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Home , Antonio Brosa, Benjamin Britten, Janine Jansen, Piano Concerto (Britten), Sinfonia da Requiem, Tal Rosner

27 Season 2013-2014

Thursday, March 27, at 8:00 Friday, March 28, at 2:00 The Philadelphia Orchestra Saturday, March 29, at 8:00 Conductor Tal Rosner Video Artist

Britten Four Sea Interludes, Op. 33a, from I. Dawn II. Sunday Morning III. Moonlight IV. Storm Video and animation by Tal Rosner Video co-commissioned by the New World , America’s Orchestral Academy; the Philharmonic Association; The Philadelphia Orchestra Association; and the San Francisco Symphony

Britten Violin , Op. 15 I. Moderato con moto— II. Vivace— III. : Andante lento (un poco meno mosso)

Intermission

Pärt Cantus in Memory of First Philadelphia Orchestra performances

Mozart Symphony No. 36 in C major, K. 425 (“Linz”) I. Adagio—Allegro spiritoso II. Andante III. Menuetto—Trio—Menuetto da capo IV. Presto

This program runs approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 1 PM. Visit www.wrti.org to listen live or for more details. 228 Story Title The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin

The Philadelphia Orchestra community itself. His concerts to perform in China, in 1973 is one of the preeminent of diverse repertoire attract at the request of President orchestras in the world, sold-out houses, and he has Nixon, today The Philadelphia renowned for its distinctive established a regular forum Orchestra boasts a new sound, desired for its for connecting with concert- partnership with the National keen ability to capture the goers through Post-Concert Centre for the Performing hearts and imaginations of Conversations. Arts in Beijing. The Orchestra audiences, and admired for annually performs at Under Yannick’s leadership a legacy of innovation in while also the Orchestra returns to music-making. The Orchestra enjoying annual residencies in recording with a newly- is inspiring the future and Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and at released CD on the Deutsche transforming its rich tradition the Bravo! Vail festival. Grammophon label of of achievement, sustaining Stravinsky’s Musician-led initiatives, the highest level of artistic and including highly-successful quality, but also challenging transcriptions. In Yannick’s PlayINs, shine a spotlight on and exceeding that level, by inaugural season the the Orchestra’s musicians, creating powerful musical Orchestra has also returned as they spread out from the experiences for audiences at to the radio airwaves, with stage into the community. home and around the world. weekly Sunday afternoon The Orchestra’s commitment Music Director Yannick broadcasts on WRTI-FM. to its education and Nézet-Séguin triumphantly community partnership Philadelphia is home and opened his inaugural initiatives manifests itself the Orchestra nurtures an season as the eighth artistic in numerous other ways, important relationship not leader of the Orchestra including concerts for families only with patrons who support in fall 2012. His highly and students, and eZseatU, the main season at the collaborative style, deeply- a program that allows full- Kimmel Center but also those rooted musical curiosity, time college students to who enjoy the Orchestra’s and boundless enthusiasm, attend an unlimited number other area performances paired with a fresh approach of Orchestra concerts for at the Mann Center, Penn’s to orchestral programming, a $25 annual membership Landing, and other venues. have been heralded by fee. For more information on The Orchestra is also a global critics and audiences alike. The Philadelphia Orchestra, ambassador for Philadelphia Yannick has been embraced please visit www.philorch.org. and for the U.S. Having been by the musicians of the the first American orchestra Orchestra, audiences, and the 8 Music Director

Nigel Parry/CPi Yannick Nézet-Séguin triumphantly opened his inaugural season as the eighth music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra in the fall of 2012. His highly collaborative style, deeply-rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm, paired with a fresh approach to orchestral programming, have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. has called Yannick “phenomenal,” adding that under his baton “the ensemble … has never sounded better.” In his first season he took the Orchestra to new musical heights. His second builds on that momentum with highlights that include a Philadelphia Commissions Micro-Festival, for which three leading composers have been commissioned to write solo works for three of the Orchestra’s principal players; the next installment in his multi-season focus on with Fauré’s ; and a unique, theatrically-staged presentation of Strauss’s revolutionary Salome, a first-ever co-production with Opera Philadelphia.

Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most exciting talents of his generation. Since 2008 he has been music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the Philharmonic, and since 2000 artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain. In addition he becomes the first ever mentor conductor of the Curtis Institute of Music’s conducting fellows program in the fall of 2013. He has made wildly successful appearances with the world’s most revered ensembles, and has conducted critically acclaimed performances at many of the leading opera houses.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Deutsche Grammophon (DG) enjoy a long-term collaboration. Under his leadership the Orchestra returns to recording with a newly-released CD on that label of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions. Yannick continues a fruitful recording relationship with the Rotterdam Philharmonic for DG, BIS, and EMI/Virgin; the London Philharmonic for the LPO label; and the Orchestre Métropolitain for ATMA Classique.

A native of Montreal, Yannick Nézet-Séguin studied at that city’s Conservatory of Music and continued lessons with renowned conductor and with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster College. Among Yannick’s honors are an appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors; a Royal Philharmonic Society Award; Canada’s National Arts Centre Award; the Prix Denise- Pelletier, the highest distinction for the arts in Quebec, awarded by the Quebec government; and an honorary doctorate by the University of Quebec in Montreal.

To read Yannick’s full bio, please visit www.philorch.org/conductor. 29 Conductor

Johannes Ifkovits Donald Runnicles is the general music director of the Deutsche Oper , chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony, music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival, and principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2005 and has conducted the ensemble on numerous occasions, most recently on its 40th Anniversary Tour of China in 2013. He also maintains regular relationships with the and the London Symphony. A Scot by birth, Mr. Runnicles has literally returned home as chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony, leading subscription concerts in various cities in Scotland and northern , and anchoring the Symphony’s substantial presence at the U.K.’s two largest festivals, the Edinburgh International Festival and the London Proms. One of today’s leading Wagnerian specialists, Mr. Runnicles was music director of San Francisco Opera from 1992 to 2008, having unexpectedly won the job after stepping in for a colleague and conducting two Wagner Ring cycles in 1990. During his many years with the company, he led more than 60 productions, including the world premieres of John Adams’s Dr. Atomic and Conrad Susa’s Les Liaisons dangereuses, and the U.S. premieres of ’s Saint François d’Assise and ’s Lear. Mr. Runnicles was given the San Francisco Opera Medal, previously given to such luminaries as , , and Plácido Domingo. Other awards include the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and honorary degrees from Edinburgh University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Mr. Runnicles’s recordings with the Atlanta Symphony include a critically acclaimed concert disc of works by Strauss and Wagner with soprano , Mozart’s Requiem, and Orff’s Carmina burana. Also in his discography are a live recording of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde (Warner Classics); a Grammy-nominated recital of German Romantic opera arias with Ben Heppner (RCA); and excerpts from the Ring with the Dresden Staatskapelle (Teldec). His latest recording of Wagner arias with tenor and the Deutsche Oper Berlin Orchestra for Decca won the 2013 Gramophone Award for best vocal recording. 30 Video Artist

