This program consists of three works from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, deftly demonstrating the musical diversity of Viennese Classicism. Haydn’s Overture to L’isola disabitata was written in the Sturm und Drang style, which brings to mind the expressive contrasts found in Baroque opera. Beethoven’s Triple Concerto employs a musical language that borders on Romanticism, and Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony represents the synthesis of a classical style at the very peak of its potential.

 

 

JOSEPH HAYDN

Born in Rohrau, Austria, March 31, 1732 – Died in Vienna, May 31, 1809

 

Overture to L’isola disabitata

 

L’isola disabitata [The Deserted Island] was first performed in December 1779 on the occasion of the name-day of Haydn’s patron Prince Esterhazy. This azione teatrale is in two parts with a text by the most famous librettist of the eighteenth century, Pietro Metastasio. The storyline is quite simple and involves just four characters moving about on a single set. Two sisters, Costanza and Silvia, have been living alone on a desert island where they were stranded thirteen years ago following a storm at sea. There Costanza’s husband Gernando seemingly abandoned her, though in reality he was abducted by pirates who have been holding him captive all these years. Early in the opera, he returns to the island in search of his wife and sister-in-law, accompanied by his friend Enrico, who promptly falls in love with Silvia. After some misunderstandings brought on by the long isolation of the two women, the two couples are united and all ends happily.

 

The opera’s overture was published separately during Haydn’s lifetime, and even today is often heard as an independent work in concert, as is the case at these OSM concerts. Its especially striking dramatic contrasts reflect the contradictory feelings of the heroine at the opera’s outset: the slow introduction in G minor represents the deserted island and Costanza’s despair (at the rise of the curtain she is considering putting an end to her life), then a theme in G major suggesting the two ladies’ hope of salvation. The overture ends with the return of the stormy first theme in G minor, whose expressive intensity finds few equivalents in Haydn’s operatic output.

 

 

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Born in Bonn, December 16, 1770 – Died in Vienna, March 26, 1827

 

Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano in C major, op. 56

 

Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for violin, cello and piano was written at exactly the same time (1803-1804) as his Eroica Symphony (no. 3), heard at OSM concerts earlier this season. Both works bear the same dedication, namely to Prince Lobkowitz, who was also the dedicatee of Symphonies nos. 5 and 6, the String Quartets, op. 18, and the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte [To the Distant Beloved]. A few other, later composers have also written a Triple Concerto, but Beethoven’s remains the only example in the popular repertory.

 

This classically-styled concerto is essentially a trio with orchestra. The three solo instruments are of equal importance and regularly take turns in presentation of the melodic material, passing smoothly back and forth from their roles as soloists to accompanists. The broadly-laid out opening Allegro movement is extensively developed and constitutes the concerto’s center of gravity, while the two remaining movements together serve as a counterbalance. The brief Largo, in A-flat major, ends with a series of repeated notes that gradually increase in speed and lead without pause into the Rondo à la polacca finale.

 

 

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Born in Salzburg, January 27, 1756 – Died in Vienna, December 5, 1791

 

Symphony no. 41 in C major, K. 551, “Jupiter”

 

The Jupiter Symphony is the last of Mozart’s 41 numbered symphonies (a few more are known to exist). It was written in the summer of 1788, shortly after the successful Viennese premiere of Don Giovanni and concurrently with Symphonies nos. 39 and 40. The nickname “Jupiter” was appended after Mozart’s death, and probably came from the impresario Johann Peter Salomon in the course of a concert series in Scotland in 1819. Given the scope of this symphony, especially its finale, which Mozart’s son regarded as “the highest triumph of instrumental composition,” it is hardly surprising that the name of chief of the gods was designated as the title of this symphony. Moreover, it is one of the first in the history of music to be written without having specifically been commissioned, but rather simply on the composer’s impulse to create “art for art’s sake.”
This final symphony shows the ease with which Mozart handles musical conventions of his time. In the first movement, he adds to the two themes commonly found in a sonata-form design the tune he had composed as an insertion aria, “Un bacio di mano” [A Hand-kiss] for bass several months earlier for an opera by Anfossi, thus uniting the very different worlds of opera and symphony. Most importantly, Mozart shifts the symphony’s center of gravity from the first to the last movement, ending the symphony with a highly contrapuntal fourth movement as an apotheosis in which motifs from the previous movements come together and in which the final section is based on an extensively developed double fugue with canon.

BERNARD LABADIE

CONDUCTOR
 

An internationally recognized expert on 17th- and 18th-century repertoires, Bernard Labadie is Founding Conductor of Les Violons du Roy and Music Director of La Chapelle de Québec, instigated by him respectively in 1984 and 1985. He leads the two ensembles in their regular-season concerts in Quebec City and Montreal, as well as on tour in the Americas and Europe, and has appeared with them in the most prestigious international concert venues, including Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center (New York), the Kennedy Center (Washington), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles), the Barbican (London), the Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (Paris), the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), and the Salzburg and Bergen festivals.

