27 Season 2013-2014

Thursday, October 10, at 8:00 The Friday, October 11, at 2:00 Saturday, October 12, Semyon Bychkov Conductor at 8:00 Yefim BronfmanPiano

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 I. Allegro moderato II. Andante con moto— III. Rondo: Vivace

Intermission

Shostakovich Symphony No. 11 in G minor, Op. 103 (“The Year 1905”) I. The Palace Square (Adagio)— II. The 9th of January (Allegro—Adagio— Allegro—Adagio)— III. In Memoriam (Adagio)— IV. The Tocsin (Allegro non troppo— Allegro—Moderato—Adagio—Allegro)

This program runs approximately 2 hours.

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 The Rite of Spring Musician-led initiatives, the highest level of artistic and Leopold Stokowski including highly-successful quality, but also challenging transcriptions. In Yannick’s Cello and Violin Play-Ins, and exceeding that level, by inaugural season the shine a spotlight on the creating powerful musical Orchestra has also returned Orchestra’s musicians, as experiences for audiences at to the radio airwaves, with they spread out from the home and around the world. weekly Sunday afternoon stage into the community. Music Director Yannick broadcasts on WRTI-FM. The Orchestra’s commitment Nézet-Séguin triumphantly to its education and Philadelphia is home and opened his inaugural community partnership the Orchestra nurtures an season as the eighth artistic initiatives manifests itself important relationship not leader of the Orchestra in numerous other ways, only with patrons who support in fall 2012. His highly including concerts for families the main season at the collaborative style, deeply- and students, and eZseatU, Kimmel Center but also those rooted musical curiosity, a program that allows full- who enjoy the Orchestra’s and boundless enthusiasm, time college students to other area performances paired with a fresh approach attend an unlimited number at the Mann Center, Penn’s to orchestral programming, of Orchestra concerts for Landing, and other venues. have been heralded by a $25 annual membership The Orchestra is also a global critics and audiences alike. fee. For more information on ambassador for Philadelphia Yannick has been embraced The Philadelphia Orchestra, and for the U.S. Having been by the musicians of the please visit www.philorch.org. 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. The New York Times 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 requiems with Fauré’s Requiem; and a unique, theatrically-staged presentation of Strauss’s revolutionary opera 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 London 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 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 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, 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

Sheila Rock Since leaving St. Petersburg in the mid-1970s, Semyon Bychkov has balanced his time between operatic and symphonic repertoire, enjoying long-standing relationships with the orchestras and major opera houses in London, Paris, Vienna, Milan, Berlin, Chicago, and New York. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 1986 at the Mann Center; these current performances mark his subscription debut. Mr. Bychkov came to international attention while music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony and the Buffalo Philharmonic. Following a series of high-profile cancellations that resulted in invitations to conduct both the New York and Berlin philharmonics and the Royal Orchestra, he was signed to an exclusive recording contract with Philips Classics. He moved to Paris where he was appointed music director of the Orchestre de Paris (1989), principal guest conductor of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic (1990), principal guest conductor of the Maggio Musicale in Florence (1992), chief conductor of the WDR Symphony in Cologne (1997), and chief conductor of the Dresden Semperoper (1998). He currently holds the Otto Klemperer Chair of Conducting Studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Günter Wand Conducting Chair at the BBC Symphony. Since completing his 13-year tenure with the WDR Symphony, Mr. Bychkov has focused on the guest relationships he enjoys with many of the world’s most prestigious ensembles, including the Royal Concertgebouw and Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestras; the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; the Vienna, Berlin, Munich, and Czech philharmonics; the London and BBC symphonies; and, in the U.S., the Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras, the Chicago and San Francisco symphonies, and the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics. Mr. Bychkov made his Royal Opera House debut in 2003 with a new production of Strauss’s Elektra. He has led numerous productions there and returns in 2014 for Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten. At the Metropolitan Opera he conducted Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov in 2004 and Verdi’s Otello, both in 2007 and in 2012 when it was broadcast live in HD to 54 countries. Mr. Bychkov’s recordings include works by Mahler, Shostakovich, and Rachmaninoff; the complete cycle of Brahms’s symphonies; and Verdi’s Requiem, all with the WDR Symphony. 30 Soloist

