Performed by The Toledo Symphony on March 6 & 7, 2026 at The Peristyle

Aqua, Vivian Fung (b. 1975) 

Hailed by NPR as “one of today’s most eclectic composers,” JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung is originally from Edmonton, Canada. She holds a doctorate from Juilliard, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and is the recipient of grants from NewMusicUSA, ASCAP, the MAP Fund, the American Composers Forum, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Fung’s music is widely performed, and the Philadelphia Inquirer called her a “stunningly original compositional voice.” She currently lives in California, where she teaches composition at Santa Clara University.  

Fung’s Aqua was commissioned by the Chicago Sinfonietta for “ChiScape”, a project celebrating their 25th Anniversary season. The Chicago Architecture Foundation chose a selection of buildings that were especially meaningful in defining the city’s history and image.  Fung was one of four composers asked to compose music inspired by a building of their choice from the selection put forth. Fung explains, “I fell in love with the Aqua Tower the minute I saw the building on the list, and it led to a general admiration for Jeanne Gang’s work. I bought her book Renderings, which includes reproductions of Gang’s blueprints and ideas behind Aqua Tower, and from there I crafted my piece on what I saw.” 

Fung describes her work: “The building’s design juxtaposes horizontal waves, created by a rippling array of balcony slabs, with a vertical landscape of pools, hills, and valleys. Based on those conceptual elements, my work is structured in two parts: ‘Grand Wave No. 1 – Liquid Balconies’ represents the horizontal ebb and flow with divisi string parts that weave in and out of a colorful texture of undulating harmonies, starting gently and quickly becoming increasingly urgent and violent. Following a powerful climax, ‘Grand Wave No. 2 – Vertical Pools’ ensues with a solo harp line interjected with musical gestures depicting the dips and swells on the façade of the building. The musical work culminates in a complex chord that begins with a hum from nothingness and swells into a pandemonium of sound before disappearing into the ether of the stratosphere.”  

Fung’s Aqua was premiered by the Chicago Sinfonietta with Mei-Ann Chen in June 2013. It is scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, percussion, timpani, harp, piano, and strings.  

Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47, Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) 

Sibelius composed many works across his career and was something of a celebrity in his native Finland. Music writer Alex Ross credits him with the continued importance of classical music in Finnish culture. The violin concerto is somewhat unique amongst his output, as part of the minority of his work that does not reference Finnish mythology. Annotator Thomas May notes that this was “the very subject that had inspired Sibelius to write his Kalevala-[19th-century collection of poetry gathered from oral folklore] inspired works.” 

Sibelius began taking violin lessons at the age of fifteen, and by all accounts learned quickly. He enjoyed participating in both chamber and orchestral settings and nurtured a strong desire to perform solo. He wrote, “… the violin took me by storm, and for the next ten years it was my dearest wish, my overriding ambition, to become a great virtuoso.” Sadly, it was not to be. “My tragedy was that I wanted to be a celebrated violinist at any price… I played my violin… practicing from morning to night. I hated pen and ink, and, unfortunately, preferred an elegant violin bow. My preference for the violin lasted quite long, and it was a very painful awakening when I had to admit that I had begun my training for the exacting career of an eminent performer too late.” Nevertheless, his training on the instrument stood him in good stead, and his marked fondness for the instrument, as well as his intimate knowledge of its mechanics are clear in his work. Besides the concerto, he also wrote several shorter works showcasing the violin. 

Sibelius began work as early as 1899, writing to a friend, “I have been thinking of writing a violin concerto...” though the finished piece would not appear for several more years. Based on a letter that Sibelius’s wife Aino wrote in 1903, it is safe to assume that much of the work was completed towards the end of this period: “Janne has been on fire all the time (and so have I!)… He has such a multitude of themes in his head that he has been literally quite dizzy. He stays awake all night, playes incredibly beautifully, cannot tear himself away from the delightful melodies—he has so many ideas that it is hard to believe… And all the themes are so capable of development, full of life.” Annotator Michael Steinberg comments, “His Violin Concerto is imbued both with his feeling for the instrument and the pain of his farewell to his ‘dearest wish’ and ‘overriding ambition.’” 

More personal accounts of this time in Sibelius’s life suggest that he may have tried to subdue the fire Aino refers to above with alcohol, a claim that is backed up by his treatment of the violinist Willy Burmester, the original dedicatee of the work. Burmester was reputedly the main source of encouragement behind Sibelius’s decision to write a violin concerto and also loved the work when he first saw the score. However, Sibelius inexplicably pushed for a first performance date on which he knew Burmester was unavailable. Therefore, lesser-known violinist Viktor Novácèk premiered it in Helsinki in 1904. Though the earliest review praised Novácèk’s playing, all subsequent reviews, doubtless more realistic, cite problems with tempi, and musicians in rehearsals reported that he complained extensively about the difficulty of the passagework. 

