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Home , Alberich, Alexander Goehr, Cello Concerto (Rouse), Colin Currie, Hermann Zumpe, Percussion concerto

27 Season 2012-2013

Thursday, March 21, at 8:00 Friday, March 22, at 2:00 The Saturday, March 23, at 8:00 Andrey Boreyko Conductor Percussion

Wagner/arr. Zumpe “Entry of the Gods into ,” from

Rouse Der gerettete Alberich (Alberich Saved), fantasy for solo percussion and orchestra

Intermission

Tchaikovsky No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 I. Andante—Allegro con anima II. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza III. Valse: Allegro moderato IV. Andante maestoso—Allegro vivace

This program runs approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 2 PM. Visit www.wrti.org to listen live or for more details. 228 Story Title The Jessica Griffin

Renowned for its distinctive Philadelphia is home and and the sound, beloved for its the Orchestra nurtures Kennedy Center while also keen ability to capture the an important relationship enjoying a three-week hearts and imaginations not only with patrons who residency in Saratoga of audiences, and admired support the main season Springs, N.Y., and a strong for an unrivaled legacy of at the Kimmel Center but partnership with the Bravo! “firsts” in music-making, also those who enjoy the Vail festival. The Philadelphia Orchestra Orchestra’s other area The ensemble maintains is one of the preeminent performances at the Mann an important Philadelphia in the world. Center, Penn’s Landing, tradition of presenting and other venues. The The Orchestra has educational programs for Philadelphia Orchestra cultivated an extraordinary students of all ages. Today Association also continues history of artistic leaders the Orchestra executes a to own the Academy of in its 112 seasons, myriad of education and Music, a National Historic including music directors community partnership Landmark. Fritz Scheel, Carl Pohlig, programs serving nearly Leopold Stokowski, Eugene Through concerts, 50,000 annually, including Ormandy, Riccardo Muti, tours, residencies, its Neighborhood Concert , and presentations, and Series, Sound All Around Christoph Eschenbach, and recordings, the Orchestra and Family Concerts, and , who served is a global ambassador eZseatU. as chief conductor from for Philadelphia and for In February 2013 the 2008 to 2012. With the the U.S. Having been the Orchestra announced a 2012-13 season, Yannick first American orchestra recording project with Nézet-Séguin becomes the to perform in China, in Deutsche Grammophon, eighth music director of 1973 at the request of in which Yannick and The Philadelphia Orchestra. President Nixon, today The the ensemble will record Named music director Philadelphia Orchestra Stravinsky’s The Rite of designate in 2010, Nézet- boasts a new partnership Spring. Séguin brings a vision that with the National Centre extends beyond symphonic for the Performing Arts For more information on music into the vivid world of in Beijing. The Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra, opera and music. annually performs at please visit www.philorch.org. 6 Music Director

Jessica Griffin Yannick Nézet-Séguin became the eighth music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra with the start of the 2012-13 season. Named music director designate in June 2010, he made his Orchestra debut in December 2008. Over the past decade, 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. He has appeared with such revered ensembles as the Vienna and philharmonics; the Boston Symphony; the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; the Dresden Staatskapelle; the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; and the major Canadian orchestras. His talents extend beyond symphonic music into opera and choral music, leading acclaimed performances at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, London’s Royal Opera House, and the Festival.

Highlights of Yannick’s inaugural season include his Carnegie Hall debut with the Verdi , one world premiere, and performances of The Rite of Spring in collaboration with -based Ridge Theater, complete with dancers, video projection, and theatrical lighting.

In July 2012 Yannick and Deutsche Grammophon announced a major long-term collaboration. His discography with the Rotterdam Philharmonic for BIS Records and EMI/Virgin includes an Edison Award-winning album of Ravel’s orchestral works. He has also recorded several award-winning albums with the Orchestre Métropolitain for ATMA Classique. In addition, his first recording with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, is available for download.

A native of Montreal, Yannick studied at that city’s Conservatory of Music and continued studies with renowned conductor Carlo Maria Giulini and with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College. In 2012 Yannick was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors. His other honors include Canada’s National Arts Centre Award; a Royal Philharmonic Society Award; the Prix Denise-Pelletier, the highest distinction for the arts in Quebec; and an honorary doctorate by the University of Quebec in Montreal.

