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Home , Beethoven and Mozart, Carolyn Sampson, Passions (Bach), Sly (opera)

23 Season 2014-2015

Wednesday, April 1, at 8:00 Saturday, April 4, at 8:00 The Philadelphia Orchestra Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Carolyn Sampson Karen Cargill Mezzo-soprano Andrew Staples () Andrew Foster-Williams - (Jesus) Philippe Sly Bass-baritone Westminster Symphonic Joe Miller Director The American Boychoir Fernando Malvar-Ruiz Music Director James Alexander Director Jon H. Weir Lighting Designer

Bach The Passion According to St. Matthew, BWV 244 Part I

Intermission

Part II Michael Stairs, Kiyoko Takeuti, and Peter Conte, organ continuo Beiliang Zhu, cello continuo Daniel Swenberg, theorbo Tom Lynch, Judas Will Doreza, Peter Betsy Kowal and Max Nolin, Witnesses Jordan Carroll, High Priest Kirsten Anderson and Grace Svatek, Maids Chris Nappa and Robert Lamb, Priests Scott Purcell, Pilate Tiffany Ho, Pilate’s Wife

This program runs approximately 3 hours, 15 minutes. These concerts are made possible, in part, by Mr. and Mrs. Raymond H. Welsh. This concert is a Symphony V.0 production. English titles by David Gordon. 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.

3 Story Title 25 The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the preeminent orchestras in the world, renowned for its distinctive sound, desired for its keen ability to capture the hearts and imaginations of audiences, and admired for a legacy of imagination and innovation on and off the concert stage. The Orchestra is transforming its rich tradition of achievement, sustaining the highest level of artistic quality, but also challenging—and exceeding—that level by creating powerful musical experiences for audiences at home and around the world. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s 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 since his inaugural season in 2012. Under his leadership the Orchestra returned to recording with a celebrated CD of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions on the Deutsche Grammophon label, continuing its history of recording success. The Orchestra also reaches thousands of listeners on the radio with weekly Sunday afternoon broadcasts on WRTI-FM. Philadelphia is home, and the Orchestra nurtures an important relationship with patrons who support the main season at the Kimmel Center, and also with those who enjoy the Orchestra’s other area performances at the Mann Center, Penn’s Landing, and other cultural, civic, and learning venues. The Orchestra maintains a strong commitment to collaborations with cultural and community organizations on a regional and national level. Through concerts, tours, residencies, presentations, and recordings, the Orchestra is a global ambassador for Philadelphia and for the United States. Having been the first American orchestra to perform in China, in 1973 at the request of President Nixon, today The Philadelphia Orchestra boasts a new partnership with the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. The ensemble annually performs at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center while also enjoying summer residencies in Saratoga Springs, New York, and Vail, Colorado. The Philadelphia Orchestra has a decades-long tradition of presenting learning and community engagement opportunities for listeners of all ages. The Orchestra’s recent initiative, the Fabulous Philadelphians Offstage, Philly Style!, has taken musicians off the traditional concert stage and into the community, including highly-successful Pop- Up concerts, PlayINs, SingINs, and ConductINs. The Orchestra’s musicians, in their own dedicated roles as teachers, coaches, and mentors, serve a key role in growing young musician talent and a love of classical music, nurturing and celebrating the wealth of musicianship in the Philadelphia region. For more information on The Philadelphia Orchestra, please visit www.philorch.org. 6 Music Director

Chris Lee Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin continues his inspired leadership of The Philadelphia Orchestra, which began 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. The New York Times has called Nézet-Séguin “phenomenal,” adding that under his baton, “the ensemble, famous for its glowing strings and homogenous richness, has never sounded better.” He has taken the Orchestra to new musical heights. Highlights of his third season as music director include an Art of the Pipe Organ festival; the 40/40 Project, in which 40 great compositions that haven’t been heard on subscription concerts in at least 40 years will be performed; and Bernstein’s MASS, the pinnacle of the Orchestra’s five- season cycle.

Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most exciting talents of his generation. He has been music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic since 2008 and artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000. He also continues to enjoy a close relationship with the London Philharmonic, of which he was principal guest conductor. He has made wildly successful appearances with the world’s most revered ensembles, and he has conducted critically acclaimed performances at many of the leading houses.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Deutsche Grammophon (DG) enjoy a long-term collaboration. Under his leadership The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to recording with a CD on that label of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions. He continues a fruitful recording relationship with the Rotterdam Philharmonic on DG, EMI Classics, and BIS Records; the London Philharmonic and Choir 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 Carlo Maria Giulini and with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir 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; and honorary doctorates from the University of Quebec in Montreal and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

To read Yannick’s full bio, please visit www.philorch.org/conductor. 26 Artists

Soprano Carolyn Sampson makes her Philadelphia Orchestra debut with these performances. In the 2014-15 season she is featured as an artist-in- residence at Wigmore Hall in London. Her numerous concert engagements in the U.K. have included regular appearances at the BBC Proms and with such ensembles as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, , , Britten Sinfonia, and . She is a frequent guest with the Hallé Orchestra and has performed with the City of London Sinfonia, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and the City of Birmingham Symphony. On the opera stage her appearances at English National Opera have included the title role in Handel’s and Pamina in Mozart’s . For Glyndebourne Festival Opera she sang various roles in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, now released on DVD. In the U.S. Ms. Sampson has performed as soloist with the San Francisco, Boston, and Detroit symphonies and with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. She is a regular guest at the Mostly Mozart Festival and in October 2013 made her Carnegie Hall recital debut in Weill Recital Hall.

K.K. Dundas Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill made her Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2013 singing the role in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion that she reprises with these performances. She studied at the Royal Conservatory of Scotland, the University of Toronto, and the National Opera Studio in London and was the winner of the 2002 Kathleen Ferrier Award. Performance highlights with her regular recital partner, pianist Simon Lepper, include appearances at Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall, as well as recitals for BBC Radio 3. She and Mr. Lepper have recorded a critically acclaimed recital of lieder by Alma and Gustav Mahler for Linn Records. Season highlights include Magdalene in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the ; Waltraute in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung with the Canadian Opera Company; returns to the Royal Opera and English National Opera; and her Salzburg Festival debut. Ms. Cargill performs regularly with the Boston and London symphonies; the Rotterdam, London, and Berlin philharmonics; and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. In 2013 she was appointed associate artist of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. 27 Artists

British tenor Andrew Staples made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2013 as the Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and returned in May 2014 to sing Narraboth in Strauss’s Salome. Other performance highlights include Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri with both the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle and the Swedish Radio Symphony and Daniel Harding; Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze; Britten’s War Requiem at the King’s College Chapel with David Hill; and Mozart’s Requiem with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Mr. Manze. He made his Royal Opera House debut as Jacquino in ’s and is a regular guest at that house, where he has sung the roles of Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Artabanes in Arne’s Artaxerxes, and Narraboth in Salome. He has also sung Belfiore in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera at the National Theatre in , a role he repeated at La Monnaie in Brussels, and Don Ottavio in Mozart’s for the Salzburg Festival. In 2013 Mr. Staples’s venture Opera for Change took a production of The Magic Flute on a 10-country tour through Africa.