Disappointed by the quality of the premiere, and blaming himself for Novácèk’s struggles, Sibelius began revising the concerto, detailed in a letter to a friend in 1904: “I shall remove my violin concerto; it will not be published until two years have passed. The first movement must be rewritten, the same goes for the proportions in the andante, etc.” At this point, Burmester put aside his affront at not being given the premiere and offered to perform the work and give it the benefit of his great experience and artistry, but Sibelius again chose a date for which he had a prior engagement. Burmester never did perform the concerto, and the second premiere took place in 1905 with Karl Halír (violinist in Joseph Joachim’s quartet and concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic) playing the solo part and composer Richard Strauss on the podium. 

Despite early buzz amongst the violin community, the concerto did not achieve immediate popularity. It was not until world-renowned violinist Jascha Heifetz championed the work in the 1930s, producing a recording that set it upon the path to its current place as one of the most frequently recorded and performed works from the twentieth century in the genre. Steinberg suggests that one of the reasons for the concerto’s success stems from Sibelius’s desire to compose a work with emotional depth and not only a showpiece. “Sibelius [also] set store by having composed a soloistic concerto rather than a symphonic one… He opposes rather than meshes solo and orchestra.” 

The first movement, marked Allegro moderato, is in a loose sonata form. Sibelius juxtaposes the intensity of certain moments with a more subdued quality. In keeping with his decision to set the violin and orchestra apart, the solo part first enters off the beat and with a gentle dissonance. In a letter to Aino, Sibelius wrote of this “marvelous opening idea…” The Finnish composer and musicologist Erkki Salmenhaara points out that across the whole work, “the virtuoso material springs organically from the themes.” This idea supports the unusually lengthy cadenza, which forms a significant section in the arc of the first movement. 

The Adagio di molto opens with a lovely duet in the winds. The effect is one of simplicity and aching beauty that traces a melody both restrained and rich that commentator Chris Morrison compares with one of Tchaikovsky’s most lush. The first section of the solo part is marked sul G, or, to be played entirely on the lowest and thickest string, lending the tone a darker color. Steinberg calls this movement “one of the most moving pages Sibelius ever achieved… [he] never found, perhaps never sought, such a melody again: This, too, is farewell.” 

The Allegro ma non tanto (fast but not too fast) is a dance movement, and Sibelius sets the melody in a quick dotted rhythm interspersed with flurries of notes in the solo part. This main melody is a quote from an earlier work for string quartet. Sibelius later replaced the tempo marking with the unapologetic and unqualified Allegro, explaining that the character of the movement could only be understood at a slightly faster tempo. This was evidently at least partially in response to Novácèk’s tempo, though it doubtless also accounted for whichever performances caused musicologist Donald Francis Tovey to refer to the movement as a “polonaise for polar bears.” Despite this comment, Tovey approved greatly of the concerto, elaborating, “in the easier and looser concerto forms invented by Mendelssohn and Schumann I have not met with a more original, a more masterly, and a more exhilarating work than the Sibelius Violin Concerto.” 

Eric Tawaststjerna, Sibelius’s biographer, explains the concerto very well: “[it] is distinctly Nordic in its overwhelming sense of nostalgia. The orchestra does not wallow in rich colors, but in the sonorous halflights of autumn and winter; only on rare occasions does the horizon brighten and glow.” Ross adds, “[Composing music] is a laborious traversal of an imaginary landscape. What emerges is an artwork in code, which other musicians must be persuaded to unravel… unlike a novel or a painting, a score gives up its full meaning only when it is performed in front of an audience; it is a child of loneliness that lives off crowds.”   

Sibelius’s concerto is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings. 

Symphony No. 6, Op. 74 “Pathetique,” Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) 

Tchaikovsky is one of the most prolific, respected, and troubled composers. His output spans a number of genres, although he’s best known as a composer of symphonies and of music for the ballet. He was also an accomplished conductor and was received well in that capacity almost everywhere he traveled. However, none of this professional success was able to alleviate his depression, and he attempted suicide more than once at various points in his life. 

Tchaikovsky began writing preliminary sketches for his Symphony No. 6 in 1893. Not long before, he’d been dealt a debilitating blow when Nadezdha von Meck, a prominent businesswoman with whom he’d maintained a long friendship, ended their relationship. Though they’d never met, they’d exchanged countless letters and she was his closest confidante. The year before, The Nutcracker and his opera Iolanta had come out but had not gone as well as he’d hoped. Despite this, his career was still going quite well. He was presented with an honorary doctorate, and by all accounts was excited to be working on a new symphony. 

He wrote to his nephew Bobyk Davidov, presumably in reference to his Eighteen Piano Pieces, which he also completed around this time, “I go on baking my musical blinis.” Unfortunately, his mood swings were only to intensify, and while he was certainly more enthusiastic about work on the symphony than he’d been about anything for some time, he was torturing himself with self-recriminations over its smallest details. In a later letter to Davidov he reported difficulties with the orchestration that would undoubtedly result in the audience’s “abuse … [and] misunderstanding.” Yet he added, “I certainly regard it as easily the best – and especially the most sincere – of all my works, and I love it as I have never before loved one of my musical offspring…. Without exaggeration, I have put my whole soul into this work.” 

