Shostakovich Benjamin Zander Live from Carnegie Hall

Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) BOSTON SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN D MINOR, OP. 47 1. Conductor’s introductory remarks ... 7:29 PHILHARMONIC 2. Moderato – Allegro non troppo ..... 17:20 3. Allegretto ...... 5:27 YOUTH 4. Largo ...... 14:31 ORCHESTRA 5. Allegro non troppo ...... 11:59 Total Running Time: 56 minutes Benjamin Zander conductor Go behind the scenes as the BPYO Shaping Future Leaders prepared for its Carnegie Hall debut at Through Music http://lin.mn/shostakovich

Recorded at Carnegie Hall, New York City, USA 9 December 2013 Produced by James Blachly Recorded live by Jerry Bruck with Michael Karas Post-production by Antonio Oliart Cover image by Koren Reyes Design by gmtoucari.com

2 DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) Shostakovich had, on Stalin’s instructions, SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN D MINOR, OP. 47 been savagely attacked for the supposedly pornographic and modernist excesses of his An artist-barbarian with a drowsy brush opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Blackens over the painting of a genius, This famous Pravda article appeared under And his lawless drawing the title ‘Muddle Instead of Music’. The Scribbles over it meaninglessly. various attacks that followed included an article condemning his ballet The Limpid But with the years the alien paints Stream, as well as a number of more or Flake off like old scales; less public threats. There were also threats The creation of the genius appears transmitted privately through ‘friends’ and Before us in its former beauty. colleagues. The composer was all too aware that his life was in danger. We are told that Thus the delusions fall away at this time and for some time afterwards From my worn-out soul, Shostakovich, like others at that unhappy And there spring up within it period, took to sleeping by the door of Visions of original, pure days his fl at; he did not wish the children to be awakened by his being arrested in the middle — Alexander Pushkin of the night. During all of 1936 and most of 1937 The above poem, Rebirth, was set to music he was under immense pressure. On the by Shostakovich in December 1936 as the one hand, this was a time when, in Anna opening of his Four Romances on Poems by Akhmatova’s words (from a poem dedicated Pushkin, Op. 46. Eleven months earlier to Shostakovich), ‘the last friends had turned

3 away their eyes’, and many of his colleagues Solomon Volkov in Testimony) that: were behaving almost as though he did not exist. On the other hand there was a clear I think it’s clear to everyone what happens atmosphere of expectation on the part of the in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created authorities, who were waiting for the composer under a threat, as in Boris Godunov. It’s as to humiliate himself, to admit his crimes and if someone were beating you with a stick declare himself ready to knuckle down to end saying: ‘Your business is rejoicing, the business of writing only the music that your business is rejoicing’, and you rise, others had deemed he should write. It was shakily, and go off muttering, ‘Our business against this sombre background that he sat is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing’. People down to compose his Fifth Symphony. And it who came to the premiere of the Fifth in the was against this background too that after his best of moods wept. new work had been given a triumphant fi rst performance on 21 November 1937, it was We can also now see that there might well be famously, although anonymously, described some truth in the report that Shostakovich as ‘A Soviet artist’s practical creative reply to himself agreed to the subtitle ‘A Soviet artist’s just criticism’. practical creative reply to just criticism’. It We have moved a long way from the days would have been utterly characteristic of where audiences (and, even more, conductors) this supremely ironic man to have done so. apparently imagined that the fi nale of this The symphony is indeed his awe-inspiringly Fifth Symphony was indeed just a vulgarly creative reply to criticism, as well as being optimistic apotheosis, a craven celebration of the only reply that was practically possible for Stalinist power. We can feel the obvious truth him. As for those adjectives ‘Soviet’ and ‘just’, of Shostakovich’s own comment (reported by their tawdry hollowness is now as audible as

4 the similar hollowness of the march in the and long-term harmonic structure, while symphony’s fi nale. at the same time (and for the fi rst time in To anyone who already knew this composer’s work) engaging with the Shostakovich’s music and who heard this greatest of models in our musical culture: work at its fi rst performance under Yevgeny with Mahler (with his Sixth and Ninth Mravinsky in Leningrad in November 1937, Symphonies especially), and, through Mahler, it must have been clear even from the with Beethoven. opening notes that here was an artist who The fi rst movement begins with music that had entered upon a new fi eld of experience, is both a slow introduction and the symphony’s a new way of listening and a new way exposition (‘exposing’, incidentally, the of making other people listen. After the material not only of the fi rst movement, but, childlike brilliance of the First Symphony, as it later turns out, of the other three as well). the experimental uproar of The Nose and Quite near the very opening, just after the fi rst the Second and Third Symphonies, and the four bars or so of jagged dotted rhythms, there intoxicated inventiveness and melodrama begins a rocking accompaniment in the lower of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (not strings over which the fi rst violins enter with to mention the Fourth Symphony, which as the symphony’s fi rst quiet suggestion of a yet no one had heard), here was something melody, a descent from A to D, but the fourth different again; a symphonism overpowering note of the phrase is not an E natural (which in the precision and unity of its form and in our ears would expect) but an unexpected the simultaneous concision and profusion E fl at. One need not be a musical analyst to of its detail, utterly original in its grasp of feel the power and logic of the way in which thematic identity and contrast as well as in the composer takes the listener on a journey its manipulation of extended development from the bitter-sweet experience of a single