Martin Lengemann Artist and filmmaker Tal Rosner works closely with musicians, combining multiple layers of sound and visuals to create a new language of classical/contemporary music videos. ( Concerto with Moving Image), his collaboration with world-renowned British composer Thomas Adès, was commissioned by the in London and the Association in 2008. Following its U.K. and U.S. premieres at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the in Los Angeles, In Seven Days began a three- year world tour in the fall of 2009, including performances with the , at the Tonhalle in Zurich, and at the Cologne Philharmonie, where it was filmed for, and broadcast on, WDR German television. In January 2011 Mr. Rosner’s multiple-channel film –with music by Mr. Adès–inaugurated the New World Symphony’s new Frank Gehry-designed music center in Miami. The piece was co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and the San Francisco Symphony. Chronograph, a site-specific digital art mural that he created in collaboration with American artist Casey Reas, was commissioned for the opening of the same building and has been screened daily on its 7,000-square-foot exterior projection wall ever since. In March 2011 Mr. Rosner returned to London with the film and animation content for The Most Incredible Thing at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, directed by Javier de Frutos and composed by the . The full-length ballet was premiered in London and broadcast on BBC Four. Mr. Rosner’s work includes collaborations with Katia and Marielle Labèque on Stravinsky and Debussy’s music for two and an interpretation of ’s Player-Piano Study No. 7 (performed at the Barbican Festival in 2007), and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Lachen verlernt with violinist Jennifer Koh (commissioned by Cedille Records, Oberlin Conservatory, the 92nd Street Y, and Carolina Performing Arts). In 2008 Mr. Rosner won a BAFTA Award for Best Title Sequence for the Channel 4 television series Skins. He has worked on all the subsequent seasons of Skins in the U.K. and on the U.S. series on MTV. 31 Soloist

Harald Hoffmann/Decca Violinist Janine Jansen made her Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2007 and is making her fourth set of appearances with the ensemble. She works regularly with the world’s most eminent orchestras, including the Royal Orchestra in her native and the Berlin and New York philharmonics. Current season highlights include a performance of Britten’s at the BBC Proms with the Orchestre de Paris and Paavo Järvi; a European tour with the and Esa-Pekka Salonen; and a tour to Japan with the Boston Symphony and Lorin Maazel. She also makes return appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and Cleveland orchestras; the London Symphony; and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Also, in celebration of the release of her new album of Bach , Ms. Jansen’s schedule includes two European tours with concerts in Berlin, Munich, Vienna, London, Amsterdam, and Paris. A devoted chamber musician, Ms. Jansen performs on two duo recital tours with pianist in Spain and Italy; and, with cellist Torleif Thedéen, for a number of trio recitals. She established and curates the annual International Festival in , Holland, and since 1998 has performed each season at Spectrum Concerts Berlin, a chamber music series at the Philharmonie. Ms. Jansen records exclusively for Decca (Universal Music) and her releases include Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the London Philharmonic and ; the Beethoven and Britten concertos with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the London Symphony, respectively, and Mr. Järvi; the Mendelssohn and Bruch concertos with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and ; and Tchaikovsky’s Concerto with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Daniel Harding. Ms. Jansen has also recently released a chamber disc that includes Schubert’s String Quintet and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. Ms. Jansen has received four Edison Klassiek Awards, three Echo Klassik awards, the NDR Musikpreis for outstanding artistic achievement, and, most recently, the Concertgebouw Prize, among others. She plays the 1727 “Barrere” Stradivarius, on extended loan from the Elise Mathilde Foundation. 32 Framing the Program

This concert celebrates the centennial of Benjamin Parallel Events Britten, who was born in and who 1783 Music emerged as one of the major composers of the 20th Mozart Beethoven century and as a preeminent figure in the history of Symphony Rondo in C English music. Britten was a rare composer who excelled No. 36 major at writing both and instrumental music, dual gifts Literature evident on the concert today. Schiller Fiesco Peter Grimes proved to be Britten’s first great international Art success and remains his most esteemed opera. The David Four Sea Interludes are excerpted from key moments in Grief of this searing drama about a troubled fisherman and the Andromache mysterious deaths of his apprentices. Britten had written History his Violin Concerto six years earlier, most of it during a End of American three-year period when he lived in America. Revolution Estonian composer Arvo Pärt greatly admired Britten, 1939 Music albeit from a distance—the two never met. Upon learning Britten Copland of Britten’s death in 1976 he composed Cantus in Violin Concerto Billy the Kid Memory of Benjamin Britten, an eloquent canon for string Literature orchestra and a single chiming bell. Steinbeck The Grapes of Mozart apparently composed his Symphony No. 36 in Wrath less than a week. During a trip from Salzburg to Vienna Art in 1783 he stopped off in Linz, where he received a very Kandinsky warm welcome from one of the local aristocratic families. Neighborhood He resolved to give a concert, which he described in a History letter to his father on October 31 detailing the situation World War II that led to the rapid creation of the marvelous “Linz” begins Symphony: “On Tuesday, November 4, I will give a concert in the theater here, and since I have not a single 1976 Music symphony with me, I am writing a new one at full speed, Pärt Lutosławski which must be ready by then. I must close, then, for I really Cantus in Mi-parti Memory of Literature have to get to work.” Benjamin Haley Britten Roots Art Bacon Triptych History Entebbe Airport raid 33 The Music Four Sea Interludes, from Peter Grimes

