from his sickbed to the court where attemptswill be made to induce laughter. The March has been appropriated as the theme musicfor a long-running television series about the FBI, as well as TV commercials for variousproducts and services. Prokofiev himself recycled it in his ballet Cinderella, as a not-overlysubtle reminder at a point in the ball scene at the end of Act II in which the Princemakes a gift of three oranges to the titular heroine.

SCHERZO. An interlude representing the passing of time as the Prince andTruffaldino go about their quest for the oranges.

THE PRINCE AND THE PRINCESS. A love duet, the one unabashedly lyricepisode in the opera, with the Princess’s part assigned to the violin and flute, thePrince’s to the cello and bassoon.

FLIGHT (La fuite). Fata Morgana, the Prime Minister and their associated miscreants are routed by the Odd Fellows and are finally swallowed up by an openingin the ground.

f Bartók’s three works forthe theater, only one wasgiven a premiere that was

neither delayed nor controversial. Theballet The Wooden Prince, completed in1916, was introduced in Budapest inMay of the following year, and the successof that work made it possible at last forhis short opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castleto be presented a year later—nearlyseven years after it was written. The secondballet (designated a “pantomime”), TheMiraculous Mandarin, composed in thesame years as Prokofiev’s Love for ThreeOranges, had a similar wait, and its pre-miere, given in Cologne on November27, 1926, was so shocking to the officialguardians of public morals that, since Bartók himself was not present, Eugen Szenkar,the Hungarian conductor who presided over the performance, was reprimanded by thecity’s mayor (who happened to be Konrad Adenauer, remembered now as a postwarchancellor of the German Federal Republic) and further performances were banned.

Actually, although any music accompanying such a dark and violent drama wouldhave to be a long way from the good-natured works that precede The MiraculousMandarin in the present collection, it appears that it was Menyhért Lengyel’s shockingscenario, rather than Bartók’s vivid score, that accounted for the long delay in getting

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the work produced and then aroused most of the antagonism toward it in Cologne.Halsey Stevens provided this classic summary in his invaluable study The Life andMusic of Béla Bartók:

The story, lurid and fantastic, was originally set in a brothelroom, to which a wanton entices men whom her accomplicesbeat and rob. In its various productions (and near-productions)the scene has been changed—to a dark, gas-lit street; to a ravinein a remote mountain fastness—but its locale is unimportantexcept as it affects the décor. After a brief but intense introductionthe curtain reveals a girl and three men; the latter search every-where for money and, finding none, order the girl to the windowto attract men from the street. The first one who appears is athreadbare old cavalier who, despite his lack of money, becomesmore and more insistent until the thugs leap upon him andthrow him out. The girl goes back to the window and lures atimid young fellow whom [she] finds attractive but who, like hispredecessor, is also penniless. He dances with her, shyly at first,then more and more passionately, until the ruffians seize him andthrow him out also. The girl returns to her window and perceivesto her horror the macabre figure of a Mandarin, who comes upthe stairs and stands motionless in the doorway. The girl strugglesto quell her aversion, and dances for him; the dance runs a coursefrom reluctance to sensuality, as the Mandarin’s burning eyes in

his impassive face follow the dancer. She falls into his lap; he trembleswith passion as he embraces her and, frightened, she tries to eludehim. The chase becomes furious; the Mandarin reaches the girland they struggle. The ruffians spring upon him and strip him ofhis jewels and money. Then, debating how to dispose of him,they try first to smother him under the pillows, but he will notdie; his eyes look longingly at the girl. They hang him from achandelier; it falls, and in the darkness the Mandarin glows in agreenish light. Then the girl, overcome with compassion,embraces the Mandarin; his longing fulfilled, his wounds at lastbegin to bleed, and he dies as the curtain falls.

[From The Life and Music of Béla Bartók, by Halsey Stevens.Copyright © 1953, 1964 by Oxford University Press, Inc.Reprinted by permission.]

While such a tale is hardly shocking today, with the brutal realism of actualevents brought into our homes in television news reports, the Europe of the 1920s and’30s reacted strongly. An early production of the Mandarin in Prague took place with-out too much fuss, but that was an exception. It was not until 1931 that the ballet wasscheduled for performance in Budapest, on the occasion of Bartók’s 50th birthday—and that project got no farther than the dress rehearsal. Budapest, as Halsey Stevensobserved, “was not ready for realism of this sort.” By that time, however, the premiereof the concert suite had gone off without a hitch in that very city, and the suite

proceeded to become one of Bartók’s most successful concert works. Ten years laterthere was another abortive attempt to mount the stage work in Budapest, but the ballet was not produced there until 1946, having by then been presented in severalother European cities. The first American production was given in 1951, with newchoreography by Todd Bolender.