5 ‘wrong’ note to the bitter-sweet experience of marked ‘Allegretto’, sets off at ♩ = 138, a whole, complex, but profoundly organized, which is exactly the same as the speed of the symphonic world. climax of the fi rst movement’s development; In a classical symphony, a slow in other words, the scherzo is taking off from introduction would typically lead to the fast the point where that development had left music of the fi rst movement proper. And so off. And although the quite new character it happens here, except that, as the composer of the second movement (with its almost has already introduced us to his main themes startling likeness to a Mahlerian Ländler) and ideas, the fast music, towards which the might seem a long way from the world of slow music gradually and subtly accelerates, the fi rst movement, as Shostakovich begins turns out to be already the movement’s to twist and turn his delirious fragments development section. Such a direct physical of triple-time dance music, they begin play with our conventional expectations of to yield up echoes and memories of the the rhetoric of symphonic architecture was earlier music. something that was subsequently to become For the slow movement in F sharp minor, typical of the mature Shostakovich. Shostakovich takes the unusual step of Incidentally, one of the most carefully dividing all the violins into three equal parts, organized aspects of this symphony is the as well as dividing the violas and cellos each matter of the measurement of pulse. The into two parts. The resulting eight-part string composer took extraordinary care with texture (including the double basses) is what his metronome specifi cations to indicate gives the string writing of this ‘Largo’ its how the inexorable acceleration towards peculiar feeling of mass and sonority. Like the catastrophe is to be achieved in performance. thematic material of the scherzo, the material Interestingly the scherzo, in A minor and of this movement, although it grows into

6 a sonata structure of a kind, also holds our lilting; the horror and the bombast has ebbed attention by suggesting a network of affi nities away. And the high strings are heard rocking and connections with the themes of the fi rst backwards and forwards on two notes. movement. In particular the descending This rocking fi gure, a gentle oscillation fi ve-note phrase with its bittersweet E fl at on two notes, is an idea that recurs again and from near the beginning of the whole work again in Shostakovich’s work, and is usually a reappears here, changing itself into a whole reference to one of the most famous moments variety of new guises. in Russian music, a moment from one of The last movement begins with that Shostakovich’s favourite works, Mussorgsky’s famous march ‘as though someone were Boris Godunov. The moment in the opera from beating you with a stick and saying: which the fi gure comes is the opening of the “Your business is rejoicing, your business monastery scene, where the curtain rises to is rejoicing”.’ As in the fi rst movement, reveal the chronicler-monk Pimen writing at Shostakovich takes tremendous care his desk. The rocking seems to suggest the to construct a precise and calculated old man’s hand moving across the parchment acceleration through his metronome page. Pimen tells us (and here Mussorgsky indications. It is at the height of acceleration sets almost exactly Pushkin’s words) that his that the character of this music suddenly task is almost done; that in his chronicle he changes. On paper at this moment there is has set out all that has happened in his age so a further acceleration, but the real effect of that future generations may read the truth of the music is, if not actually slower, at any rate the crimes of tyrants and the sufferings of the something akin to that of a translation into ordinary people. Pimen regards his work as another dimension of time. All around us, the not merely history, but a vessel of judgment. atmosphere is suddenly gentle, spacious and This characteristically Russian view

7 of the political and moral responsibilities When the Fifth Symphony was fi rst of someone who writes things down, was performed, no one had yet heard the Pushkin probably fi rst enunciated by Pushkin here in song. Therefore, either the composer intended this very scene. Amongst Russian musicians his references to the song as an entirely private and music-lovers it has become almost message to himself, or he intended them, like commonplace to describe Shostakovich’s Pimen’s chronicle, to become clear only later, works as not merely music, but part of a to later generations. In either event, what is continuous moral chronicle. We know from evident is that beneath the central section of the accounts of his friends that Shostakovich this fi nale there is an implied text. The fi rst himself came to see his work in this light. So fragmentary references are to the second the reference to Pimen in his cell can be seen of the song’s three verses. This is the verse as a signal that the composer is about to tell which tells how, with the passing of time, us something. the crude daubings of the barbarian will dry In fact, what Shostakovich tells us is and fl ake off like old scales. The beauty two things. Firstly he begins quietly and of the original painting, which had been inexorably to draw into the foreground of obliterated by the barbarian, will become our attention memories of ideas from the visible once more. symphony’s fi rst movement. In the second Gradually these sketchy references to the place, he begins to make comparisons song’s second verse transform themselves into between those memories and other curiously the clearer features of the third verse, ‘Thus similar memories of musical images from that the delusions fall away | From my worn-out little Pushkin song, Rebirth, which he had soul’, until fi nally, at the point just before the written only a few months before, and whose return of the brutal march from the beginning text is quoted at the head of this note. of the movement, the strings spread out into

