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NASHVILLE SYMPHONY GIANCARLO GUERRERO, conductor

ZUILL BAILEY, cello

ANTONIN DVORÁKConcerto in B minor for Cello and Orchestra, Opus 104

I. AllegroII. Adagio ma non troppoIII. Finale: Allegro moderato

INTERMISSION

AARON COPLANDSymphony No. 3

Molto Moderato, with simple expressionAllegro moltoAndantino quasi allegrettoMolto deliberato - Allegro risoluto

COPLAND’S THIRD

FEATURING FANFARE FOR

THE COMMON MAN

THURSDAY, JUNE 1, AT 7 PM | FRIDAY, JUNE 2, AT 8 PM | SATURDAY, JUNE 3, AT 8 PM

C L A S S I C A L S E R I E SA E G I S

EST. 2013

FOUNDATIONS C I E N C E S

T H A N K YO U TO O U R PA RT N E R S

EDUCATION PARTNER

CONCERT PARTNER

This evening’s performance by Zuill Bailey is underwritten in part by Ellen Harrison Martin.

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TONIGHT’S CONCERTAT A GLANCE

• When Dvorák wrote his Cello Concerto in the 1890s, orchestral works featuring solo cello weren’t common. The composer himself had his doubts, telling one of his students that the instrument wasn’t well-suited to solo performance.

• Dvorák’s attitude changed after hearing fellow composer Victor Herbert — best known today for Babes in Toyland — perform his own Cello Concerto No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic in 1894. The two men were colleagues at the National Conservatory of Music of America, where Dvorák served as director from 1892-95.

• The Cello Concerto was one of several works that he wrote during his stay in America. Another was his celebrated Symphony No. 9 “From the New World.” Unlike that work, however, the concerto does not betray the influence of the composer’s American experience, instead tapping into the Romantic tradition with music of great lyricism and emotion.

• While working on the piece, Dvorák received the news that his sister-in-law Josefina was seriously ill. The Cello Concerto thus became an outlet for the composer to express his profound sadness, and in the years since many historians have speculated on the nature of his relationship with Josefina. In the Adagio movement, the composer quotes the melody from his song “Let Me Be Alone,” which was one of her favorites.

• The soloist for these performances is Zuill Bailey, who earned a 2017 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo, presented for his performance on the Nashville Symphony’s recording of Michael Daugherty’s Tales of Hemingway.

• Serge Koussevitsky, the legendary music director of the Boston Symphony, commissioned Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony in the summer of 1944, at the height of World War II. “I knew exactly the kind of music he enjoyed conducting…,” the composer later wrote, “and I knew the sound of his orchestra, so I had every reason to write a symphony in the grand manner.”

• By this point in his career, Copland had written many of the great narrative-driven works that have come to define his style, including Rodeo, Billy the Kid, and Appalachian Spring. His Third Symphony posed a challenge because he didn’t have a narrative thread to draw on, yet he had to capture a distinctly American spirit.

• Copland shaped the piece in part by incorporating music from his Fanfare for the Common Man, his rousing piece commissioned in 1942 to help boost American morale.

• In his own notes for the piece, he explained, “It contains no folk or popular material. During the late twenties, it was customary to pigeonhole me as a composer of symphonic jazz, with emphasis on the jazz. I have also been catalogued as a folklorist and purveyor of Americana. Any reference to jazz or folk material in this work was purely unconscious.”

• This performance of Copland’s Symphony No. 3 is unique in that it includes the composer’s original ending for the piece, which had been cut down at the insistence of Leonard Bernstein, who conducted the work’s European premiere. For years, orchestras performed the edited version, but two years ago, publisher Boosey & Hawkes reissued a new version of the score restoring the edited material.

