Program Notes | Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Augustin Hadelich

Daniel Bernard Roumain
Born: December 11, 1971, in Margate, Florida
Composed: 2020
World Premiere: November 19, 2020 at NJPAC in a virtual concert; Xian Zhang conducted.
Duration: 5 minutes
Instrumentation: flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, percussion and strings

The New Jersey Symphony’s Resident Artistic Catalyst Daniel Bernard Roumain – who goes by his monogram DBR – is busier than ever. He is expanding his role as a composer for cinema; recent film scores include Ailey (2021), a documentary about the visionary choreographer who found salvation through dance; Lynching Postcards (2021), a documentary short film directed by Christine Turner; and The Holly (2022), about five bullets, one gun, and the struggle to save a gentrifying neighborhood in Denver.

Roumain continues to serve on the faculty at Arizona State University and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, a position he describes as a dream come true. “From my first days on campus, there’s a freedom of imagination that allows me to be vulnerable, take risks, and ask the deep, probing questions required of any artist,” he has written. “I design classes that I feel are needed to be taught; I collaborate with students and faculty on an array of programs, special projects, and concert experiences; I create and compose new works for artists and ensembles, worldwide, from creative spaces that are vital to my creative practice; and I’ve created DBR Lab which allows students to plan, design, and present their own work as they start or deepen their careers.”

He has also developed EN MASSE, an immersive musical experience designed to work in both large public spaces (squares, stadiums, parks) as well as contained spaces (theaters, warehouses). According to his web site, it can last anywhere between 30 minutes to an entire day. EN MASSE was commissioned by the Mitchell Center for the University of Houston “Spirit of Houston” Marching Band. It was conceived as a “deconstructed parade” with music direction by Roumain. The band members took over Houston’s public park Discovery Green, creating a cross between a flash mob and a pep rally, a processional and pop-up recital.

Amid these geographically far-flung and time-consuming projects, Roumain remains active as a performing violinist – and he is also fulfilling a busy schedule of commissions. i am a white person who _____ Black people is a relatively recent example. Roumain’s composer’s note explains its genesis, title and subtext.

This work was commissioned by the New Jersey Symphony, Xian Zhang, Music Director, for the opening of the 2020–21 virtual New Jersey Symphony season. It was composed during a series of overlapping crises in our lives: a pandemic; a global fight for social justice; the effects and awareness of climate change; an array or economic collapses; and the tyranny of an electoral process under siege by a president and his party. As a Black, Haitian-American composer, every commission offers a choice. The titles of my work often speak to my feelings and (political) position.

With i am a white person who _____ Black people, I am extending what has traditionally been my choice given to any white person: how do you see me and other BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) people, and what choice of word or phrase best reflects your opinion of Black people? Your choice, in part, reflects who you are.

The music reflects a kind of deliberate dance among all these brilliant musicians, safely and physically distanced on stage for the premiere, in a time when making music might mean ending a life. Every note and every breath, then, becomes urgent, passing, and precious. We all need to be cautious about the choices we have made and will make, and in this, yes, Black Lives Matter, and always have and will. Alive and here,

                                                                        Daniel Bernard Romain (DBR)

In an interview at the time of the premiere, Roumain acknowledged that he struggled with the title. Ultimately, he said, the title comes from where he is as a Black human at this moment. “A title can speak to the moment. I started to ask myself, can a title allow for participation?” The concept was for the conductor, the musicians, and the audience to consider how they feel about and respond to Black people. “They can determine for themselves how to answer, how to fill in the blank.” He adds that he wanted the piece to be mournful, a memorial for the plight, trauma, and times of Black people in America. His thoughtful musical canvas delivers a full spectrum of emotional experience, opening with reverent solemnity and moving through agitated, turbulent passages that evoke America’s impassioned, sometimes violent history. The journey will be individual and personalized for each listener.

Because of Covid protocols, the original version of i am a white person who _____ Black people was limited to strings and percussion. For these performances, Roumain has re-orchestrated the piece to incorporate wind instruments that match those of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. These are the first performances of the newly orchestrated version.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Born: December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany
Died: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria
Composed: July–December 1806
World Premiere: December 23, 1806 at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna; Franz Clement was the soloist.
Duration: 42 minutes
Instrumentation: flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, solo violin and strings

Beethoven wrote his only Violin Concerto for Franz Clement (1780–1842), an Austrian violinist, conductor and composer who led the violin section at the Vienna Opera. Clement is said to have sightread the piece at the premiere, because Beethoven finished writing it only at the last minute. If that apocryphal story is true, it may account in part for the fact that this concerto took a long time to win friends before it became a staple on concert programs.