The now famous concert suite, first performed on October 15, 1928, by theBudapest Philharmonic Orchestra under Ernst von Dohnányi, is simply the first two-thirds of the ballet score, breaking off at the point at which the Mandarin reaches theyoung woman and their struggle begins—just before her three accomplices set uponhim. Midway through the nine or ten minutes of music following that point in thecomplete score, a wordless chorus is introduced. Most commentators have felt that theinclusion of the final section is pointless without the stage action, thereby agreeingwith the composer that the point at which he chose to end the suite provides an effective conclusion in the strictly musical sense.

—Richard Freed

MICHAEL STERN

Conductor Michael Stern is in his eighth seasonas music director of the Kansas City Symphony,hailed for its remarkable artistic growth anddevelopment since his tenure began. Mr. Sternand the orchestra, joined by an amazingcollection of guest artists, have performed tocritical acclaim and sold-out audiences in their new world-class performance home,Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center for thePerforming Arts.

Mr. Stern is also the founding artistic directorand principal conductor of IRIS Orchestra inGermantown, Tennessee. This unique group,now in its second decade, has been widelypraised for its virtuosity and programming, andhas produced a string of recordings and acclaimedcommissioned new works by American com-posers. Other positions include a tenure as the

chief conductor of Germany’s Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra (the firstAmerican chief conductor in the orchestra’s history) and as Permanent GuestConductor of the Orchestre National de Lyon in France, a position which he held forfive years, and a stint as the Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre National deLille, France.

Michael Stern has led orchestras throughout Europe and Asia, including theLondon Symphony, London Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Orchestrede Paris, Helsinki Philharmonic, Budapest Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel

Philharmonic, Moscow Philharmonic, National Symphony of Taiwan, Tokyo’s NHKSymphony and the Vienna Radio Symphony, among many others.

In North America, Mr. Stern has conducted the New York Philharmonic, ChicagoSymphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, AtlantaSymphony, Houston Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra,Toronto Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Montreal Symphony,Indianapolis Symphony, and the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. He has alsoappeared regularly at the Aspen Music Festival.

Mr. Stern received his music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music inPhiladelphia, where his major teacher was the noted conductor and scholar MaxRudolf. Mr. Stern co-edited the third edition of Rudolf ’s famous textbook, TheGrammar of Conducting, and also edited a new volume of Rudolf ’s collected writingsand correspondence. He is a 1981 graduate of Harvard University, where he earned adegree in American history.

THE KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY

The Kansas City Symphony is theregion’s only full-time professionalsymphony orchestra, setting thestandard for musical excellence.Led by Music Director MichaelStern since 2005, the Symphony

has experienced impressive artistic growth, garnering national and international acclaim.The orchestra's 80 full-time musicians are area residents, and each season they touch thehearts of more than a million people through Classical, Pops and Family concerts; specialholiday events; chamber concerts; major civic gatherings such as Bank of AmericaCelebration at the Station, which draws over 55,000 people, and the Symphony in the FlintHills annual concert. During its 42-week season, the orchestra also presents educationalprograms, community outreach performances, and serves as the orchestra for the LyricOpera of Kansas City and the Kansas City Ballet.

The Symphony’s concerts with internationally celebrated mezzo-soprano JoyceDiDonato were featured on the national PBS Summer Arts Series in July 2012. TheDVD, titled Homecoming: The Kansas City Symphony Presents Joyce DiDonato, is availableat kcsymphony.org and selections from the concert may be downloaded from iTunes. TheSymphony’s second CD for award-winning audiophile label Reference Recordings,Britten’s Orchestra, released in 5.1 surround sound as a dual-layer, multi-channel super-audio CD, won a Grammy® Award in February 2011 for the “Best Surround Sound” category and producer David Frost won the Grammy® for “Best Producer, Classical” withBritten’s Orchestra in his credits. The initial collaboration between the Kansas CitySymphony and Reference Recordings, Shakespeare’s Tempest, was released in July 2008 to

critical acclaim. The Symphony and Michael Stern have also recorded for the Naxos label.The Symphony has taped three nationally broadcast PBS television specials and performedon National Public Radio, including the prestigious Symphony Cast series. Highlights ofClassical Series performances are broadcast Thursdays at 9 p.m. on KCUR-FM 89.3,Kansas City’s National Public Radio affiliate.

Visit the Kansas City Symphony online: kcsymphony.org

DAVID FROST has produced numerous criticallyacclaimed recordings, released by many major andindependent labels. Honors include elevenGrammy® Awards, among them three for ClassicalProducer of the Year. His work for ReferenceRecordings includes two previous titles with theKansas City Symphony. For one of these, “Britten'sOrchestra” (RR-120SACD), Keith O. Johnson andDavid Frost won the Grammy® for Best SurroundSound Album at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards.

As a staff producer at BMG Classics (RCA RedSeal) for nearly a decade, he collaborated with RCA’smost important artists to create dozens of albums.He has been guest faculty at the Banff Centre and the Manhattan School of Music, givingworkshops and lectures on record producing.

An accomplished pianist, David Frost has performed Beethoven’s “Emperor”Concerto at Carnegie Hall and has made two recordings, one titled Romantic Variationsand one of the music of Scott Joplin. He has both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree fromthe Juilliard School of Music.