AARON COPLANDSymphony No. 3

ANTONÍN DVORÁK Cello Concerto in B minor

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Composed: 1894-95First performance: March 19, 1896, in London, with the composer conducting cellist Leo Stern and the London Philharmonic First Nashville Symphony performance: February 21, 1956, with soloist Gregor Piatigorsky and music director Guy Taylor Estimated length: 40 minutes

Born on September 8, 1841, in the Bohemian village of Nelahozeves; died on May 1, 1904, in Prague

Concerto for Cello in B minor, Op. 104

W ith his Cello Concerto, Antonín Dvořák went far in mapping out an identity for

the modern cello virtuoso. While violinists and pianists had long enjoyed star status as soloists, the cello was still considered less effective as a platform for a solo career. That attitude was shared by Dvořák himself, who had practical experience as a string player from his early years playing viola in Prague’s opera orchestra. He had even attempted writing a cello concerto as early as 1865 but never bothered to orchestrate it, perhaps assuming there would be scant interest in a genre that still lacked familiar repertory models.

Given the status his mature Cello Concerto would acquire, it’s astounding to learn that Dvořák believed “as a solo instrument [the cello] isn’t much good…the upper voice squeaks and the lower growls” — as one of his pupils later recalled him saying. Whatever doubts he harbored about the cello’s soloistic possibilities, he had the prodding of his cellist friend Hanuš Wihan, who repeatedly begged for a concerto. But the real epiphany came when composer, conductor, and cellist Victor Herbert introduced his own Cello Concerto No. 2 in March 1894.

Herbert was a colleague of Dvořák’s at the National Conservatory in New York, which the Czech composer had been invited to helm in

1892. Dvořák became excited by the possibilities Herbert’s piece revealed for using the solo cello expressively and without compromise, even when arrayed against a full orchestra. But it fell to Dvořák to stake out a place for the instrument within the grand Romantic concerto tradition, which he achieved by crafting a score that is epic in scope and emotionally persuasive on every level.

The challenges for the soloist are certainly virtuosic, but Dvořák tellingly rejected Wihan’s suggestion of interpolating additional cadenzas. As it is, the score allots the soloist a Shakespeare-sized role — not in competition with the orchestra (which would be acoustically self-defeating), but instead resounding with empathy.

The overall structure adheres to the conventional three-movement concerto format, but Dvořák also introduces several innovations that conceal programmatic elements of a personal nature. It has long been recognized that Dvořák’s powerful feelings for his sister-in-law Josefina play a central role in the Cello Concerto, likely triggered by the news the composer received of her illness while working on the piece. She died in May 1895, soon after he had returned to Europe; Dvořák subsequently made a significant revision to the finale.

The Josefina question has led to much sentimental fantasizing about Dvořák holding a lifelong torch, with parallels drawn between him and Mozart (who married the sister of the woman who rejected him), though the exact nature of their relationship remains a matter of speculation. Dvořák authority Michael Beckman argues that the Cello Concerto as a whole represents a Requiem, which allowed the composer a vehicle for “meditation on the themes of life, love, and death,” with Dvořák himself “as the narrator-cello hero.”

It fell to Dvorák to stake out a place for the cello in the grand Romantic concerto tradition, which he achieved by crafting an epic, emotionally persuasive score.

ANTONÍN DVORÁK

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AARON COPLAND

Composed: 1944-46 First performance: October 18, 1946, with Serge Koussevitsky leading the Boston Symphony First Nashville Symphony performance: April 26 & 27, 2002, with conductor David Lockington Estimated length: 40 minutes

Born on November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York; died on December 2, 1990, in North Tarrytown, New York

Symphony No. 3

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

Though both the “New World” Symphony and the Cello Concerto were composed

during Dvořák’s three-year stay in America, it is striking that instead of evoking a sense of American “optimism,” these works are suffused with a deeply tragic pathos. Dvořák’s opening movement shows him working on a large, symphonic scale, but one that can accommodate his signature lyricism. As in the “New World,” he develops his ideas with remarkable economy. The entire first movement evolves from the two main themes in the orchestral exposition. The first sets the fundamentally elegiac tone of the Concerto but proves to be ingeniously amenable to development. The second theme, introduced in a much-loved passage for solo horn, echoes the spontaneity and naturalness of Dvořák’s “American” manner — together, both themes almost suggest a microcosm of the Old and New Worlds. An interesting structural feature is that Dvořák uses the horn melody (given by full orchestra, and decked out with fanfares) instead of the first theme to lead off the recapitulation.

