January/February 2020 24 The Jessica Griffin

The Philadelphia Orchestra community centers, the Mann Through concerts, tours, is one of the world’s Center to Penn’s Landing, residencies, and recordings, preeminent . classrooms to hospitals, and the Orchestra is a global It strives to share the over the airwaves and online. ambassador. It performs transformative power of The Orchestra continues annually at , music with the widest to discover new and the Saratoga Performing possible audience, and to inventive ways to nurture its Arts Center, and the Bravo! create joy, connection, and relationship with loyal patrons. Vail Music Festival. The excitement through music The Philadelphia Orchestra Orchestra also has a rich in the Philadelphia region, continues the tradition of history of touring, having across the country, and educational and community first performed outside around the world. Through engagement for listeners Philadelphia in the earliest innovative programming, of all ages. It launched its days of its founding. It was robust educational initiatives, HEAR initiative in 2016 to the first American orchestra and an ongoing commitment become a major force for to perform in the People’s to the communities that it good in every community that Republic of in 1973, serves, the ensemble is on a it serves. HEAR is a portfolio launching a now-five-decade path to create an expansive of integrated initiatives commitment of people-to- future for classical music, that promotes Health, people exchange. and to further the place champions music Education, The Orchestra also makes of the arts in an open and enables broad Access to live recordings available on democratic society. Orchestra performances, and popular digital music services Yannick Nézet-Séguin is now maximizes impact through and as part of the Orchestra in his eighth season as the Research. The Orchestra’s on Demand section of its eighth music director of The award-winning education and website. Under Yannick’s Philadelphia Orchestra. His community initiatives engage leadership, the Orchestra connection to the ensemble’s over 50,000 students, returned to recording, with musicians has been praised families, and community seven celebrated CDs on by both concertgoers and members through programs the prestigious Deutsche critics, and he is embraced such as PlayINs, side-by- Grammophon label. The by the musicians of the sides, PopUP concerts, Free Orchestra also reaches Orchestra, audiences, and Neighborhood Concerts, thousands of radio listeners the community. School Concerts, sensory- with weekly broadcasts on Your Philadelphia Orchestra friendly concerts, the School WRTI-FM and SiriusXM. For takes great pride in its Partnership Program and more information, please visit hometown, performing for the School Ensemble Program, www.philorch.org. people of Philadelphia year- and All City Orchestra round, from Verizon Hall to Fellowships. 6 Music Director

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead The Philadelphia Orchestra through at least the 2025–26 season, an extraordinary and significant long-term commitment. Jessica Griffin Additionally, he became the third music director of New York’s in August 2018. Yannick, who holds the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Chair, is an inspired leader of The Philadelphia Orchestra. His intensely collaborative style, deeply rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm, paired with a fresh approach to programming, have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. has called him “phenomenal,” adding that under his baton, “the ensemble, famous for its glowing strings and homogenous richness, has never sounded better.”

Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most thrilling talents of his generation. He has been artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000, and in summer 2017 he became an honorary member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He was music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic from 2008 to 2018 (he is now honorary conductor) and was principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic from 2008 to 2014. 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 signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon (DG) in 2018. Under his leadership The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to recording with five CDs on that label. His upcoming recordings will include projects with The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the Orchestre Métropolitain, with which he will also continue to record for ATMA Classique. Additionally, he has recorded with the Rotterdam Philharmonic on DG, EMI Classics, and BIS Records, and the London Philharmonic for the LPO label.

A native of Montreal, Yannick studied piano, , composition, and chamber music at Montreal’s Conservatory of Music and continued his studies with renowned conductor ; he also studied choral conducting with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College. Among Yannick’s honors are an appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada; an Officer of the Order of Montreal; ’s 2016 Artist of the Year; the Prix Denise-Pelletier; and honorary doctorates from the University of Quebec in Montreal, the Curtis Institute of Music, Westminster Choir College of Rider University, McGill University, the University of Montreal, and the University of Pennsylvania.

