Göteborgs Konserthus University of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

AARON COPLAND (1900-1990) APPALACHIAN SPRING Copland was a child of the new century, and would come to embody the new era's hopes for the American way of life - not least through the cowboy ballets Rodeo and Billy the Kid. His career was long and rich. He was one of Leonard Bernstein's favorite composers. In the 1920s, he had been a student of the legendary Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and then quickly came under the wing of the conductor Koussevitsky. It was for his Boston Symphony Orchestra that he early composed some of his most brilliant works. Although Copland composed in most genres, he has been most noted for his colorful, rhythmically vital and magnificent orchestral music. The art of ballet particularly interested him and in 1943-1944 he composed Appalachian Spring for Martha Graham's ballet group. She premiered it in October 1944. The orchestral theater in the Library of Congress theater in Washington DC is very small, accommodating only an ensemble of 13 musicians, and for such an ensemble the ballet was also composed. But in the spring of 1945, the composer arranged a shortened version of the ballet for symphony orchestra, something that turned out to be his most performed work. It was Martha Graham who chose the title for the ballet, and she took it from a poem by Hart Crane, which really had nothing to do with the plot. The ballet tells the story of a settler community in Pennsylvania at the turn of the last century. In the slow introduction, we get to know the main characters: the settler woman with a habit of moving in the wilderness, the preacher, the young foreman and his fiancée, as well as a group of four women in the preacher's entourage - all participating in the dance. A quiet prayer takes place and then a love duet. The preacher leads a new dance which reveals his Irish background, and several of the people take up their own dances until the preacher blesses the young couple with a new prayer - and here Copland has also included the old salvation tune The Gift to be Simple. The ballet ends with the young couple left alone and strengthened in their new house. Stig Jacobsson

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856) INTRODUCTION AND ALLEGRO APPASSIONATO In 1849, Robert Schumann had seven years left to live, of which the last two were in mental hospitals. His wife Clara gave birth to the son Ferdinand, their sixth child in nine years. She had performed another feat while heavily pregnant. Together with the eldest daughter and Robert, Clara fled Dresden in May, where war had broken out, and then returned alone to collect the rest of the children. Parts of the journey were on foot. Clara also took responsibility for the family by being the breadwinner during the first part of the marriage. It took a while before Robert's solicitation brought in money. Even during her husband's illness and after his death, she continued to support children and later grandchildren. But now the year is 1849 and Robert is pulling in a lot of money himself and working hard. He completes 40 compositions, several of which are major works. Robert Schumann was extremely interested in text in his youth. For a while it was as if he didn't know which should take over, lyrics or music. In his diary he called himself an excellent composer and poet, but no genius. This of course made him interested in setting texts and the spring of 1849 was devoted to choral music and getting the opera Genoveva performed somewhere. It was his first and only opera. Although the plot is reminiscent of Wagner's Lohengrin, it was performed only three times the following year and the critics were not kind. It was better with the music he wrote for Clara, Europe's finest concert pianist. Introduction and Allegro appassionato were written in September and premiered in February of the following year. Schumann himself knew that the form was unusual. A one-act piece with many different parts that are developed and processed, what would it be called? Konzertstück became the name under which it was published. He wrote it while reading Lord Byron. It begins as an accompaniment by the brass of the orchestra. Almost abruptly, the tin whistle interrupts with fanfare-like warnings. Even the audience and critics had difficulty understanding the form and the reception was mixed. The music was written during Schumann's peak as a composer. Katarina A Karlsson