The serene opening section of the Adagio initially conveys a pastoral mood, magically scored for woodwinds, into which the cello

threads its eloquent voice. An impassioned interruption casts a sudden pall, setting the music on a new track. In a deeply moving turn, Dvořák introduces a haunting melodic fragment from one of his songs that Josefina declared to be her favorite. The elegiac return of the opening theme is overshadowed by a sense of fragility.

Animated and dance-like, the theme of the rondo finale seems destined to lead, after its various contrasting episodes, to a predictably applause-begging cadenza. Instead, in one of the most poetic passages of any concerto, Dvořák slows down to reintroduce the elegiac glow of the Adagio, now “completing” the quotation of Josefina’s song and fusing it with the tragic theme from the opening movement. The music gradually diminishes, as the composer wrote, “like a sigh, with reminiscences of the first and second movements.” But in the final bars, the orchestra swells with almost frighteningly intense jubilation to end this reverie.

In addition to solo cello, the Cello Concerto calls for 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, and strings.

He is decidedly an icon of American music, yet a closer look at Aaron Copland

suggests a tension between being an “accessible” composer and a “serious” one. In his authoritative biography, Howard Pollack recounts an anecdote the composer enjoyed retelling from the years just after he’d begun composing Hollywood film scores (when he was working on his music for The

North Star, in 1943). Groucho Marx had shown up to listen to a program that included one of his more challengingly Modernist works. When the comedian mentioned he wasn’t familiar with this side of his music, Copland explained, “Well, I have a split personality.” Groucho in turn quipped, “It’s OK, as long as you split it with Sam Goldwyn.”

The Third Symphony, which Copland wrote

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WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

at the apex of his “populist” style, represents his attempt to synthesize these divergent aspects of his art. The symphonic genre tends to be associated with large public statements — like a grand mural in sound, or a major architectural landmark. Although the first two works Copland labeled symphonies were notably unconventional, he clearly set out to emulate this grand, monumental aspect when he undertook his Third Symphony in the summer of 1944, on a commission from the foundation set up by his fervent champion Serge Koussevitsky. “I knew exactly the kind of music he [Koussevitzsky] enjoyed conducting,” Copland later recalled, “and the sentiments he brought to it, and I knew the sound of his orchestra [the Boston Symphony], so I had every reason to do my darndest to write a symphony in the grand manner.”

But the larger historical context also played into how Copland conceived this “grand manner” for the new work. He had begun to develop his

quintessentially American sound because of an urgent need to communicate with a broader audience — a need that became all the more intensified as the Great Depression lingered. Copland initially cultivated his populist style in connection with particular narratives that were connected to ballet, theater, and film: Rodeo, Billy the Kid, Appalachian Spring, The City, Of Mice and Men, and so on.

Composing a symphony in the New Deal era had become akin to writing the Great American Novel. Thus the prospect of writing a large-scale work of abstract music that could speak with similar immediacy presented a different challenge for Copland. An earlier project helped to provide the needed sense of drama. By embedding into the finale the music from his Fanfare for the Common Man — commissioned in 1942 as a morale booster after the U.S. entry into World War II — he found a thrilling solution.

Each of the four movements reflects an arch-like structure (ABA). The wide, open intervals

that are a thumbprint of Copland’s populist style are heard at the opening, while the lengthy first theme conveys a hymn-like sense of assurance. A second theme expands the epic breadth of Copland’s orchestral canvas before the trombones introduce a new theme in the contrasting middle section, which arrives with heightened urgency and an acceleration of tempo. The movement concludes with a restatement of the opening section, now magnificently reimagined and informed by what occurred in the contrasting section, before gradually diminishing to the calm poise of the beginning.

