01-29 Sondheim:Layout 1 1/23/13 10:55 AM Page 19 SYMPHONIC SONDHEIM Tuesday , January 29, 2013, 7:30 p.m. 15,492nd Concert This concert is made possible with generous support from Perry and Martin Granoff, Ted and Mary Jo Shen, and Thomas and Alice Tisch. Paul Gemignani, Conductor Nathan Lane , Host (New York Philharmonic debut) Global Sponsor Guest artist appearances are made possible through the This concert will last approximately two and one-quarter Hedwig van Ameringen Guest hours, which includes one intermission. Artists Endow ment Fund . Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center Home of the New York Philharmonic Exclusive Timepiece of the New York Philharmonic January 2013 19 01-29 Sondheim:Layout 1 1/23/13 10:55 AM Page 20 New York Philharmonic SYMPHONIC SONDHEIM Paul Gemignani, Conductor Nathan Lane, Host (New York Philharmonic debut) STEPHEN SONDHEIM ( b. 1930) Suite from Sunday in the Park with George (1983–84), arr. Michael Starobin Selections from The Enclave (1973) ERIC HUEBNER, STEVEN BECK , piano CHRISTOPHER S. LAMB, DANIEL DRUCKMAN , percussion Dances from Pacific Overture s Prologue “The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea ” “There is No Other Way” (Tamate’s Dance) “March to the Treaty House” “Someone in a Tree” “Pretty Lady” “Next” Intermission Suite from Into the Woods (1985–87) Suite from Stavisky (1974) Suite from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1978–79) Host remarks co-written by Nathan Lane and Mark Horowitz. The New York Philharmonic thanks the Musicians of the Orchestra for donating their services to benefit the pension fund of the New York Philharmonic. Classical 105.9 FM WQXR is the Radio The New York Philharmonic’s concert -recording Station of the New York Philharmonic. series, Alan Gilbert and the New York Phil - harmonic: 2012 –13 Season, is now available for download at all major online music stores. The New York Philharmonic This Week, Visit nyphil.org/recordings for more information. nationally syndicated on the WFMT Radio Network, is broadcast 52 weeks per year ; Follow us on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and visit nyphil.org for information . YouTube. PLEASE SILENCE YOUR ELECTRONIC DEVICES . 20 New York Philharmonic 01-29 Sondheim:Layout 1 1/23/13 10:55 AM Page 21 Notes on the Program By James M. Keller, Program Annotator The Leni and Peter May Chair Symphonic Sondheim with words attached. In such cases we f ind ourselves listening differently to the melody Stephen Sondheim towers over American with a text and the same melody without one. musical theater as a lyricist and a composer — Among Sondheim’s most remarkable gifts are very often as both at once. His career so far his artistry in matching the verbal expression has encompassed a string of 15 full-scale of an idea to the flow of a musical phrase and musicals plus a handful of “anthology shows” the ways in which the details of these ele - built on numbers cut from shows; a stack of ments combine to deepen our experience of a scores for film, television, and staged theater character or situation. But when we hear his productions; and a portfolio of librettos and pieces in strictly instrumental form, we may no - lyrics unmatched by his contemporaries. His tice things we do not when our minds are busy contributions to the musical theater now processing words along with notes. stretch back more than 50 years, and yet Stephen Sondheim is a New Yorker born they seem , for the most part , fresh and still and bred, an only child who spent his early young. Each of his major works has been ground - In Short breaking in its way, each unique, yet most exude a Born: March 22, 1930, in New York City universality that makes them seem up to date. Resides: New York City Tonight we encounter a Works composed and premiered : less-visited side of this ex - Sunday in the Park with George , 1983–84; first produced at Playwrights ceptional artist: Sondheim Horizons in New York on July 6, 1983, with the Broadway opening at the Booth Theatre on May 2, 1984; this concert marks the world premiere of not as a lyricist or as a Michael Starobin’s concert arrangement songwriter, but rather as a The Enclave , 1973; opened Off-Broadway on November 15, 1973, at Theater composer pure and simple, a Four in New York, following tryouts at the Shubert Theatre in Boston, beginning creative soul represented November 8, 1975, and a short run at the Kennedy Center Opera House in through music on its own, Washington, D.C., beginning December 4, 1975 without words. We find Pacific Overtures , 1975; Broadway opening at the Winter Garden Theatre in New strictly instrumental expan- York on January 11, 1976 ses in many of his Broad way Into the Woods , 1986–87; premiered