23 Season 2019-2020

Thursday, November 21, at 7:30 The Philadelphia Orchestra Friday, November 22, at 2:00 Stéphane Denève Conductor Saturday, November 23, Kelley O’Connor Mezzo-soprano at 8:00 Auerbach Icarus for Orchestra Darryl Kubian, theremin First Philadelphia Orchestra performances

Lieberson I. Si no fuera porque tus ojos tienen color de luna II. Amor, amor, las nubes a la torre del cielo III. No estés lejos de mí un solo día, porque cómo IV. Ya eres mía. Reposa con tu sueño en mi sueño V. Amor mío, si muero y tú no mueres First Philadelphia Orchestra performances

Intermission

Stravinsky The Firebird (complete ballet)

This program runs approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Tribute gifts to honor Stéphane Denève’s tenure as principal guest conductor have been generously made by Edith R. Dixon and Mari and Peter Shaw. The November 21 concert is sponsored by Jack and Ramona Vosbikian. The November 22 concert is sponsored by the Volunteer Committees of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

These concerts are part of The Philadelphia Orchestra’s WomenNOW celebration.

Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 1 PM, and are repeated on Monday evenings at 7 PM on WRTI HD 2. Visit www.wrti.org to listen live or for more details. 24 The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin

The Philadelphia Orchestra community centers, the Mann Through concerts, tours, is one of the world’s Center to Penn’s Landing, residencies, and recordings, preeminent orchestras. classrooms to hospitals, and the Orchestra is a global It strives to share the over the airwaves and online. ambassador. It performs transformative power of The Orchestra continues annually at Carnegie Hall, music with the widest to discover new and the Saratoga Performing possible audience, and to inventive ways to nurture its Arts Center, and the Bravo! create joy, connection, and relationship with loyal patrons. Vail Music Festival. The excitement through music The Philadelphia Orchestra Orchestra also has a rich in the Philadelphia region, continues the tradition of history of touring, having across the country, and educational and community first performed outside around the world. Through engagement for listeners Philadelphia in the earliest innovative programming, of all ages. It launched its days of its founding. It was robust educational initiatives, HEAR initiative in 2016 to the first American orchestra and an ongoing commitment become a major force for to perform in the People’s to the communities that it good in every community that Republic of China in 1973, serves, the ensemble is on a it serves. HEAR is a portfolio launching a now-five-decade path to create an expansive of integrated initiatives commitment of people-to- future for classical music, that promotes Health, people exchange. and to further the place champions music Education, The Orchestra also makes of the arts in an open and enables broad Access to live recordings available on democratic society. Orchestra performances, and popular digital music services Yannick Nézet-Séguin is now maximizes impact through and as part of the Orchestra in his eighth season as the Research. The Orchestra’s on Demand section of its eighth music director of The award-winning education and website. Under Yannick’s Philadelphia Orchestra. His community initiatives engage leadership, the Orchestra connection to the ensemble’s over 50,000 students, returned to recording, with musicians has been praised families, and community five celebrated CDs on by both concertgoers and members through programs the prestigious Deutsche critics, and he is embraced such as PlayINs, side-by- Grammophon label. The by the musicians of the sides, PopUP concerts, Free Orchestra also reaches Orchestra, audiences, and Neighborhood Concerts, thousands of radio listeners the community. School Concerts, sensory- with weekly broadcasts on Your Philadelphia Orchestra friendly concerts, the School WRTI-FM and SiriusXM. For takes great pride in its Partnership Program and more information, please visit hometown, performing for the School Ensemble Program, www.philorch.org. people of Philadelphia year- and All City Orchestra round, from Verizon Hall to Fellowships. 25 Principal Guest Conductor