To read Yannick’s full bio, please visit philorch.org/conductor. 26 Conductor Mathias Bothor Conductor Karina Canellakis is the newly appointed chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony. Internationally acclaimed for her emotionally charged performances, technical command, and interpretive depth, she has conducted many of the top orchestras in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia since winning the Sir Conducting Award in 2016. She makes her Philadelphia Orchestra debut with these current performances. Ms. Canellakis makes several other notable debuts in the 2019–20 season including the San Francisco, Atlanta, Minnesota, and London symphonies; the Munich Philharmonic; and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. With a strong presence at European summer festivals, she also makes debut appearances at the Saint-Denis Festival with the Radio Philharmonic and the Edinburgh International Festival with the BBC Scottish Symphony, and returns to the Bregenz Festival with the Vienna Symphony and a program featuring the third act of Wagner’s Siegfried. Return engagements include the Orchestre de Paris, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Houston and Toronto symphonies, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for performances at Concert Hall. On the operatic stage Ms. Canellakis returns this season to the Zurich Opera House to lead a fully staged production of Verdi’s Requiem. Last season she conducted performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Curtis Opera Theatre at the Kimmel Center. She has also conducted Mozart’s The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, and she led the world premiere of ’s The Loser at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In 2017 she conducted Peter Maxwell Davies’s final opera,The Hogboon, with the Luxembourg Philharmonic. Already known to many in the classical music world for her virtuoso violin playing, she was initially encouraged to pursue conducting by while she was playing regularly in the for two years as a member of its Orchester-Akademie. Ms. Canellakis is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School. 27 Soloist

Dario Acosta—Deutsche Grammophon Russian pianist , winner of Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year, has made a spectacular ascent in the classical music world as a solo artist, champion of the concerto repertoire, chamber and vocal collaborator, and composer. He first appeared with The Philadelphia Orchestra at Saratoga in 2013 and made his subscription debut in 2015, just weeks after Deutsche Grammophon (DG) released the Grammy-nominated recording Rachmaninoff Variations with him, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and The Philadelphia Orchestra. An exclusive DG artist, he recently added a first Grammy Award to his string of honors, winning Best Instrumental Solo Album of 2018 for his Liszt collection, Transcendental. This fall brought the DG release of Mr. Trifonov’s Destination Rachmaninoff: Arrival, following Destination Rachmaninoff: Departure, both also recorded with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Mr. Nézet-Séguin. As 2019–20 artist in residence of the , Mr. Trifonov joins that ensemble for concertos in New York and Europe, and he gives the New York premiere of his own Piano Quintet. In addition to these current performances, season highlights also include collaborations with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony; Bach-themed solo recitals in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Europe; and a return to Carnegie Hall with fellow pianist Sergei Babayan. Mr. Trifonov recently undertook four major season-long residencies: at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Musikverein, and with the London Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic. Other recent highlights include launching the New York Philharmonic’s 2018–19 season; headlining the gala finale of the Chicago Symphony’s 125th anniversary celebrations; and collaborating with such preeminent ensembles as the Cleveland and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras; the Boston and Bavarian Radio symphonies; and the Munich and London philharmonics. He regularly gives solo recitals at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and other prestigious venues around the world. Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1991, he attended Moscow’s Gnessin School of Music before pursuing piano and composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music. 27 Soloist Lisa-Marie Mazzucco Born in Poland, pianist Emanuel Ax moved to Canada with his family when he was a young boy. His studies at the Juilliard School were supported by the sponsorship of the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America; he subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award and also attended Columbia University, where he majored in French. Mr. Ax captured public attention in 1974 when he won the first International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. He won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists in 1975, the same year he made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut. Four years later he was awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In addition to these current performances, highlights of Mr. Ax’s 2019–20 season include a European summer festivals tour with the Vienna Philharmonic and , an Asian tour with the London Symphony and Simon Rattle, US appearances with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Lahav Shani, and three concerts with regular partners violinist Leonidas Kavakos and cellist Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall in March. Additional celebrations of Beethoven’s 250th birthday include recitals in Madison, Santa Barbara, Orange County, Washington, Las Vegas, and Colorado Springs, culminating with a solo recital in May at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Ax also performs with orchestras in Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Montreal, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Rome, Zurich, Rotterdam, and Tel Aviv. Mr. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987. He has received Grammy awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with Mr. Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004–05 season he contributed to an International Emmy Award-winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013 his recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year. Mr. Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For more information please visit www.EmanuelAx.com.