Frank Stewart Pianist Yefim Bronfmanmade his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 1977 and has been a frequent guest ever since. Widely regarded as one of the most talented virtuoso pianists performing today, he has won consistent critical acclaim for his solo recitals, orchestral engagements, and rapidly growing catalogue of recordings. In the 2013-14 season Mr. Bronfman is artist-in-residence at the . Other season highlights include a winter tour of chamber concerts in the Far East; a spring tour of North America with violinist Pinchas Zukerman; a performance with Zubin Mehta and the Berlin Philharmonic at the ensemble’s spring residency in Baden-Baden; return visits to the orchestras of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Boston, Houston, Dallas, and Detroit; and an Australian tour with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Mr. Bronfman’s summer featured performances at festivals in Aspen, , Amsterdam, Helsinki, Lucerne, and Berlin. Other recent performance highlights include concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle in Berlin, Salzburg, and at the London Proms; performances with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich conducted by David Zinman; appearances with the Vienna Philharmonic and ; and a performance with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra conducted by Fabio Luisi at Carnegie Hall. Recent CD releases include Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2, commissioned for him and performed by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert on the Da Capo label; and recordings of all the Beethoven piano concertos as well as the Triple Concerto with violinist Gil Shaham, cellist Truls Mørk, and the Tonhalle Orchestra under Mr. Zinman for the Arte Nova/BMG label. Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union in 1958, Mr. Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973 where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States he studied at the Juilliard School, Marlboro, and the Curtis Institute. In 1991 Mr. Bronfman gave a series of joint recitals with Isaac Stern in Russia, marking his first public performances there since leaving the country at age 15. That same year he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize. He became an American citizen in July 1989. 31 Framing the Program

Dmitri Shostakovich probably did not object when critics Parallel Events sometimes referred to him as “the Russian Beethoven.” 1805 Music Both composers triumphed in their time, more than Beethoven Spontini a century apart, by writing immediately gripping and Piano Concerto La vestale emotionally charged orchestral music. Over the next two No. 4 Literature seasons The Philadelphia Orchestra will present concerts Chateaubriand that pair works by the two composers together. René Art Following the inspiring model of Mozart, Beethoven made Turner his initial fame in Vienna with piano concertos, works Shipwreck that displayed both his compositional and performing History genius. The Fourth Piano Concerto, which received its Victory at public premiere in 1808 on a concert that also unveiled Trafalgar the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, was the last one he composed for his own use. Deafness forced Beethoven’s 1957 Music withdrawal from the career of a virtuoso performer. The Shostakovich Walton personal nature of the Concerto is already evident in the Symphony Cello Concerto No. 11 Literature miraculous hushed statement for the piano soloist with Kerouac which the work begins. On the Road Many of Shostakovich’s symphonies—some argue most Art or all of them—seem to carry hidden meanings and Chagall messages that either have deeply personal resonances Self-portrait or that run counter to their announced intention. The History Symphony No. 11 (“The Year 1905”) we hear today is Israeli forces withdraw from supposedly about the “Bloody Sunday” in 1905, when the Sinai Peninsula Tsar’s Imperial Guard opened fire on a peaceful gathering in front of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. It could just as well have been about the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, which occurred the year before Shostakovich wrote the Symphony. The abstract nature of instrumental music allows listeners to come up with their own answers and therefore proved a realm of freedom in the repressive Soviet Union. 32 The Music Piano Concerto No. 4

Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto holds a special place in the unfolding of his career. It was the last of his five solo keyboard concertos that he wrote for his own use as a performer and even though it dates from his “heroic” middle period, it is an unusually intimate expression. Beethoven had composed his first three piano concertos relatively early in his career, during years of rising fame as a piano virtuoso and promising young composer. In these works he brought to a glorious culmination the Classical tradition of Mozart and Haydn, both of whom he knew personally. Ludwig van Beethoven The Fourth and Fifth concertos are fully mature works that Born in Bonn, probably represent Beethoven’s style at the height of his popular December 16, 1770 success and as he forged new paths toward Romanticism. Died in Vienna, March 26, 1827 Struggles and Triumphs As he entered his 30s, Beethoven’s personal and professional life began to change, and so, too, did his music. In the fall of 1801 he revealed the secret of his looming deafness for the first time. He provided his childhood friend Franz Wegeler with a detailed account of his symptoms and lamented the constraints the condition placed on his social life and profession (“… if my enemies, of whom I have a fair number, were to hear about it, what would they say?”). The following fall he penned the remarkable “Heiligenstadt Testament,” an extended unsent letter to his brothers in which he described further social, personal, and professional consequences of his affliction: “… a little more and I would have ended my life. Only my art held me back. It seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt was within me.” The personal challenges Beethoven faced at this crucial juncture in his professional career can be sensed in much of the music he wrote over the next decade. While at first he kept his hearing problems hidden, by 1806 he could write in a sketch of one of his string quartets, “Let your deafness no longer be a secret—even in art.” Yet not every work offered impassioned struggles and affirmative victories. Unlike the bold openings of so many middle period compositions, the Fourth Piano Concerto has a quiet, meditative start. (In fact, the opening plays with the same rhythm—three shorts/long—best known in the Fifth Symphony.) 33