Jessica Griffin Stéphane Denève is currently in his sixth and final season as principal guest conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra. He spends multiple weeks each year with the ensemble, conducting subscription, tour, and summer concerts. He has led more programs than any other guest conductor since making his debut in 2007, in repertoire that has spanned more than 100 works, ranging from Classical through the contemporary, including presentations with dance, theater, film, and cirque performers. Mr. Denève is also music director of the Brussels Philharmonic and the St. Louis Symphony, and director of the Centre for Future Orchestral Repertoire. He was previously chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Recent engagements in Europe and Asia include appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Vienna and NHK symphonies, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Orchestre National de France, and the Munich, Czech, and Rotterdam philharmonics. In North America he made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2012 with the Symphony, with which he has appeared several times, both in Boston and at Tanglewood. He regularly conducts the , the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics, and the and Toronto symphonies. As a recording artist, Mr. Denève has won critical acclaim for his recordings of the works of Poulenc, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel, Franck, and Connesson. He is a triple winner of the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, was shortlisted for Gramophone’s Artist of the Year award, and won the prize for symphonic music at the International Classical Music Awards. A graduate of, and prizewinner at, the Paris Conservatory, Mr. Denève worked closely in his early career with Georg Solti, Georges Prêtre, and Seiji Ozawa. He is committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians and listeners and has worked regularly with young people in the programs of the Tanglewood Music Center, the New World Symphony, the Colburn School, the European Union Youth Orchestra, and the Music Academy of the West. For further information please visit www.stephanedeneve.com. 26 Soloist

Ben Dashwood Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor made her Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2009 with Handel’s Messiah and her subscription debut in 2014 with Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass. In addition to these current performances, highlights of her 2019–20 season include joining Alan Gilbert for his inaugural performances as chief conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra with Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony, and performing Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Saint Louis Symphony and Stéphane Denève. She performs ’s El Niño with David Robertson leading the Houston Symphony; Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Jun Märkl and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with Krzysztof Urbański, both with the Indianapolis Symphony; and Korngold’s Abschiedslieder with Donald Runnicles and the Atlanta Symphony. She also performs Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony and with the San Francisco Symphony for ’s final concerts as music director. Mr. Adams wrote the title role of The Gospel According to the Other Mary for Ms. O’Connor and she has performed the work, both in concert and in the production, under the batons of the , Gustavo Dudamel, Grant Gershon, Gianandrea Noseda, Simon Rattle, and Mr. Robertson. She has also sung El Niño with Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic. She continues to be one of the preeminent interpreters of ’s Neruda Songs, having performed this moving cycle with Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony, and the Symphony, Mr. Spano and the Minnesota Orchestra, and David Zinman and both the Berlin Philharmonic and Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra. For her debut with the Atlanta Symphony, Ms. O’Connor joined Mr. Spano for performances of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, which were followed by a Grammy Award- winning Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work. Her discography also includes Mahler’s Third Symphony with Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony; Neruda Songs and Michael Kurth’s Everything Lasts Forever with Mr. Spano and the Atlanta Symphony; The Gospel According to the Other Mary with Mr. Dudamel and the ; and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra. 27 Framing the Program

The Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach has Parallel Events emerged as one of the leading of her 1910 Music generation with a large catalog of compelling works. Stravinsky Elgar Icarus for Orchestra, extracted from her First Symphony, is The Firebird named after the mythic figure of Icarus, who disobeyed his Literature father Daedulus’s warning and flew with wings made of Forster wax too near to the sun. The brilliantly orchestrated piece Howard’s End makes outerworldly use of a theremin, an early electronic Art instrument, and is by turns explosive and ethereal. Modigliani The Cellist The Philadelphia Orchestra gives its first performance History of one of the most acclaimed, honored, and emotionally Japan annexes intense compositions of the early 21st century. The Korea American composer Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs set five love sonnets by the celebrated Chilean poet . He composed the piece for his wife, mezzo- soprano , remarking that he was “so grateful for Neruda’s beautiful poetry, for although these poems were written to another, when I set them I was speaking directly to my own beloved.” The concert concludes with Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird, which proved to be the young Russian composer’s breakout success in 1910. Impresario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned the work for his Ballets Russes in Paris and the praise it immediately enjoyed led to Petrushka the following year and then to The Rite of Spring in 1913. Today’s performance of Firebird offers the relatively rare chance to hear the luminous complete score to this revolutionary ballet, rather than the suite Stravinsky later extracted from it and that is usually performed in concert.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is the only orchestra in the world with three weekly broadcasts on SiriusXM’s Symphony Hall, Channel 76, on Mondays at 7 PM, Thursdays at 12 AM, and Saturdays at 4 PM. 28 The Music Icarus for Orchestra N. Feller It is no surprise that creative individuals are often broadly gifted, not satisfied to limit themselves to just one area of expression. Composers such as Mendelssohn and Schoenberg were also visual artists (albeit amateurs); Berlioz and Schumann were distinguished writers. The Russian-American musician Lera Auerbach is such a formidable figure in our own time. Not only is she one of the leading and most widely performed composers of her generation as well as a concert pianist, but she’s also an accomplished visual artist and writer. She has published Lera Auerbach books of poetry in both Russian and English. Born in Chelyabinsk, Russia, October 21, 1973 Auerbach was born in 1973 in Chelyabinsk, near the Now living in Vienna and border of Siberia, into a musical family and took piano Sarasota, Florida lessons from her mother. She began composing as a child and by age 17 had bravely made her way to , where she studied composition at the Juilliard School with . Next on her path was the University of Music, Drama, and Media in Hannover, Germany. The world’s preeminent orchestras, conductors, instrumentalists, and festivals perform her large catalog of works, ranging from piano, chamber, and choral music to concertos, symphonies, , and ballets. Her Gogol, commissioned by the Theater an der Wien and premiered in Vienna to great acclaim in 2011, offered an opportunity for her to combine her creative activities as she wrote both the libretto and music. Among recognitions of her musical work are the Paul Hindemith Prize and the Bremer Musikfest Prize. Icarus is drawn from Auerbach’s seven-movement Symphony No. 1 (“Chimera”), which she composed in 2006 on a commission from the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra. That work references a Classical theme described by Homer and others about a creature combining goat, lion, and dragon. In 2011 she separated the final two movements, “Humum mandere” (To Bite the Dust) and “Requiem for Icarus,” to make a shorter independent composition, which premiered with the celebrated Verbier Festival Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi. 29

A Fascination with Ancient Greece Auerbach admits to being fascinated by Classical Greek mythology ever since childhood in what was then the Soviet Union. She found: the world of jealous gods and god-like humans was more real to me than the world outside of my windows, full of bloody red flags (the red of the Soviet flag symbolized the blood of the heroes of the Revolution) and the Soviet-trinity portraits of Lenin- Marx-Engels with the occasional bushy eyebrows of Brezhnev looking at me from the walls of the buildings. In some ways the two worlds blurred. The world outside made much more sense through the perspective of the ancient Greek myths, where it was quite common for a power-protective god to devour all his children. She was particularly drawn to the figure of Icarus, “the winged boy who dared to fly too close to the sun.” It was his father, Daedalus, who built the famous labyrinth in Crete where he was eventually imprisoned by King Minos. To escape the fearsome Minotaur within he crafted wings made of wax for him and his son. Daedalus warned Icarus of the dangers of flying too close to the sun, but, as Auerbach remarks, “what teenager listens to his father? Exhilarated by freedom, by his own youth, by the feeling of flight, Icarus soared higher and higher until the wax on his wings melted and he fell into the ocean. Oh, gravity! Sometimes I think it is the law of gravity that truly defines our existence.” Auerbach admires “Icarus’s impatience of the heart, his wish to reach the unreachable, the intensity of the ecstatic brevity of his flight and inevitability of his fall.” A Closer Look Auerbach is unusually candid about her inspiration for this orchestral piece: “The title Icarus was given to this work after it was written. All my music is abstract, but by giving evocative titles I invite the listener to feel free to imagine, to access his/her own memories, associations. Icarus is what came to my mind, listening to this work at that time. Each time I hear the piece—it is different.” Many composers add titles after the fact (Franz Liszt was notorious for doing so), but few admit it. For Auerbach what is important “is that it connects to you, the listener, in the most individual and direct way, that this music disturbs you, moves you, soars with you, stays with you. You don’t need to understand how or why—just allow the music to take you wherever it takes you.” The work opens with an intense burst of energy in the lower strings that abruptly shifts to a calmer lyrical section 30

