MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRAThe Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) gave its inaugural performance at Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (DFP) on 17 August 1998. With the initial search for outstanding musicians involving a worldwide audition tour, the result was a symphony orchestra made up of musicians from 25 nations, including Malaysians, a remarkable example of harmony among different cultures and nationalities.

A host of internationally-acclaimed musicians have performed with the MPO including Lorin Maazel, Sir Neville Marriner, Yehudi Menuhin, Joshua Bell, Harry Connick Jr., José Carreras, Andrea Bocelli, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Chris Botti and Branford Marsalis, many of whom have praised the MPO for its fine musical qualities and vitality.

With each new season, the MPO continues to present an exciting programme of orchestral music drawn from over three centuries, as well as the crowd-pleasing concert series. Its versatility transcends genres, from classical masterpieces to film music, pop, jazz, traditional, contemporary and commissioned works.

The MPO regularly performs in major cities of Malaysia.Internationally, it has toured Singapore (1999, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2018), Japan (2001, 2009 and 2017), Korea (2001), Australia (2004), China (2006), Taiwan (2007) and Vietnam (2013). The MPO has also released 21 commercial CDs.

Its Education and Outreach Programme (ENCOUNTER) reaches beyond the concert platform to develop musical awareness and appreciation through dedicated activities at such diverse venues as schools, colleges, hospitals and community centres.

The MPO’s commitment to furthering musical interest in the nation has been the creation of the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (MPYO); its debut concert at DFP in 2007 was followed by a Peninsula Malaysia tour. The MPYO has also performed in Sabah and Sarawak, Singapore, Brisbane and Hong Kong.

The MPO remains steadfast in its mission to share the depth, power and beauty of great music. Its main benefactor is PETRONAS and its patron is YABhg. Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Haji Mohd Ali.

All details are correct at time of printing. Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS reserves the right to vary without notice the artists and/or repertoire as necessary. Copyright © 2019 by Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (Co. No. 462692-X). All rights reserved. No part of this programme may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright owners.

Sat 15 June 2019 at 8.30 pmSun 16 June 2019 at 3.00 pm

Malaysian Philharmonic OrchestraMark Wigglesworth, conductor

Grace Clifford, violin

PROGRAMME

MENDELSSOHNViolin Concerto in E minor 27 mins

INTERVAL 20 mins

MAHLERSymphony No. 1 in D major – Titan 56 mins

MARk WIGGLESWORTHconductor

Internationally renowned and Olivier Award-winning conductor Mark Wigglesworth is one of the outstanding musicians of his generation, as much at home in the opera house as the concert hall. Recognised for his masterly interpretations, his highly detailed performances combine a finely considered architectural structure with great sophistication and rare beauty. Through a broad repertoire ranging from Mozart to Boulez, he has forged enduring relationships with many orchestras and opera houses throughout the world. His book The Silent Musician: Why Conducting Matters was published in October by Faber & Faber.

Wigglesworth has enjoyed a long relationship with English National Opera (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Così fan Tutte, Falstaff, Katya Kabanova, Parsifal, The Force of Destiny, Magic Flute, Jenufa, Don Giovanni, and Lulu), and operatic engagements elsewhere include The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), The Metropolitan Opera, New York (The Marriage of Figaro) as well as at The Bavarian State Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Teatro Real, The Netherlands Opera, La Monnaie, Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne, and Opera Australia. In 2017, he received the Oliver Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera.

On the concert platform, highlights include performances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, and Sydney Symphony. His recordings include a critically acclaimed complete cycle of the Shostakovich Symphonies with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Mahler’s Sixth and Tenth symphonies, with the Melbourne Symphony, a disc of English music with the Sydney Symphony, Britten’s Peter Grimes with Glyndebourne, and Brahms Piano Concertos with Stephen Hough.

He has written articles for The Guardian and The Independent, made a six-part TV series for the BBC entitled Everything to Play For, and held positions as Associate Conductor of the BBC Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony, Music Director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and most recently, Music Director of English National Opera. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

© Sim Canetty-Clarke

GRACE CLIffORDviolin

Grace Clifford is quickly gaining a reputation as one of Australia’s finest young violinists. She is currently in her fourth year of a Bachelor of Music degree at Curtis Institute studying with Pamela Frank and Ida Kavafian and immediately prior with the late Joseph Silverstein. From 2009 to 2014, she was in the Rising Stars programme at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music studying with Dr Robin Wilson who continues to be a mentor. During this time, she was awarded several prizes at the highest international level and enjoyed many wonderful performance experiences in Australia culminating in winning the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year award in 2014.