Emanuel Ax’s performances are sponsored, in part, by Robert E. Mortensen. 31 The Music Piano Concerto No. 1

Ludwig van Beethoven was a heck of an improviser. From all accounts he sat for long stretches noodling on the keyboard and captivated listeners with spontaneous musical chattiness. Wenzel Johann Tomaschek, a prominent Czech musician, writes that in 1798 he heard Beethoven give a concert in Prague: “Beethoven’s magnificent playing and particularly daring flights of improvisation stirred me strangely to the depths of my soul.” Improvisation in Compositions Although the word improvisation is most often associated with jazz, classical Born in Bonn, probably musicians worth their salt were well known for winging December 16, 1770 it. They improvised fugues and sonata forms, forms that Died in Vienna, March 26, appear to come to fruition only on paper, like a theory 1827 exercise. Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata, subtitled “Quasi un fantasia,” for example, is “like a fantasy,” notes floating in space captured in the mind and heart of the composer and then set to ink on paper. Even the Ninth Symphony, which seems as difficult to keep in one’s head as a mathematical theorem, appears to have evolved like a fantasy. Listen to each movement like jazz and you will hear Beethoven composing in real time. He even competed in an improvisation contest in 1800 in Vienna with Daniel Steibelt, a pianist from Berlin. Aristocrats sponsored each pianist, like betting on a racehorse, and a musical duel ensued: this won by Beethoven, who played circles around Steibelt’s four-note theme. As a result, Steibelt agreed never to return to Vienna. One finds improvisation in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, namely in the cadenza. He premiered the work in Vienna in 1795 and evidently improvised the two cadenzas, since the original autograph score of the work, dated 1800, has the words “senza” (without) cadenza. In what musicologist Geoffrey Block has coined his “cadenza year,” Beethoven, in a fit of artistic control, put to paper 11 cadenzas in 1809, including three for the first movement of the First Piano Concerto and even one for the Mozart D-minor Concerto, thus drafting a “substantial body of improvisations frozen in time.” While the C-major Concerto is listed as No. 1, it was actually composed after his Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major. The C-major is known as the First because it was published before the Second, in 1801. 32

Beethoven composed the A Closer Look The first movement (Allegro con brio) C-major Piano Concerto in begins in diatonic C-major brilliance, like the last movement 1795 and revised it from 1800 of his Fifth Symphony. Beethoven was riding a wave of to 1801. popularity in Vienna and was yet to express any foreboding The work was first performed of hearing loss. Chords announce scales, scales morph into by The Philadelphia Orchestra themes, all of them not particularly tuneful, but utilitarian in December 1918, with Alfred in their ability to easily move from first theme to bridge to Cortot and conductor Leopold second theme in a straightforward double exposition form. Stokowski. The most recent The second theme is predictably quiet, and the closing subscription performances theme takes the listener hunting in the country outside were in February/March 2019, Vienna. The piano starts on cue, no games, though it with Benjamin Grosvenor as begins to joust with the orchestra fairly quickly with running soloist and . scales. Beethoven’s feisty virtuosity jumps quickly into the The First Concerto was foreground mixed with a kind of faux sensitivity. A brief recorded twice by the return of the orchestra interrupts the preening and an echo Orchestra: in 1954 and 1965, of Mozart sneaks through before the improvised cadenza. both for the CBS label, and Knowing Beethoven’s proclivity for long windedness one both with and can imagine him going on for a while, to the delight of . many, until the orchestra probably started squeaking on The score calls for solo piano, their violins, an indication that they had other things to do. flute, two oboes, two clarinets, The second movement Largo is in a rather distant A-flat two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. major key, a cheeky harmonic move that reappears in the first movement of Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Piano Sonata, Beethoven’s First Piano another C-major gem. Beethoven is at home in slow Concerto runs approximately movements despite his impetuosity. The piano is thoroughly 35 minutes in performance. in control with its spindly melody over an acquiescent orchestra. He does not skimp on the slow stuff here, as he does later in the slow movement of his Fourth Concerto, all of 72 measures. Rondos are the ear worms of classical music. Just think of Mozart’s Rondo “Alla turca” or the final movement of the Horn Concerto No. 3. Beethoven’s third movement rondo theme (Allegro) will playfully rattle in your head for a while after the work is over. The pianist introduces the rollicking rondo, followed dutifully by the orchestra, which must keep up with the brisk tempo or risk getting lost in the circular work. The orchestra reasserts itself after the cadenza, otherwise playing second fiddle most of the time. But the piano quickly elbows its way back into the texture. In Beethoven’s early Concerto we see the seeds of assertiveness and improvisation that will mark so much of his music, even its most melancholic moments. —Eleonora Beck 32 The Music Piano Concerto No. 2

