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Illinois State University
College of Fine Arts
School of Music
Gold Series
________________________________________________________________
Illinois State University Symphony Orchestra
Glenn Block, Music Director and Conductor
_________________________________________________________________
Center for the Performing Arts
March 22, 2015
Sunday Evening
7:00 p.m.
This is the one hundred and fortieth program of the 2014-2015 season.
Program
Please turn off all electronic devices for the duration of the concert. Thank you.
Three Meditations on Van Gogh (2014)
Part I: Tranquillo
Part II: Solemn
Part III: Larghetto, Pulsating
Martha Horst
(born 1967)
Noam Aviel, conductor
Symphony No.6 in B Minor, Op.74 (1893)(Pathétique)
Adagio – Allegro non troppo
Allegro con grazia
Allegro molto vivace
Finale: Adagio lamentoso – Andante
Piotr Tchaikovsky
(1840-1893)
Glenn Block, conductor
Program Notes
Horst Three Meditations on Van Gogh
Three Meditations on Van Gogh was composed for the Illinois State University Orchestra in 2014. The
music was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night. The repetitive brush strokes and
the swirling motion Van Gogh used in this painting inspired many of the musical gestures in the
piece.
The work is divided into three parts. The first part starts with a nocturnal backdrop of string
crescendos against a repeating D; against this backdrop, the trumpets play rhythmic, repeating
patterns mimicking Van Gogh’s brush stroke technique. Flashes of color are provided by high
percussion, representing bursts of starlight. These evolve into a bright, repeated isorhythmic pattern
played by the high percussion and piccolos. This section is brought to a close with the return of the
dark, opening D drone of the strings.
The second part features several simultaneous patterns layered on top of one another. Each pattern
has its own meter and cycle; this music is meant to evoke the perception of Van Gogh’s swirling stars
moving at different rates of speed. The different patterns are played by the tubular bells, woodwinds,
crotales, tam tam paired with bass drum, strings, and a Tibetan Bowl sounding D – the central pitch
of the first part.
The third part of this work features a backdrop of string harmonics swelling at different rates of
speed. Against this hazy string backdrop is a mosaic of woodwind motives in conversation with one
another. This section evolves into a repeating flute ostinato in counterpoint with the celeste and a
cantus firmus played by the oboes and clarinet. Undulating strings with bursts of color provided by
the flutes and percussion move into another section inspired by Van Gogh’s repetitive brush stroke
pattern, this time played by the woodwinds. The piece ends with trills played by the different families
of the orchestra in concord with more celeste arpeggios. This ending is meant to evoke the sense of
twilight and mystery in Van Gogh’s masterpiece.
Notes by the Composer
Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 (Pathétique)
Five days after he conducted the premiere of this symphony, Tchaikovsky drank a glass of unboiled
water, a careless move that year in Saint Petersburg, where countless cases of cholera had recently
been reported. He died four days later. When the symphony was performed for a second time the
following week, the hall was draped in black and a bust modeled after the composer’s death mask was
prominently displayed. An eleven-year-old boy, who would soon become Russia’s most celebrated
composer, attended that concert with his father, the great baritone Fyodor Stravinsky. Little Igor,
whose own music would eventually refute much of what Tchaikovsky’s music glorified, understood,
even at the time, the magnitude of this loss —not just to his family (his father was famous for his
interpretations of several Tchaikovsky roles) but to the larger music world as well. At the time he died,
Tchaikovsky was one of the great figures in music: he was at the peak of his creative powers, and he
was both famous and beloved far beyond his native Russia. His death came as a shock (he was only
fifty-three) and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his fatal illness, coupled with the tragic tone
of his last symphony—curiously titled Pathétique— produced a mystique about the composer’s last
days that still persists today. In 1979, the Russian émigré musicologist Alexandra Orlova published a
now-infamous article proposing that Tchaikovsky had in fact committed suicide by poison, on the
orders of his fellow alumni of the School of Jurisprudence, to cover up his alleged affair with the
nephew of Duke Stenbock-Thurmor. For a time in the 1880s, suicide and homosexuality replaced the
quaint old tale of cholera and drinking water, and, as Tchaikovsky’s obituary was rewritten, the
Pathétique Symphony became the chief musical victim in this tabloid tale. Even Tchaikovsky’s
biographer David Brown, writing in the sacrosanct Grove Encyclopedia, accepted Orlova’s theory.