Clifford performs with Australia’s leading orchestras and conductors with recent and future highlights including with the Adelaide Symphony, Mark Wigglesworth and Nicholas Carter, West Australia Symphony and Leo Hussain, Canberra Symphony and Nicholas Milton, and Melbourne Chamber Orchestra.

She has enjoyed collaborations with the Sydney Symphony and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. She was appointed as the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s first ever Emerging Artist in Association for seasons 2018 and 2019.

Equally committed to chamber music, Clifford is a regular guest with Selby and Friends. She recently made her debuts at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music and Ravinia Festival’s Summer Academy, and looks forward to making her debut with Recitals Australia this season.

The two works on this programme are sharply contrasted in style. Mendelssohn’s concerto is renowned for its polish, poise and elegance. Mahler’s symphony, on the other hand, draws on an incredible range of sonorities, from the almost inaudible beginning (“like a sound of nature”, he wrote in the score) to the seismic upheaval that opens the fourth movement to the spectacular blaze of sound that closes the symphony.

fELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)Violin Concerto in E minor (1838-1844)

I. Allegro molto appassionato – II. Andante – III. Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace The Background

The facility, polish and effortless grace found in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto totally belie its creator’s struggle to compose it. This enormously popular concerto, Mendelssohn’s last major composition, occupied him for over five years (1838-1844), during which he carried on a lively exchange of ideas about the structural and technical

details with the concerto’s dedicatee, violinist Ferdinand David (1810 -1873). When Mendelssohn became conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, he instated David as his concertmaster. At the concerto’s premiere on 13 March 1845 by Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra with Niels Gade conducting, David was of course the soloist. Trained in the classical tradition, Mendelssohn nevertheless possessed a romantic streak which manifested itself in the poetic fantasy that infuses his music, and in the liberties he took with regard to formal construction (all three movements are joined, with no formal pauses to break the flow).

The Music

There is no opening orchestral introduction. The soloist enters with the first theme almost immediately. There are two main themes, exposed and developed as one would expect, but the cadenza, which normally would appear near the end of a concerto’s first movement, in this work is placed before, not after, the recapitulation. The term “well-bred” is often invoked to describe this concerto, and it is nowhere more appropriate than in describing the quiet rapture and poetic beauty of the second movement’s main theme. A moment of sweet melancholy in A minor intrudes briefly, with trumpets and timpani adding a touch of agitation. The principal theme then returns in varied repetition, and a gently yearning passage, again in A minor, leads to the finale. As in the two previous movements, the soloist announces the principal theme, one of elfin lightness and gaiety.

PROGRAMME NOTES

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GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911)Symphony No. 1 in D major - Titan (1884-1888)

I. Langsam. Schleppend. “Wie ein Naturlaut” – Immer sehr gemächlich (Slow. Dragging. “Like a sound of nature”. – Always very easygoing) II. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell (With vigorous movement, yet not too fast) Trio: Recht gemächlich (Well moderated) III. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppend (Solemn and measured without dragging) IV. Stürmisch bewegt (Stormily)

The Background

With the sole exception of Brahms, and possibly Sibelius, there is probably no other composer than Gustav Mahler whose First Symphony represents such a towering achievement in purely symphonic thought (Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique was out-and-out program music). But, while Brahms was 43 when his First Symphony was completed, and Sibelius was well into his thirties, Mahler was just 28 when he finished his. The first performance took place in Budapest on 20 November 1889 with the composer conducting. In 1896, Mahler eliminated the so-called “Blumine” (Flowers) movement, which did not resurface until 1959. Among the innovations one can point to in this symphony are the largest assemblage of orchestral musicians hitherto required in a symphony, and the incorporation of café, pop and gypsy music into the third movement. The evocation of nature in a symphony had been realized before (notably in Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique) but nowhere else are the very sounds of nature so pervasively and integrally bound up with the symphonic thought than in the first movement of Mahler’s First. The subtitle “Titan” refers to a novel by Jean Paul.