While Mozart did not invent the piano concerto, he was the one to bring it to prominence and create enduring musical monuments. He served as an inspiring model for the young Beethoven, who at age 12 was already being compared to him. An important music journal announced that the prodigy “would surely become a second if he were to continue as he has begun.” At 16 Beethoven went to Vienna in the hopes of studying with his idol. He is said to have played for Mozart and to have earned the approving remark, “Keep your eyes on Ludwig van Beethoven him; someday he will give the world something to talk about.” Born in Bonn, probably December 16, 1770 Not long after his arrival, however, Beethoven was called Died in Vienna, March 26, home to tend to his gravely ill mother and he remained in 1827 Bonn for the next five years. In 1792, financially assisted by the Elector Maximilian Franz and Count Waldstein, Beethoven won the chance to return to Vienna. With Mozart now dead, Haydn would be his teacher. Waldstein informed Beethoven, “With the help of assiduous labor you shall receive Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands.” After studies with Haydn and others, Beethoven began to mold his public career. As Mozart had found some two decades earlier, piano concertos offered the ideal vehicle to display both performing and composing gifts, including those of improvisation in the unaccompanied cadenza sections heard near the end of certain movements. Really a First Concerto As is often remarked, Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto is chronologically really the first of the famous five that he composed. Yet the issue is even a bit more complicated because as a young teenager while still living in Bonn, Beethoven had composed what we might call a Piano Concerto “No. 0” in E-flat major. Although only the piano part survives with some instrumental cues, an orchestration has been reconstructed; a few available recordings of this curiosity give a good idea of how the young composer sought to emulate Mozart. The exact chronology of Beethoven’s first three mature piano concertos is not altogether clear. The genesis of the B-flat-major Concerto is the most protracted of them. The earliest version was apparently written in Bonn when 33

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto Beethoven was in his late teens. He revised the work in No. 2 was composed in 1790. Vienna and wrote a different rondo finale than the one we The composer revised the know today. The Concerto went through other revisions score from 1793 to 1795 and leading to performances in Prague in 1798, and final again in 1798 and 1801. ones before its publication in 1801. This evolution of the The Second Concerto wasn’t work over the course of more than a decade shows how premiered at Philadelphia Beethoven considered his early concertos vehicles for his Orchestra concerts until own concert use. He was still learning what worked best February 1954, with Rudolf and to what audiences most responded. Throughout this Serkin as soloist and Eugene long process, however, Beethoven retained the essential Ormandy conducting. The most Classical dimensions for the Concerto, his shortest recent performances were in and the one deploying the smallest orchestra (it is the February 2015, with pianist composer’s only mature orchestral work without clarinets). Imogen Cooper conducting from the keyboard. A Closer Look The Allegro con brio begins with The Philadelphia Orchestra an energetic orchestral introduction that presents a recorded the Second Concerto variety of themes before the soloist enters with a florid, in 1955 and 1965, both for more reserved melody. The cadenza of this movement CBS with Serkin and Ormandy. juxtaposes music Beethoven wrote around 1809 with the Concerto’s original material, dating back as far as The score calls for solo piano, 20 years. The cadenza begins as a fugato exploring the one flute, two oboes, two opening material and displays powerful, boldly harmonic, bassoons, two horns, and strings. dynamically diverse writing. Beethoven’s Second Concerto The Adagio contrasts a soft string-dominated opening runs approximately 30 minutes with a full orchestral statement from which the soloist in performance. responds with lush chords. The final Molto allegro presents a syncopated theme for piano alone that is taken up by the full orchestra. Beethoven wittily experiments with the theme, later presenting it in the wrong key and without the characteristic syncopations until the orchestra brings the soloist back on track. —Christopher H. Gibbs 32 The Music Piano Concerto No. 3