During the work’s early stages, Tchaikovsky outlined his plans for it: “Much [will be] novel with respect to form…. For instance, the finale will not be a big Allegro but an Adagio on a considerable scale…. The ultimate essence of the plan … is LIFE. First movement – all impulsive passion, confidence, thirst for activity. Must be short. (Finale DEATH – result of collapse.) Second movement, love; third, disappointments; fourth, ends dying away (also short.)” 

Clearly much of this plan fell by the wayside during composition, but the core of it is there. At its heart, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 is just as concerned with fate as his previous symphonies, but the symphony tackles the subject with a different approach and has a different outcome. 

Annotator Michael Steinberg describes the opening Adagio – Allegro non troppo as beginning with “an extraordinary sound, that of a very low bassoon solo rising through the murk of double basses … with violas in their most sepulchral register adding their voices…. This and the beginning of the finale, which is at precisely the same tempo, are the symphony’s slowest passages.” The tempo picks up, but the change is a continuation of the phrase rather than a new idea. Tchaikovsky includes an adaptation to one of his favorite themes from Bizet’s Carmen. 

The second movement, marked Allegro con grazia, is basically a waltz with a twist. Instead of being in the traditional 3/4, Tchaikovsky sets it in the more adventurous 5/4, with each bar containing a group of 2+3. This makes the dance feel as if the first beat is never quite long enough, and it always keeps moving. The movement ends delicately with a luminous plucked chord in the strings followed by the final hum of the woodwinds, and leads almost directly into the third movement, a sizzling scherzo marked Allegro molto vivace. Steinberg explains that together, “the second and third movements form a double intermezzo between the [first and fourth] movements that carry the real burden of the … program, but it is an intermezzo of immense dramatic power.” 

The Finale: Adagio lamentoso – Andante is the movement that truly merits the symphony’s name, given after it was finished. Just after the premiere, fellow composer Rimsky-Korsakov inquired about the work’s program, expecting a lengthy explanation as was usual for Tchaikovsky’s works (even when Tchaikovsky said there was no explanation). But Tchaikovsky refused to explain, saying that it would simply be called “Symphonie à Programme.” The next day, however, he reconsidered, writing, “This program is saturated with subjective feeling, and often … while composing it in my mind, I shed many tears.… Do not speak of this to anyone.” Modest, Tchaikovsky’s brother, suggested the title “Tragic,” but Tchaikovsky said no. Modest writes, “[Then] suddenly the word patetichesky came into my head.… I remember as if it were yesterday … I uttered the word. ‘Excellent … bravo, patetichesky!’ and before my eyes [Tchaikovsky] wrote on the score the title by which it has since been known.” However, Tchaikovsky tried to retract the title, asking his publisher to strike it from the score and dedicate the work to his nephew Bobyk. The publisher ignored him, and published as Symphonie Pathétique, a title that, according to Tchaikovsky biographer John Warrack, refers to “the Russian word … [that] carries more feeling of ‘passionate’ and ‘emotional’ in it than the English ‘pathetic,’ and perhaps an overtone, which has largely vanished from our word, of … ‘suffering.’” 

Tchaikovsky wrote in a letter to a friend, “I give you my word of honor that never in my life have I been so contented, so proud, so happy in the knowledge that I have written a good piece.” But the reception following the premiere was mixed. Eduard Hanslick, the famous Viennese critic who usually intensely disliked Tchaikovsky’s work, called it an “original and intelligent work that despite its faults [certain operatic characteristics, it’s length, and the “disagreeable rhythm” of the 5/4] … made a strong impression.” Mahler was less forgiving, calling is a “shallow, superficial, distressingly homophonic work – no better than salon music.” Tchaikovsky wrote to a friend about the various reactions he was receiving, saying, “it is very strange.… It was not exactly a failure, but it was received with some hesitation.” Perhaps it is the slow pianississimo ending, with its lack of definite finality that unsettled listeners. 

A little over a week after conducting the premiere, Tchaikovsky contracted cholera from contaminated water and died. Two weeks later, the “Pathétique” was performed again. Steinberg describes the occasion: “Tchaikovsky had died twelve days before, and that of course was something the audience could not stop thinking about as they bathed in what the English writer Martin Cooper called the ‘voluptuous gloom’ of this all but posthumous symphony. Black drapery and a bust modeled after Tchaikovsky’s death mask heightened the atmosphere.” According to Rimsky-Korsakov, who was again in attendance, “the public greeted [the symphony] rapturously, and since that moment the fame … has kept growing and growing, spreading gradually over Russia and Europe.” 

In a more recent poll, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique” was voted the second most popular work in that genre of all time, surpassed only by Beethoven’s fifth. Revered musicologist and composer Sir Donald Francis Tovey highlights its popularity: “There are probably a hundred lovers of music who would be moved to tears by Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetic’ Symphony.… I freely confess not only that the Tchaikovsky Symphony is a work for which I have great respect and admiration, but also that it produces far more effect on me when I hear it.” 

The work is scored for three flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.