Through his work with many of the world’s finest orchestras, Lawrence Renes has established a reputation for innovative programming and dynamic performance.

In recent seasons, Renes has conducted many of Europe’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, BBC and Gothenburg Symphonies; MDR Leipzig and WDR Köln; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Danish National Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and the Minnesota, Seattle, Houston, Detroit, Indianapolis and St. Louis Symphonies; he conducted at the 2007 Aspen Music Festival.

Engagements for this and forthcoming seasons include returns to the Oslo Philharmonic, Het Residentie Orkest, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Malmo Symphony and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He will conduct the National Orchestra of Spain, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and the Bergen Philharmonic, among others.

Renes has gained an excellent operatic reputation with his ability to offer a broad range of repertoire, including a number of contemporary operas. He gave the U.S. premiere of Tan Dun's Tea with Sante Fe Opera to great critical acclaim. In 2007 he returned to Netherlands Opera for the European Premiere of John Adams' Dr Atomic; he led the work’s UK premiere at the English National Opera.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Principal Cellist JONATHAN SPITZ has established himself as one of the leading cellists in the New York area with his performances as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral principal. He is a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and principal cellist of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra and the Bard Festival Orchestra. His performance of the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto at the OK Mozart Festival received a nationwide broadcast on NPR’s “Performance Today.”

An active chamber musician, Spitz performs regularly with the New Jersey Symphony Chamber Players, Bard Festival Chamber Players and as a guest artist in chamber music festivals worldwide. He has performed with Rudolf Serkin, Oscar Shumsky, Benita Valente, Bargemusic, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and Speculum Musicae.

He serves on the faculties of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and the School for Strings Summer Chamber Music Workshop; he is an instructor at the Manhattan School of Music. A graduate of the Curtis Institute, Spitz has recorded for multiple record labels.

Coriolan Overture, Op. 62

Ludwig van Beethoven

Born December 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany

Died March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria

Beethoven’s source for Coriolan was Heinrich von Collin’s drama, based on the same legend as Shakespeare’s play. The story concerns a general of the Roman republic who is banished from the city because of his proud disdain for the plebeians. He allies with the enemy Volscians and schemes attack on his fellow Romans. His wife and mother enter the enemy camp in order to plead with him. In Collin’s drama, the tormented general commits suicide.

Beethoven’s musical evocation focuses on the hero’s moment of decision. The overture is a succinct sonata form that the composer imbues with the conflicts and human drama inherent in Collin’s play. Beethoven plunges us into the turmoil with agonized chords at the start. Coriolanus’s indecision is apparent in the unstable, flexible rhythm of the principal theme, whose lurching accents and phrasing are not synchronized with the movement’s theoretical “march” meter of 4/4. At the conclusion, the hero is destroyed. No triumph emerges from this particular struggle. Beethoven’s message is dark, focusing exclusively on the hero’s frustration. The story may be depressing, but it is above all very powerful in its finality.

Beethoven scored Coriolan for woodwinds, horns, and trumpets in pairs, timpani and strings. Timing: 8 minutes.

Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129

Robert Schumann

Born June 8, 1810 in Zwickau, Germany

Died July 29, 1856 in Endenich

In autumn 1850, Robert and Clara Schumann moved to Düsseldorf so that he could assume the music directorship of the city’s orchestra. Their hopes were high for the new position, and within months, Schumann produced the Cello Concerto, the “Rhenish” Symphony, most of his music for Goethe’s Faust and a number of songs.

Soloist’s perspective

The Cello Concerto has had difficulty in establishing itself firmly in the standard repertoire. Yet cellists regard it as essential. Says the program's soloist, NJSO principal Jonathan Spitz: “For cellists, however, there’s a dearth of solo literature from the core Germanic composers after Haydn. We have the Beethoven Triple and the Brahms Double, but they’re ensemble pieces. The Schumann Concerto was the most technically challenging solo concerto at that time. Much of it lies in the high register, which was perceived as a difficult area for the cello to convey a sense of fluency and naturalness.”

Spitz sees Schumann as the most psychologically revealing of the great composers. “He lays bare his emotions,” he says. “It was among his last great works before his final breakdown. The concerto is compelling because he combines the expression of his pain and vulnerability with a hopeful yearning for a world that doesn’t have that pain. The Cello Concerto is a mature expression of those two sides.”

Spitz is particularly fond of the slow movement. “There is a double-stopped passage accompanied by the orchestra’s principal cello that is the very heart of the concerto,” he explains. “In that moment, with the voices of three celli, it’s as if time stands still. It’s the perfect expression of this other world: Schumann’s own personal paradise expressed in music.”

About the music

The soloist enters immediately, without an extended orchestral exposition. No pause separates the work’s three movements. Schumann’s transitions are imaginative and seamless, and the concerto’s emotional integrity remains undisturbed. The cadenza is in the third movement, rather than the first, and it is accompanied by orchestra, a brilliant tactic that succeeds in further unifying the work.

With Haydn and Boccherini as his chief predecessors in the realm of the solo cello concerto, Schumann looked to a fine, but distant, tradition. This work established a new romantic model for the genre. As Alfred Nieman has so eloquently observed: “Here is the distilled essence of Schumann. It is a song for ‘cello, bringing to the surface the dreamer that is in us all.”