Benjamin Britten was born by the sea, in , on the eastern rim of England, and spent nearly all his adult life in the same coastal region. That was his destination when, in 1942, he returned with his partner, , from a three-year stay in the U.S. Indeed, part of the reason they came back was so that Britten could be on home territory while composing an opera based on a narrative poem by (1754-1832), which Crabbe had set in an east-coast fishing town very like his own native , a little way south of Lowestoft. Britten owned a house Benjamin Britten near the same town, in the village of Snape. Besides that Born in Lowestoft, England, geographical serendipity, there was the chord that Crabbe’s November 22, 1913 tale struck in its subject matter. Peter Grimes, an outsider in Died in Aldeburgh, a community remote and revolving around itself, is destroyed December 4, 1976 by gossip, irrational fear, misunderstanding, and hypocrisy. His story is partly mirrored in the moods of the sea, as these are depicted in two interludes from the first act and in the preludes to the second and third acts. The first act has no prelude, as the opera immediately plunges the audience into a dramatic courtroom scene, but it does require interludes to cover set changes, from the courtroom to outdoors, and from there to the town’s pub. Altering the order a little, Britten put these orchestral instalments together as Four Sea Interludes. A Closer Look The sequence begins appropriately with Dawn, which, apart from defining the beginning of the day, is the first of these passages to appear in the opera. It comes right after a duet for Peter and his close friend Ellen Orford: he complaining of wagging tongues, she attempting to reassure him. A melody on and suggests the wide horizon and the emerging light; answering arpeggios on , , and harp might picture early sunbeams reflected on the waves, to which the brass- led lower instruments respond with swelling calm. The music works as a nature picture, but, as these elements are repeated, we realize more is at stake. The melody also sounds like an effort to soothe, Ellen’s effort, and the arpeggios take on the shape of slanders being passed on, unsettling the calm. Sunday Morning is the prelude to the second act. 34