Paul Foster-Williams Bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams studied at, and is now a fellow of, the Royal Academy of Music in London. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2009 singing Handel’s Messiah and returned in 2011 for performances of Mozart’s Requiem and in 2013 for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Opera plans this season and beyond include Balstrode in Britten’s Peter Grimes for the Theater an der Wien; Telramund in Wagner’s Lohengrin for La Monnaie in Brussels; Faraone in a new production of Rossini’s Moses in Egypt for Welsh National Opera; and Donner and Gunther in Wagner’s Ring Cycle for Opera North. Concert performances include Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society and the Adelaide Symphony; Handel’s Messiah with Les Violons du Roy and and on a European tour with Nathalie Stutzman and Orfeo 55; Bach’s St. John Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Father Joseph in Gounod’s Cinq-Mars with the Munich Radio Orchestra; Mephistopheles in Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust with the Russian National Orchestra; and Haydn’s Creation with the Hong Kong Philharmonic. 28 Artists Adam Scotti French-Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly, who made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2014, was the first prize winner of the 2012 Concours Musical International de Montréal and a grand prize winner of the 2011 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He was recently awarded Concert of the Year in Romantic, Post-Romantic, and Impressionist Music at the 16th annual ceremony of the Prix Opus in Quebec. Current season highlights include his return to the San Francisco Opera as Ormonte in Handel’s Partenope and as Figaro in Mozart’s ; his French debut at the Opéra Comique in Paris in Boesman’s Au monde; and a concert appearance with the Montreal Symphony and Kent Nagano in Honegger’s L’Aiglon. Upcoming engagements include performances at the Glyndebourne Festival, the Canadian Opera Company, and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. In the 2012-13 season Mr. Sly became a member of the prestigious Adler Fellowship Program at the San Francisco Opera. A recording artist with Analekta Records, his first solo album, In Dreams, was released in 2012, followed by an all-Rameau album with soprano Hélène Guilmette. Peter Borg The Westminster Symphonic Choir has recorded and performed with major orchestras under virtually every internationally acclaimed conductor of the past 80 years. It is composed of students at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ. The ensemble made its Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 1934 with Leopold Stokowski in Bach’s B-minor Mass. The Choir’s 2014-15 season includes Carmina burana with the New Jersey Symphony, Brahms’s Requiem with the Philharmonic, and performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and Bernstein’s MASS with the Philadelphians and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who studied choral conducting at Westminster Choir College. The College is a division of Rider University’s Westminster College of the Arts, which has campuses in Princeton and Lawrenceville. A professional college of music with a unique choral emphasis, Westminster prepares students at the undergraduate and graduate levels for careers in teaching, sacred music, and performance. The Choir was prepared for these performances by Joe Miller, Westminster’s director of choral activities, conductor of the Westminster Choir, and director of choral activities for the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. 29 Artists

The American Boychoir has long been recognized as one of the finest musical ensembles in the country. Under the leadership of Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, Litton-Lodal Music Director, the choir performs regularly with world- class orchestras, including The Philadelphia Orchestra (it made its debut with the Orchestra in 1952) and the New York Philharmonic. The list of collaborators the choir has worked with reflects the extraordinary range of the ensemble, from great classical singers such as Jessye Norman and Frederica von Stade to jazz legend Wynton Marsalis to pop icons Beyoncé and Paul McCartney. As an icon of American musical excellence, the Boychoir has been invited to sing for every sitting U.S. President since John F. Kennedy. In addition to these current concerts, highlights of the 2014-15 season include a performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, four national tours, and the release of a feature film called Boychoir with Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates. The legacy of the American Boychoir is preserved through an extensive recording catalogue, which boasts over 45 commercial recordings and the launch of its own label, Albemarle Records. Stage Director James Alexander’s critically acclaimed collaborations with The Philadelphia Orchestra include the 2012 Stokowski Centenary Celebration at the Academy of Music, this year’s Academy of Music 158th Anniversary Concert, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which premiered in 2013 and is now being reprised. As founding creative director of Symphony V.0, Mr. Alexander works with orchestras and opera companies to create revolutionary theatrical presentations. A long- time collaborator with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony, he helped stage Strauss’s Elektra and Salome, Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, Mozart’s , and the 50th-anniversary production of Britten’s Peter Grimes at Tanglewood. He has collaborated with Roger Norrington on Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro for Cincinnati Opera and created a new production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Aspen Music Festival, for which he wrote new dialogue. Upcoming productions include the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’s Creation/Creator for the Atlanta Symphony and Robert Spano, and Handel’s Messiah and Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale for The Philadelphia Orchestra next season. 30 Artists