Beethoven composed his Beethoven first played the Fourth Concerto privately in Fourth Piano Concerto from March 1807 at the Vienna palace of his patron Prince 1805 to 1806. Lobkowitz. Although he would continue to perform song The piece was first performed accompaniments and chamber music on occasion for by The Philadelphia Orchestra some years to come, his final appearance as a concerto in January 1905, with pianist soloist was playing the Fourth at a mammoth concert on Eugene d’Albert and Fritz December 22, 1808, which also included the premieres Scheel. The most recent of the Fifth and Sixth symphonies and of the “Choral” subscription performances Fantasy, Op. 80. were in February 2011, with pianist Hélène Grimaud and A Closer Look The unusual manner in which the Fourth Fabio Luisi. Concerto opens (Allegro moderato)—with a reserved, resonant, and noble statement for the piano alone—seems The Orchestra has recorded particularly appropriate in regard to this final public the Concerto four times, all appearance, but also marks something else. No previous for CBS: in 1947 with Robert Casadesus and Eugene concerto had begun quite this way, although Mozart’s in Ormandy; in 1955 and E-flat major, K. 271, is often mentioned as a precedent for 1962 with Rudolf Serkin and giving opening prominence to the piano. Ormandy; and in 1966 with The brief second movement (Andante con moto) might Eugene Istomin and Ormandy. be considered a lengthy introduction to the rondo finale. A recording of the Fourth But as commentators already remarked in the 19th Concerto from 1938 with century, there seems to be something else going on. The Josef Hofmann and Ormandy can also be found in The alternation between the quiet statements of the soloist Philadelphia Orchestra: The and the emphatic responses of the orchestra suggest Centennial Collection (Historic a dialogue. As the encounter progresses, the piano’s Broadcasts and Recordings eloquence and prominence increase, and the orchestra from 1917-1998). eventually gives way to the soloist. Beethoven left no hints of a hidden program in the sketches, the manuscript, The composer scored the work for an orchestra of one or letters and other writings, but critics, beginning with flute, two oboes, two clarinets, A.B. Marx in the late 1850s, began to associate the two bassoons, two horns, two movement with the story of Orpheus, pleading with the trumpets, timpani, and strings, furies to permit him entrance to the underworld so that in addition to the solo piano. he can retrieve his dead wife, Eurydice. More recently musicologist Owen Jander has examined various versions Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto of the Orpheus story and has provocatively argued that runs approximately 35 minutes in performance. the movement is “Beethoven’s most elaborate venture into the realm of program music. … It may well be the most totally programmatic piece of music—great art music—ever composed.” The Concerto concludes with Beethoven’s preferred form, a rondo (Vivace) that has a somewhat more assertive nature (trumpets and timpani appear for the first time in the Concerto), but that also further explores the work’s tender musical persona. —Christopher H. Gibbs 36 The Music Symphony No. 11 (“The Year 1905”)