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

03 Bio.indd 4 1/29/13 5:35 PM 29 Conductor

Marcel Gruberman Andrey Boreyko, music director of the Dusseldorf Symphony, was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and received his musical education at his hometown’s conservatory, where he studied and composition with Elisaveta Kudriavzeva and Alexander Dmitriev. Mr. Boreyko has performed with nearly every world-renowned orchestra, including the Berlin, Munich, New York, and Los Angeles philharmonics; the Staatskapelle Dresden; the Gewandhaus, Russian National, Philharmonia, Royal Concertgebouw, and Cleveland orchestras; the RAI National Symphony in Turin; the Filharmonica della Scala in Milan; the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich; the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France; and the Vienna, London, BBC, Boston, and Chicago . He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in July 2006. Mr. Boreyko is also chief conductor of the Bern Symphony, as well as principal guest conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony (SWR). In 2009 he was appointed principal guest conductor of the Basque National Orchestra in San Sebastian, Spain, a position he will hold through the 2013-14 season. Past positions include chief conductor of the Jenaer Philharmonic in Germany; chief conductor of the and Winnipeg symphonies; and principal guest conductor of the Vancouver Symphony. He is now the honorary conductor of the Jenaer Philharmonic where, in the course of his five-year term as chief conductor, the Board of Directors of the Deutscher Musikverleger- Verband, an association of music publishers in Germany, awarded him and the ensemble the distinction of best concert program for three seasons in succession. Numerous CDs, as well as TV and radio recordings, demonstrate Mr. Boreyko’s artistic versatility. Recent recordings include Arvo Pärt’s Lamentate as well as Valentin Silvestrov’s Symphony No. 6 with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony and released by ECM Records. In 2006 Hänssler Classic released a live recording of Mr. Boreyko conducting the SWR in an all-Shostakovich album featuring the Fourth Symphony and the world premiere of the original version of the Suite from the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. 30 Soloist

Marco Borggreve Percussionist Colin Currie is the soloist of choice for many of today’s leading composers. From his earliest years he has forged a pioneering path in creating new music for percussion. He was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award in 2000 and received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2005. Mr. Currie made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in November 2005 as soloist for ’s Percussion . In 2012 he performed Kalevi Aho’s new , Sieidi, with the London Philharmonic and Osmo Vänskä at London’s Southbank Centre, and premiered ’s Two Controversies and a Conversation with the and David Robertson. Other commissions have included works by Simon Holt, Kurt Schwertsik, , Alexander Goehr, Nico Muhly, , James MacMillan, and . In 2011 Mr. Currie was appointed artist in residence at the Southbank Centre, a role that allows him to develop new relationships with artists and ensembles across a variety of art forms, collaborations, and educational projects. In addition to these current performances in Philadelphia, highlights of the 2012-13 season include debuts with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Oslo Philharmonic, and at the Grafenegg Festival with the Goteborg Symphony, as well as returns to the BBC Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de Toulouse, the Britten Sinfonia, and the New Zealand, Melbourne, and symphonies. Mr. Currie’s percussion ensemble, the Colin Currie Group, continues to receive critical acclaim for its performances of Reich’s iconic work Drumming. Following sell-out performances throughout the UK, in 2012 the group made its international debut with two performances at Tokyo Opera City in Japan. Mr. Currie’s recent recordings include Rautavaara’s Incantations with the Helsinki Philharmonic for Ondine and MacMillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic for Challenge Classics. A recital disc, Borrowed Time, features music by Dave Maric and is available on the Onyx label. His recording of Higdon’s Percussion Concerto, conducted by with the London Philharmonic, won a 2010 Grammy Award. 31 Framing the Program