8 a radiant chord of B fl at major over which the be moved by the weight of the catastrophe. harp can be heard playing almost the very It will seem almost incredible that anyone music that, in the song, the piano plays to could ever have been musically insensitive accompany the words, ‘And there spring up enough to have supposed that this music within it | Visions of original, pure days’. suggested the smallest capitulation to the So what did the composer do with the demands of a tyrant. song’s fi rst verse, with its description of the And yet, if we do listen to the words as artist-barbarian crudely daubing over the well, if we do lend our ears to the potentially painting of a genius? The opening notes of the secret message (to himself as much as to song, setting the words ‘An artist-barbarian’, others) that Shostakovich in 1937 hid beneath are in fact exactly the same as the opening the thunder of his music, we will fi nd, oddly notes of this fi nale, the main theme of the and ironically enough, that there is a quality march that begins and ends it. In other words, of affi rmation at the end of this symphony, this march is the march of the artist-barbarian albeit an affi rmation of a kind utterly other himself. It takes no great imagination to than the one that was being demanded of him. realize who, in Shostakovich’s mind, that For Pushkin’s original words, the words to great barbarian was, daubing crudely over the which Shostakovich had turned at a moment creations of others and obliterating the beauty of extreme darkness, are words of triumph, in his path. If this music is played as it should words of trust that, like the chronicle of Pimen be, following the composer’s precise and itself, the real work of art will survive to re- detailed instructions, then indeed its meaning emerge in time with its original qualities, will be clear: the march will seem like a gross its ‘beauty, truth and rarity’, as unsullied as and hideous act of obliteration. We do not on its fi rst day. It is part of the strangeness have to know the words of Pushkin’s poem to of Shostakovich’s fi nale that no amount of

9 histrionic tub-thumping in D major on the part screeching. Following this “music” is diffi cult, of the enraged barbarian can quite obliterate remembering it is impossible.’ The subject the radiance of that earlier moment, minutes was Shostakovich’s internationally successful before, when Shostakovich had conjured up opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, in his own mind his private memories of a and the author, it now appears, was none tiny Pushkin song, Rebirth, written at the very other than Stalin himself. beginning of what was a new period, a new Overnight the 30-year-old composer’s way of thinking and feeling, both in his life rapidly ascending star plummeted. He came and in his music. to regard himself, and to be regarded, as a doomed man, waiting with packed bags for © Gerard McBurney the secret police to take him away during the night. In fact, the police never came, but the fear of offi cial reprisals for any A NOTE FROM THE CONDUCTOR displeasure which his music might occasion coloured every moment of his life after that. On 28 January 1936, Pravda, the offi cial He was never to know freedom again, except Communist Party newspaper, published an surreptitiously in some of his music. editorial entitled ‘Muddle Instead of Music’. Shostakovich withdrew the Fourth It ran in part: ‘The listener is fl abbergasted Symphony from its scheduled performance from the fi rst moment of the opera by an and began the composition of a fi fth which intentionally ungainly, muddled fl ood had as its subtitle, ‘An artist’s practical of sounds. Snatches of melody, embryos answer to just criticism’. His intention was of musical phrases, drown, escape and to reinstate himself, through this work, in the drown once more in crashing, gnashing and eyes of the Politburo. The Fifth Symphony

10 did indeed do that: the fi rst performance was of pain, a crying out against a relentless and a huge success. It is anything but cheerful: inhuman force. This was Shostakovich’s the fi rst movement is dark and foreboding, message to the world, one that for all his fear the second is ironic and brittle, and the he knew he could risk encoding into the text, third a deep song of sorrow. However, only confi dent that the eagerness of the Soviet the message at the end was important to the authorities to hear what they wanted to hear Soviets, and Shostakovich knew that. The long would keep them from hearing the subversive fi nal movement, as they heard it, climaxed in message that was actually there. a triumphant march, a paean of praise to the Years after the fi rst performance, the Soviet State. great Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache The musical director conducted a faithful wrote a letter to Shostakovich from Switzer- fi rst performance, but for one thing. He, and land asking the question: ‘Is the tempo a generation of conductors who followed, marking ♪ = 184 correct at the end of the missing the clear indication by Shostakovich Fifth Symphony?’ He received a postcard that the concluding section of the symphony from Moscow, unsigned. On it was a single was to be played at ♪ = 184, a very slow word: ‘Correct’. tempo, conducted it at twice the indicated speed. One edition printed in Russia changed © Benjamin Zander the metronome marking to ♩ = 184, doubling the tempo because the editor assumed that Shostakovich had made an error. However, when the fi nal march is played at the tempo indicated in the score, the joyful celebration heard at the faster tempo turns into a scream