In a newspaper interview Mstislav Rostropovich called Shostakovich’s symphonies “a secret history of Russia.” The cellist and conductor was underscoring an idea that had been expressed by a number of musicians and friends since the composer’s death 38 years ago, and especially since the publication of Solomon Volkov’s controversial collection of Shostakovich “memoirs” (Testimony, 1979): Namely, that Shostakovich’s music was a critique of Soviet society, ostensibly “obedient” but usually with some subtext of dissent. According to this viewpoint (which has become solidified through the widespread dissemination Born in St. Petersburg, of the highly-questionable Testimony, which Volkov claims September 25, 1906 Shostakovich dictated to him) many of the “official” Died in Moscow, interpretations of the composer’s works that relate to August 9, 1975 Soviet history or politics are accompanied by an unstated substratum of subversive meanings. Thus the Fifth Symphony is not just Shostakovich’s apologetic plea for “redemption” after the sins of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District; it is also a memorial for the millions who died under Stalin’s Reign of Terror in the 1930s. The Seventh is not simply a depiction of wartime Leningrad under Nazi siege; it is a secret expression of horror at the Soviets’ own purge of the city’s undesirables. The Tenth Symphony, likewise, becomes more than a celebration of the new openness of the post-Stalinist era; it is a blasphemous mockery of the person of Stalin himself. And under the revisionist view of Shostakovich, the Eleventh Symphony of 1957 is not simply a dutiful paean to the glory of the 1905 peoples’ uprising, it is also a blatant (and for the time, dangerously direct) statement on current events—specifically, on the Hungarian uprising of 1956, in which unarmed citizens of Budapest had been gunned down in a fashion shockingly similar to the tactics used by the tsar’s troops on the infamous wintry day known to Russians as “Bloody Sunday.” A Horrific Inspiration January 9, 1905 (January 22 in the Western or New Style calendar) was indeed a momentous day in world history—and also a horrifying one. On that freezing Sunday afternoon, some 150,000 workers gathered in the St. Petersburg Palace Square, bearing only religious icons and portraits of the tsar 35 himself, to petition Nicholas for relief from rampant inflation and general misery. “The people waited patiently for an hour, then another hour,” wrote an eyewitness, Alexandra Kollontai. “Would the tsar not come out to them? Who would accept the workers’ petition to the tsar? But the tsar did not emerge. The entreaties of the unarmed people were answered by a bugle call. It rang out with unusual resonance and clarity in the frosty air.” To everyone’s astonishment, the palace troops, acting on orders that most likely did not originate with the tsar himself (who was apparently not even in the palace at the time), began to shoot. Advancing on the crowds, they did not stop until hundreds lay dead. “What’s that? They’re shooting?” Kollontai’s vivid narrative continues, “‘It’s nothing,’ said a voice, ‘those are just blanks.’ Yet people were falling nearby—women, children—the children dropping like wounded sparrows in the snow from the railings of the Alexandrovsk Gardens. ‘Don’t worry, it’s an accident.’ The people simply could not believe what was happening.” The Composer Remembers This gripping story became irrevocably embedded in the Russian psyche. Small wonder that it was commemorated so proudly by the Soviets, as an epochal moment in their history—the single crystalline event at which it became clear to all that the tsar must be overthrown. “Our family discussed the Revolution of 1905 constantly,” Shostakovich is quoted as saying, toward the beginning of Testimony. “I was born after that, but the stories deeply affected my imagination.” (He was born, in fact, the following year.) He continues: When I was older, I read much about how it all had happened. I think it was a turning point—the people stopped believing in the tsar. The Russian people are always like that—they believe and they believe and then suddenly it comes to an end. And the ones the people no longer believe in come to a bad end. But a lot of blood must be shed for that. In 1905 they were carting a mound of murdered children on a sleigh. The boys had been sitting in the trees, looking at the soldiers, and the soldiers shot them— just like that, for fun. Then they loaded them on the sleigh and drove off. A sleigh loaded with children’s bodies. And the dead children were smiling. They had been killed so suddenly that they hadn’t time to be frightened. One boy had been torn apart by bayonets. When they took him away, the crowd shouted for weapons. No one knew what to do with them, but 36