But in recent years, scholars have wisely backed off — evidence is almost totally undocumented, and a
number of musicologists, including the biographer Alexander Poznansky, have refuted Orlova
convincingly. The circumstances surrounding the composition of the Pathétique Symphony are dramatic
and mysterious, if less lurid than pulp fiction. In December 1892, Tchaikovsky abruptly decided to
abandon work on a programmatic symphony in E-flat major on which he had been struggling for
some time “an irreversible decision,” he wrote, “and it is wonderful that I made it.” (He eventually
turned portions of the abandoned symphony into his third piano concerto, which the Chicago
Symphony played for the first time this past December.) But the failure of the new symphony left
Tchaikovsky despondent and directionless, and he began to fear that he was “played out, dried up,” as
he put it. (“I think and I think, and I know not what to do,” he wrote to his nephew Bob Davydov,
whose friendship and encouragement would help see him through this crisis.) Although he felt that he
should give up writing “pure music, that is, symphonic or chamber music,” within two months he had
begun the symphony that would prove to be his greatest, and his last. Renewed and relieved by the
old, familiar joy of composing, Tchaikovsky wrote frantically. Within four days, the first part of the
symphony was complete and the remainder precisely outlined in his head. “You cannot imagine what
bliss I feel,” he wrote to Bob on February 11, 1893, “assured that my time has not yet passed and that
I can still work.” The rest went smoothly and the symphony was completed, without setbacks, by the
end of August. Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his new symphony on October 28 in Saint
Petersburg. The audience “all Saint Petersburg” rose and cheered when the composer appeared on
stage. But after the symphony, the applause was half-hearted; the crowd didn’t know what to make of
this sober, gloomy music. Leaving the concert hall, Tchaikovsky complained that neither the audience
nor the orchestra seemed to like the piece, although two days later he decided that “it is not that it
wasn’t liked, but it has caused some bewilderment.” The morning after the premiere, the composer
told his brother Modest that the symphony needed a title. (Tchaikovsky had originally thought of
calling it the Program Symphony.) Modest first suggested Tragic and then Pathétique, which in
Russian carries a meaning closer to passionate, full of emotion and suffering. Tchaikovsky agreed at
once, and in his brother’s presence wrote on the first page the title that “remained forever,” as Modest
later recalled, although the composer himself soon had second thoughts. (Tchaikovsky’s publisher,
who knew the marketing value of a good title, ignored the composer’s urgent request that it simply be
printed as Symphony no. 6.) Like the abandoned E-flat major symphony, the new B-minor score was
programmatic, but, as he wrote to Bob, “with such a program that will remain a mystery to everyone,
let them guess.” Bob was only the first to ponder, in vain, the meaning of this deeply personal work.
(And even he, to whom Tchaikovsky would ultimately dedicate the score, couldn’t draw a satisfactory
answer from the composer except that it was “imbued with subjectivity.”) Tchaikovsky carried his
program with him to the grave. Cryptic notes scribbled among his sketches at the time refer to a
symphony about life’s aspirations and disappointments,yet another manifestation of the central theme
of both Swan Lake and Eugene Onegin, and, in fact, the great theme of the composer’s life: the painful
search for an ideal that is never satisfied. As scholars have learned more about Tchaikovsky’s
unfulfilled homoerotic passion for his nephew Bob, a mismatch of youth and middle age, and a tangle
of sexual persuasions in a society fiercely intolerant of homosexuality. The temptation to read this
symphony as the composer’s heartbreaking confession of a painful, repressed life has inevitably
proved irresistible. In the inexhaustibly expressive, but sufficiently ambiguous language of music,
Tchaikovsky could tell the story of his life, honestly and unsparingly, without ever giving up its
secrets. The abstract nature of music has, arguably, never been so fearlessly tested. The temptation to
read something tragic into this score is as old as the music itself. Even the composer, who didn’t want
to divulge his Tchaikovsky with his nephew, Bob Davydov, in 1892 meaning, admitted before the
premiere that it had something of the character of a requiem. The trombone incantations in the first
movement actually quote from a Russian Orthodox chant for the dead. And surely the first audience
was stunned, or bewildered, as Tchaikovsky noted, by the unconventionally slow and mournful finale,
trailing off into silence at the end, with just cellos and basses playing pppp. When Tchaikovsky died so
suddenly and violently on the heels of the premiere, the symphony became identified at once, perhaps
inextricably, with its composer’s death. By the memorial performance on November 6, the Russian
Musical Gazette had already determined that the symphony was “indeed a sort of swan song, a
presentiment of imminent death.” More than a century later, Orlova’s devotees were to make much of
the slowly fading final pages as a depiction of suicide.