This year marks the bicentennial of , the Parallel Events preeminent German opera composer of the 19th century 1853 Music and the most influential as well. Wagner spent more Wagner Schumann than a quarter century laboring on his four-part Ring of Das Rheingold the , one of the most ambitious undertakings Literature in the history of music. The program today begins with Dickens the majestic “Entry of the Gods into Valhalla” concluding Bleak House Das Rheingold, the preliminary opera that introduces the Art mythic themes explored in the rest of the cycle. Courbet The Bathers Wagner’s title for the cycle might be rephrased as History “Alberich’s Ring,” relating to the magical ring the Nibelung Tubman begins Alberich forges out of gold from the Rhine River Underground and then places a curse on. Contemporary American Railroad composer Christopher Rouse has imaginatively continued the story of the Ring in his Der gerettete Alberich (Alberich 1888 Music Saved), a postlude in the guise of a percussion concerto Tchaikovsky Rimsky- Ring Symphony Korsakov that takes off from the final moments of the at the No. 5 Sheherazade end of Götterdämmerung. Rouse views the piece as a sort Literature of “fantasy for solo percussionist and orchestra on themes Zola of Wagner, with the soloist taking on the ‘role’ of Alberich. La Terre Much of the musical material in the work is derived from a Art number of motives associated with Alberich.” Toulouse- Wagner’s Ring is one of many operas that explore the Lautrec Place Clichy theme of Fate—both in terms of plot and a musical motive. History Fate attracted symphonic composers as well, such as Jack the Ripper Tchaikovsky in his spectacular Fifth Symphony. Like that murders other famous Fifth—Beethoven’s—it uses a musical motive throughout the four movements that is associated with the idea of “Fate.” The Symphony concludes with a double coda of sorts: an exciting one that could end the piece and then an additional triumphant one that ties everything together. 32 The Music “Entry of the Gods into Valhalla,” from Das Rheingold

This year marks the bicentennial of the two leading Romantic opera composers: Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. Between them, this German and this Italian changed the genre of opera forever, each in his own distinctively brilliant manner. Wagner’s influence, moreover, extended far beyond music, with significant consequences for the other arts, cultural life, and politics. It is unprecedented for a composer, either before or since, to have such an impact on writers, artists, philosophers, and filmmakers. To mention just literature, Wagner’s works proved of great importance Richard Wagner for figures such as Charles Baudelaire, Marcel Proust, Born in Leipzig, James Joyce, and Thomas Mann. May 22, 1813 Died in Venice, More has been written about Wagner than about any February 13, 1883 other Western composer. The flood began with his own voluminous writings, which encompass reviews, fiction, drama, essays, and books as well as diaries, countless letters, and a massive autobiography, My Life, covering just the first half of his career. In addition Wagner wrote his own librettos. His compositional output is also gigantic, although principally limited to dramatic music. The music he produced as a teenager—piano works, songs, and even a symphony—is almost uniformly mediocre; few composers ended up so far artistically from where they began. Wagner wrote 13 operas (the first three are rarely performed), with his mature achievements stretching from The Flying Dutchman (1843) through Parsifal, premiered a few months before he died at age 69 in February 1883. Forging the Ring Amidst this phenomenal productivity nothing was more ambitious than The Ring of the Nibelung on which Wagner toiled for more than a quarter century. The protracted project began in the revolutionary year of 1848 when he devised a prose sketch for an opera based on medieval legends called Siegfrieds Tod (’s Death, later renamed Götterdämmerung or Twilight of the Gods). A few years later he realized that this opera would need to be prefaced by an account of earlier events in Siegfried’s life, and thus sketched the libretto for Der junge Siegfried (Young Siegfried). Once again he felt that more background was necessary concerning the history of this mythic German hero and his ancestry. This led to Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), which explained the 33 circumstances of his conception by the brother and sister Siegmund and Sieglinde. The librettos for a unified trilogy now complete, Wagner decided to add an extended one- act prologue, Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), of which we hear the magnificent conclusion tonight. Wagner based the Ring on a variety of literary sources, principally drawn from of the early 13th century, from the somewhat earlier German epic Das as well as from Ancient Greece. Indeed, part of the ideological impetus behind the project was to accomplish for the German nation what Sophocles and other classical authors had done for Greece by dramatizing enduring mythology. Once he had written the librettos, and published them in 1853, he began writing the music, which would occupy much of the next 20 years. Das Rheingold was finished in 1854, Die Walküre by 1856, and Siegfried half written when Wagner had a reality check: These enormous operas had slim prospects for actual staged performances. He put the Ring aside to compose Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Only after completing those works, which assumed enormous proportions in themselves, did he return to Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, completing the Ring in 1874. Part of Wagner’s phenomenal achievement was crafting so expansive a four-part work—some 17 hours of music—that is unified both dramatically and musically. He did this in part by weaving an elaborate web of leitmotivs (leading motives), brief associated with specific characters, places, objects, and concepts that recur and are transformed throughout the cycle. The passionate patronage of King Ludwig II of Bavaria made the crucial difference in finally getting the Ring performed. At Ludwig’s insistence, but without Wagner’s participation, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre were mounted in Munich in 1869 and 1870. It was the construction of a new theater in Bayreuth, conceived of by Wagner to stage his mature operas and heavily subsidized by Ludwig, that enabled the premiere of the complete cycle in August 1876. As part of the effort to raise funds for Bayreuth, as well as to enlist subscribers in the venture, Wagner gave concerts in which he presented excerpts from the Ring. We might think of these as serving a purpose similar to movie “trailers” today—a preview of coming attractions. Some of the most famous parts of the Ring, such as the “Ride of the Valkyries,” were first heard in concert, sometimes with singers, sometimes not. 34

