#sandiegosymphony
Weilerstein and Payare Perform Chin and Bruckner
ABOUT THE CONCERT
Rafael Payare, conductor
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
San Diego Symphony Orchestra
UNSUK CHIN: Cello Concerto
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 7 in E Major
The approximate running time for this concert, including intermission, is one hour and fifty-five minutes.
South Korean composer Unsuk Chin has spent most of her working life in Germany where, as a young artist in Berlin, she absorbed many of the acoustic enthusiasms of European modernists in the late 20th century while swiftly building a distinctive language of her own. Her cello concerto, widely described as a triumph at its first appearance many years ago, has been taken up by many cellists and most recently by our own Alisa Weilerstein. Weilerstein’s mastery of drama and plangent lyricism is the perfect match for Unsuk Chin’s defiant and expressive music.
Anton Bruckner had a deep influence on Gustav Mahler, who loved and admired him passionately. But perhaps his deepest roots lay in the folk-music of the Austrian countryside where he grew up, and in the church music of centuries ago. He himself was an organist and church musician of great distinction, but – more than that – a man of deep religious feelings, and his music vividly reflects that. The Seventh, one of his later symphonies, often makes the orchestra sound like a colossal organ in an ancient medieval church. Indeed, this symphony has often been described as nothing short of a cathedral in sound. It would be hard to imagine music better suited to exploring the deepest resonances of our beautiful new hall, especially under the baton of music director Rafael Payare.
Pre-Concert Talk
Drinks Status: Enjoy Beverages in the Lobbies
Inside the Music
Age and Seating Guideline
Pre-Paid Parking
Come enjoy a pre-concert talk covering highlights and backstories of this program, one hour before concert-time.
Guest speaker for this weekend: Texu Kim, SDSU Associate Professor of Music Composition/Theory.
For this classical music concert, drinks purchased inside Jacobs Music Center should only be enjoyed in the lobbies pre-concert or during intermission, and should not be brought inside the concert hall.
Composer Anton Bruckner
ANTON BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY NO. 7 IN E MAJOR
Composed: 1885
Length: 70 minutes
Orchestration: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 4 Wagner tubas, and 1 contrabass tuba, timpani, cymbals, triangle, full strings
It is a revealing and painful truth that when Anton Bruckner achieved his first real public success with the premiere of his Seventh Symphony in 1884, he was 60 years old. Bruckner had composed his Sixth Symphony during the years 1879-81, but so great was the resistance to his music that he heard only the middle two movements of that symphony performed during his lifetime. Yet within two weeks of finishing the Sixth, Bruckner was already at work on his Seventh, which required two years of work: it was completed on September 5, 1883. Conductors had been reluctant to take Bruckner’s music before audiences, but the great Arthur Nikisch was won over when he saw the score to the Seventh and led the premiere in Leipzig on December 30, 1884.
From the moment of that triumphant premiere, the Seventh Symphony has remained the most popular of Bruckner’s symphonies, and for good reason. From the luminous beauty of its opening to the ringing splendor of its conclusion an hour later, this is one of Bruckner’s most melodic, exciting and moving works. The opening of the Allegro moderato is among the most magic moments in music: over murmuring violins, cellos rise from out of the depths to soar with the noble opening subject. This truly is a Bruckner theme: it takes over a minute to unfold completely, it is already brushing through unexpected tonalities as it is stated for the first time, and within its span are several component ideas that will figure importantly in the development.
"One day I came home and felt very sad. The thought had crossed my mind that before long the Master [Richard Wagner] would die, and then the C-sharp minor theme of the Adagio (the second movement) came to me"
- Anton Bruckner
Yet there is much more material to come: the second subject unfolds gracefully in the woodwinds (in B Major), and moments later the third – a dancing figure for strings – arrives in B minor. Over the twenty-minute span of the opening movement, Bruckner will treat these themes in quite original ways: they appear in inversion, at moments they are combined, and they will reappear in totally unexpected keys. Bruckner also blurs the clear outlines of the classical symphony: themes do not return in the “correct” sequence or key. And Bruckner simply collapses the distinction between development and recapitulation: we reach the climax of this movement almost unaware of the mastery by which we have arrived.
- Excerpt of program notes by Eric Bromberger
For Jacobs Masterworks concerts, only children ages five years and older will be allowed into the concert hall. These children must have a ticket and be able to sit in an un-accompanied seat.
Ace Parking has provided a DEDICATED JACOBS MUSIC CENTER PARKING PRE-PURCHASE PAGE for upcoming events at JMC.
- Jacobs Masterworks
Choose a date below to see details.
Time  |
7:30 PM |
Venue  |
Jacobs Music Center |
Ticket Price  |
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| Time |
2:00 PM |
| Venue |
Jacobs Music Center |
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Check out 3 THINGS about this upcoming Jacobs Masterworks classical concert!