Icarus for Orchestra was featuring chimes, harps, and solo violin. Over the course of composed in 2006 and 2011. some 12 minutes the piece seamlessly presents a variety These are the first Philadelphia of moods and effects—bold, mysterious, Orientalist—and Orchestra performances of makes marvelous use of an early electronic instrument, a the work and the first time theremin, which composers have often used to create an the Orchestra has performed eerie atmosphere. anything by the composer. —Christopher H. Gibbs The score calls for three flutes (II doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, bells, crystal glasses [amplified], cymbals, glockenspiel, tam- tam, vibraphone), two harps, celesta, piano, theremin, and strings. Performance time is approximately 12 minutes. 31 The Music Neruda Songs

Behind the American composer Peter Lieberson’s extraordinary Neruda Songs lies a heartbreaking love story—both for words and for a woman—that has a sad ending but nonetheless left an enduring artistic monument. Lieberson hailed from a musical family. His mother, , was a ballerina; his father, , a composer and one-time powerful head of Columbia Records, where he was a staunch advocate for contemporary music.

Peter Lieberson Lieberson’s love for literature came early, leading to an Born in New York, undergraduate degree in English at New York University. October 25, 1946 He then pursued graduate studies in music composition Died in Tel Aviv, Israel, at and received a PhD from Brandeis April 23, 2011 University. His teachers included Milton Babbitt, , and —all austere figures who produced some of the most challenging Modernist music of the late 20th century. Although Lieberson gratefully benefited from their instruction, his own compositional voice evolved into something very different, far more accessible, lyrical, and Romantic. Perhaps some of this came from his long immersion in Tibetan Buddhism. Lieberman rose to prominence in his mid-20s with his Piano Concerto (1983), which the Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned for its centennial with soloist . After the success it enjoyed the orchestra requested a symphony, Drala (1986), and eventually, to celebrate its 125th anniversary, the Neruda Songs we hear today. Lieberson’s Muse Lieberson’s literary passions naturally enough found expression composing vocal works and operas, some connected to Buddhist themes. It was surrounding the world premiere in Sante Fe of his first opera,Ashoka’s Dream (1997), that he met the mesmerizing American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt. The two fell in love and married two years later. Then came the pieces he wrote with her voice in mind and for her to perform, including the co-commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the Neruda Songs. Lieberson later recalled that he “discovered the love poems of Pablo Neruda by chance in the Albuquerque airport. The book had a pink cover and 32

drew me in. As I glanced through the poems I immediately thought that I must set some of these for Lorraine.” Esa-Pekka Salonen led the world premiere in Los Angeles in May 2005, followed by Boston performances with in November that were subsequently issued by . The work went on to win the 2008 from the University of Louisville, an especially prestigious (and unusually lucrative) prize, as well as a Grammy Award for best vocal performance. All this success and honor came at a sorrowful time. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was battling cancer, canceling many performances even as she tried to keep those singing the Neruda Songs. She died at age 52 in July 2006, just over a year after the work’s premiere. Lieberson himself lived only five years longer before succumbing to lymphoma at age 64. Soon after winning the Grawemeyer he commented in an interview: “How much time I have— who knows? That’s the way human life is. … One who was left behind often becomes ill as well.” Among his last works was another Neruda cycle, Songs of Love and Sorrow, which baritone Gerald Finley premiered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2010. A Closer Look In their beauty, elegance, and lyricism the fiveNeruda Songs may bring to mind music of and Alban Berg. Much of the instrumentation is spare, almost like chamber music, but larger orchestral moments are strategically placed and gripping. Lieberson masterfully follows the flow of the love sonnets of the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904–73) that his wife would read to him aloud in Spanish. He describes the cycle as follows: Each of the five poems that I set to music seemed to me to reflect a different face in love’s mirror. The first poem, “If your eyes were not the color of the moon,” is pure appreciation of the beloved. The second, “Love, love, the clouds went up the tower of the sky,” is joyful and also mysterious in its evocation of nature’s elements: fire, water, wind, and luminous space. The third poem, “Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because—” reflects the anguish of love, the fear and pain of separation. The fourth poem, “And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream,” is complex in its emotional tone. First there is the exultance of passion. Then, gentle, soothing words lead the beloved into the world of rest, sleep and dream. Finally, the fifth poem, 33