Next comes a vigorous movement launched with a scale-based fanfare theme (taken from one of Copland’s original sketches for the fanfare project). Where many Old World composers

revert to “folk-like” music for the contrasting middle trio section of a Scherzo, Copland supplies a counterpart of Americana in the vein of Rodeo and the like. The following slow movement, like the first, eventually accelerates to a faster-paced central passage and then recedes again back to the opening material. Its haunting main section gives a moving instance of Copland’s unique sense of spare yet lyrical open space, while touches of the jauntier moments from Appalachian Spring animate the middle section.

The finale follows without pause and is the longest of the four movements. It opens with a surprisingly gentle scoring of the famous fanfare, spotlighting the flutes, before the brass blaze forth in full glory. This curious mixture of the tender and the muscular is characteristic of the Third Symphony as a whole. A lively counter-theme is spelled out, while another theme reminds us

Copland had begun to develop his quintessentially American sound because of an urgent need to communicate with a broader audience — a need

that intensified as the Great Depression lingered.

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ABOUT THE SOLOISTS

of the composer’s Latin-influenced music. The tremendous excitement Copland establishes comes to a sudden halt with a shocking chord, but courage is regained as he gathers the previously heard material in preparation for a powerhouse coda.

The actual ending became a sore point for the composer. Leonard Bernstein, a close friend and eventually Copland’s most famous advocate at the podium, led the European premiere in Prague in 1947. “Sweetie, the end is a sin. You’ve got to change,” wrote Bernstein, who proceeded to cut 10 of the final 19 measures without the composer’s consent. Eventually, Copland agreed to authorize the cut (just why is still debated), and it was incorporated into the 1966 edition. But in June 2015 the publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, reissued a new engraving of this quintessentially American symphony with numerous corrections, including a

restoration of the 10-measure cut. For these performances, Maestro Giancarlo

Guerrero has opted to follow that restoration and include the measures that Bernstein had deleted, which recapitulate ideas from the first and final movements. This conclusion seals the Third as Copland’s heroic symphony.

The Symphony No. 3 is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 3 oboes (3rd doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, celesta, piano, and strings

— Thomas May, the Nashville Symphony’s program annotator, is a writer and translator who covers classical and contemporary music. He blogs at memeteria.com.

ZUILL BAILEYCELLO

Z uill Bailey, widely considered one of the

world’s premier cellists, is a GRAMMY®-winning, internationally renowned soloist, recitalist, artistic

director, and teacher. His rare combination of celebrated artistry, technical wizardry, and engaging personality has secured his place as one of the most sought-after and active cellists today.

A consummate concerto soloist, Bailey has performed with orchestras worldwide and has been featured with musical luminaries Leon Fleisher, Jaime Laredo, the Juilliard String Quartet, Lynn Harrell, and Janos Starker. He has appeared at Disney Hall, the Kennedy Center, the United Nations, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd St. Y, and Carnegie Hall, where he made his concerto debut performing the U.S. premiere of Miklos Theodorakis’ Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra. International appearances include performances with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in its 50th anniversary tour of Russia, as well as concerts in Australia, the Dominican Republic, France, Israel,

Spain, South Africa, Hong Kong, Jordan, Mexico, South America, and the United Kingdom.

A renowned recording artist with over 20 titles, Bailey won a 2017 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for his live recording of Michael Daugherty’s Tales of Hemingway with Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony. The release also won GRAMMY® Awards for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Classical Compendium. His celebrated Bach Cello Suites and recently released Britten Cello Symphony/Sonata CD with pianist Natasha Paremski immediately soared to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Classical charts, and his Dvořák Cello Concerto CD is listed in The Penguin Guide as one the Top 1,000 Classical Recordings of all time.

Network television appearances include a recurring role on the HBO series Oz, NBC’s Homicide, A&E, NHK TV in Japan, and a live broadcast and DVD release of the Beethoven Triple Concerto performed in Tel Aviv with Itzhak Perlman conducting the Israel Philharmonic.

Bailey received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and The Juilliard School. He performs on the “rosette” 1693 Matteo Gofriller cello, formerly owned by Mischa Schneider of the Budapest String Quartet.