11 BENJAMIN ZANDER

Music was Benjamin Zander’s life at a very early age. When Zander was nine he was already composing and by twelve he was studying under Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst. He left home at the age of fi fteen to study for fi ve years with the great Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassado in Florence and at the State Academy in Cologne. After completing his degree at London University, he went to the United States on a Harkness Fellowship and has made his home in Boston ever since. There, as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic since its formation in 1978, and a guest conductor of numerous orchestras, he has become the centre of an intense, at times almost cult-like following. In his case, however, the followers are not starry-eyed acolytes, but rather some of the most well-informed musical intellectuals in America. For over forty years, beginning with Michael Steinberg’s passionate advocacy on his behalf in the pages of the Boston Globe, Photograph by Jeffrey Filiault

12 critics and public have been united in their guest conductor and has conducted the Israel praise of Zander’s interpretations of the Philharmonic for three consecutive years, central repertory. and conducted orchestras as diverse as the For 45 years Mr. Zander was on the Bournemouth Symphony, the Scottish and faculty of the New England Conservatory Irish National Orchestras, the St Petersburg of Music, where he taught an interpretation Philharmonic, the Malaysian Symphony, class, conducted the Youth Philharmonic the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra and regularly conducted the Indianapolis Symphony, the Youth Orchestra conservatory orchestras. He was also the of the Americas, the Tulsa Symphony Artistic Director of the joint program between Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, New England Conservatory’s Preparatory and has appeared with the National Youth School and The Walnut Hill School for the Orchestras of New Zealand, Australia and Performing Arts in Natick, Massachusetts. Venezuela. During his 38-year tenure as the conductor Zander has a unique relationship with of the New England Conservatory Youth the Philharmonia Orchestra (London), with Philharmonic Orchestra, he led them on which he is currently recording a series fi fteen international tours and made several of Beethoven and Mahler symphonies. documentaries for Public Broadcasting Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, Service. and Mahler’s First, Second, Third, Fourth, Zander travels extensively giving master- Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Symphonies have been classes, conducting guest performances and released thus far. Each of these recordings touring with his own recently formed Boston includes a full-length discussion with Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. He has Zander explaining the music. High Fidelity established an international reputation as a named the recording of Mahler’s Sixth as

13 ‘the best classical recording of 2002’. The award by the International Institute of recording of Mahler’s Third was awarded Boston for his ‘outstanding contribution to the ‘Critics’ Choice’ by the German Record American society’ as a United States citizen Critics’ Award Association in 2004, and of foreign birth. In March of 2009, he was their recordings of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony awarded an honorary doctorate from New and Bruckner’s 5th Symphony were England Conservatory of Music, and in 2012 nominated for Grammy Awards for Best he was awarded Faculty Emeritus status at Orchestral Performance. that institution. Zander has travelled the world lecturing Please visit benjaminzander.com for to organizations on leadership. He has more information, and TED.com to hear appeared several times as a keynote speaker his infl uential presentation on the at the World Economic Forum in Davos, transformative power of classical music. where he was presented with the Crystal Award for ‘Outstanding Contributions in the Arts and International Relations’. The best-selling book, The Art of Possibility, co-authored with leading psychotherapist Rosamund Zander, has been translated into seventeen languages. In 2002, Zander was awarded the Caring Citizen of the Humanities Award by the International Council for Caring Communities at the United Nations. In 2007, he was awarded the Golden Door

14 performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony as ‘a brilliantly played, fervently felt account, enriched with silken strings, Shaping Future Leaders robust brass and eloquent solos’. Through Music The inaugural 2012-13 season of the BPYO culminated in a fi ve-city concert tour The 120 members of the Boston of the Netherlands, with a fi nal performance Philharmonic Youth Orchestra range in of Mahler’s Second Symphony in age from 12 to 21, and are chosen through Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. In the course a highly selective audition process. They of the 12-day tour, the orchestra received reside or attend school throughout New two superlative fi ve-star reviews in national England and come together on Saturday papers, collaborated with an orchestra of afternoons for sectionals and full orchestra 600 12-year-olds, and was featured in the rehearsals at the Benjamin Franklin Institute International Koorbiënnale Haarlem. of Technology, in Boston’s South End. The BPYO’s motto is ‘shaping future Now in its third season, the BPYO has leaders through music’. Complementing already established itself as a signifi cant their musical assignments, BPYO members feature in the cultural and educational receive weekly leadership assignments. fabric of Boston and beyond. The BPYO The orchestra members carry on a dialogue made its Carnegie Hall debut in December with Benjamin Zander through ‘white 2013. The New York Times review of that sheets’, wherein they are invited to refl ect concert noted that the members of BPYO on the leadership assignments, and offer ‘play with a maturity and cohesion well feedback about the rehearsal process and beyond their years’, and described their their musical and life experiences. These