Peter Grimes was composed Church bells are ringing, if in distinctly mid-20th-century between 1944 and 1945. rhythms, and the birds are starting to sing. Most of the town was on the is off to church, but Ellen is about to have a solo scene with podium for the first Philadelphia Peter’s new apprentice (a mute role), and the orchestra Orchestra performances of is at the same time conveying something of her anxiety, the Four Sea Interludes, in as also, once more, the slippery ease with which rumor November 1948. Most recently communicates itself. on subscription the work was heard in October 1991, with Innocent nature and disturbed humanity are again illustrated . simultaneously, by the same means, in Moonlight, which introduces the third and final act. The dragging rhythm and The score calls for two flutes the restless harmony might speak of the ebb and flow of (both doubling piccolo), two the waves in semi-darkness, with flashes of light reflected , two clarinets (II doubling in the breaking surf—and perhaps the great globe of the E-flat ), two , moon itself comes into view when the music arrives at its , four horns, piccolo , two , rounded climax. However, there is no real serenity here. three , , , The music is dragging and restless with the human tragedy percussion ( drum, bells in about to be consummated, and the “flashes of light” could B-flat and E-flat, , snare just as well be socially inflicted wounds. drum, tam-tam, , Storm is another interlude from the first act, but suitably ), harp, and strings. placed here as a vigorous finale and as an outbreak of Performance time is tensions that have been under the surface in the earlier approximately 16 minutes. movements. In the opera, this music follows a scene in which Balstrode, a retired merchant captain and the only man sympathetic to Peter, has advised him to leave the town and seek a life at sea. But Peter will not do this. As Balstrode can see, the coming storm is more than a meteorological phenomenon: Peter is dooming himself. At the end of their dialogue, Peter has an aria, “What harbour shelters peace?” whose arching melody is recalled in this interlude. It is, however, the storm music that wins out, especially in this concert version, with its emphatic conclusion. —Paul Griffiths A note from Tal Rosner: Dawn (Miami) Sunday Morning (Philadelphia) Moonlight (San Francisco) Storm (Los Angeles) The process of creating a visual interpretation of Britten’s Four Sea Interludes began in 2009, when I was commissioned to make an animation for a single Interlude in a workshop with the New World Symphony in Miami. Since then, I’ve often contemplated extending the segment into the entire orchestral composition, illustrating its richness and contrasting landscapes. When approaching the piece as a whole, I decided to 35 break it down into four video/animation scenarios that correspond to the four movements, and that, in turn, are inspired by one of the four commissioning cities: Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. As the visual building blocks for each section are derived exclusively from footage and photographs of that city, every host orchestra has its own unique representation in the resulting digital tapestry. To introduce a thematic thread connecting the four metropolises, I chose to focus on overpasses and bridges, which are in many ways interludes themselves—connecting between point A and point B, and not necessarily a destination in their own right. I explored these structures from all angles: the views they revealed from over and under them, the designs themselves, and also the sensations they evoked—the sense of awe at their monolithic proportions. The urban layouts of the cities presented are also all defined by sea or in rivers. By revealing or obstructing the views, the visuals not only reflect rhythm changes and orchestration within the music—but also delve into the psychological minutiae of the interludes in relation to the opera’s narrative. The graphic compositions peel away the layers of urban vernacular to explore the inner fabric of the cities; panoramic vistas and minute architectural details come together in choreographic unison. In the year of Britten’s centenary I feel a great honor to be given the opportunity to animate these intriguing and evocative pieces. I would like to thank for dreaming this project and making it possible; Carol McMichael Reese, Wim de Wit, and Fred Bernstein for their help in the early stages of research; and Sophie Clements, a dear friend and collaborator. 36 The Music Violin Concerto

Though chiefly lauded for his operas and other vocal music, Britten was one of the great composers of instrumental music of the last century. And perhaps because of his experience with composing for solo voice and orchestra, he showed a special knack for concertos and other works that pit soloists against larger ensembles. (This was also true for Mozart, a composer for whose music Britten felt a special affinity; the Salzburg master was also at his best, many hold, in operas and concertos.) Britten seldom took a conventional approach in these works: the Diversions Benjamin Britten for piano left-hand and orchestra is essentially a group of variations, while the highly original Symphony for and Orchestra fuses elements of the two quite different genres of the symphony and the concerto. But in addition to these atypical works, Britten also composed solid, traditional concertos for piano and for violin—the first in 1938 and the second the following year. The excellent , heard far too seldom in the U.S., was written as a solo vehicle for the composer himself, and as such, it remains one of the most splendidly idiomatic keyboard concertos of the 20th century. Self-imposed Exile Begun almost immediately after the premiere of the Piano Concerto in London in August 1938, the Violin Concerto was the first product of Britten’s “American years,” when he fled England—partly under W.H. Auden’s influence—to take up a sort of pacifists’ exile in the New World. Though he would eventually return home in 1942 (pricked by conscience to be in England during its darkest hour), during his time abroad he completed several important works, including Les Illuminations for the tenor Peter Pears; the Diversions for ; and the for orchestra. Britten began the Violin Concerto in England in November 1938, completing the work and scoring it in the summer of 1939 at Amityville, New York, and St. Jovite, in Quebec. The Spanish violinist —a longtime friend of the composer—performed the premiere at Carnegie Hall on March 27, 1940, with the New York Philharmonic and conductor . Thomas Matthews played the London premiere in April 1941. In 1950 the composer 37