The Cello Concerto is scored for woodwinds, horns, and trumpets in pairs; timpani, solo cello and strings. Timing: 26 minutes.

Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K. 425 (“Linz”)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria

Died December 5, 1791 in Vienna

More than any other Mozart symphony, the “Linz” bears the imprint of Joseph Haydn. The slow introduction, so characteristic in Haydn’s symphonies, makes its first appearance in this work. The bright sunny key of C major and the military grandeur of the first movement are also Haydnesque. And the finale shares a marvelous sense of humor with the best of the Haydn symphonic last movements. Among Mozart’s own works, this finale is close in spirit to that of the “Haffner” Symphony, No. 35 in D Major, K. 385.

In 1783, Mozart and his wife, Constanze, visited friends in Linz. Mozart was to present a concert of his own works there, but he needed an orchestral piece for the occasion. He wrote to Leopold: “As I have not a single symphony with me, I am writing a new one at breakneck speed.” Although he completed it in a matter of days, the C major symphony shows no sign of haste.

The forthright, march-like first movement gains subtlety and sophistication by means of Mozart’s skilled use of chromaticism. His skilled interplay of winds and strings throughout the symphony shows increasing compositional maturity. In the majestic slow movement, an unexpected use of timpani and brasses adds dignity and grandeur. A gentle siciliana in F major, this Andante also features a stealthy ascending minor scale followed by octave leaps, introduced in its development section. It first occurs in the bassoon, doubled by cellos and basses. Strings, then upper woodwinds, respond with a sigh. Presently the violins adopt the scale motive, then lower strings, before the music returns to the gentle sway of the opening material.

Trumpets and timpani take a more conventional, ceremonial role in the minuet. They rest in its trio section in favor of solos for principal oboe and principal bassoon. The two woodwind instruments’ dialogue in the second half of the trio, alternating between consonant duet and canonic imitation, is delightful. The aforementioned Presto that concludes the Linz Symphony extends the charm, presenting new melodic ideas with a speed and generosity that dazzle the ear.

The score calls for woodwinds, horns and trumpets in pairs, timpani and strings. Timing: approximately 26 minutes.

Don Juan, Op. 20

Richard Strauss

Born June 11, 1864 in Munich, Germany

Died September 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Don Juan was the earliest of Strauss’s ten symphonic tone poems to be hailed as a work of genius. Effectively, this piece launched Strauss on his long and meteoric career.

A different view of the fabled lady-killer

Strauss composed Don Juan in 1888 and 1889, taking as his starting point the poetic drama by Nicolaus Lenau, which focuses on the libertine hero’s psychological state rather than his amorous adventures. He included three passages from Lenau to head the score, setting forth the hero’s philosophy: a quest for the supreme moment in life, without regard for the consequences. At the end, in the midst of a duel, he discards his sword intentionally, leaving himself disarmed and vulnerable to the inevitable death thrust. That end is preferable to living, which has become meaningless to him.

The work is a sonata form modified with the addition of the two love episodes. Strauss’s hero is represented by the horns’ principal theme. He is noble and dashing, hardly the reprehensible villain of da Ponte and Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Strauss was fascinated by Lenau’s more idealistic presentation of the incurable lover, constantly searching for female perfection.

Tour de force for the horn section

Brilliantly orchestrated, Don Juan is particularly demanding for the French horns. When the work was being rehearsed for its premiere, Strauss wrote to his father:

The sound was wonderful, immensely glowing and exuberant. It will make a tremendous stir here … The orchestra huffed and puffed but did its job famously. One of the horn players sat there out of breath, sweat pouring from his brow, asking ‘Good God, in what way have we sinned that you should have sent us this scourge!’ We laughed till we cried! Certainly the horns blew without fear of death … I was really sorry for the wretched brass. They were quite blue in the face, the whole affair was so strenuous.

Horn players have continued to have a love/hate relationship with Strauss to the present day. Listeners have never lost their taste for that big, thrilling brass sound.

Spotlight on oboe

There is more to Don Juan than flash and brilliance, however. Strauss’s evocations of the women in Don Juan’s life leave an equally strong musical impression. Two mistresses are personified through orchestral episodes that feature solos, the first for the concertmaster, the second for principal oboe. As heartfelt and sensual as the violin passage is, the oboe’s melody lifts the ecstasy to a higher plane.

NJSO principal oboe Robert Ingliss has extensive experience playing Strauss’s operas and tone poems. "Strauss expressed a preference for the French school of oboe playing, with a thinner tone quality, but more cantabile: still fluid and malleable. That comes through in the Don Juan solo. He starts on a low D, marked piano. You have to emerge out of that into the initial octave leap. The big challenge is to color the solo. It can be static, because the oboe part is so tranquil. It’s actually quite magical, with a yearning quality. Time stands still. The muted contrabass chords below lend a very special sound. They are divided in four parts, an unusual and perhaps unprecedented scoring. Strauss’s orchestration is brilliant.”

New theme for the hero

Strauss reasserts the strength of the Don’s personality by introducing an entirely new theme for him—again on horns—at the conclusion of their love scene. It is his most heroic motive, working in concert with the opening theme through the development and recapitulation that follow the love episodes. The astonishing brilliance and skill of Strauss’s orchestration and his handling of the large symphonic form combine with the implications of Lenau’s poetic drama in this striking and exciting masterpiece.