patience was running out. I think that many things repeat themselves in Russian history. Of course, the same event can’t repeat itself exactly, there must be differences, but many things are repeated nevertheless. The people think and act similarly in many things. This is evident, for example, if you study Musorgsky or read War and Peace. I wanted to show this recurrence in the Eleventh Symphony. I wrote it in 1957 and it deals with contemporary themes even though it’s called “1905.” It’s about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over. Two things are clear from this passage. First, Shostakovich was genuinely committed to the “real” significance of the revolutionary events of 1905, and the depth of this commitment is not to be underestimated. Second, the Eleventh Symphony was quite clearly conceived with more recent horrors in mind. Whether one accepts the Volkov memoirs as authentic (although the most recent scholarship has shown it was inaccurately presented, the book may still reflect much of the composer’s views), the Eleventh’s vividly programmatic character was in fact heard by many Soviet listeners in the late 1950s as “hidden commentary.” “True, Shostakovich gave it the title ‘1905,’” writes Lev Lebedinsky, recalling the work’s initial reception, “but it was composed in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Hungary. What we heard in this music was not the police firing on the crowd in front of the Winter Palace in 1905, but the Soviet tanks roaring in the streets of Budapest. This was so clear to those ‘who had ears to hear’ that [the composer’s] son, with whom he was not in the habit of sharing his deepest thoughts, whispered to Dmitry Dmitriyevich during the dress rehearsal, ‘Papa, what if they hang you for this?’” The Genesis of the Symphony Shostakovich had initially hoped to compose the Eleventh Symphony in 1955, to commemorate the 50-year celebration of the 1905 uprising. But life intervened: First his young wife, Nina, grew ill and died suddenly; then his mother died. When he finally began work on the Symphony in the spring of 1957, his new goal was to complete the work in time for the 40th anniversary of the 1917 revolution. “Thunder rumbles,” he wrote to his friend and fellow composer Edison Denisov, during a stormy July at his summer home in Komarovo outside Leningrad. “And I sit in my ‘creative laboratory’ composing my symphony. I’ll 37 soon finish.” Shostakovich completed the work in the late summer, and it received its premiere on October 30, 1957, in the Large Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, under Nathan Rakhlin’s baton; a few days later Evgeny Mravinsky conducted its Leningrad premiere. Official opinion was highly favorable: “Not for a long time,” wrote one critic, “not since Musorgsky, has Russian art produced such an immensely powerful musical tragedy which has its source in the people.” The following year Shostakovich was awarded the Lenin Prize for the Eleventh Symphony. Workers’ Songs into a Symphony Despite the Symphony’s somber subject, the composer wrote it with great relish. As suggested above, Shostakovich was a child of the Soviet system, and as such the events of 1905 had an enormous emotional pull. He delighted, too, in the incorporation of a wide array of revolutionary melodies in the Symphony, an aspect that gives this piece a special character. “How many beautiful songs there are,” Shostakovich wrote in Izvestia in January 1958, “undeservedly neglected, created by anonymous poets and musicians! It is quite natural that composers should now and again introduce the melodies of such songs into their works.” Shostakovich carefully distinguishes between mere “settings” of tunes, which he says are commonplace, and works in which the melodies have become part of a whole new creation. “Clearly the composer who has mastered the secrets of his craft can elaborate and deck out in orchestral colors the melody of any song. But it will be an indispensable element of his opera or symphony only if the composer has deeply experienced and thought out the thematic material of his work in its entirety. In listening to this music, no one will then be able to say that the song is a mere quotation.” More than in any other of his 15 symphonies, Shostakovich has built the Eleventh from a succession of preexisting tunes, in this case a series of workers’ songs most of which would have been familiar to his contemporary Soviet audience. (Granted, these tunes are largely lost on a Western audience, and these days even on a segment of the modern Russian public.) “Listen!,” the first tune heard in the opening bars, for example, would have had a special two-edged significance for a listener familiar with the song’s text: “The autumn night is as black as treason, black as the tyrant’s conscience. Blacker 38

than that night, a terrible vision rises from the fog-prison.” Shostakovich has created a work that is timeless; the Eleventh Symphony is a clarion-call, a protest against tyranny of all kinds, at all times and all places. A Closer Look Almost from beginning to end the Eleventh is unashamedly programmatic—even cinematic— in its inspiration. Each of the four movements, which are played attacca, with no breaks between, bears a descriptive title: (I.) “The Palace Square,” (II.) “The 9th of January,” (III.) “In Memoriam,” and (IV.) “The Tocsin.” (A tocsin is a sort of obstreperous alarm bell.) The initial Adagio, depicting the crowds gathering on the mute and frozen Palace Square, is a brooding meditation on the nature of oppression and subjugation. Musical inertia is presented as metaphor, perhaps, both for the freezing temperature and for the paralysis of human potential that is the legacy of feudalism. (The prevalence of triplet rhythms is one of the composer’s conventional means of representing “the people” musically.) An ominous Mahlerian trumpet fanfare represents the sentry- call of the tsar’s troops. In addition to “Listen!” played by two flutes near the beginning of the movement, the composer also introduces a revolutionary prisoner’s song, “Dark is the Night,” in the low strings. A reiteration of “Listen!” by the bassoons rounds out the structure. The main tune of the Allegro (“The 9th of January”) is “O Tsar, Our Little Father,” the humble plea of the serfs; as the principal theme of the first movement is sounded, we realize that the workers’ procession has reached the square. The brass take up a tune titled “Take Off Your Hat,” in fanfare style, and the movement builds to a shattering, if programmatically self-evident, climax. Soldiers march, shots are fired, workers cry out. Then, all is still. The deathly coda is again based on the first Adagio’s opening theme. “In Memoriam” (Adagio), a funeral-march for the dead on the Square, takes a favorite song of Lenin’s as its principal theme: “You Fell as Victims,” played by violas over doleful strings. A central section is formed from “Greetings to Thee, Unfettered Freedom,” and the initial “You Fell as Victims” reappears to close the movement, mournfully and restlessly. The last movement (Allegro non troppo, “The Tocsin”) begins again with “Rage, Tyrants!,” this time in the lower registers of the winds. “Rage, Tyrants!” runs the text of this tune. “Mock us! Threaten us with prison and chains! We are strong in spirit, though weak in body! Shame! Shame 39