Britten composed his Violin revised the Concerto slightly, touching up matters of Concerto from 1938 to 1939. texture, and this is the version heard today. Norman Carol was the In a radio interview in 1980, Brosa said he had always soloist in the first Philadelphia imagined he heard Spanish rhythms in the Concerto’s Orchestra performances of the opening percussion motif, and recalled that in 1936 he Concerto, in November 1987; and Britten had visited Barcelona for a performance Yuri Temirkanov was on the at the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary podium. The last subscription performances of the work Music) Festival. He suggested that the work was Britten’s were in October 2007, with response to the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. True or violinist Midori and Christoph not, there is something of the somberness of the Sinfonia Eschenbach. da Requiem in this piece—a restless, uneasy turmoil that follows the listener like a shadow. Some writers have The work is scored for solo likened the structure of the Concerto, in fact, to that of the violin, three flutes (II and III Sinfonia: a moderately paced first movement, a Mahlerian doubling on piccolos), two oboes, English horn, two “dance of death” scherzo, and a summarizing finale. clarinets, two bassoons, four A Closer Look The tonal center throughout the Concerto horns, three trumpets, three is D major. Though the first movement (Moderato con trombones, tuba, timpani, moto) ostensibly begins in F major, this quickly gives way percussion (, to modulatory instability. The chromatic principal theme is cymbals, glockenspiel, side provided with a pointedly contrasting second subject in drum, , triangle), A major. The driving Vivace, which follows the Moderato harp, and strings. without pause, is the movement containing most of the The Concerto lasts around 32 work’s pyrotechnics. This scherzo, and its lyrical trio section, minutes in performance. call upon nearly every “special effect” in the violinist’s bag of tricks. A deft for the soloist leads directly (and again, attacca) into the final Passacaglia (Andante lento, un poco meno mosso)—the Baroque variation technique that Britten would use repeatedly throughout the rest of his career. The skeletal theme, which is heard initially in the trombones, is immediately elaborated through fugal imitation, then subsequently in nine variations of great ingenuity. —Paul J. Horsley 38 The Music Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten

When Estonian composer Arvo Pärt left his Soviet- controlled homeland and settled in Berlin in 1981, his compositions began almost immediately to find a wide audience in the West. Listeners were attracted to Pärt’s austere textures, slow , and neo-medieval sense of ritual contemplation. He has since been aligned with the Polish composer Henryk Górecki and the Englishman under the not-entirely accurate label of “mystical minimalism,” due to their shared focus on religious music and repetitive structures. Arvo Pärt Born in Paide, Estonia, A Rite of Passage Pärt was the first Soviet composer to September 11, 1935 use the advanced serial techniques developed in the West Living chiefly in Berlin immediately after World War II. His early works from the 1950s and ’60s were also influenced by the Polish avant- garde, with their extended instrumental techniques and collage structures. Yet he was reluctant to give up altogether, and in his early compositions he often set serially-derived against passages of unabashedly tonal music. This dichotomy reached its peak in Credo from 1968, a work that not only drew the ire of Soviet authorities, but also represented a creative cul-de-sac for the composer. According to his biographer Paul Hillier, Pärt “reached a position of complete despair … he lacked the musical faith and willpower to write even a single note.” Though he continued to earn an income by composing film scores, Pärt wrote only two new independent works between 1968 and 1976, one of which he later withdrew. But he was not idle during these years. In an effort to uncover music’s true essence, he immersed himself in the study of plainchant and medieval polyphony. He filled notebook after notebook with single lines of music. It was an act of purification, an endeavor to scrape away centuries of historical accumulations. In his own words, he had to “learn how to walk again as a composer.” A Purity of Expression When Pärt emerged from this rite of passage in 1976, he had mastered an ascetic style of meditative purity and spiritual clarity that immediately spoke to audiences tired of the complicated fussiness of the Western avant-garde. It was this refinement of his “tintinnabuli” style (based on bell-like harmonies and 39