Lighting designer Jon Weir is vice president of Majestic Productions, a company he began working with while in college. He played a key role in the company’s growth and development and continues his work there today as senior designer and programmer. Specializing in lighting for live and live-for-television events, Mr. Weir has worked with a variety of clients in venues around the world lighting events that have set attendance records and pushed the boundaries of technology. Through the years he has also worked with manufacturers as a consultant for hardware and software development. Mr. Weir joined Symphony V.0 in 2012 and enjoys the challenge of working with some of the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors to bring cutting-edge lighting, animated motion graphics, and other non-traditional production elements to live performances. In addition he designs and programs lighting for musicians on tour. He currently is on tour with the Rock and Worship Roadshow, supporting its 2015 North American tour with stops in 26 cities. 31 Framing the Program

Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is one of the supreme Parallel Events monuments in Western music and the work that initiated 1727 Music the great rediscovery of Bach’s accomplishment when Bach Vivaldi the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted it in Berlin St. Matthew Stabat Mater in 1829. Passion Literature Defoe The vast two-part Passion, which recounts the last Conjugal days of Jesus leading to his Crucifixion, is impressively Lewdness scored for vocal soloists with double chorus, boys choir, Art and double orchestra. A tenor sings the role of the Canaletto Evangelist, who narrates the moving events with words Venice: S. drawn from two chapters of the Gospel According to St. Geremia and the Matthew. Bach supplemented this scriptural source with Entrance to the newly-added commentary, written by one of his close Cannaregio collaborators, which is sung in arias and by the chorus. History Interspersed throughout, and drawing listeners ever more Severe into the experience, are majestic four-part , the earthquake in New England congregational hymns of the Lutheran Church. What emerges is an epic journey that comes close to being an opera, a genre Bach otherwise shunned. These Philadelphia Orchestra performances underscore the inherent dramatic elements through gestures, lighting, and costumes. 32 The Music The Passion According to St. Matthew

Composers, even the very greatest ones, were for many centuries forgotten soon after their death, their music left unperformed. Unlike literature or the visual arts, where the names of luminaries such as Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Giotto, and Michelangelo lived on, with their creations exerting lasting influence, the music of antiquity disappeared almost entirely and the accomplishments of most medieval and Renaissance masters were only dimly known within decades of their passing. Mozart and Beethoven probably never heard of Guillaume de Machaut or Josquin des Prez; they are hardly household Born in Eisenach, names today. March 21, 1685 Died in , July 28, Johann Sebastian Bach and , 1750 born just some hundred miles and a few weeks apart in 1685 (although they never met) were the first composers whose names and music remained in force. (The Italian Renaissance composer Palestrina was not entirely forgotten, but his fame endured less because of specific pieces than for exemplifying a style of sacred composition.) Handel was a far more cosmopolitan figure than Bach and his Messiah, his most famous work, might be considered the first piece of so-called classical music that has never faded from sight. Bach’s contemporaneous and posthumous reputation is more complicated and the St. Matthew Passion proved particularly important both to him personally and to his legacy. The work is widely considered his supreme sacred utterance and one of the great monuments of Western music. The Path to Leipzig Bach came from a long line of church musicians, a distinguished family tradition that he continued with his own children, four of whom (out of the 20 he fathered) went on to prominent careers. Notwithstanding his deep faith, Bach was also a practical, practicing musician who had to please both secular and religious employers at different phases of his career. He moved to Leipzig in 1723 to become the cantor for the city’s principal Lutheran churches and remained there for the rest of his life. At the beginning of his tenure he produced an astounding quantity of religious music. For the Sunday service most weeks he wrote a cantata, which was akin to giving a musical sermon. Not only did 33 he compose, but he also had to rehearse and perform the music. It seems almost incomprehensible how he was able to do all this while fulfilling his additional duties, teaching, and tending to a large family. The heaviest demands came during Holy Week, the musical highlight of the liturgical year. Bach’s two grandest surviving pieces from the 1720s are based on the Gospels of St. John and St. Matthew. The long tradition of musical settings of Jesus’s Passion—his last days leading to his suffering on the Cross—goes back to the Middle Ages. Initially the story was simply chanted, but over time the format of presentation took on the character of a sung play, with one singer, usually a tenor, delivering the Gospel passages of the Evangelist, and others portraying particular figures such as Jesus, Pilate, and Judas. For many centuries this was all done in Latin, as it continued to be in the Roman Catholic Church. After the Reformation, in Bach’s Lutheran faith, the words were translated into the German vernacular, using Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible. This Gospel text was supplemented by newly-supplied commentary and reflections written by others. For the St. Matthew Passion Bach called upon Christian Friedrich Henrici (who wrote under the name ), with whom he collaborated on more than two dozen cantatas. Over the course of his career discharging his various church positions Bach performed Passions by different composers and, according to his obituary, composed five settings himself. Only St. John and St. Matthew survive, with a few parts remaining for St. Mark. He wrote the first version of the St. John Passion for the service in 1724. It was long thought that he composed the St. Matthew Passion for the 1729 service, but modern scholars have made a strong case that he had already performed the piece two years before. The St. Matthew Passion was heard within a very lengthy Vespers service on Good Friday, the most solemn day in the Christian calendar. The service began with a hymn. After the first part of the Passion, there was a long sermon, and following the second part a motet, prayers, and concluding hymn. The magnificent manuscript of the St. Matthew Passion suggests Bach’s unusual care and the special place the work held for him within his oeuvre. His meticulous calligraphy is written in two colors, the majority of it in dark brown ink but with most of the Gospel text in red. 34

