ALFRED SCHNITTKE, CONCERTO FOR VIOLA AND ORCHESTRA

Ten days after the completion of his Concerto for Viola and Orchestra on July 11th, 1985, Alfred Schnittke suffered a severe stroke that left him in a coma. Despite being declared clinically dead on multiple occasions, Schnittke eventually recovered, although he remained in poor health for the remainder of his life. Reflecting upon his viola concerto, Schnittke commented, “Like a premonition of what was to come,” (referring to his stroke soon after completing the work), “the music took on the character of a restless chase through life (in the second movement) and that of a slow and sad overview of life on the threshold of death (in the third movement).”

The concerto’s first movement begins slowly as if searching for something ardently yet fruitlessly. The orchestra serves as an eerie echo chamber for the viola, sustaining every note that the violist plays, eventually culminating in a fiery climax. The movement ends much as it began—yearning desperately for a resolution that remains elusive. The opening movement sets the stage for the remainder of the work: an odyssey through the toils of human life.

The second movement commences suddenly with frenetic arpeggios, which eventually develop into a deranged waltz. Schnittke interweaves musical ideas from a plethora of sources—band music, film scores, Soviet military marches—characteristic of Schnittke’s polystylistic approach to composition. The movement, usually charged with such intense rage, is interspersed with moments of ironic romanticism, described by Schnittke as ”so beautiful… that it would feel sweet on your mouth, then syrupy and disgusting.” The movement depicts a break from sanity—an irrational, unstable, and yet profoundly human response to intense trauma and loss.

The final movement is raw and haunting. Themes from throughout the earlier movements reappear but in a ruined form, as if seen through a windowpane of broken glass. The violist wanders through this bleak landscape, searching for any response, any echo from the orchestra. Eventually, the orchestra is found—albeit devastated and demoralized. The concerto ends, again, much as it began—searching for that which it will never find, resigned and hopelessly alone.

Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto paints an undeniably desolate picture of human life; to Schnittke, humans are fragile and temperamental creatures who struggle—often in vain—to derive meaning from their lives. However, in all of its pain and despair, the concerto also tells a story of resilience and hope—of the persistent beats of a heart (the low pulsing notes that appear throughout the third movement), of the desperate gasps for breath amidst an ocean of suffering (the rhapsodic outbursts from the solo viola in the second movement), and of Schnittke himself, broken and beaten, who refused to succumb in silence. — Jisang Kymm ’28

CLAUDE DEBUSSY, NUAGES AND FÊTES FROM NOCTURNES

We offer tonight two of Claude Debussy’s Nocturnes, composed between 1892 and 1899. It’s thought that the working title was “Three Scenes at Twilight,” and Debussy was originally inspired by poems by the Symbolist poet Henri du Regniér. The work is a continuation of Debussy’s efforts to free music of what he saw as the shackles of German formal strictures, and to express pure color. He expressed this with clarity in 1907: “I am more and more convinced that music, by its very nature, is something that cannot be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms”.

Nocturnes went through several transformations before Debussy cast it for full orchestra. At one point it was for subsections of orchestra (strings, flutes/brass), all led by solo violin.

The new title came from Debussy’s admiration of the American painter James Whistler who was living in Paris at the time. A series of his paintings was called “Nocturnes,” and the black and white severity of the famous painting of the artist’s mother matched Debussy’s comments about the music in a letter, “an experiment in the different combinations that can be achieved with one color—what a study in grey would be in painting.”

The titles of the two movements (we are omitting the last of the set, as it requires chorus), Clouds and Festivals, spring unmistakably from the music itself, with the static and shimmering formations floating high in the treble voices for the former, and the swirling processional culminating in a crashing firework display overhead for the second. The procession marches away into the dark leaving only singular fireflies in its wake.

Though not causing the sensation of 1894’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, the Nocturnes have proven a perfect initiation to Debussy’s orchestral works. —Michael Pratt

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF, PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 IN C MINOR

After suffering a mental breakdown in 1897, Rachmaninoff did not compose any music for three years.‬ During this time, he began seeing the psychiatrist Nikolai Dahl, who supposedly used hypnosis to restore‬ Rachmaninoff’s compositional abilities. Dahl would chant three sentences over and over again: “You will‬ begin to write your concerto… you will work with great facility… the concerto will be of an excellent‬ quality.” Indeed, the 1901 premiere of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor was a‬ tremendous success, establishing his reputation as an internationally renowned composer. Rachmaninoff‬ dedicated the concerto to Dahl.‬

The first movement of the concerto opens with a series of bell-like chords in the piano before the‬ orchestra enters with the first theme. The melody swells, buoyed by arpeggios in the piano, before‬ transitioning to the second theme in E-flat major. After a series of agitated technical figurations, the first‬ theme returns again in the orchestra while the piano provides a countermelody in a march-like form, and‬ the piano is subsequently given the chance to sing the theme by itself for the first time. The ending‬ section follows—a little poignant, a little painful—until the coda explodes into fortissimo.‬

Within four measures, the beginning of the second movement modulates from C Minor to E Major. The‬ piano begins with a series of arpeggios before taking the melody—dolce e sempre espressivo‬‭—from‬ the orchestra; then comes a wandering middle section that eventually builds to a tumultuous cadenza.‬ The E Major theme from the beginning returns, and the movement closes with a sweeping melody that‬ dwindles to a final arpeggio in the piano.‬ After the orchestra modulates from E Major back to C Minor in the opening of the third movement, the‬ piano leaps into a glissando. The agitated first theme is presented by the piano solo, but the orchestra‬ subsequently introduces a tender melody in B-flat Major. The quick transitions between turbulent‬ agitation and plaintive singing continue until the movement ends in a vigorous coda in C Major.‬