at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego on shows — over tures, preludes, December 4, 1986, and opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on dance sequences — though November 5, 1987 in many instances these in - Stavisky , 1974; the film was premiered on May 15, 1974, in Cannes, France. clude musical mate rial that Sweeney Todd , 1978 –79; Broadway opening on March 1, 1979, at the Uris also surfaces elsewhere , Theatre, New York City January 2013 21 01-29 Sondheim:Layout 1 1/23/13 10:55 AM Page 22 years at the San Remo on Central Park West. distinguished lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. When he was ten his family unraveled, and a Hammerstein provided Sondheim with an en - few years later he entered the orbit of what trée to Broadway by hiring him as an assistant would become a surrogate family, that of the for the production of Allegro, which opened The New York Philharmonic Connection Stephen Sondheim is no stranger to the New York Philharmonic. The Orchestra has presented his music on numerous occasions, including some now-legendary performances. Of the 1985 pro - duction of Follies , New York Times critic Frank Rich wrote: “As played by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Paul Gemignani, and sung and acted by an illustrious cast of past and present Broadway hands, Follies filled Avery Fisher Hall with the sound of an audience losing its mind.” The recording of the 2000 semi-staged production of Sweeney Todd , starring George Hearn and Patti LuPone, was nominated for a Grammy Award. A cast of Broadway greats joined forces with the Orchestra for SOND - HEIM: The Birthday Concert! in 2010, honoring the composer’s 80th birthday, and the popular 2011 production of Company , from 2011, was presented in movie theaters and then released on DVD last fall, due to popular demand. — The Editors Clockwise from top left: Elaine Stritch in Follies ; Martha Plimpton, Stephen Colbert, and Neil Patrick Harris joined Company ; Sondheim takes a bow at his 80th birthday celebration; George Hearn and Patti LuPone led the cast of Sweeney Todd . (Fol - lies photo: Martha Swope; SONDHEIM: The Birthday Concert!: Richard Termine; Sweeney Todd, Company : Chris Lee) 22 New York Philharmonic 01-29 Sondheim:Layout 1 1/23/13 10:55 AM Page 23 in 1947. By that time Sondheim was already helping fine-tune his ability as a composer. “I deeply engaged in musical studies. In 1950 he am his maverick,” Sondheim would later say, graduated from Williams College, where he “his one student who went into the popular was encouraged by one of his teachers, the arts armed with all his serious artillery.” composer Joaquín Nin-Culmell, to pursue fur - Notwithstanding his extensive training as ther studies as a private pupil of Milton Babbitt. a composer, Sondheim embraced the work - In Babbitt’s studio, Sondheim worked his way ing style of the musical theater. This included through scores by such composers as Mozart, the tradition of enlisting professional orches - Beethoven, Copland, and Ravel. (In 1952 he trators to work out the sonic surfaces of the even composed a piano concerto, giving its music, an essential process that, apart from first movement the title “Letters from Aaron its practical value, can serve to enhance or to Copland to Maurice Ravel.”) Although Babbitt reinforce the essence of the composer’s score. was famous for a rigorous brand of serial com - Sondheim is generous about recognizing his position, he had nourished aspirations for pop - orchestrators publicly, and he has worked ular music early in his career, and he supported repeatedly with a few who have proved Sondheim’s interest in musical theater while adept in matching his musical con ceptions. Rarities Stephen Sondheim aficionados may draw comparisons between his 1970 musical Company and the 1973 play The Enclave by Arthur Laurents, for which the composer contributed incidental music. Both revolve around a group of friends that includes a confirmed bachelor. In The Enclave the friends have restored adjoining houses in an up-and-coming New York neighborhood and plan to move in at the same time, creating a sort of urban commune. Unlike Company, in which all of the married couples try to persuade their dear friend Bobby to take the plunge, the single man of The Enclave is a closeted homosexual whose plan to bring along his young lover creates a crisis among those in his circle who had considered themselves tolerant and open- minded. The original production had a short run, but the work is remembered for its exploration, by a major playwright, of a subject that society had only begun to address. “Arthur Laurents has turned to the subject of homosexuals and society’s problem in accept - ing them in its conventional midst,” wrote the New York Post.