 

In great demand as a guest conductor, he regularly leads major symphony orchestras in North America, such as the Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Saint Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Toronto Symphonies, as well as the New World Symphony (Miami Beach) and the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa). In Europe, he has taken the podium of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Bavarian Radio Symphony (Munich), the Cologne, Hanover, and Freiburg radio orchestras, the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, the Northern Sinfonia (Newcastle), the chamber orchestras of Norway and Sweden, as well as the orchestra of Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu. He is also regularly invited to conduct the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Australia. In the near future, Bernard Labadie will make his debuts with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (New York), the radio orchestras of Helsinki, Frankfurt, and Berlin, the Orchestre national de Lyon, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

 

A very active opera conductor, Labadie was Artistic Director of the Opéra de Québec (1994–2003) and Opéra de Montréal (2002–2006). As guest conductor, he has led, among others, the Santa Fe, Cincinnati, and Glimmerglass operas. Last January, he made his debut with the Canadian Opera Company (Toronto).

 

Increasingly in demand by period-instrument orchestras, he regularly conducts the Academy of Ancient Music and has been acclaimed for his performances with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, English Concert, Handel and Haydn Society (Boston), Collegium Vocale Gent Orchestra, and Ensemble Arion. Next season marks his debut with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

 

As conductor of Les Violons du Roy or as a guest conductor, Bernard Labadie has recorded some twenty albums for the Virgin Classics (now Erato), EMI, Dorian, ATMA, Hyperion, and Naïve labels.

 

As a leading ambassador for music in his native city of Quebec, Bernard Labadie was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005 and a Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre national du Québec in 2006. In 2008, he received the Banff Centre’s National Arts Award for his contribution to the development of the arts in Canada, as well as the Doctorate honoris causa from his alma mater, Université Laval. In 2016, Bernard Labadie received the Samuel de Champlain award in Paris and the distinction of Compagnon des arts et des lettres du Québec for his contribution to the arts in Quebec society.

 

ANDREW WAN

CONCERTMASTER OF THE OSM

 

Concertmaster of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 2008, Andrew Wan is also Assistant Professor of Violin at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University, Artistic Partner with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, member of the New Orford String Quartet, and

Artistic Director of the Soloists of the OSM for three upcoming album releases on the Analekta label. As a soloist, he has toured the world from Brazil to China and has performed

chamber music with Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Vadim Repin, Menahem Pressler, and the

Juilliard String Quartet. Albums in his discography have been awarded a Grammy, two Juno nominations, and an Opus Prize for his recording of Saint-Saëns’s three violin concertos with the OSM and Kent Nagano. Mr. Wan was First Prize Winner of the OSM Competition in 2007. He obtained three degrees from the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Masao Kawasaki and Ron Copes. He performs on a 1744 Michel’Angelo Bergonzi violin, generously loaned by philanthropist David B. Sela.

 

BRIAN MANKER
OSM PRINCIPAL CELLO

 

 

 

Principal Cello of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 1999, Brian Manker enjoys a diverse and varied musical career as a performer and teacher. In addition to being a frequent concerto soloist with the OSM, he is a member of the highly acclaimed New Orford String Quartet. He can be heard on his 2010 recording of the complete Johann Sebastian Bach Cello Suites on Storkclassics, as well as on numerous recordings of chamber music, and with the OSM. Brian Manker plays on a cello made by Pietro Guarneri of Venice in 1729, and a bow by Francois Peccatte loaned by Canimex.

 

FRANÇOIS-FRÉDÉRIC GUY

PIANO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

François-Frédéric Guy is regarded as one of the great performers of German repertoire in our time, and of Beethoven in particular.

 

His exhaustive Beethoven Project, which began in 2008, includes worldwide performances and recordings of the complete 32 sonatas, all five concertos recorded with Philippe Jordan, and all of the chamber music for strings and piano. His recording of Beethoven’s complete cello and piano works with Xavier Phillips was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2016, while the two-piano version of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet was named a Gramophone Editor’s Choice recording in 2015. The pianist’s acclaimed recording of Brahms’s piano sonatas, released in 2016, heralds a new “Brahms Project” over the course of forthcoming seasons.

 

François-Frédéric Guy has appeared in major venues, such as the Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall, Warsaw Philharmonic, Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and Performing Arts Centre in Seoul, as well as London’s Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Wigmore Hall, and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Philharmonie de Paris.

 

He has conducted several Beethoven concerto cycles from the keyboard and made his official conducting debut in September 2016, leading the Orchestre de chambre de Paris in a performance of Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony. He has performed with prestigious conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Bernard Haitink, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Daniel Harding, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Kent Nagano.

 

Having recently performed for the first time with the Wiener Symphoniker under Philippe Jordan, François-Frédéric Guy builds on many outstanding debuts this season which already include the Orchestre symphonique de Québec and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife. He has been invited by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal to return for another performance in the spring of 2017, after which he will begin his first Asian Beethoven Sonata cycle in Seoul. He will close the season with a guest appearance with the Dresdner Philharmonie under Michael Sanderling, at Tokyo’s Musashino Foundation.