Orchestra of St. Luke’s & Stella Chen, violin

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61

Ludwig van Beethoven’s only violin concerto is truly iconoclastic, and it shattered conventional notions of what a Romantic solo concerto could or should be. Instead of using the concerto as a vehicle to show off the soloist’s technique, Beethoven placed the music front and center, while also giving the soloist plenty of opportunities to display musical skill. 

21-year-old Franz Clement, music director and concertmaster of the Theater an der Wien, commissioned the Violin Concerto in 1806. After the premiere, Clement suggested revisions to the solo part, which Beethoven incorporated into his revised score. Contrary to convention, Beethoven did not write a cadenza – the extended unaccompanied solo passage usually found at the end of the first movement – where the soloist demonstrates his/her technical and artistic skill. Presumably Clement improvised a cadenza at the premiere; since then, many violinists and composers have composed their own. Today’s audiences are probably most familiar with the cadenza created by violinist Fritz Kreisler.

Even masterworks can be diminished by a mediocre performance. According to published accounts, Beethoven finished the concerto just two days before its premiere, which meant Clement was essentially sight-reading the music. Although it was beautiful and staggeringly difficult, the lack of adequate rehearsal, among other factors, gave the Violin Concerto a bad reputation that lingered for more than 30 years. In 1844, 38 years after the concerto’s premiere, 12-year-old violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim presented the concerto at his debut with the London Philharmonic. Joachim pored over the score, memorized the entire piece, and composed his own cadenzas in preparation. The hard work paid off; one reviewer noted, “[Joachim] is perhaps the finest violin player, not only of his age, but of his siècle [century]. He performed Beethoven’s solitary concerto, which we have heard all the great performers of the last twenty years attempt, and invariably fail in … its performance was an eloquent vindication of the master-spirit who imagined it.”

Unlike Beethoven’s concertos for piano, which feature thick, dense chords and difficult scalar passages, the violin solo is graceful and lyrical. This warm expressiveness matched Clement’s style of playing, which Beethoven said exemplified “an extremely delightful tenderness and purity.” 

The concerto begins unconventionally, with five repeating notes in the timpani. This simple knocking is repeated, like a gentle but persistent heartbeat, throughout the movement, and becomes a recurring motif. In another distinctive break from tradition, the soloist does not enter for a full three minutes, and then begins a cappella (unaccompanied), before reiterating the first theme in a high register. 

The Larghetto’s main melody is stately, intimate, and tranquil, and becomes an orchestral backdrop over which the solo violin traces graceful arabesques in ethereally high registers. The soloist takes center stage in this movement, playing extended cadenzas and other passages with minimal accompaniment. 

The final Rondo-Allegro flows seamlessly from the Larghetto; the soloist launches immediately into a rocking melody that suggests a boat bobbing at anchor. Typical rondo format features a primary theme (A), which is interspersed with contrasting sections (B, C, D, etc.) Each of these contrasting sections departs from the (A) theme, sometimes in mood, sometimes by shifting from major to minor, or by changing keys entirely. 

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64

“I desperately want to prove, not only to others, but also to myself, that I am not yet played out as a composer,” wrote Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to his patron Nadezhda von Meck in the spring of 1888. With the benefit of hindsight, the idea that Tchaikovsky could think himself “played out” is perplexing. After he completed the Fifth Symphony, Tchaikovsky went on to write Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and the “Pathétique” Symphony. All artists go through periods of self-doubt, however; and Tchaikovsky was plagued by creative insecurity more than most.

If you ask a Tchaikovsky fan to name their favorite symphony, they’ll most likely choose either the Fourth, with its dramatic “Fate” motif blaring in the brasses, or the Sixth (“Pathétique”). Sandwiched in between is the Fifth Symphony, often overlooked or undervalued when compared to its more popular neighbors. However the Fifth is a significant work in its own right, showcasing Tchaikovsky’s undisputed mastery of melody; indeed, the Fifth rolls out one unforgettable tune after another. Over time, the Fifth Symphony has earned its place in the canon of orchestral repertoire itself, but Tchaikovsky, along with some 19^th century music critics, wavered in his opinion of its worth. At the end of the summer in 1888, Tchaikovsky wrote to von Meck, “It seems to me that I have not blundered, that it has turned out well,” and to his nephew Vladimir Davidov after a concert in Hamburg, “The Fifth Symphony was magnificently played and I like it far better now, after having held a bad opinion of it for some time.” After a performance in Prague, however, Tchaikovsky wrote to von Meck, “I have come to the conclusion that it is a failure. There is something repellent in it, some over-exaggerated color, some insincerity of fabrication which the public instinctively recognizes.” 

Critics dismissed the new symphony as beneath Tchaikovsky’s abilities, and one American critic damned the composer with faint praise when he opined, “[Tchaikovsky] has been criticized for the occasionally excessive harshness of his harmony, for now and then descending to the trivial and tawdry in his ornamental figuration, and also for a tendency to develop comparatively insignificant material to inordinate length. But, in spite of the prevailing wild savagery of his music, its originality and the genuineness of its fire and sentiment are not to be denied.”

The Fifth Symphony features a theme that recurs in all four movements. We hear it first in the lowest chalumeau register of the clarinet, which conveys an air of foreboding. The late critic and scholar Michael Steinberg described the theme’s effects in all the movements: “It will recur as a catastrophic interruption of the second movement’s love song, as an enervated ghost that approaches the languid dancers of the waltz, and … in majestic and blazing E major triumph.”