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. on you, tyrants!” The new determination of this song is 11 was composed in 1957. reflected in the spirit of the music, which subsequently The first Philadelphia Orchestra dissolves into the resolute “Varsovienne” (another performance of the Eleventh favorite revolutionary song) and into a melody from a Symphony was not until July contemporary operetta, Light, by Georgy Sviridov: “Why are 25, 1990, at the Mann Center, the thunderous nights so hard to bear?” A climax is built with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski from a combination of these and previous themes, a sort on the podium. Since then of contrapuntal apotheosis; the movement closes with a it has been heard five times, return to the somber frigidity of the Palace Square music, under the direction of James and the sound of bells. The “thunderous night” will return, DePreist, Vassily Sinaisky the composer suggests, to be repeated again and again. (again at the Mann), Mariss Jansons, Yakov Kreizberg, and, —Paul J. Horsley most recently, Charles Dutoit in February 2010. The Orchestra recorded the Symphony in 1996 with Jansons for EMI. Shostakovich scored the work for three flutes (III doubling piccolo), three oboes (III doubling English horn), three clarinets (III doubling bass clarinet), three bassoons (III doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, chimes, cymbals, snare drum, tam-tam, triangle, xylophone), celesta, two harps, and strings. The Symphony No. 11 runs approximately 60 minutes in performance.

Program notes © 2013. All rights reserved. Program notes may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association. 40 Musical Terms

GENERAL TERMS Legato: Smooth, even, after which the scherzo is Attacca: Performed without any break between repeated. Its characteristics with no breaks between notes are a rapid tempo in triple movements Meter: The symmetrical time, vigorous rhythm, and Cadence: The conclusion grouping of musical humorous contrasts. to a phrase, movement, rhythms Sonata form: The form in or piece based on a Modulate: To pass from which the first movements recognizable melodic one key or mode into (and sometimes others) formula, harmonic another of symphonies are usually progression, or dissonance Op.: Abbreviation for opus, cast. The sections are resolution a term used to indicate exposition, development, Cadenza: A passage or the chronological position and recapitulation, the section in a style of brilliant of a composition within a last sometimes followed improvisation, usually composer’s output. Opus by a coda. The exposition inserted near the end of a numbers are not always is the introduction of movement or composition reliable because they are the musical ideas, which Chord: The simultaneous often applied in the order are then “developed.” In sounding of three or more of publication rather than the recapitulation, the tones composition. exposition is repeated with Chromatic: Relating to Rondo: A form frequently modifications. tones foreign to a given used in symphonies and Tonic: The keynote of a key (scale) or chord concertos for the final scale Coda: A concluding movement. It consists Triplet: A group of section or passage added of a main section that three equal notes to be in order to confirm the alternates with a variety of performed in the time of impression of finality contrasting sections (A-B- two of like value in the Contrapuntal: See A-C-A etc.). established rhythm counterpoint Scale: The series of THE SPEED OF MUSIC Counterpoint: A tones which form (a) any (Tempo) term that describes major or minor key or (b) Adagio: Leisurely, slow the combination of the chromatic scale of Allegro: Bright, fast simultaneously sounding successive semi-tonic Andante: Walking speed musical lines steps Con moto: With motion Development: See Scherzo: Literally “a Moderato: A moderate sonata form joke.” Usually the third tempo, neither fast nor Dissonance: A movement of symphonies slow combination of two or more and quartets that was Vivace: Lively tones requiring resolution introduced by Beethoven Harmonic: Pertaining to to replace the minuet. The TEMPO MODIFIERS chords and to the theory scherzo is followed by a Non troppo: Not too and practice of harmony gentler section called a trio, much 41 October The Philadelphia Orchestra