Wagner composed Das A Closer Look One section that Wagner himself Rheingold from 1853 to 1854. programmed was the grand conclusion of Das Rheingold, The Philadelphia Orchestra which he called the “Entry of the Gods into Valhalla.” first performed “The Entry of (Tonight we hear the excerpt in the purely orchestral the Gods into Valhalla” on its instrumentation by Wagner’s colleague Hermann Zumpe.) very first concert, on November This opera introduces the various gods and cursed ring at 16, 1900, with Fritz Scheel the heart of the cycle. It begins with three on the podium. Most recently guarding a hoard of gold in the river Rhine. The dwarf on subscription, the piece was Alberich, of the Nibelung clan, steals the gold, renounces performed as part of Henk love, and forges a magical ring that makes its possessor de Vlieger’s arrangement of all-powerful. (The title of the entire work refers thus Wagner’s Ring called The to Alberich’s ring.) The chief god Wotan gets the ring Ring: An Orchestral Adventure, and over the course of Das Rheingold we witness the in December 2009, with consequences of the curse Alberich has put on it. By the Neeme Järvi. end of the opera Wotan has succeeded in having the The score for this arrangement giant Fafner build Valhalla, a grand home of the gods. by Hermann Zumpe calls for pairs of flutes, , , The marvelous ending witnesses Wotan and other gods, and , four horns, three including his wife, Fricka, as they cross a magical rainbow , three , bridge to enter Valhalla. Amid luminous orchestration a , , percussion number of prominent leitmotivs pass in review: Valhalla, (cymbals), harp, and strings. the ring, gold. Wotan foresees that all he has dreamed The Orchestra has recorded and planned will come to pass, while Loge, the God of this excerpt from Das Fire, muses to himself “They are hastening on to their Rheingold twice, both for end, though they think they are great in their grandeur”; RCA: in 1933 with Leopold he correctly envisions the “Twilight of the Gods” that Stokowski and in 1971 with will eventually end the entire Ring. The three invisible Eugene Ormandy. Rhinemaidens who began the opera are heard in the Performance time is valley below, lamenting the loss of their gold: “Rhinegold! approximately 11 minutes. Rhinegold! Shining gold! Return to the deep, let us bathe in your light again! Goodness and truth dwell in the waters: false and base all those who dwell above!” —Christopher H. Gibbs 35 The Music Der gerettete Alberich

If there is a thread that runs through Christopher Rouse’s orchestral works, it is the manner in which they seem to address—more directly and immediately than perhaps any other music being written for the concert hall today— the issues of joy, horror, violence, sensationalism, and passion that characterize life in our time. Rouse is, to this writer’s mind, the composer of his generation who most consistently confronts the challenges of , not stooping to facile trends of neotonalism or commercial needs for accessible art. At the same time, he has felt Christopher Rouse free to mix blaring dissonance with tender Brucknerian Born in Baltimore, , quotations, strict sonata-form with rhapsodic fantasy, brutal February 15, 1949 percussive effects with the bright rhythms of rock ’n’ roll. Now living there A Romantic at Heart At the core of this technical aplomb is a sensitive individual with a subjective outlook on music and its purposes. “The fact that I had my undergraduate training in the late ’60s meant that I willingly tried my hand at all sorts of avant-garde approaches,” Rouse has said. “But I kept coming back to the notion that the technique involved was less important than my need to express, which must mean that I’ve always been a Romantic at heart!” His music has been performed by all of the major American orchestras, and by artists as varied as David Zinman, Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Yo-Yo Ma, and Jan DeGaetani. He was composer in residence first for the Indianapolis Symphony, and from 1986 to 1989 for the Baltimore Symphony; he began a two-year tenure as composer in residence of the New York Philharmonic in 2012. He is also currently a member of the composition faculty at the . In 1993 Rouse won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Concerto, a New York Philharmonic commission. He has also received the Kennedy Center’s Friedheim Award (for his First Symphony), as well as prizes and grants from the League of Composers, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and many more. His Concerto for Yo-Yo Ma was on The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Premieres recording—conducted by David Zinman and including works by Leon Kirchner and Richard Danielpour—which won two Grammy awards. 36