15 conversations often lead to stimulating discussions on personal leadership and effective contribution. BPYO members participate as musical mentors in the Crescendo! program of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, working with younger musicians in local schools and El Sistema-inspired programs. At the end of each of the fi rst two seasons BPYO co-hosted the Annual El Sistema Greater Boston showcase, which featured a side-by-side performance with musicians from BPYO and the Conservatory Lab Charter School.

BOSTON PHILHARMONIC YOUTH ORCHESTRA

295 Huntington Ave, Suite 210 Boston, MA 02115, USA bostonphil.org facebook.com/BosPhilYouth

16 Photograph by Steve Dunwell VIOLIN I Emily Chen Raymond Dineen Abby Adams Roland Clark Emily Edelstein Nikhil Bajaj Benjamin Covell Nicholas Gallitano Francesca Bass Laura Dynes Christian Hoschek-Santillan Yuki Beppu Isabel Espinosa Gerald Karni Courtney Chang Njioma Grevious Nathan Kwak Hyunnew Choi Mirella Gruesser-Smith Grace Laminack Julia Churchill Sing Hong Lee Wei Li Tristan Flores Hoyeon (Kelly) Lew Rebecca Long Joshua Henderson Aditya Mahadevan Julia McLean Becca Kasdan Susanna Monroe Julia Wells Benjamin Lyo Joshua Newburger* Eric Mrugala Lauryn Phinney CELLO Greta Myatieva September Rose Benjamin Adams Dillon Robb Ryan Shannon Raphael Boden Ann-Frances Rokosa Walker Stroud Graham Boswell Max Tan* Michelle Tan Emma Churchill Leland Wu Amy Thacker Jonah Ellsworth Faye Yang William Wang Katherine Haroldson Hikaru Yonezaki Sasha Yakub McKinley James Mitsuru Yonezaki Leland Ko* Sarah Yu VIOLA Lev Mamuya Ilana Zaks Harrison Adams Rei Otake Natalie Alper-Leroux* Nicolas Sterner VIOLIN II Ella Belina Keith Williams Daniel Cetlin Kenneth Chen Lisa Yasui Lilia Chang Thomas Cooper Eric Zaks 18 BASS Eb CLARINET TROMBONE Justin Cheeseman Brittnee Pool Taylor Blanton* Eric Farnan* Jicheng Zhang James Hotchkiss BASSOON Daniel Klingsberg Cheryl Fries* BASS TROMBONE John Krause Rachel Parker Zachary Haas Aidan Phipps Kai Rocke Peter Walsh Tylor Thomas TUBA Daniel Sanchez FLUTE CONTRABASSOON Melissa Cheng Rachel Parker TIMPANI & Michelle Sung* PERCUSSION Katie Velasquez FRENCH HORN Brandon Ilaw* Nick Auer Andrew Kim PICCOLO Evan Gross Noah Rosen Lily Josefsberg Gabriel Lesnick John Stapleton Mackenzie Newell Carley Yanuck OBOE Megan Shusta* Nicole Caligiuri Justin Smith PIANO & CELESTA Mark Debski Stephanie Smith Hunter Bennett Jonathan Gentry* Nicholas Tisherman TRUMPET HARP Arthur Abbate Anna DeLoi CLARINET Joseph Blumberg Charles Overton Diego Bacigalupe Elmer Churampi Keum Yong Lee* Daniel Katz Brittnee Pool Brian Olson* *indicates principal 19 A LETTER FROM OUR comes from experiencing the beautiful and MUSIC DIRECTOR unfamiliar sights, sounds and people of a new culture. Our eyes were shining and so Since we gave our fi nal Boston area concert were theirs! at the end of last season, we have continued That everybody behaved so perfectly on our grand musical adventure. On the throughout the twelve days of the tour was 16 June we set off on a fi ve-city tour of not a matter of chance. All the players had the Netherlands. We called it a ‘Tour of been chosen not only for their musical Possibility’. We took only four chaperones to accomplishment, but also for their spirit and ‘look after’ 116 young musicians, aged 12 character. Moreover, since the fi rst rehearsal, to 21. How could we get away with so few the previous September, everyone had been adults to mind so many teenagers in a foreign working on the leadership assignments that country – especially in Amsterdam? We had I gave out each week. no need to worry, because we knew that These assignments are designed to every one of the students would be guided by open the possibility for young people to their love of the music, their respect for each be aware, awake and to take responsibility other, and the responsibility they all felt for for everything that happens in their the orchestra and the magnifi cent concert lives. They are designed to train them as venues in which they were privileged to play. communicators, to bring to the world the As we predicted, there was not a single passion, intensity and joy they feel while incident that needed the intervention of playing music with others. We are training an adult – only glorious music-making for them to be ambassadors for a way of life: wildly appreciative audiences; deepening a way of life that is not bogged down by friendships and the awe and joy that doubt and criticism, but one that speaks of