The score itself, though perhaps dulled by familiarity, is one of Tchaikovsky’s most inspired creations.
All of its true masterstrokes are purely musical, not programmatic. It begins uniquely, with the sound
of a very low bassoon solo over murky strings. (This slow introduction is in the “wrong” key, but
eventually works its way into B minor.) The entire first movement sustains the tone, although not the
tempo, of the somber opening. The soaring principal theme, to be played “tenderly, very songfully,
and elastically,” is one of Tchaikovsky’s greatest melodies. (Tchaikovsky carefully directs the
emotional development of this rich and expansive tune all the way down to a virtually unprecedented
thread of sound, marked pppppp.) The recapitulation reorders and telescopes events so that the grand
and expressive melody, now magically rescored, steals in suddenly and unexpectedly, to great effect.
The central movements are, by necessity, more relaxed. The first is a wonderful, singing, undanceable
waltz, famously set in 5/4 time. (There’s a real waltz, in 3/4, in Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony.) The
second is a brilliant, dazzlingly scored march, undercut throughout by a streak of melancholy. The
finale begins with a cry of despair, and although it eventually unveils a warm and consoling theme
begun by the violins against the heartbeat of a horn ostinato, the mood only continues to darken,
ultimately becoming threatening in its intensity. In a symphony marked by telling, uncommonly quiet
gestures, and this from a composer famous for bombast. A single soft stroke of the tam-tam marks
the point of no return. From there it is all defeat and disintegration, over a fading, ultimately faltering
pulse.
Written by Phillip Huscher (Chicago Symphony)
Biographical Notes
Glenn Block has served as the Director of Orchestras
and Opera and Professor of Conducting at Illinois State
University since 1990, this year celebrating his 25th year
at ISU. He has also served as Music Director of the
Youth Symphony of Kansas City from 1983 - 2007.
Prior to his appointment at Illinois State in the fall of
1990, Dr. Block served for 15 years as Director of
Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the
Conservatory of Music of the University of Missouri Kansas City and Music Director of the Kansas City
Civic Orchestra. Born in Brooklyn, Dr. Block was educated at the Eastman School of Music. He
received his Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego. As a frequent guest conductor, he
has appeared in over 42 states with all-state and professional orchestras. Foreign guest-conducting
have included concerts and master classes at the Fountainebleau Conservertoire in France, and
concerts in Spain, Canada, Colombia, Estonia, Russia, Italy, Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic
and throughout South America. He has served on the Boards of Directors for both the Conductors
Guild and the Youth Orchestra Division of the American Symphony Orchestra League. The Youth
Symphony of Kansas City and Dr. Block made their Carnegie Hall debut in June, 1997.
Dr. Block has served on the faculty of the National Music Camp at Interlochen as Resident
Conductor of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra, and at the Interlochen Arts Academy as
Visiting Conductor. In addition, he has also served as Music Director of the Summer Festival
Orchestra at the Rocky Ridge Music Center in Estes Park, Colorado. During the summer of 2013, Dr.
Block spent a month conducting and teaching in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. In the summer of
2014, Dr. Block again returned to South America to conduct in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay during
the months of May and June, and traveled to Italy in August to conduct at various festivals in Pescara
and in the eastern mountains of Abruzzo.
During the 2015 season, Glenn Block will again return for extended residencies in May and June in
South America with orchestras in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. He will be conducting
opera in Chieti and Pescara in Italy at the end of July, and in August of 2015, he will be making his
debut conducting at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires.