A Musical Sermon Although Bach never composed an opera (Handel wrote more than three dozen in Italian), his Passion settings possess much of the drama and characterization one associates with the theater. (Often more so: Characters in Baroque tended to be rather one-dimensional and generic while Bach was very much concerned with the situation of a given moment.) Some of the arias demand an operatic virtuosity, which is often complemented by an astounding instrumental virtuosity as soloists from the orchestra enter into what might be considered duets with the singers. Many arias are cast in the standard operatic form of the day: da capo (repeated from the beginning), a structure in which an A section is followed by B, after which there is an ornamented repeat of A. Because the Passion text was sung in German, consistent with Luther’s belief that congregants should understand what they were hearing, there was a level of direct communication that most audiences attending Italian operas never experienced. Many moments in the St. Matthew Passion draw the listener in, with the most direct appeal coming during the chorales, Lutheran congregational hymns that would have been well known to all worshippers. There are 15 of them interspersed throughout the work, using eight different melodies, some of them sacred, others popular secular tunes. To these melodies Bach provided marvelous four- part harmonizations. He and Picander act as theologians in what they decided to omit, add, and emphasize. Bach set the words with extraordinary care so as best to convey his interpretation. There are many instances of “word painting,” when the music directly illustrates the text. A Closer Look The St. Matthew Passion is divided in two parts. The Evangelist, who sings passages drawn from chapters 26 and 27 of Matthew, narrates the story in a series of scenes that includes the Last Supper and Jesus’s betrayal, and ends with his arrest and another large chorus. The second part relates the questioning of Jesus, his appearance before Pilate, and the Crucifixion, and concludes with a calming chorus with the character of a lullaby. The St. Matthew Passion is Bach’s longest composition and the most imposing in the performing forces required. The score calls for vocal soloists, a double chorus, and two orchestras. The grandeur is already evident in the famous opening chorus (“Come, ye daughters, share my mourning”), a lament alluding to Jesus carrying the Cross to Golgotha. Bach balances the two , at points in a 35 direct question and answer, and eventually brings in yet another element, a third choir of boy singing the tune “O Innocent Lamb of God.” Following this great opening the piece unfolds in a series of musical scenes, typically initiated by the recitative of the narrating Evangelist. The declamatory style of his delivery is deceptively simple and straightforward, but nonetheless supremely expressive because of Bach’s attention to the nuances of each word. The continuo accompaniment is minimal, which contrasts with the more substantive string section of the first orchestra that accompanies Jesus’s utterances. Commentators often talk of the “halo” effect this produces and that is only lacking for his final utterance “My God, My God, Why have your forsaken me?” After the Evangelist’s scriptural narrative there often follows an arioso that provides commentary and then a more elaborate aria or duet. Interspersed throughout are the choral sections, sometimes representing the people and at other points consisting of a chorale. The Legacy of the St. Matthew Passion After Bach introduced the St. Matthew Passion in 1727 he apparently reused it with various revisions for Good Friday services in 1729, 1736, and 1742. Following his death in 1750 at age 65 the piece fell into obscurity, as did most of his sacred music. Bach’s name lived on to some degree due to his most famous sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian, and because some of his music, especially keyboard works like the Well-Tempered Clavier, grew in stature and influence. In the 19th century a Bach revival slowly took hold in Germany. An important biography was published in 1802 that promoted him as the ultimate musician and the embodiment of the German spirit in music. While it was too early yet to speak of the “3 Bs”—Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms—that later formation would prove central to the widespread view of music history as a story of great German composers with Johann Sebastian as its origin. The decisive musical event in Bach’s posthumous reemergence came in 1829, in what was then thought to be the centennial year of the St. Matthew Passion, when the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted the work in Berlin. The performance, in an abridged and re-orchestrated version fashioned by Mendelssohn, attracted a large and enthusiastic audience that included the poet Heinrich Heine and philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel. Mendelssohn commented in a letter that “there was a crowd and a noise the like of which I have never 36