Arvo Pärt composed his overtones) that established him as one of the leading figures Cantus in Memory of Benjamin in contemporary composition of the late 20th century. Britten from 1976 to 1977. Always concerned that his music be “worthy of the These are the first Philadelphia preceding silence,” Pärt’s new style was intentionally Orchestra performances of the sparse. He once observed, “I have discovered that it is piece. enough when a single note is beautifully played,” and his The score calls for strings and studies of Gregorian chant taught him the “cosmic secret” tubular bell. hidden in the art of combining two or three notes. Performance time is Pärt regarded Benjamin Britten as something of a approximately six minutes. kindred spirit, a composer whose style was so obviously different from his own but who had achieved the kind of purity of expression for which Pärt was also striving. Then, in December 1976, just as he was emerging from his musical re-invention, Britten died. Pärt felt the loss keenly and immediately began work on an elegy to Britten, a purely instrumental canon for and bell completed in 1977 that demonstrates his newly- developed tintinnabuli style. The basic principles of tintinnabulation are simple. A single voice intones a chant-like melody while the “bell” voice harmonizes the melody using only the notes of a static underlying triad. Its simplicity allows for a tremendous variety of applications, while ensuring a uniformity of overall effect that is one of Pärt’s stylistic thumbprints. A Closer Look For the Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, the underlying chord is an A-minor triad. Half of the string players sustain the notes of the triad while the other half play, in strict mensuration canon, descending A-minor scales in alternating long and short note values. The first violins play these descending scales in their upper register and at a quicker , while the second violins play the same scale an octave lower and at half the speed. The violas are another octave lower, and slower again, the pattern repeating with the and basses. While the concept is simple, the effect is a complex interweaving of descending lines and harmonic suspensions before all the instruments finally settle on an A-minor triad. Framing and punctuating this emotionally penetrating descent is the sound of a funeral bell on the tonic pitch of A. The bell’s overtones, however, imply an A-major harmony, creating a bittersweet juxtaposition of major and minor throughout the piece, but most noticeably at the conclusion when the bell is sounded by itself once more. —Luke Howard 40 The Music Symphony No. 36 (“Linz”)

What’s in a name? Most of the nicknames that have become attached to Classical-period serve primarily for purposes of identification, and tell us little about the music. To be sure, some names grow from things intrinsic in the score (such as those for Haydn’s “Drum Roll” or “Military” symphonies), and others are connected to the composer’s own apocalyptic musings (Beethoven’s “Eroica”). But many of these names, which are usually bestowed by audiences, critics, and publishers (and rarely by the composers themselves), aim chiefly Wolfgang Amadè Mozart to remind us of an interesting anecdote associated Born in Salzburg, with the work’s inception. Who can forget the (possibly January 27, 1756 apocryphal) story of Haydn’s “Miracle” Symphony, in which Died in Vienna, a chandelier came crashing down on the parquet seats December 5, 1791 during a performance of the work, but listeners were miraculously saved from injury because they had “rushed the stage” to get a closer look at Haydn? Some nicknames evoke the memory of the town in which a work had its origin, causing us to listen (usually in vain) for musical clues associated with the place. The name “Linz” for Mozart’s C-major Symphony, K. 425—like the subtitles “Paris” and “Prague”—brings to mind a particular journey and the activities associated with it. Nevertheless the Symphony no more attempts to depict the city of Linz programatically than the “Prague” does for the city after which it was named; it was simply composed in Linz. In the late summer of 1783 Mozart set off on a trip to Salzburg to introduce his bride, Constanze, to his family. It was his first visit to his home town since moving to Vienna in 1781, and he had put it off as long as possible— partly out of fear that his former patron, the Archbishop Colloredo, would forcibly prevent him from leaving again. In the Composer’s Words This fear proved groundless, however, and the Mozarts remained in Salzburg until October. It was on the trip back to Vienna that Wolfgang and Constanze stopped in Linz, and the composer’s lively account of his stay there, in a letter to his father dated October 31, is worth quoting at length for its insights into Mozart’s energetic life. 41