The Neruda Songs were “My love, if I die and you don’t—,” is very sad and composed in 2005. peaceful at the same time. There is the recognition These are the first Philadelphia that no matter how blessed one is with love, there will Orchestra performances of the be a time when we must part from those whom we song cycle. cherish so much. Still, Neruda reminds one that love has not ended. In truth there is no real death to love The work is scored for solo nor even a birth: “It is like a long river, only changing mezzo-soprano, two flutes (II doubling piccolo), oboe, lands, and changing lips.” English horn, two clarinets (II The Washington Post hailed the Neruda Songs as “one doubling bass clarinet), two of the most extraordinarily affecting artistic gifts ever bassoons, two horns, two created by one lover to another.” More than a decade later, trumpets, percussion (crotales, after the passing of both a consummate performer and glockenspiel, maracas, a marvelous composer, Lieberman’s aim has been more suspended cymbal, tom-tom or than vindicated: “I am so grateful for Neruda’s beautiful surdo [with bass drum or other large beater], vibraphone), harp, poetry, for although these poems were written to another, piano, and strings. when I set them I was speaking directly to my own beloved, Lorraine.” Performance time is approximately 25 minutes. —Christopher H. Gibbs

VIII.

Si no fuera porque tus ojos tienen color de If your eyes were not the color of the luna, moon, de día con arcilla, con trabajo, con fuego, of a day full of clay, and work, and fire, y aprisionada tienes la if even held in you did not move in agile agilidad del aire, grace like the air, si no fuera porque eres una semana de ámbar, if you were not an amber week, si no fuera porque eres el momento Amarillo not the yellow moment en que el otoño sube por las enredaderas when autumn climbs up through the vines; y eres aún el pan que la luna fragante if you were not that bread the fragrant moon elabora paseando su harina por el cielo, kneads, sprinkling its flour across the sky, oh, bienamada, yo no te amaría! oh, my dearest, I could not love you so! En tu abrazo yo abrazo lo que existe, But when I hold you I hold everything that is— la arena, el tiempo, el árbol de la lluvia, sand, time, the tree of the rain, y todo vive para que yo viva: everything is alive so that I can be alive: sin ir tan lejos puedo verb todo: without moving I can see it all: veo en tu vida todo lo viviente. in your life I see everything that lives.

Please turn the page quietly. 34

XXIV.

Amor, amor, las nubes a la torre Love, love, the clouds went up the tower of del cielo the sky subieron como triunfantes lavanderas, like triumphant washerwomen, and it all y todo ardió en azul, todo fue estrella: glowed in blue, all like a single star, el mar, la nave, el día se desterraron juntos. the sea, the ship, the day were all exiled together.

Ven a ver los cerezos del agua constelada Come see the cherries of the water in the weather, y la clave redonda del rápido universo, the round key to the universe, which is so quick: ven a tocar el fuego del azul instantáneo, come touch the fire of this momentary blue, ven antes de que sus pétalos se consuman. before its petals wither.

No hay aquí sino iuz, cantidades, racimos, There’s nothing here but light, quantities, clusters, espacio abierto por las virtudes del viento space opened by the graces of the wind hasta entregar los últimos secretos de la till it gives up the final secret of the espuma. foam.

Y entre tantos azules celestes, Among so many blues—heavenly blues, sumergidos, sunken blues— se pierden nuestros ojos adivinando a penas our eyes are a little confused: they can hardly divine los poderes del aire, las llaves the powers of the air, the keys to the secrets submarinas. in the sea.

XLV.

No estés lejos di mí un solo día, porque cómo, Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because— porque, no sé decirlo, because—I don’t know how to say it: es largo el día, a day is long y te estaré esperando como en las and I will be waiting for you, as in an estaciones empty station cuando en alguna parte se durmieron los when the trains are parked off somewhere trenes. else, asleep.