This performance would not have been possible without the support of so many people. I would like to‬ thank Dr. Francine Kay and Dr. Sharon Mann for their mentorship and guidance, Charlie Ku ‘26 for the‬ many countless rehearsals, and Eunseo Oh for providing timely NYC practice room access. I am also‬ eternally grateful to Opus Chamber Music for surrounding me with an invaluable music community, and‬ Maestro Pratt and the PUO for making this wonderful experience a reality. Finally ― to my family and‬ friends at Princeton and beyond: I am forever indebted, etc., etc. I owe you all many favors of‬ unspecified magnitude. —Sarah Yuan ’27

JISANG KYMM

Jisang Kymm is a 18-year-old violist from Englewood Cliffs, NJ studying Mathematics. Jisang currently studies viola with Jessica Thompson, and formerly studied at the Juilliard Pre-College with Yi-Fang Huang and Molly Carr. Jisang has spent his past three summers at the Perlman Music Program under the tutelage of Itzhak Perlman, Carol Rodland, and Kirsten Docter. Jisang is a National YoungArts Finalist, National YoungArts Silver Award recipient, and first-prize winner at the Enkor International Music Competition. At Princeton, Jisang is an active member of the Princeton University Orchestra and Opus Chamber Music, and teaches viola lessons through Trenton Arts at Princeton. Outside of music, Jisang enjoys going to coffee shops to drink tea and reading books with his cat, who does not yet know how to read.

SARAH YUAN

‭Sarah Yuan, age 19, is a sophomore at Princeton University. She began piano studies at age seven and is‬ now a student of Dr. Francine Kay at Princeton, having previously studied with Dr. Sharon Mann at the‬ San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Sarah was a winner of the 2022 and 2023 National YoungArts‬ competitions and is also the pianist of the Aveta Trio, which won the gold medal at the 2021 Fischoff‬ National Chamber Music Competition. At Princeton, she is a member of Opus Chamber Music. Over the‬ past several years, she has performed in masterclasses for artists such as John Perry, Ida Kavafian, Peter‬ Wiley, James Giles, Támas Ungár, and the Gryphon Trio. Sarah has performed for the San Francisco‬ International Piano Festival and the Noontime Concert series in San Francisco and has attended‬ international summer music programs such as Aspen, Bowdoin, and PianoTexas.‬

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY ORCHESTRA

The Princeton University Orchestra was born in February 1896, with a concert by professional musicians. The modern history of PUO begins with the appointment of the orchestra’s present music director, Michael J. Pratt, in 1977. Through the fifties and sixties, the ensemble shrank down to as few as thirty students amid “music-is-better-seen-than-heard” mentalities in music academia, as well as insufficient rehearsal and performance spaces on campus. Following Pratt’s appointment to the orchestra’s podium, this downward trend quickly reversed itself into an upwards explosion. In 1984, the orchestra’s home, Alexander Hall, was renovated from a large auditorium into a professional-grade concert hall. Additionally, unprecedented interest in music performance among students, coupled with growth in the overall undergraduate class size and the development of Princeton’s dedicated extracurricular hours (two hours every weekday during which classes are forbidden from meeting), allowed PUO to quickly expand into the large symphonic orchestra of over 100 students that it remains today.

In response to students in the orchestra expressing a desire to continue as musicians after their studies at Princeton, Michael Pratt established the Music Department’s Certificate Program in Music Performance in 1990, and he was a major architect in the general integration of performance into Princeton’s wider curriculum. Undergraduate musicians in the Music Performance certificate receive complementary lessons and are eligible to spend a semester abroad studying at the Royal College of Music, which has been named one of the top music conservatories in the world. Following the creation of a strong music performance program, the conductor noted a significant upswing in Princeton University applicants with exceptional musical talent and interest, which in turn allowed the Princeton University Orchestra to grow into an even stronger ensemble, able to tackle any piece in the classical repertoire. In 2018, there were enough applicants to the incoming class alone to fill multiple large symphonic orchestras.

Nowadays, the orchestra is recognized for its musical excellence, named in an independent survey as one of the top then college-age orchestras in the United States.

MICHAEL PRATT

The 2023-2024 season marks 46 years since Michael Pratt came to Princeton to conduct the Princeton University Orchestra— a relationship that has resulted in the ensemble’s reputation as one of the finest university orchestras in the United States. He is credited by his colleagues and generations of students in being the architect of one of the premiere music programs in the country, Princeton’s certificate Program in Music Performance (now the Music Minor in Performance), Pratt has served as its director since its inception in 1991. The international reputation the Program has earned has resulted in Princeton’s becoming a major destination for talented and academically gifted students. Pratt also established a partnership between Princeton and the Royal College of Music that every year sends Princeton students to study in London. He is also co-founder of the Richardson Chamber Players, which affords opportunities for tops students to perform with the performance faculty in chamber music concerts.

Over the years, Pratt has guided many generations of Princeton students through a remarkable variety of orchestral and operatic literature, from early Baroque Italian opera through symphonies of Mahler to the latest compositions by students and faculty. He has led the Princeton University Orchestra on eleven European tours. Under Pratt the PU Orchestra has also participated in major campus collaborations with the Theater and Dance programs in such works as the premieres of Prokofiev’s Le Pas d’Acier and Boris Godunov, a revival of Richard Strauss’s setting of the Molière classic, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and a full production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with all of Mendelssohn’s incidental music.

Pratt was educated at the Eastman School of Music and Tanglewood, and his teachers and mentors have included Gunther Schuller, Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Meier, and Otto Werner Mueller.

In March 2018 Michael Pratt was awarded an honorary membership to the Royal College of Music, London (HonRCM) by HRH The Prince of Wales. At Princeton’s Commencement 2019 he was awarded the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by President Christopher Eisgruber.