The Music

The opening moments of the work are unforgettable ̶ that sustained, distant sound of strings spread across a six-octave range vividly suggests the mystery and peace of the night into which are interjected cuckoo calls, far-off fanfares and fragments of still-unformed melodies. Mahler described the passage as depicting the awakening of nature from its long winter sleep. The mood of the lengthy slow introduction is finally dispelled by the sprightly theme of Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld, (one of the Songs of a Wayfarer, first heard in the cellos), followed by another lusty, outdoorsy theme. The music grows in fervour and intensity, culminating in a mighty outburst from the entire orchestra. The release of enormous, pent-up energy is crowned by three great whoops from the horn section, and the movement continues on its merry way to its ultimate conclusion.

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The robust scherzo movement is notable for its heavy rhythmic impulses derived from the Ländler, a rural Austrian dance. Special effects here include the use of the woodwind section en masse (often up to twelve players) in featured roles, breathtaking fanfares from the horns and trumpets, and signals from the “stopped” horns with their bells raised (“stopped” here meaning the players’ right hands are pushed deep into the bells, choking off the sound). A charming Trio, introduced by a poetic horn call, provides gentle contrast.

The third movement opens with a sinister, minor-key variant of the popular French folksong “Frère Jacques” (“Bruder Martin” in German-speaking lands). The original title of “Funeral March” refers to Mahler’s parodistic portrayal in sound of a mock funeral procession, depicted in a book of Austrian fairytales. Beasts of the forest accompany a dead woodsman’s coffin to his grave. The use of a double bass instead of a cello to begin the “Frère Jacques” tune adds a touch of the grotesque. The tune is used as a canon, or round, with additional instruments taking up the tune in turn (bassoon, cellos, tuba, etc.) without waiting for the previous one to finish. After this material has run its course we hear a new, sentimental theme in the oboes, this one also bearing a counter-theme, now in the trumpets. Suddenly the sounds of a country fair intrude, music of a gypsy band with its corny melodies and relentless “um-pah” accompaniment. And then, as if from another world, Mahler offers an interlude of quiet repose ̶ almost a dream sequence ̶ in music of sublime beauty and gossamer textures. Eventually the mournful “Frère Jacques” music returns and the movement slowly recedes into the furthermost reaches of audibility.

Anyone who has dozed off to the third movement’s funereal tread will be instantly and rudely shocked back to his senses with the hellish outburst that opens the finale. Strings swirl and rage, woodwinds in their highest registers scream in anguish, brass proclaim terrifying fanfares, and percussion evoke the din of battle and cataclysmic conflicts. When the torrent of notes finally subsides, strings sing a consoling, infinitely tender and yearning song. The violent conflicts return, but this time they result in heroic proclamations from the brass. However, victory and fulfillment are not quite yet achieved. In another long, generally quiet passage, the music slowly gathers momentum, ultimately reaching the towering climax that concludes the symphony.

Note: Sectional string players are rotated within their sections. *Extra musician.

MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

PARTNER HOTELS

CORPORATE SUITEPREMIUM MEMBERS

RESIDENT CONDUCTORSNaohisa FurusawaGerard Salonga

FIRST VIOLINCo-ConcertmasterPeter DanišPrincipalMing GohCo-PrincipalZhenzhen Liang

Maho DanišMartijn NoomenSherwin ThiaRuna BaagöeMiroslav DanišEvgeny KaplanMarcel AndriesiiTan Ka MingPetia Davies*Alexandru Radu* Ooi Khai Ern* Marco Roosink* Tobias Gossmann

SECOND VIOLINSection PrincipalTimothy PetersCo-Principal*Barbora KolarovaAssistant PrincipalLuisa Theis

Stefan KocsisAnastasia KiselevaCatalina AlvarezIonuț MazareanuChia-Nan HungYanbo ZhaoLing YunzhiRobert Kopelman* Amelia Chan Sze Wan* Tan Poh Kim* Runa Matsuura

VIOLACo-PrincipalGábor Mokány

Ong Lin KernSun YuanFan RanThian Ai Wen* Hsiao Chia Chien* Samantha Lee* Aidan Sullivan* Kazuyo Nozawa* Akiko Katsumura* Danish Mubin

CELLOCo-PrincipalCsaba KörösAssistant PrincipalSteven RetallickSub-PrincipalMátyás Major

Gerald DavisLaurențiu GhermanJulie DessureaultElizabeth Tan SuyinSejla Simon* Sharon Rodgers* Laurence Leclerc