No te vayas por una hora porque entonces Don’t leave me, even for an hour, because en esa hora se juntan las gotas del desvelo then the little drops of anguish will all run together, y tal vez todo el humo que anda the smoke that roams looking for a buscando casa home will drift venga a matar aún mi corazón perdido. into me, choking my lost heart.

Ay que no se quebrante tu silueta en la Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the arena, beach; ay que no vuelen tus párpados en la may your eyelids never flutter into the empty ausencia: distance. no te vayas por un minuto, bienamada, Don’t leave me for a second, my dearest, porque en ese minuto te habrás ido tan lejos because in that moment you’ll have gone so far que yo cruzaré toda la tierra preguntando I’ll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, si volverás o si me dejarás muriendo. Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying? 35

LXXXI.

Ya eres mía. Reposa con tu sueño en And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in mi sueño. my dream. Amor, dolor, trabajos, deben dormir ahora. Love and pain and work should all sleep, now. Gira la noche sobre sus invisibles ruedas The night turns on its invisible wheels, y junto a mí eres pura como el ámbar and you are pure beside me as a sleeping dormido. amber.

Ninguna más, amor, dormirá con mis No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. sueños. You will go, Irás, iremos juntos por las aguas del tiempo. we will go together, over the waters of time. Ninguna viajará por la sombra No one else will travel through the shadows conmigo, with me, sólo tú, siempreviva, siempre sol, siempre luna. only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.

Ya tus manos abrieron las Your hands have already opened their puños delicados delicate fists y dejaron caer suaves signos sin rumbo, and let their soft drifting signs drop away; tus ojos se cerraron como dos alas grises, your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move mientras yo sigo el agua que llevas y after, following the folding water you carry, me lleva: that carries la noche, el mundo, el viento me away. The night, the world, the wind spin devanan su destino, out their destiny. y ya no soy sin ti sino sólo Without you, I am your dream, only that, and tu sueño. that is all.

XCII.

Amor mío, si muero y tú no mueres, My love, if I die and you don’t—, amor mío, si mueres y no muero, My love, if you die and I don’t—, no demos al dolor más territorio: let’s not give grief an even greater field. no hay extensión como la que vivimos. No expanse is greater than where we live.

Polvo en el trigo, arena en las arenas Dust in the wheat, sand in the deserts, el tiempo, el agua errante, el viento vago time, wandering water, the vague wind nos llevó como grano navegante. swept us on like sailing seeds. Pudimos no encontrarnos en el tiempo. We might not have found one another in time.

Esta pradera en que nos encontramos, This meadow where we find ourselves, oh perqueño infinito! devolvemos. O little infinity! we give it back. Pero este amor, amor, no ha terminado, But Love, this love has not ended: y así como no tuvo nacimiento just as it never had a birth, it has no tiene muerte, es como un largo río, no death: it is like a long river, sólo cambia de tierras y de labios. only changing lands, and changing lips.

English translations by Stephen Tapscott © 1986 University of Texas Press 36 The Music The Firebird

In May 1909, the impresario Sergei Diaghilev presented the Parisian debut of his dance troupe, the astonishing Ballets Russes. This revelatory first night featured both the brilliant dancer Vaslav Nijinsky and a stunning new ballet entitled La Pavilion d’Armide with music by Nikolai Tcherepnin and lavish decor by Alexandre Benois. The discriminating aesthete and diarist Count Harry Kessler wrote effusively to the poet Hugo von Hoffmannstahl, “All in all, this Russian ballet is one of the most remarkable and significant artistic manifestations of our time.” The music was not the only Igor Stravinsky aspect of the Ballets Russes to which Kessler reacted, Born in Lomonosov, however: The colorful sets and costumes designed by Russia, June 17, 1882 Léon Bakst and the revolutionary choreography by Mikhail Died in New York City, April 6, 1971 Fokine also enthralled him. A Third-Choice Composer The success of that first season in Paris presented Diaghilev with a pressing problem: How was he to exceed this triumph for the 1910 season? One way was to commission a new ballet based on Russian folktales, Zhar-ptitsa (The Firebird). He had his subject; his choreographer, Fokine; his set designer, Alexander Golovin; and his costume designer, Bakst. What he needed, urgently, was a composer. Diaghilev’s first choice was again Tcherepnin, but he withdrew from the project early on. His second choice was Anatoli Liadov, a pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who wrote enchanting tone poems on Russian subjects. Although later accounts claimed that Liadov was feckless about composing The Firebird, there is no documentary evidence that he agreed to write it in the first place. Running out of time, Diaghilev convinced one of Rimsky-Korsakov’s last pupils, the young Igor Stravinsky, to accept the commission. Stravinsky had a very short time to compose an extended and complex score. He began work in November 1909 and finished the following May. Stravinsky worked closely with Fokine as he composed, although he overruled the choreographer’s tasteless demand to have a suite of Russian dances conclude the ballet. After stormy rehearsals, The Firebird proved an immense success when it was premiered in Paris on June 25, 1910; it is not an exaggeration to say that it made 37