FIRST VIOLINSSunho Kim

Acting Associate ConcertmasterDorris Dai Janssen

Acting Assistant ConcertmasterGregory Sandomirsky,

Associate Concertmaster EmeritusAlex ShumVladimir RykovAnne-Marie BrownSusan GoldenbergPaul Hatton-SotoJessica Wakefield HaoAnthony DeMarcoTomoko IguchiAndrew FullerRena Ishii* Lisa Jackson

SECOND VIOLINSTamamo Someya Gibbs,

PrincipalKathy Haid Berry,

Associate PrincipalKristin Velicer,

Assistant PrincipalKevin HaoSara HurstMary Garcia GrantEri Kosaka

Karen KleinDavid RepkingFrancesca ManheimNancy BeckmannChiafei Lin

VIOLASChristine Grossman, PrincipalMatthew Rombaum,

Associate PrincipalJessica Nance,

Assistant PrincipalJenifer RichisonLaura FullerMarvin GruenbaumKent BrauningerDuke LeeSean Brumble

CELLOSMark Gibbs, Principal

Robert A. Kipp ChairSusie Yang, Associate PrincipalAlexander East,

Assistant Principal Lawrence FiggRung LeeRichard BellHo Anthony AhnJohn EadieAllen Probus

DOUBLE BASSESJeffrey Kail, PrincipalNancy Newman,

Associate PrincipalRichard Ryan Kenneth MitchellLouis Newman,

Principal EmeritusTodd Lockwood

FLUTESMichael Gordon, PrincipalShannon Finney,

Associate PrincipalDiane Schick

PICCOLODiane Schick

OBOESKristina Goettler, Principal

Shirley Bush Helzberg ChairBarbara Bishop,

Associate PrincipalKenneth Lawrence

ENGLISH HORNKenneth Lawrence

KANSAS CITY SYMPHONYMichael Stern, Music Director - Steven Jarvi, Associate Conductor

CLARINETSRaymond Santos, PrincipalBoris Allakhverdyan,

Associate PrincipalRachael Stutzman*Louis DeMartino

E-FLAT CLARINETBoris Allakhverdyan

BASS CLARINETRachael Stutzman*Louis DeMartino

BASSOONSAnn Bilderback, PrincipalMiles Maner, Associate PrincipalMarita Abner

CONTRABASSOONMiles Maner

HORNSAlberto Suarez, PrincipalDavid Sullivan,

Associate PrincipalElizabeth Schellhase GrayRoss SnyderStephen Multer

Associate Principal Emeritus

TRUMPETSGary Schutza, PrincipalPhilip Clark, Associate PrincipalBrian Rood

TROMBONESRoger Oyster, PrincipalPorter Wyatt Henderson,

Associate PrincipalGraeme Mutchler

BASS TROMBONEGraeme Mutchler

TUBASteven Seward, Principal

TIMPANITimothy Jepson, Principal

PERCUSSIONChristopher McLaurin,

PrincipalJoseph Petrasek,

Associate Principal*Rhett Del Campo*Matthew Henderson*Alan Stewart*James Lee Wyatt III

HARPDeborah Wells Clark, Principal*Katie Wychulis

ORGAN* Jan Kraybill

PIANO*Daniel Velicer

CELESTA*Robert Pherigo

LIBRARIANSElena Lence Talley, PrincipalJennifer Feldman

Justin White,Personnel Manager

Matthew Henderson, Assistant Personnel Manager

* Substitute/Extra Musician

Recorded: February 5-11, 2012 Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Producer: David Frost

Recording Engineer: Keith O. Johnson

Recorded by: Sean Royce Martin

Editing: David Frost

Mastering Engineer: Keith O. Johnson

Executive Producers: J. Tamblyn Henderson, Jr.& Marcia Gordon Martin

Helzberg Hall Images: Marcia Gordon Martin

Design: Bill Roarty & JTH

Special Thanks to the Kansas City Symphony staff: Frank Byrne, Executive Director;Emma Kail, General Manager;

Justin White, Personnel Manager;Rebecca Martin, Director of Artistic Operations;

and the staff of Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing ArtsKansas City, Missouri

Also by the Kansas City Symphony on Reference Recordings:

Shakespeare’s Tempest, RR-115HDCD and HR-115

Incidental music by Sullivan and Sibelius

“Coupling these two works...was a brilliant idea–a ‘concept’album that really makes good musical sense. Happily...the performances are as smart, atmospheric, and vibrantas the music itself...and they're stunningly recorded...”– David Hurwitz, Classics Today

Elgar - Enigma Variations Vaughan Williams - The Wasps / Greensleeves

A new symphonic tour-de-force. This colorful, belovedEnglish music has been captured in brilliant sonics by

GRAMMY® -winning engineer Keith O. Johnson.

Michael Stern / Kansas City Symphony

Available as: RR-129HDCD; RR-129SACD; HR-129; RM-2508 45RPM LP

Complete listings and secure ordering: www.ReferenceRecordings.com