Horn Fanfare Program Notes
Alice Hong(1992- , Canada) is an international award-winner both as a violinist and composer; she was featured on CBC’s 2018 edition of “30 Hot Classical Musicians Under 30”.
She has performed her own compositions at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Spoleto Festival USA, and Heifetz on Tour and has also played with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony as a substitute violinist.
As a composer, Alice has had compositions performed throughout Europe, North America and China and featured in film-scores for Studio3D productions. Her pieces have been performed and read by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Ludwig Symphony Orchestra, and members of the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Canadian Opera Company, Rolston String Quartet and Cypress String Quartet, among others.
Alice holds degrees from Rice University's Shepherd School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and she is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto studying privately with Jonathan Crow.
"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise." --Miguel de Cervantes.
"They make very faithful pets."-- Professor Albus Dumbledore
Phoenix duration 10 minutes
Carl Heinrich Hübler (1822-1894, Germany) Hired in 1844 as hornist for the Dresden Court Orchestra, he was promoted to Royal Chamber Musician in 1844. In 1886 he was given the title chamber virtuoso in recognition of his merits. A post he held until his retirement in 1891. He was co-founder of Tonkünstler-Verein a major musicians association. In 1849 Hübler, along with other horn players performed Robert Schumann’s ‘concerto piece for four horns” at a private gathering that included Schumann himself. Given Hübler’s deep understanding of the horn he was inspired to write his own piece.
He is only known to have composed two pieces of music, the concerto for four horns and a work for horn and orchestra.
Concerto for Four Horns duration 16 minutes
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893, Russia)
During his life and career Tchaikovsky went through periods of creative inspiration and bouts of deep depression. In the spring of 1888 he wrote to his brother saying that he had written all he was going to write and no longer had the inclination to write any more music. Inspiration came shortly after this when he wrote that that he was trying to “...getting a symphony out of my dulled brain, with difficulty.” Over that summer he finished the massive Fifth Symphony.
The work premiere that October in St Petersburg with Tchaikovsky himself conducting. Other composers, the musicians and the audience liked it. Critics however questioned the work and his conducting ability. This is what Tchaikovsky thought of his Firth Symphony:
“Having played my symphony twice in St. Petersburg and once in Prague, I have come to the conclusion that it is a failure. There is something repellent in it, some exaggerated color, some insincerity of construction, which the public instinctively recognizes. It was clear to me that the applause and ovations were not for this but for other works of mine, and that the Symphony itself will never please the public.”
For the rest of his lift he was, at best, ambivalent about it.
For many of his symphonies and other pieces, he would write copious notes about what the work was about and what the musicians and audience should fell. He had few notes for the Fifth. He did suggest that the opening-and recurrent-theme represented "complete resignation before Fate." This was a reoccurring theme for many of his compositions. The work is full of maximal contrasts and shocking climaxes