20 opportunities to enhance and to contribute revolutionized my approach to music and to the lives of others, and to walk with spirit life in general. I joke with my friends that I and love, whatever the circumstances. now preach the “gospel of classical music” Perhaps the best way of knowing a youth to everyone I meet. I love discovering the new orchestra is through the eyes of those who ways in which music brings people together, have left it behind. Here are some ‘white and the ways that music helps me to discover sheets’ written after the tour, by members of the world anew each day. the orchestra who have moved on to further education elsewhere. It is these eloquent Your assignments to approach the world communications and the certain knowledge with more generosity than you think you that these young people will go on to are capable of, and to “walk with spirit and make a profound difference in their new love”, have carried me very far in a culture communities that inspire everyone involved that is so far and different from my own. in the BPYO to pour all of themselves Language often prevents me from properly into creating the best possible musical, communicating warmth and acceptance with educational, and social environment. those I meet, but maintaining an attitude of love and openness with everyone creates Hello Mr. Zander, friendships, connections and opportunities where they could not otherwise exist. Greetings from Korea! I’m living here now Beginning from a place of love generates on a Fulbright Scholarship, and have been in love and a certain amount of forgiveness and Seoul for about three weeks. I’m listening to patience in new acquaintances, and walking the recording of our La Valse and reminiscing with spirit and love is now as much a matter about my experience in BPYO and how it of survival as it is part of my mission to make

21 the most of the blessings I have been given in And from Lucinda Chiu, who attends Johns life. I wake up every morning now and think of Hopkins University: your assignments. Though I learned them in an artistic context, they continue to serve me The 11 day tour through the Netherlands well in my academic endeavors abroad. has been the greatest orchestral experience I have ever had. And, I’m sure that you have I can’t help but think that if everyone walked heard this statement many times, from other with spirit and love and openness to fellow members of the group. human beings how different our world would look. I never would have thought at this But why I enjoyed this tour so much, beyond time last year that I would have such a life- the incredible and emotional concerts we put changing experience in a youth orchestra. on throughout the country, was the fact that Now I can’t imagine life without it. I have no you allowed us to be adults on this trip. You doubt that BPYO will be a prominent feature trusted us enough to make rational decisions in Boston’s culture and the world of music for and to look out for each other. Never have I years to come. gone on tour, with any group, where we are given free time to explore the city we’re in, on With love, our own. In fact, most of the time, we’re stuck Chelsea Carlson visiting sites in a large group, where we can’t even hear, much less see, the tour guide. Yet, it was during these moments, that I was truly able to experience the culture of the country.

22 I fondly remember this one free afternoon to go out and fi nd our own possibilities we were given. A friend, Ella, and I decided to experience. to go explore Haarlem, and we had heard that there was a famous castle ruin, about a As I leave for college in less than two half hour walk from the hostel. Despite the weeks, I will take all that I’ve learned, rain, we asked the front desk manager at experienced, and seen with me. I will the hostel for directions, and using a map never forget this year with the Boston that was completely in Dutch, we left to fi nd Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. this historical site. Along the way, we saw the cutest houses, and talked to some of the With love, nicest people, who all knew varying levels of Lucinda English! By the time we actually got to the castle itself, we were so thankful to fi nally fi nd shelter from the downpour in all of its nooks and crannies through wandering and exploring as we pleased.

Thus, all in all, thank you for these possibilities and opportunities. Thank you for helping to make this tour happen. Thank you for coaching us each Saturday and for believing in our ability to perform pieces like Mahler 2 and Ein Heldenleben. And most of all, thank you for giving us the opportunity

23 From Francesca Bass, who played an ex- little things in life appear much brighter quisite Mozart concerto for the BPYO and has than they used to. Nature is more sublime, gone on to the Cleveland Institute of Music: music is more powerful and life is more special. You are the person who encouraged Dear Mr. Zander me to be passionate, and that has changed my life completely. I think about BPYO all the time, and there are frequent moments when I am very sad that I I cannot tell you how much I will miss you will no longer be in that incredible orchestra. next year. But I am confi dent to embrace what The past few years working with you have is to come in my life more than I ever thought been really, really beautiful and I feel that I I would be, and that is because you have been truly found myself because of your teaching such a big part of my life. and inspiration. You always give me so much confi dence to be ME! I didn’t know who I was Love, until you gave me the courage to open my Francesca heart. I am not sure if you remember, but on the BYPO tour in 2011, you had lunch with Yuki and me in Bratislava at an outdoor cafe. Yuki asked you why you have so much energy. You said, “Well, I love to be alive.” That was really beautiful.