Martha Horst is a composer who has devoted herself to the performance, creation, and instruction
of classical music. Her music has also been performed by performers and groups such as the Fromm
Players, CUBE, Earplay, Alea III, Empyrean Ensemble, Susan Narucki, Left Coast Ensemble, Dal
Niente, The Women's Philharmonic, Composers, Inc., members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra,
Eric Mandat, and Amy Briggs. Ms. Horst has won the Copland Award, the 2005 Alea III International
Composition Competition for her work Threads, and the Rebecca Clarke International Composition
Competition for her work Cloister Songs, based on 18th century utopian poetry. She has held fellowships
at the MacDowell Colony, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Wellesley Conference, Norfolk Chamber
Music Festival and Dartington International School in the UK. Her work Piano Sonata No. 1,
recorded by acclaimed pianist Lara Downes, was released nationally by Crossover Media.
She began her performance and music theory training at the age of five and began her formal
composition studies at Stanford University, where she studied with Ross Bauer, David Rakowski, and
John Chowning at CCRMA. She has attended several national and international festivals where she
has studied with composers such as Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and
Oliver Knussen. She received a Ph.D. in theory and composition from the University of California,
Davis.
Dr. Horst currently teaches composition and theory at Illinois State University and has also taught at
the University of California, Davis, East Carolina University, and San Francisco State University.
Noam Aviel is currently serving as Assistant Director of Orchestras at Illinois State University under
Dr. Glenn Block, while studying for her Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting. Noam has served
during 2013–2014 as Music Director of the Maabarot Chamber Orchestra in Israel. Noam has two
Bachelor of Music degrees in Voice Performance and Orchestral Conducting from Tel- Aviv
University, the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, Israel. She has participated in conducting master
classes in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Israel. Her teachers have included Dr. Glenn Block,
Maestro Yoav Talmi, Maestro Xi-An Xu, Maestro Vag Papian, Maestro Johannes Schlaefli, Maestro
Christoph Rehli, Maestro Enrique García Asensio, and Maestra Ilona Meskó. Noam participated this
February, 2015 in a workshop with Maestro David Itkin at North Texas University through the
Conductors Guild organization.
ISU Symphony Orchestra
VIOLIN I
Wen-Chi Chiu, concertmaster
Lourenco Budo
Lisa Ourada
Rachael Miller
Gabrielle VanDril
Maggie Watts
Asa Church
Chelsea Rillaroza
VIOLIN II
Praneeth Madoori, principal
Charlea Schueler
Jillian Forbes
Andrada Pteanc
Julia Herren
Samantha Huang
Justin Wagner
VIOLA
Abigail Dreher, principal
Eileen Wronkiewicz
Rachel Tatar
Kathryn Brown
Alexander Foote
ReginaVendetti
Sarah Williams
Joshua Tolley
Alexander Daniell
CELLO
Pei-Chi Huang, principal
Angelina McLaughlin-Heil
Monica Sliva
Ryan Koranda
Douglas Cook
Alexander Brinkman
DOUBLE BASS
Wiebe Ophorst, principal
Claudia Amaral
Jake Busse
Ana Miller
Tabitha Staples
Gregory Clough
Matthew Stewart
Patrick Casner
Trevor Mason
FLUTES
Pamela Schuett, principal
Dan Gallagher
Miranda DiBretto
OBOES
David Merz, principal
Terri Rogers
CLARINETS
Nuvee Thammikasakul, principal
Brian Do
Colby Spengler
BASSOONS
Matt Jewell, principal
Arturo Montano
HORNS
Laura Makara, principal
Emily Lenart
Amanda Muscato
Calle Fitzgerald
Asst. Emma Danch
TRUMPETS
Sean Hack, principal
Andy Mrozinsky
Eli Denecke
TROMBONES
Aaron Gradberg, principal
Jordan Harvey
James Mohalwald
TUBA
Alexander Hill, principal
TIMPANI/PERCUSSION
Mallory Konstans, principal
Maria Di Vietro
Kevin Greene
James McHenry
CELESTA
Ping-Yin Pao, principal