Stravinsky composed The Stravinsky famous overnight. While the sets, costumes, and Firebird from 1909 to 1910. choreography received praise, the music elicited an ecstatic Music from The Firebird was response from critics, colleagues, and audiences alike. first played by The Philadelphia Capitalizing on this newfound fame, Stravinsky later derived Orchestra in November 1917, three suites from The Firebird: a short one in 1911, a more when the 1911 Suite was led extended one in 1919 that incorporated revisions to the by Leopold Stokowski. Since orchestration, and a final version from 1945. Although one that time, barely a year has of the suites is how Firebird is most often heard in concert, gone by when some Firebird today’s performance offers the rarer chance to hear the music hasn’t been heard complete ballet score. on one of the Orchestra’s concerts, whether subscription, A Closer Look The plot of The Firebird was drawn from education, summer, or tour. a collection of folktales collected by Alexander Afanasyev. The most recent subscription These stories feature both the Firebird and the sinister performances of the complete figure of Kashcheï the Deathless. Stravinsky’s father, the ballet were in December 2015, famous bass singer Fyodor, was a passionate bibliophile with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. who had amassed a remarkable collection of Russian The Philadelphia Orchestra folktales, so the composer was surely well aware of has recorded the Firebird Suite Afanasyev’s anthology. In addition, Rimsky-Korsakov had seven times: in 1924, 1927, written a one-act opera in 1902 entitled Kashcheï the and 1935 with Stokowski for Deathless, for which Stravinsky had prepared the vocal RCA; in 1953 and 1967 with score. The influence of this opera upon the plot and music Eugene Ormandy for CBS; in of The Firebird is striking. 1973 with Ormandy for RCA; and in 1978 with Riccardo Muti The action of The Firebird is fantastical but straightforward. for EMI. While out hunting, Tsarevich Ivan strays into the enchanted realm of Kashcheï. He captures the Firebird, who begs for Stravinsky scored the work her freedom. Ivan lets her go and in return gives him one of for piccolo, three flutes (II her feathers through which he can summon her aid in times doubling alto flute, III doubling piccolo II), three oboes, of danger. Ivan happens upon a group of princesses, who English horn, three clarinets have been taken prisoner by Kashcheï, and falls in love with (III doubling E-flat clarinet), the fairest of them. Confronted by Kashcheï himself, Ivan bass clarinet, three bassoons remembers the feather and waves it to summon the Firebird. (III doubling contrabassoon She makes Kashcheï’s minions dance an Infernal Dance and II), contrabassoon, four during the following Berceuse, he and his servants fall into horns, three trumpets (plus a deep sleep. Ivan smashes the egg that holds Kashcheï’s three offstage trumpets), immortality, thus destroying him. The Finale, which begins three trombones, tuba (plus with a noble horn solo, reveals Ivan and his bride sitting in four offstage Wagner tubas), majesty on glittering thrones as the orchestra evokes the timpani, percussion (bass drum, tintinnabulation of Russian church bells. chimes, cymbals, glockenspiel, tam-tam, tambourine, triangle, —Byron Adams xylophone), celesta, piano, three harps, and strings. The work runs approximately 45 minutes in performance.

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