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Pines of Rome October 17 & 19 8 PM October 18 2 PM Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos Conductor Lise de la Salle Piano Beethoven Overture to King Stephen Beethoven Symphony No. 8 Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 Respighi The Pines of Rome

Ravel & Debussy October 24 & 26 8 PM October 25 2 PM Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos Conductor Augustin Hadelich Violin Lalo Symphonie espagnole, for violin and orchestra Debussy La Mer Ravel Suite No. 2 from Daphnis and Chloé

TICKETS Call 215.893.1999 or log on to www.philorch.org PreConcert Conversations are held prior to every Philadelphia Orchestra subscription concert, beginning 1 hour before curtain. All artists, dates, programs, and prices subject to change. All tickets subject to availability. 1642 Story Title Tickets & Patron Services

TICKETS & PATRON PreConcert Conversations: Ticket Philadelphia Staff SERVICES PreConcert Conversations are Gary Lustig, Vice President held prior to every Philadelphia Jena Smith, Director, Patron Subscriber Services: Orchestra subscription concert, Services 215.893.1955 beginning one hour before curtain. Dan Ahearn, Jr., Box Office Call Center: 215.893.1999 Conversations are free to ticket- Manager holders, feature discussions of the Catherine Pappas, Project Fire Notice: The exit indicated by season’s music and music-makers, Manager a red light nearest your seat is the and are supported in part by the Michelle Parkhill, Client Relations shortest route to the street. In the Wells Fargo Foundation. Manager event of fire or other emergency, Mariangela Saavedra, Manager, please do not run. Walk to that exit. Lost and Found: Please call Patron Services 215.670.2321. Gregory McCormack, Training No Smoking: All public space in Specialist the Kimmel Center is smoke-free. Web Site: For information about Samantha Apgar, Business The Philadelphia Orchestra and Operations Coordinator Cameras and Recorders: The its upcoming concerts or events, Elysse Madonna, Program and taking of photographs or the please visit www.philorch.org. Web Coordinator recording of Philadelphia Orchestra Patrick Curran, Assistant Treasurer, concerts is strictly prohibited. Subscriptions: The Philadelphia Box Office Orchestra offers a variety of Tad Dynakowski, Assistant Phones and Paging Devices: subscription options each season. Treasurer, Box Office All electronic devices—including These multi-concert packages Michelle Messa, Assistant cellular telephones, pagers, and feature the best available seats, Treasurer, Box Office wristwatch alarms—should be ticket exchange privileges, Patricia O’Connor, Assistant turned off while in the concert hall. guaranteed seat renewal for the Treasurer, Box Office following season, discounts on Thomas Sharkey, Assistant Late Seating: Latecomers will not individual tickets, and many other Treasurer, Box Office be seated until an appropriate time benefits. For more information, James Shelley, Assistant Treasurer, in the concert. please call 215.893.1955 or visit Box Office www.philorch.org. Tara Bankard, Lead Patron Accessible Seating: Accessible Services Representative seating is available for every Ticket Turn-In: Subscribers who Jayson Bucy, Lead Patron Services performance. Please call Ticket cannot use their tickets are invited Representative Philadelphia at 215.893.1999 for to donate them and receive a Meg Hackney, Lead Patron more information. You may also tax-deductible credit by calling Services Representative purchase accessible seating online 215.893.1999. Tickets may be Julia Schranck, Lead Patron at www.philorch.org. turned in any time up to the start Services Representative of the concert. Twenty-four-hour Alicia DiMeglio, Priority Services Assistive Listening: With the notice is appreciated, allowing Representative deposit of a current ID, hearing other patrons the opportunity to Megan Brown, Patron Services enhancement devices are available purchase these tickets. Representative at no cost from the House Maureen Esty, Patron Services Management Office. Headsets Individual Tickets: Don’t assume Representative are available on a first-come, first- that your favorite concert is sold Brand-I Curtis McCloud, Patron served basis. out. Subscriber turn-ins and other Services Representative special promotions can make last- Scott Leitch, Quality Assurance Large-Print Programs: minute tickets available. Call Ticket Analyst Large-print programs for every Philadelphia at 215.893.1999 or subscription concert are available stop by the Kimmel Center Box in the House Management Office Office. in Commonwealth Plaza. Please ask an usher for assistance.