You have shared so many incredible and moving stories with me, and I feel as though

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From Njeri Grevious, now at Yale: to appreciate and embrace the spirituality in Mahler 2, I felt in awe. Life really is about Dear Mr. Zander, trying to enjoy every moment, every feeling, every smile and every sound. When I play I have never experienced anything more life- music with BPYO I feel more alive than in changing and glorious than being in this any other context, because I am connected to orchestra with you. I have grown not only the collective positive energy of us all. What musically but also spiritually. Your positive I see are hundreds of beautiful shining eyes. life lessons have affected my perspective Your passion shows us how to be positive and deeply. Thank you. I think the moment that your passion is something that I believe everyone in our orchestra felt the powerful everyone in our orchestra absorbs. You have energy of this new community you created shown the world what possibility can do was when we played the opening E fl at of the by building something more than just an Ein Heldenleben at the very fi rst rehearsal last orchestra from scratch: you have built an September. It was clear that this venture was entire thriving community. going to be something great. All I could think about in that magical moment was: I am Thank you again for showing me the beauty home. With BPYO, I feel myself shining more of possibility that you demonstrate so well brightly and experiencing every day more and that has opened up my life. My eyes are fully. I have also become more appreciative shining! of everything around me. The cathedral performance in Haarlem, for instance, truly Love, evoked such deep spiritual feelings. Like you, Njeri I am an atheist, but when I allowed myself

26 The following letter was delivered to Huntington parking garage and bounce in my Benjamin Zander on the occasion of his seat the whole way home, talking my parents’ 75th birthday by 17-year-old Anna Deloi, ears off about what it sounded and felt like to who was about to complete her seventh play in BYPO. There was something magic in season as harpist, fi rst in the New England the atmosphere you created there that I could Conservatory’s Youth Philharmonic never quite put into words. Orchestra and then in the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra: I was lucky enough to join your orchestra and learn your philosophy before I knew anything Dear Mr. Zander, else. You taught me – as an inexperienced, over-enthusiastic pre-teen – what making It’s taken me a while to begin writing this music can and should be about. It was only white sheet. Birthdays are a time for gifts – when I got older and stumbled into other but what on earth could I offer you today that ensembles and competitions that I realized that would even begin to compare to what you’ve classical music is not always approached from given me over the past seven years? a place of possibility. I saw cruel, cutthroat competitiveness and crippling insecurity. It I still remember our fi rst program together: I shocked me! I don’t know if I would have been was all of eleven years old. I’d never played able to survive those aspects of music if I had in an orchestra, and I had the glamorous not always had a home to fall back on each position of assistant second harp. But counting Saturday afternoon – a place to be recharged measures in those rehearsals was the highlight by your energy and joy. of my week. I used to run out of Brown Hall beaming, dance my way up the stairs of the You’ve taken me around the world, to places

27 I never dreamed I’d travel in my young life. began working on the concerto, you were the I’ve grown up in a tiny, rural town. Life only conductor I could imagine performing here is confi ned by picket fences and people it with. My entire interpretation has been rarely learn to dream of the world beyond our shaped by that dream – by the thought of town lines. But by entering your world each your passion and by the immense talent of my Saturday, mine exploded in new color. Do you colleagues in the BPYO. This concert in May remember the “pilgrimage” we made together, means so much more to me than just another all the way from Mahler’s hometown to his performance opportunity. As my last concert grave? Do you remember planting him a rose? in the BPYO before I leave for college, it is And then this past summer we got a chance to also our journey coming full circle: a way fi nish our journey in Mahler’s home-away- to say goodbye, with love and gratitude, to from-home, the Netherlands, and to be reborn everything we’ve experienced together. through the Resurrection Symphony. I feel like I’ve had 100 once-in-a-lifetime opportunities So what can I give you for your birthday that with you already, and I’m barely through compares to all that? high school! For now, I know of nothing except to live as And speaking of once-in-a-lifetimes, there’s you’ve always taught me: with unbridled the Ginastera concerto – the piece we’ve been optimism, immense generosity and infectious talking about since my fi rst days in your joy. Next year I’ll dive headfi rst into the orchestra. I remember you telling me, when beginning of adulthood and it is my mission I was still far too young to tackle the piece: to enact change through my art. Like you, I “One day we’ll do the Ginastera together”. I want to make my life and music meaningful; hardly dared to believe you. When I fi nally I want to spread inspiration, help others and

28 transform societies. I’m honored to be a ripple in the pool of your legacy – one of so many students, colleagues and friends that you have touched. Though I can’t say yet what I will achieve in the years to come, I know that the possibilities are endless. And I promise that I will try to live, and create, in a way that would make you proud.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything. I look forward to the rest of this season, to an exciting future, and to a hopefully lifelong relationship with you.