After its premiere in 1806, the Violin Concerto received only one additional documented performance during Beethoven's lifetime, and that in Berlin rather than Vienna, Beethoven's adopted city. The 19th century favored flashy showpieces for its soloists, and this concerto does not focus on the violinist's brilliant technique. Beethoven studied repertoire of his contemporaries Giovanni Battista Viotti, Rodolphe Kreutzer, and Jacques-Pierre Rode to become more conversant with the technical possibilities of the violin.

But display for its own sake never overtakes the broader musical architecture of this mighty work. Among Beethoven's own compositions, the Violin Concerto's closest spiritual sibling is the Fourth Piano Concerto, Op. 58, with which it shares serenity, absolute conviction in its own inherent balance, and a lack of need for overt display.

A timpani pattern of five gentle taps opens the concerto and become its recurring motif. From this pattern springs the entire first movement: its leisurely, unhurried pace, its emphasis on internal examination rather than external show, and the motivic cells from which Beethoven develops his ideas. These five beats are a stable foil to the woodwind theme, marked dolce, that answers them and eventually emerges as the principal melody of the movement. The same five strokes, understated yet inexorable, firmly anchor the first movement in the tonic key of D. They are a welcome homing point in light of the disorienting and unexpected D-sharps (significantly, repeating the same rhythm of the opening timpani strokes) that the first violins interject as early as the tenth measure.

Beethoven takes subtle liberties with form in this expansive first movement. For example, he reserves the cantabile second theme for the orchestra until the coda, when his soloist finally has its turn at that lovely melody.

Built on variation principles, the Larghetto is sheer embroidery. It is lovingly scored: only muted strings and pairs of clarinets, bassoons and horns accompany the soloist. The mood is comfortable, intimate, friendly. Beethoven's geniality carries through to the Rondo finale, a foray into near-irresistible foot-tapping that wields its power even on those who have heard the music dozens of times. The double-stopped episodes are the only such occurrence in the concerto. Taking unusual and beguiling advantage of the violin's upper register, the finale provides wonderful opportunities for a soloist to display discerning taste and polished execution.

For these performances, Mr. Hadelich has chosen the cadenza by Fritz Kreisler.

Modest Mussorgsky (composer)
Born: March 21, 1839, in Karevo, Pskov District, Russia
Died: March 28, 1881, in St. Petersburg, Russia

Maurice Ravel (orchestrator)
Born: March 7, 1875, Ciboure, Basses-Pyrenées, France
Died: December 28, 1937, in Paris, France

Composed: In the 1870s for piano; published posthumously in 1887. Ravel’s orchestration is from 1922.
World Premiere: October 19, 1922 in Boston; Serge Koussevitzky conducted the Boston Symphony.
Duration: 35 minutes
Instrumentation: three flutes (second and third doubling piccolo), three oboes (third doubling English horn), two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, alto saxophone, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, chimes, glockenspiel, ratchet, snare drum, suspended cymbal, tamtam, triangle whip, xylophone), two harps, celesta and strings

The trumpet solo that opens Pictures at an Exhibition is one of the most recognizable melodies in all classical music. It is also one of the most personal: a self-portrait of the composer who casts himself in the principal role of the visitor wandering through the exhibition of the title. The other principal character, who appears vicariously through his paintings, is Victor Hartmann, a prominent Russian artist and close friend of the composer’s. When Hartmann died in 1873 at age 39, Mussorgsky was shattered, for the two young men had shared artistic ideals and ambitions.

The following year, an exhibition of Hartmann's paintings, watercolors and architectural drawings was organized in St. Petersburg by Vladimir Stassov, who was at the time Director of Fine Arts at the Imperial Library. In an attempt to illustrate some of the paintings in music and pay tribute to his friend, Mussorgsky commenced work on a set of piano pieces. The resulting composition, Pictures at an Exhibition, remains one of the cornerstones of the virtuoso keyboard repertoire. The cycle was published posthumously in 1887. The celebrated Russian-born conductor Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Maurice Ravel’s orchestration of Pictures in 1922.