DOUBLE BASSSection PrincipalWolfgang Steike

John KennedyJun-Hee ChaeNaohisa FurusawaRaffael BietenhaderAndreas Dehner* Heinz-Peter Graf*Douglas Rutherford

FLUTESection Principal*Andrew RehrigCo-PrincipalYukako YamamotoSub-PrincipalRachel Jenkyns

PICCOLOPrincipalSonia Croucher

OBOESection PrincipalSimon EmesCo-Principals*Capucine Prin*Bernice Lee Wen Ting

COR ANGLAISPrincipalNiels Dittmann

CLARINETSection PrincipalGonzalo EstebanCo-PrincipalDavid Dias da SilvaSub-PrincipalMatthew Larsen

BASS CLARINETPrincipalChris Bosco

BASSOONSection PrincipalAlexandar LenkovSub-PrincipalDenis Plangger

CONTRABASSOONPrincipalVladimir Stoyanov

HORNSection PrincipalsGrzegorz Curyla*Steven JamesCo-PrincipalJames SchumacherSub-PrincipalsLaurence DaviesBarkin SönmezerAssistant PrincipalsSim Chee Ghee* Kartik Alan Jairamin* Zsolt Peter

TRUMPETCo-PrincipalWilliam TheisSub-PrincipalsJeffrey Missal*William DayAssistant PrincipalMatthew Dempsey

TROMBONECo-PrincipalsFernando Borja*Marques YoungSub-Principal* Brett Kelly

BASS TROMBONEPrincipal* Prapat Prateepphleepon

TUBASection Principal*Jose Martinez Anton

TIMPANISection PrincipalMatthew ThomasSub-Principal*Ian Sullivan

PERCUSSIONSection PrincipalMatthew PrendergastSub-PrincipalsJoshua VonderheideTan Su Yin

HARPPrincipalTan Keng Hong

CORPORATE SUITECLUB MEMBER

Dewan Filharmonik PeTronaS

ChieF eXeCUTiVe oFFiCerSareen Risham

BUSineSS & markeTinGmanaGemenTSoraya Mansor

BUSineSS DeVeloPmenTWan Yuzaini Wan Yahya At Ziafrizani Chek PaNurartikah IlyasKartini Ratna Sari Ahmat AdamAishah Sarah Ismail Affendee

markeTinG Munshi Ariff Abu HassanHisham Abdul JalilFarah Diyana IsmailNoor Sarul Intan SalimMuhammad Shahrir AizatAhmad Kusolehin Adha Kamaruddin

CUSTomer relaTionShiPmanaGemenTNorhaznita HusinYayuk Yulianawati RilaJalwati Mohd Noor

mUSiC TalenT DeVeloPmenT &manaGemenTAhmad Muriz Che Rose

PlanninG, FinanCe & iTMohd Hakimi Mohd RosliNorhisham Abd RahmanSiti Nur Ilyani Ahmad FadzillahNurfharah Farhana Hashimi

ProCUremenT & ConTraCTLogiswary RamanNorhaszilawati Zainudin

hUman reSoUrCe manaGemenT & aDminiSTraTionSharhida SaadMas Arinah HamzahMuknoazlida MukhadzimNik Nurul Nadia Nik AbdullahNor Afidah Nordin

TeChniCal oPeraTionSFiroz Khan Mohd YunusMohd Zamir Mohd IsaShahrul Rizal Mohd AliDayan Erwan MaharalZolkarnain Sarman

malaySian PhilharmoniCorCheSTra

ChieF eXeCUTiVe oFFiCerSareen Risham

General manaGerKhor Chin YangSoraya Mansor

General manaGer'S oFFiCeTimmy Ong

arTiSTiC aDminiSTraTion Khor Chin YangSharon Francis Lihan

orCheSTra manaGemenTAhmad Muriz Che RoseSharhida SaadFadilah Kamal FrancisShireen Jasin MokhtarSharifah Nurhadaina Mishra

malaySian PhilharmoniC yoUThorCheSTraAhmad Muriz Che RoseYazmin Lim AbdullahFadilah Kamal Francis

mUSiC liBraryOng Li-HueyWong Seong SeongMuhammad Zaid Azzim Mohd Diah

eDUCaTion & oUTreaChShireen Jasin MokhtarShafrin SabriKatherine Tan Jia Yiing

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