We arrived here safely yesterday morning at 9:00. We spent the first night in Vöcklabruck and reach Lambach Monastery the following morning, where I arrived just in time to accompany the “Agnus Dei” on the organ. The abbot was absolutely delighted to see me again. … I heard that an opera was to be given the next day at Ebelsberg … and that almost all of Linz was to be assembled. I resolved to be present and we drove there. Young Count Thun (brother of Thun at Vienna) called on me immediately and said that his father had been expecting me for two weeks and would I please drive to his house at once, for I was to stay with him. I told him that I could easily take lodgings at an inn. But when we reached the gates of Linz the following day, we found a servant waiting there to drive us to Count Thun’s, at whose house we are now staying. You can’t imagine the kindnesses that the family is showering on us. On Tuesday, November 4, I will give a concert in the theater here, and since I have not a single symphony with me, I am writing a new one at full speed, which must be ready by then. I must close, then, for I really have to get to work. Thus this Symphony—one of Mozart’s most expansive and grandiose—was composed, copied, rehearsed, and premiered in a matter of five days! The first performance of the “Linz” took place in the Thun palace at Linz on November 4, 1783. Mozart brought the piece back to Vienna and performed it there in April of the following year, on an ample program that also included one of his piano concertos, the K. 452 Piano Quintet, an improvisation on the fortepiano, several arias by other composers, and another of his own symphonies (probably the “Haffner”). Later the composer belittled the “Linz,” writing to his father (to whom he had sent the autograph of the work) that “I am not particular about the symphony,” and worse still: “You can even give it away.” Alas, the autograph went astray, and it remains lost to this day; the publisher Johann André’s posthumous edition of the parts in 1793 was apparently the first printing of the piece. The nickname “Linz,” however, did not arise until the 19th century. A Closer Look From the first bars of the Adagio introduction we hear a leisurely breadth that looks toward the music of Mozart’s late years. What can we find to explain the drastic difference between this work and the last Salzburg music of just a few years before? Partly it was the profound effect of Mozart’s early experiences in 42

Mozart composed the “Linz” Vienna, as Neal Zaslaw suggests in his 1989 monograph Symphony in 1783. Mozart’s Symphonies: “The fruits of the artistic freedom of The work did not appear on Vienna, of working with that city’s outstanding orchestral a Philadelphia Orchestra musicians, of experiments in orchestration made in piano program until October 1942, concertos and Die Entführung, and of a more serious when Eugene Ormandy approach to the symphony in general, are apparent in the conducted it. The piece ‘Linz’ Symphony.” appeared frequently until 1969, but then not again until 1989. The use of trumpets and drums is especially striking The most recent subscription in the first movement proper (Allegro spiritoso), in performances were in which long-breathed themes and stately tutti unfold in February 1997, with Wolfgang a lengthy discourse of noble aplomb. The incomparable Sawallisch on the podium. Andante, with the florid twists and turns of its operatic melody, looks forward to the grandeur of Beethoven’s Mozart scored the work for slow movements. The somewhat traditional Menuetto two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, (which features a comically bucolic Trio) is followed by and strings. the madcap finale (Presto)—which is filled with the same dashing humor and polyphonic “special effects” that The Symphony No. 36 runs had already appeared in the “Haffner” of the previous approximately 30 minutes in year, and which would characterize Mozart’s last three performance. symphonies as well. —Paul J. Horsley

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