A completely different point of departure was required for the commission Rouse received from Evelyn Glennie for a concerto for percussionist and orchestra. One of the most ingeniously conceived of recent , Der gerettete Alberich (Alberich Saved) was a co-commission by a consortium of the Cleveland Orchestra, the Kulas Foundation, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, and the London Symphony. It received its premiere in Cleveland on January 15, 1998, with Glennie and Christoph von Dohnányi conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. The local critic Daniel Rosenberg, writing in the Plain Dealer, praised the work as “a fresh burst of creative imagination.” In addition to the large orchestra required, the concerto requires a huge battery of instruments for the soloist, arranged at three different stations. Station 1 (in the center) includes four wood blocks, four log drums, four tom-toms, two timbales, two bongos, two güiros, a snare drum, and a pedal-operated bass drum. Station 2, stage left, consists of a marimba and a two-octave chromatic steel drum. Station 3, stage right, includes a drum set (snare drum, three tom-toms, two suspended cymbals, Chinese cymbal, pedal-operated bass drum, and hi-hat). A Closer Look The composer has kindly provided the following commentary on the inception and design of Der gerettete Alberich: One of Richard Wagner’s most interesting decisions as creator of was to leave unclear the fate of Alberich, the villainous dwarf who has set in motion the inexorable machinery of destiny, leading in the end to the apocalyptic cataclysm which concludes Götterdämmerung. As is so often the case in Wagner’s operas, Alberich is more than a cardboard villain in the Italian mode—as memorable as he is, a Scarpia, for example is thoroughly and irredeemably maleficent. Alberich, on the other hand … is not entirely unsympathetic; however cruel his actions, they are often the result of mistreatment at the hands of others. … Thus, it is possible with Alberich—and with many other Wagnerian villains—to recognize the inherent evil of his nature and deeds and yet still discern some measure of humanity in him and, in the process, to feel compassion for his plight. As Alberich’s whereabouts are unknown at the end of the Ring, it occurred to me that it might be engaging to return him to the stage, so to speak, so 37

Der gerettete Alberich was that he might wreak further havoc in what is quite composed in 1997. literally the godless world in which Wagner has left The first, and only other, us in the final pages of Götterdämmerung. The result Philadelphia Orchestra was Der gerettete Alberich, whose title might best performances of the concerto be translated as “Alberich saved,” itself a reference were in November 1998, with to Georg Kaiser’s expressionist play Der gerettete percussionist Evelyn Glennie Alkibiades. Rather than a concerto, Der gerettete and David Zinman. Alberich is more of a fantasy for solo percussionist The scored calls for piccolo, and orchestra on themes of Wagner, with the soloist two flutes, three oboes, three taking on the “role” of Alberich. Much of the musical clarinets, three bassoons, six material in the work is derived from a number of horns, three trumpets, three motives associated with Alberich in the Ring, among trombones, tuba, timpani, them the motives for the curse, the power of gold, percussion (antique cymbals, the renunciation of love, annihilation, the , anvil, bass drum, castanets, and of course, the Ring itself. Only Wagner’s chimes, suspended cymbal, “Redemption through Love” motive stands beyond tam-tam, thunder sheet, tom- the kin of the other, Alberich-related motives I have toms, xylophone), and strings. used, though I have rather maliciously distorted it to The percussion soloist plays suit the purposes of my “hero.” four wood blocks, four log drums, four tom-toms, two Notwithstanding the discernible tripartite structure timbales, two bongos, two of Der gerettete Alberich, this work is somewhat güiros, a snare drum, a pedal- looser architecturally than other scores of mine to operated bass drum, marimba, which I have appended the title “concerto”—hence two-octave chromatic steel my decision to refer to it as a “fantasy.” Having said drum, and a drum set (snare all of this, it would now be absurd of me to aver that drum, three tom-toms, two this work is not programmatic; however, it is fair to suspended cymbals, Chinese say that it is not a narrative piece in the manner of, cymbal, pedal-operated bass Don Quixote. drum, and hi-hat). say, Strauss’s Beyond a brief passage in which Alberich serves a stint as a rock drummer The work runs approximately (probably inspired, at least in part, by the wonderfully 22 minutes in performance. over-the-edge Wagner Reincarnated scenes in Ken Russell’s film Lisztomania), I was not attempting to paint specific pictures in this score. However, the listener is free to provide whatever images he or she likes to the sonic goings-on. Der gerettete Alberich was composed for percussionist Evelyn Glennie, to whom it is dedicated. —Paul J. Horsley 38 The Music Symphony No. 5

When Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Fifth Symphony in St. Petersburg, the audience responded enthusiastically, as did the orchestra, which struck up fanfares to signal its delight. Critical reaction, however, proved less positive. A particularly damning view held that the “symphony is a failure. There is something repulsive about it, a certain excess of gaudiness, insincerity, and artificiality. And the public instinctively recognizes this.” And who was this disparaging critic? None other than the composer himself, confiding in a letter to his generous Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, after he had conducted Born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, further performances in Prague. Russia, May 7, 1840 Died in St. Petersburg, Tchaikovsky’s insecurities about a composition that would November 6, 1893 over time become one of his most famous and beloved date back to its inception in the spring of 1888. He had recently concluded a brilliant three-month concert tour around Europe (“Success, which I enjoyed everywhere, is very pleasant”), but had not composed a significant piece in almost a year and not produced a symphony in more than a decade. Returning to Russia in late March, Tchaikovsky informed his brother that he wanted to write a new one, but weeks later could only report, “I have still not yet made a start. … I can honestly say that once again I have no urge to create. What does this mean? Am I really written out? I have no ideas or inspiration whatsoever!” The ideas did begin to come, as he put it, “gradually, and with some difficulty, I am squeezing the symphony out of my dulled brain.” The Fifth Symphony was finished by late August and ready for its premiere in November. Another Fate Symphony In a well-known letter to Madame von Meck a decade earlier, Tchaikovsky had provided an elaborate program for his Fourth Symphony, casting its “central idea” as “Fate, the fatal force that prevents our strivings for happiness from succeeding.” Similar thoughts seem to have been behind the Fifth—and this time they were expressed before the work was written. (What Tchaikovsky had told von Meck about the Fourth came well after its completion, prompted by her specific request to learn the story behind the work.) In a notebook Tchaikovsky indicated a program for the first movement: 39

Intr[oduction]. Total submission before Fate, or, which is the same thing, the inscrutable design of Providence. Allegro. I) Murmurs, doubts, laments, reproaches against … XXX. II) Shall I cast myself into the embrace of Faith??? A wonderful program, if only it can be fulfilled. The meaning of “XXX,” which also appears in Tchaikovsky’s diaries, has traditionally been deciphered as referring to his homosexuality, although biographer Alexander Poznansky has recently suggested that it may refer to problems with gambling. Fate was a familiar topic in music long before Tchaikovsky. In the realm of the symphony, it extended back at least as far as that most famous of Fifths, Beethoven’s, the opening of which allegedly represented “Fate knocking at the door.” Perhaps even more common are Fate themes in operas, as in Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny), and Wagner’s Ring. In such orchestral and dramatic works “Fate” provides not only a narrative thread, but also something to be represented musically. A Closer Look There is no certainty, of course, that the slow opening theme of Tchaikovsky’s first movement (Andante), played by the clarinets in the “chalumeau” (or lowest) register, represents Fate, even if that is what the early sketches suggest and what most commentators have heard for well over a century. The itself is drawn from Mikhail Glinka’s great opera A Life for the Tsar (1836), where it sets the words “turn not to sorrow.” Tchaikovsky casts a far more expansive melody than the well-known Beethoven Fifth motive, although, as in Beethoven, the theme appears not just at the opening, or only in the first movement, but rather in all four movements. Thus “Fate” twice rudely interrupts the lyrical second movement (Andante cantabile), with its famous slow horn melody opening, in ways that suggest catastrophe. As the Symphony progresses, however, Fate seems to be tamed, or at least integrated with its surroundings. The theme also reappears near the end of the third movement waltz (Allegro moderato) and it forms the basis for the major key finale, from the slow introduction (Andante maestoso), to the fast core (Allegro vivace), and finally to its apotheosis in the 40