The fifth of April 1803 was a hectic day for those involved in mounting the premiere of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien. On the morning of the concert, the composer was still copying out the trombone parts for his oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, one of the other pieces to be premiered that evening. The ink had barely dried before the grueling day-long rehearsal began, a musical marathon made all the more challenging by the amount that needed to be practiced: Beethoven’s first two symphonies were Ludwig van Beethoven scheduled to be performed, along with the oratorio and Born in Bonn, probably Third Concerto. December 16, 1770 Died in Vienna, March 26, For Ignaz von Seyfried, the newly appointed conductor of 1827 the theater, perhaps the most trying part of the concert came when he turned pages for Beethoven, who played the Concerto’s solo part. As Seyfried later recalled: I saw almost nothing but empty leaves; at the most, on one page or another a few Egyptian hieroglyphs wholly unintelligible to me were scribbled down to serve as clues for him; for he played nearly all of the solo part from memory since, as was so often the case, he had not had time to set it all down to paper. He gave me a secret glance whenever he was at the end of one of the invisible passages, and my scarcely concealable anxiety not to miss the decisive moment amused him greatly. From Performer to Composer Beethoven’s audience was familiar with his remarkable pianistic skills by this point, as he had been living in Vienna for more than a decade and had firmly established his reputation as a virtuoso. He was not content, however, to work as a “mere” performer and was hoping to earn a living as a composer. He had studied theory and counterpoint with several Viennese composers, including Haydn, and was now grappling with the challenge of forging a compositional voice that would be heard as distinct from those who came before him, especially the much-loved Mozart. Mozart’s piano concertos were well-known to many Viennese concert-goers by the time the 32-year-old Beethoven took the stage to premiere his third mature 33

Beethoven composed his essay in the genre. He knew this, and deliberately used Piano Concerto No. 3 from one of his predecessor’s concertos, No. 24, also in C 1802 to 1803. minor, as a model. This was a common practice for many The Third Concerto was first composers in the early stages of their career as a means performed by The Philadelphia of paying respect to those who came before while also Orchestra in December 1914, signaling their intent to surpass. When the orchestra played with pianist Leonard Borwick the opening C-minor arpeggio of Beethoven’s concerto, and Carl Pohlig on the podium. it probably would not have escaped many in the audience Most recently on subscription that it was a paraphrase of the beginning of Mozart’s concerts, Yefim Bronfman concerto in the same key from almost 20 years earlier. performed the work in January 2018, with Fabio Luisi A Closer Look Despite its allusions to Mozart, the conducting. main theme of the first movement (Allegro con brio) is typically Beethovenian in its elemental simplicity. As The Philadelphia Orchestra with many other themes Beethoven would write during has recorded the Concerto three times: in 1947 for his career, the musical interest lies not necessarily in the CBS, with Claudio Arrau and material itself, but in how it is developed. The cadenza Eugene Ormandy; in 1953 at the end of this movement, written out years later, is for CBS, with Rudolf Serkin particularly arresting in the way it reworks the opening and Ormandy; and in 1971 material in a kaleidoscopic array of stormy moods. for RCA, with Van Cliburn and In the words of one of the audience members present Ormandy. on the night of the premiere, the opening of the Largo The score calls for solo piano, second movement is “a holy, distant, and celestial two flutes, two oboes, two Harmony.” Its otherworldly quality is derived in part from clarinets, two bassoons, two the harmonic contrast between the previous movement’s horns, two trumpets, timpani, close in C minor and this movement’s hymn-like beginning and strings. in E major. In addition, the theme is played extremely softly Performance time is and with the sustain pedal pressed down, which allows the approximately 35 minutes. pitches to resonate and almost shimmer. The Rondo finale (Allegro) alternates between the simple opening theme and several contrasting melodies, including a short fugato in the middle of the movement. The onset of the coda is a particularly dramatic moment of melodic contrast, as the key modulates to C major and the meter changes into a bouncy triple grouping. This move from minor to major, from darkness to light, prefigures many similar transitions in Beethoven’s later works, particularly in the Fifth and Ninth symphonies. —Sean Colonna