issue five - Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Bramwell Tovey conductor
For a biography of Maestro Tovey please
refer to page 24.
Baiba Skride violin
Baiba Skride’s growing commitment to
contemporary music sees her world premiere
the double concerto by the Danish composer
Hans Abrahamsen with the Royal Danish and
the Swedish Chamber Orchestras, with her
long established chamber music partner and
sister Lauma Skride. The duo enjoys great
international acclaim following tours of North
America and Japan.
Her celebrated discography includes a
Tchaikovsky CD with the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons,
a duo recording with her sister (Schubert,
Beethoven, Ravel), a solo violin disc (Ysaye,
Bartok, Bach) and two concerto discs (Mozart,
Schubert, M. Haydn; Shostakovich, Janacek),
all for Sony.
Skride was born into a musical Latvian
family in Riga where she began her studies,
transferring in 1995 to the Conservatory
of Music and Theatre in Rostock. Since
November 2010, Baiba plays the Stradivarius
‘’Ex Baron Feilitzsch’’ violin (1734), which is
generously on loan to her from Gidon Kremer.
Nikolai Andreyevich
Rimsky-Korsakov
b. Tikhvin, Russia / March 18, 1844
d. Lyubensk, Russia / June 21, 1908
Le Coq d’or:
Introduction and Wedding March
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was one of the
greatest of Russian composers, one of
a group of five composers who became
champions of Russian music, and a great
teacher and mentor to Igor Stravinsky. Under
the watchful eye of the authorities, Rimsky-
Korsakov – like most Russian composers
of the time – had to tread carefully with his
music, and Le Coq d’or (The Golden Cockerel),
Rimsky-Korsakov’s last opera, did not sit
well with the ruling elite. The opera was
regarded as being subversive, and a satirical
poke at the Tsar’s policies in the war with
Japan. Regardless, the work was staged in
1909, after the composer’s death, and was a
musical success.
The story is based on a poem by Pushkin
(itself based on The Tales of the Alhambra
by Washington Irving) that tells of a golden
cockerel that crows at any sign of danger.
This miraculous bird is given to King Dodon
by an astrologer, a gift that carries with it
the promise of a reward in the future. After
the king takes the exotic queen Shemakah
in marriage, the astrologer reappears,
demanding the queen for himself. The king, in
his anger, kills the astrologer, only to be killed
in turn by the cockerel. The music to which
this story is set is as exotic as the locales and
characters. The Introduction and Wedding
March both carry the feel and atmosphere
of Scheherazade, with Arabian influences
and delicate, though powerful, rhythms and
melodies.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
b. Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia / May 7, 1840
d. St. Petersburg, Russia / November 6, 1893
Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35
Tchaikovsky was pursued by many demons.
His life was prime time material, and
played itself out through his music. Tortured
by conflicting emotions, self doubt and
confusion, Tchaikovsky was capable of
extreme highs and lows in his music – music
which often reflected his own personal
troubles, but also sometimes provided a
context-less escape from his personal woes.
Tchaikovsky’s only Violin Concerto has
taken its place in the pantheon of the most
popular works in the classical repertoire,
though it certainly did not start out its life in
this way. Leopold Auer, the great violinist of
Tchaikovsky’s time, pronounced it unplayable
when presented to him, and the piece did
not receive its debut until December of 1881
with the Vienna Philharmonic, two years after
it was written, with Adolf Brodsky manning
the fiddle. It was not well received, to say the
least. Only later did the piece receive its due
as the masterpiece that it is (Auer eventually
backtracked from his initial petulant
pronouncement, saying he misjudged the
piece and adding it to his repertoire).
52 allegro