Tchaikovsky’s gift for melody reached beyond the classical music world in 1939, when the poignantly wistful horn solo from the Andante cantabile morphed into the popular song Moon Love, which became a hit for big band leader and trombonist Glenn Miller.

© Elizabeth Schwartz. All rights reserved.

Elizabeth Schwartz is a musician and music historian based in Portland, OR. She has been a program annotator for more than 25 years, and provides notes to musicians, ensembles, and music festivals around the world. Schwartz has also contributed to NPR’s “Performance Today,” (now heard on American Public Media).

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American violinist Stella Chen garnered worldwide attention with her first-prize win at the 2019 Queen Elizabeth International Violin Competition, followed by the 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant and 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award.

Since then, Chen has appeared across North America, Europe, and Asia in concerto, recital, and chamber music performances. She recently made debuts with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Baltimore Symphony, Belgian National Orchestra, and many others and appeared in concertos at the Vienna Musikverein, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Berlin Philharmonie. In recital, recent appearances include Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Phillips Collection, Rockport Music Festival, and Nume Festival in Italy. She appears frequently with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center both in New York and on tour.

For her all-Schubert debut album, released in March of 2023 to critical acclaim on the Apple Music label Platoon, Chen was named the 2023 Young Artist of the Year at the Gramophone Awards.

Among the highlights of her busy 2024-25 season are debuts with orchestras such as the San Francisco, New World, and Toronto Symphonies, recitals throughout North America, Europe and Asia, and a major tour in China, where she opened the Shanghai Philharmonic’s season with the Barber Concerto.

Chen has appeared as a chamber musician in festivals including the Kronberg Academy, Moritzburg, Ravinia, Seattle Chamber Music, Perlman Music Program, Music@Menlo, Bridgehampton, Rockport, and Sarasota. She returns to the Sarasota Music Festival as faculty in 2025.

She is the inaugural recipient of the Robert Levin Award from Harvard University, where she was inspired by Robert Levin himself. Teachers and mentors have included Donald Weilerstein, Itzhak Perlman, Miriam Fried, Li Lin, and Catherine Cho. She received her doctorate from the Juilliard School where she serves as a teaching assistant. She is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Shenandoah Conservatory and faculty at the annual Nume Festival and Academy in Cortona, Italy.

Stella plays the General Kyd 1720 Stradivarius, on generous loan from Dr. Ryuji Ueno and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.

Anna Rakitina has firmly established herself as one of the most exciting and sought-after conductors of her generation following a series of highly acclaimed appearances with Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras as well as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Tonkünstler-Orchester, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.

The 2024-25 season sees Rakitina make debuts with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, and North Carolina Symphony. In May 2025, she will conduct at the first-ever Shostakovich Festival Leipzig, which will bring together the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, and young musicians from both the Tanglewood Music Center and the Mendelssohn Orchestra Academy. Throughout the season, she will will also appear with Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Dresdner Philharmonie, Staatskapelle Dresden, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, and Orquestra Sinfónica de Galicia.

In recent seasons, Anna Rakitina has worked with orchestras such as BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Nürnberger Symphoniker, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Orchestre philharmonique du Luxembourg, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestre National de Lille, and Norwegian National Opera Orchestra. In North America, she has appeared with notable orchestras such as the Baltimore, Cincinnati, Houston, Utah, Quebec, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras.
Anna Rakitina regularly collaborates with soloists including Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Inon Barnatan, Joshua Bell, Renaud Capuçon, Augustin Hadelich, Lucas and Arthur Jussen, Daniel Hope, Gil Shaham, Christian Tetzlaff, Jan Vogler, and Alisa Weilerstein. She continues to champion music by today’s composers including Anna Clyne, Elena Langer, and Ellen Reid.

Rakitina was Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 2019 to 2023, where she was only the second woman in the orchestra’s history to hold the position. She concluded her tenure with a highly acclaimed performance at the Tanglewood Music Festival with Joshua Bell in August 2023. Previously, she was a Dudamel Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2019/20 season). Rakitina’s talents have been recognised through multiple awards, including second prize at the Malko Competition 2018, and further prizes at the Deutscher Dirigentenpreis’ 2017 and the TCO International Conducting Competition Taipei 2015.

Born in Moscow to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, Rakitina grew up in a musical family and began her education as a violinist before studying conducting at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Stanislav Dyachenko and later in Hamburg with Prof. Ulrich Windfuhr. She wasfinalist of ‘Das kritische Orchester’ in Berlin in 2018, participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy’s conducting fellowship scheme led by Alan Gilbert and Bernard Haitink. She has attended masterclasses with Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Jurowski, Johannes Schlaefli, and the 2022 Ammodo Masterclass conducting the Concertgebouworkest led by Fabio Luisi.

To learn more about Anna Rakitina, please visit her website.

Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) performs and produces in a variety of formats throughout New York City, including orchestral and chamber music series on each of Carnegie Hall’s iconic stages, programs focused on contemporary composers presented throughout the five boroughs, collaborations with Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center, a composition institute, and much more. Many of OSL’s performances are presented for free through its education and community engagement programs, reaching over 12,000 students and families annually with accessible, interactive student concerts, a thriving youth orchestra, and mentorship programs for emerging players. OSL built and operates The DiMenna Center in midtown Manhattan — the city’s only rehearsal, recording, and performance space built specially for classical music — where it hosts thousands of musicians and audience members year-round.

For more information and where they are playing next, please visit their website.