And, of course, happy birthday!

Love always, Anna

29 REVIEWS OF THE PERFORMANCE coaxing professional-quality work from amateurs and for wringing fresh insights HERE, THE SOUND OF TRIUMPH from even the most familiar works. Both TAKES ON A DIFFERENT TONE characteristics surfaced during the New Boston Philharmonic Youth York debut of this ensemble, established Orchestra at Carnegie Hall last year as an offshoot of Mr. Zander’s admired Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. By Steve Smith The members of the youth orchestra, ages Published in the New York Times 12 to 21, play with a maturity and cohesion on 10 December 2013 well beyond their years, a point made in numerous audio and video clips on the There’s a good chance that a vast majority ensemble’s web page. of musicians who have come up through this In the Shostakovich, especially the country’s student orchestras and concert fi nale, Mr. Zander is a stickler for the bands have stormed through the inexorable composer’s tempo markings and note values fi nale of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. as indicative of the expressive intent. The Far fewer musicians of any age will have movement starts at 88 to the quarter note, played the famous conclusion in the mounts to a feverish 184, then retreats manner that the conductor Benjamin back to 92 – at which point notes double Zander molded it during a concert by the in length. Thus, the ostensibly triumphal Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra at coda, Mr. Zander explained before the Carnegie Hall on Monday evening. performance, is meant to sound beaten Mr. Zander, also an admired pedagogue down and labored: points missed outright and motivational speaker, is renowned for even in benchmark interpretations.

30 Here, those qualities were enacted performance – not in the ensemble and convincingly at the close of a brilliantly articulation of the string ensemble in played, fervently felt account, enriched the breathless opening motive or many with silken strings, robust brass and note-fi lled and exposed string passages eloquent solos by the principal winds and throughout Verdi’s La forza del destino the concertmaster, Max Tan. Overture which opened the program, – nor Whoops, whistles and fl ash bulbs at the in the intonation, tone color, and accuracy end attested to an abundance of family and of singing line in the treacherous high- friends in the audience, but the concert was lying viola section fi rst movement solo of one that any music lover would savor. the closing Shostakovich 5th Symphony. We have all heard professional orchestras A STUNNING REVELATION struggle under these particular challenges FROM BPYO on occasion. The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra sailed through them By Peter Mark with ease, fi nesse, energy and musical Published in The Boston Musical line – all under the alert alchemy of its Intelligencer on 20 November 2013 obviously beloved and respected Maestro Benjamin Zander who was totally in When one thinks of Youth Orchestras, charge throughout. I suspect the many one is prepared to make allowances key musicians named in the program, in comparison to mature performing who prepared the different sections of the organizations, but I assure you that no orchestra, also contributed heavily to the allowances were necessary at any point confi dence and skillful performances of in this riveting and fully professional the evening.

31 The supreme and stunning performance wailing, and striding of the fi nal movement. of the evening was undisputedly the His pre-performance explanation and desolate and gripping reading of the resolution of the controversy over the fi nal Shostakovich 5th by Zander and his tempo marking which ends the piece was BPYO. Starting with a perfectly infl ected reinforced by the conviction and rightness series of declamatory opening statements of the whole performance by BPYO, which from the string sections which each could hold its own against that of any maintained appropriate individual vocal orchestra in the world. line and shape, woodwind and brass choirs responded with equal ensemble, precision, and increasing passion as the movement gathered force and dynamic and then tapered back into its original carefully gauged despondency. Zander’s well-chosen tempi and leadership was in evidence throughout the concert, but nowhere more conspicuous that in the perfectly poised and buoyant second movement dance-like quality with its tartly infl ected violin solo played by the Shostakovich concertmaster, Max Tan (there were several gifted concertmasters!); in the various prismatic changes of the somber introverted third movement; and the more aggressive sailing,

32 ALSO AVAILABLE ON LINN CKD 507

Benjamin Zander Robin Ticciati Trevor Pinnock Trevor Pinnock & Philharmonia & Scottish Chamber & Royal Academy of & Royal Academy of Orchestra and Chorus Orchestra Music Soloists Music Soloists Mahler: Symphony No. 2 Schumann: Mahler: Bruckner: ‘Resurrection’ The Symphonies Symphonie No. 4 Symphonie No. 2

Alexander Lazarev Robin Ticciati Martin Pearlman Katherine Bryan & Royal Scottish & Scottish Chamber & Boston Baroque & Royal Scottish National Orchestra Orchestra Haydn: National Orchestra Shostakovich: Berlioz: Lord Nelson Mass Rouse & Ibert: Symphony No. 11 Symphonie Fantastique Flute Concertos

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