The succeeding generation of Russian composers busied itself not only by composing new works, but also with completing those left behind by composers who had died young, including Borodin and Mussorgsky. Mikhail Tushmalov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov were among the first of many composers to arrange Pictures for large ensemble; however, not until Maurice Ravel put his magical hand to the score of Pictures in 1922 did it find a permanent place in concert programs.

Pictures is ingenious in both its piano and orchestral incarnations. Structurally it is a suite of ten miniatures connected by a recurring interlude that is slightly varied each time it returns. Mussorgsky's musical precedent for such an idea is the large programmatic solo piano works of Robert Schumann, particularly Papillons, Carnaval, and Kreisleriana. Other striking parallels between Mussorgsky and Schumann come to mind in a consideration of Pictures. Like his German predecessor, Mussorgsky composed best in the first flush of inspiration; the refinement of ideas often presented problems. Writing to Vladimir Stassov (the eventual dedicatee of the piano pieces) in June 1874, Mussorgsky exclaimed:

Hartmann is bubbling over, just as Boris did. Ideas, melodies come to me of their own accord, like the roast pigeons in the story — I gorge and gorge and overeat myself. I can hardly manage to put it all down on paper fast enough.

The immediacy of Mussorgsky's impressions keeps them as fresh and vivid as the colors of Hartmann's paintings. His incisive portraits of human nature are some of the finest in all music: women haggling over market prices at Limoges in search of a daily bargain; and children squabbling at play in the gardens of the Tuileries; Mussorgsky himself was especially fond of the several Promenades, and they remain the closest we have to a musical self-portrait of this elusive Russian composer.

Ravel orchestrated Mussorgsky's Pictures in 1922. He was commissioned to do so by the celebrated Russian-born conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who was based in Paris from 1920 to 1924. Koussevitzky owned the exclusive rights to the orchestral version for many years.

Xian Zhang is currently in her eighth season as music director of the New Jersey Symphony, which celebrated its centennial last season. Zhang also holds the positions of principal guest conductor of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conductor emeritus of Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, having previously held the position of music director between 2009–2016.

In high demand as a guest conductor, Zhang juggles an exceptionally busy diary of guest engagements alongside her titled commitments. Throughout 2024, she conducts Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Anthony Minghella’s acclaimed production features a starry cast with Aleksandra Kurzak, Eleanora Buratto and Asmik Grigorian sharing the role of Cio-Cio-San, and Matthew Polezani as Pinkerton.

Following a busy summer 2023 season which saw her conducting Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, Zhang’s upcoming symphonic highlights include returns to the Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Houston Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s and National Symphony Orchestra (D.C.). Zhang remains a popular guest of London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, NAC Ottawa, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Belgian National Orchestra and Norwegian Opera where she returned last season for Puccini’s Tosca.

Letters for The Future (released 2022), Zhang’s recording on Deutsche Grammophon with Philadelphia Orchestra and Time for Three, won multiple GRAMMY® awards in both the Best Contemporary Classical Composition (Kevin Puts’ Contact) and Best Classical Instrumental Solo categories.

Zhang previously served as principal guest conductor of the BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales, the first female conductor to hold a titled role with a BBC orchestra. In 2002, she won first prize in the Maazel-Vilar Conductor’s Competition. She was appointed New York Philharmonic’s Assistant Conductor in 2002, subsequently becoming their Associate Conductor and the first holder of the Arturo Toscanini Chair.

Known for his phenomenal technique, insightful and persuasive interpretations and ravishing tone, Augustin Hadelich appears extensively around the world’s foremost concert stages. He has performed with all the major American orchestras as well as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Concertgebouworkest, London Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo and many other eminent ensembles.

For the 2023–24 season opening, Hadelich performs the German premiere of Donnacha Dennehy’s Violin Concerto, composed for him, together with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin as part of the Musikfest Berlin. He is soloist at the season opening concerts of the Orchestre National de France and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

In North America, he plays with The Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as the symphony orchestras in San Francisco, St. Louis, San Diego, Houston, Indianapolis, New Jersey and Vancouver.

Hadelich’s catalogue of recordings covers a wide range of the violin literature, including a GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo in 2016 for his recording of Dutilleux’s violin concerto L’Arbre des songes.

Augustin Hadelich, now an American and German citizen, was born in Italy to German parents. He studied with Joel Smirnoff at New York’s Juilliard School, and has won many competitions and prizes, including the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2019.

He plays a violin by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù from 1744, known as “Leduc, ex Szeryng”, on loan from the Tarisio Trust.