Tchaikovsky composed his triumphant coda. Fifth Symphony in 1888. In his Fourth Symphony, Tchaikovsky, like Beethoven, The work has been performed seemed to shake his fist at Fate—the music is angry and by The Philadelphia Orchestra defiant. The mood in his Fifth Symphony is quite different: probably as often as any piece Here Tchaikovsky dances with Fate. An early critic in the orchestral repertory. disapprovingly called it “the symphony with three waltzes,” Fritz Scheel conducted the reflecting not only the waltz replacement of a traditional first Orchestra performance, in October 1906; from the 1930s scherzo in the third movement, but also the waltz episodes it was a favorite of Eugene in the opening two movements. Over the course of the Ormandy, who led it on tours Symphony Tchaikovsky appears to become reconciled and at the Academy. The most with Fate, perhaps under “the embrace of Faith” that he recent performances during the anticipated before beginning the composition. And in regular season were Charles time, his attitude about the quality of the Symphony also Dutoit’s, in February/March changed. After enjoying another great success with the 2011. work in Hamburg, at a performance attended by Brahms, The Orchestra has recorded Tchaikovsky wrote to his nephew: “The Fifth Symphony the Fifth eight times: in was beautifully played and I have started to love it again.” 1934 for RCA with Leopold —Christopher H. Gibbs Stokowski; in 1941 for RCA with Ormandy; in 1950 and 1959 for CBS with Ormandy; in 1974, again for RCA, with Ormandy; in 1981 for Delos with Ormandy; in 1991 for EMI with Riccardo Muti; and in 2005 for Ondine with Christoph Eschenbach. The second movement alone was also recorded by Stokowski, in 1923 for RCA. The score calls for three flutes (III doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 runs approximately 50 minutes in performance.

Program notes © 2013. All rights reserved. Program notes may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association. 41 Musical Terms

GENERAL TERMS a term used to indicate and recapitulation, the Cadence: The conclusion the chronological position last sometimes followed to a phrase, movement, of a composition within a by a coda. The exposition or piece based on a composer’s output. Opus is the introduction of recognizable melodic numbers are not always the musical ideas, which formula, harmonic reliable because they are are then “developed.” In progression, or dissonance often applied in the order the recapitulation, the resolution of publication rather than exposition is repeated with Cadenza: A passage or composition. modifications. section in a style of brilliant Rondo: A form frequently : The orientation improvisation, usually used in symphonies and of melodies and inserted near the end of a concertos for the final towards a specific pitch or movement or composition movement. It consists pitches Chord: The simultaneous of a main section that Tonic: The keynote of a sounding of three or more alternates with a variety of scale tones contrasting sections (A-B- Triad: A three-tone chord Chromatic: Relating to A-C-A etc.). composed of a given tone tones foreign to a given Scale: The series of (the “root”) with its third key (scale) or chord tones which form (a) any and fifth in ascending order Coda: A concluding major or minor key or (b) in the scale section or passage added the chromatic scale of in order to confirm the successive semi-tonic THE SPEED OF MUSIC impression of finality steps (Tempo) Dissonance: A Scherzo: Literally “a Allegro: Bright, fast combination of two or more joke.” Usually the third Andante: Walking speed tones requiring resolution movement of symphonies Cantabile: In a singing Fantasia: A composition and quartets that was style, lyrical, melodious, free in form and more or introduced by Beethoven flowing less fantastic in character to replace the minuet. The Con alcuna licenza: With Fantasy: See fantasia scherzo is followed by a some freedom Legato: Smooth, even, gentler section called a trio, Con anima: With feeling without any break between after which the scherzo is Maestoso: Majestic notes repeated. Its characteristics Moderato: A moderate Meter: The symmetrical are a rapid tempo in triple tempo, neither fast nor grouping of musical time, vigorous rhythm, and slow rhythms humorous contrasts. Vivace: Lively Minuet: A dance in triple Sonata form: The form in time commonly used up to which the first movements the beginning of the 19th (and sometimes others) century as the lightest of symphonies are usually movement of a symphony cast. The sections are Op.: Abbreviation for opus, exposition, development, 42 March/April The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin

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The St. Matthew Passion March 28-30 8 PM Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Malin Christensson Soprano Karen Cargill Mezzo-soprano Andrew Staples Tenor (Evangelist) Andrew Foster-Williams Bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni Bass-baritone (Jesus) Westminster Symphonic Choir Joe Miller Director The American Boychoir Fernando Malvar-Ruiz Music Director Bach The Passion According to St. Matthew

Garrick Ohlsson and Brahms April 4 & 6 8 PM April 5 2 PM Jaap van Zweden Conductor Garrick Ohlsson Piano Brahms No. 1 Schoenberg Transfigured Night Strauss Suite from Der Rosenkavalier

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