Bach composed the St. experienced at a concert of sacred music” and the Matthew Passion in 1727. influential critic A.B. Marx said the event would “open The first Philadelphia Orchestra the gates of a long-closed temple.” This it did, inspiring performances of the work were compositions by Romantic composers, spurring the led by Leopold Stokowski in creation of choral societies and festivals, and leading March 1917. Most recently, the to of a that initiated the first piece was performed in March/ collected edition of the composer’s complete works. With April 2013, with Yannick the St. Matthew Passion Bach created a great monument Nézet-Séguin, soprano Malin to his incomparable art as well as to his deep faith. Christensson, mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, tenor Andrew —Christopher H. Gibbs Staples as the Evangelist, bass-baritone Andrew Foster- Williams, bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni as Jesus, the Westminster Symphonic Choir, and the American Boychoir. Those were the first complete performances of the Passion by the Orchestra, as all dates prior to that had involved various cuts to the score. Bach scored the work for four flutes (I and II doubling recorder); four oboe d’amores (I and II doubling ); two bassoons; organ continuo; viola da gamba; strings; soprano, mezzo- soprano, tenor, and two bass vocal soloists; double chorus; and boys choir. The Orchestra has recorded three choruses from the St. Matthew Passion: “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden” in an orchestration by Stokowski, in 1936 for RCA with Stokowski; “Herzliebster Jesu” in an orchestration by Stokowski, in 1940 for RCA with Stokowski; and “Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder,” in 1958 for CBS with Eugene Ormandy and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Performance time is approximately three hours, 15 minutes. Program note © 2015. All rights reserved. Program notes may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association. 37 April The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin

The remainder of the 2014-15 season is filled with outstanding live performances rich with incomparable and unforgettable musical experiences. Don’t miss a concert. Great seats are still available—Order today!

Beethoven and Mozart Friday, April 10 2 PM Saturday, April 11 8 PM Paul Goodwin Conductor Choong-Jin Chang Viola Mozart Symphony in D major, K. 320, after the Serenade in D major (“Posthorn”) Stamitz Viola Concerto in D major Beethoven Overture, The Consecration of the House Beethoven Symphony No. 4 Peter and the Wolf (with Film) Thursday, April 16 8 PM Friday, April 17 2 PM Saturday, April 18 8 PM Stéphane Denève Conductor Christina and Michelle Naughton Pianos Peter & the Wolf Live 2008 Oscar Winner—Best Animated Short Film Roussel The Spider’s Feast Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf (with film) Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals Poulenc Selections from Les Animaux modèles The April 16 concert is sponsored by the Hassel Foundation.

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