PAINTINGS AT AN EXHIBITION (orchestration Maurice Ravel) Walk · Gnomus · Walk · The Old Castle · Walk · Tuileries · Bydlo · Walk · The Dance of Chickens in Their Eggshells · Samuel Goldenburg and Schmuyle · Walk · Limoges Square · Catacombs · Baba Jaga's Hut · The Great Gate of Kiev In 1874, a large commemorative exhibition of the works of the artist and architect Victor Hartmann could be viewed in St. Petersburg. He had expired the year before, aged only 39. The composer Mussorgsky, who was one of his closest friends, visited the exhibition and was so deeply moved by the memories the paintings evoked that he went home and wrote his piano suite Paintings at an Exhibition. He was so inspired that the music was completed in a very short time. Unfortunately, the music was not published until five years after the composer's death, and it did not really become popular until Ravel orchestrated it in 1922. The suite really consists of paintings set to music and some of them still exist. It all begins with a "walk", a melody that returns in varied form from time to time between the movements and which moves the spectator between the paintings. The walk has been interpreted as a portrait of the plump composer himself as he waddles through the exhibition. Gnomus is a drawing that represents a nutcracker in the form of a toy figure that cracks the nuts with its jaws. The Nutcracker was made for the Christmas tree that decorated the Artists' Club in 1869. The old castle represents a medieval Italian castle with a singing troubadour standing in front of it. In the Tuileries, we meet the children and their nurses as they play in the Parisian park. Bydlo is an old Polish cart with huge wheels, pulled by oxen. The chickens' dance in their eggshells is a small costume sketch for a ballet, Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle portray two Polish Jews, one rich and the other poor. In the square of Limoges we meet French women passionately trying to haggle. "With the dead in a dead language" presents a mournful variation on the theme of the walk that precedes Catacombs, where you see the artist himself with a lantern in his hand descending into the catacombs of Paris. Baba Yaga was a witch in Russian folklore who lived in a hut with four chicken legs - it could run in any direction just as easily. Here Baba Jaga's hut was made in the shape of a table clock. Finally, The Great Gate in Kiev, a never-completed architectural project for a memorial gate, which in the music builds up to a memorial of grand dimensions to the late friend. When you hear this grandiose music, you easily get the impression that the works of art were also masterful. However, the preserved images show that this was not the case at all. On the contrary, it is a matter of fairly simple sketches and small paintings. It was rather memories and feelings that inspired Mussorgsky - he probably had one of Hartmann's paintings on his wall himself. Stig Jacobsson

The core of the orchestra is students of the two-year international master's program in symphonic orchestra playing at the Gothenburg University. The training is unique in its kind and is conducted in collaboration with the Gothenburg Symphony and the Gothenburg Opera. The orchestra projects also include students from the bachelor's program in classical music, a three-year program where the students focuses on chamber music playing and individual development on their instrument. Sometimes students from other music colleges are invited to participate and complement the orchestra. Each academic year, the University of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra performs several orchestral productions and public concerts. Internationally well-known conductors and soloists are engaged for these. Recently, Anja Bihlmaier, Eva Ollikainen, ShaoChia Lü, Olaf Henzold, Patrik Ringborg, Tobias Ringborg, Michel Tabachnik and Steven Sloane have been guests of the orchestra. Among the soloists are pianists Roland Pöntinen and Christian Zacharias, violinists Malin Broman and Antje Weithaas, trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth and singer Kristina Hansson. The orchestra also collaborates every year with the opera education at the University of Stage and Music. The University of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra is an ambassador for the University, supporting the concert and tour activities.

Christian Zacharias started as a pianist and later became active as a conductor. He has been chief conductor of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Principal guest conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony and Artistic Partner of the St Paul Chamber Orchestra. He collaborates regularly with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Berlin Concert Hall Orchestra, the Orchester Nationale de Lyon and the Bamberg Symphony. Christian Zacharias is also a devoted chamber musician. As an opera conductor, he has led productions of Titus and The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), The Merry Wives of Windsor (Nicolai) and The Tales of Hoffman (Offenbach). Among his many critically acclaimed recordings are all of Mozart's piano concertos, Schumann's symphonies and symphonies by C P E Bach (MDG). Since 2020, Christian Zacharias holds the position of Principal Guest Conductor for the Sinfonica Do Porto Casa da Musica and since 2021 for the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada. Since the 2021-2022 season, he is associate conductor of the Orchester National d'Auvergne. In 2020, Zacharias was also named Honorary Conductor of the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra Bucharest. In general, the Classical-Romantic repertoire, especially Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, constitutes an important musical focus for him. He likes to supplement his programs with modern works, such as Schönberg, Britten or Bacewicz. As a pianist, he also gives solo evenings and lectures.