FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 7, 2013 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected]

CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI and RADU LUPU TO RETURN TO THE PHILHARMONIC IN AN ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAM January 31–February 2

Saturday Matinee Concert To Feature Brahms’s String Sextet Performed by Philharmonic Musicians February 2

Christoph von Dohnányi will return to the to conduct an all-Beethoven program that includes the Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus; Concerto No. 1, with soloist Radu Lupu; and Symphony No. 5 on Thursday, January 31, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, February 1 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, February 2 at 8:00 p.m.

Radu Lupu and Christoph von Dohnányi last appeared together at the Philharmonic in January 2011, performing Brahms’s No. 1. In these performances, Mr. Lupu will continue his survey of Beethoven’s piano concertos. Praising Mr. Lupu’s interpretations of Beethoven, wrote that “the two sides of Beethoven’s personality achieved perfect balance: as if with a gunshot, the poet became a hero.”

The Saturday Matinee Concert February 2 at 2:00 p.m. will include Beethoven’s Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus and Symphony No. 5, as well as Brahms’s String Sextet performed by Philharmonic Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, Principal Second Violin Marc Ginsberg, Associate Principal Viola Rebecca Young, Assistant Principal Viola Irene Breslaw, and cellists Maria Kitsopoulos and Wei Yu. This performance continues the season’s survey of Brahms, featuring his complete symphonies and concertos and four of his chamber works on all of the Saturday Matinee Concerts.

Related Events  Pre-Concert Talks Harvey Sachs, The Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic, will introduce the program. Pre-Concert Talks are $7; discounts available for multiple concerts, students, and groups. They take place one hour before each performance in the Helen Hull Room, unless otherwise noted. Attendance is limited to 90 people. Information: nyphil.org or (212) 875-5656.

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 National and International Radio Broadcast The program will be broadcast the week of February 20, 2013,* on The New York Philharmonic This Week, a radio concert series syndicated weekly to more than 300 stations nationally, and to 122 outlets internationally, by the WFMT Radio Network.

The 52-week series, hosted by actor Alec Baldwin, is generously underwritten by The Kaplen Foundation, the Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Philharmonic’s corporate partner, MetLife Foundation. The broadcast will be available on the Philharmonic’s Website, nyphil.org. The program is broadcast locally in the New York metropolitan area on 105.9 FM WQXR on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. *Check local listings for broadcast and program information.

Artists Christoph von Dohnányi is recognized as one of the world’s pre-eminent orchestral and opera conductors. His appointments have included opera directorships in Frankfurt and Hamburg and principal orchestral conducting posts in Germany and Paris. He enjoys a longstanding partnership with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, where he is honorary conductor for life and served as principal conductor and artistic advisor for ten years. He is also renowned for his legendary 20-year tenure as music director of The .

Mr. Dohnányi began the 2012–13 season at Tanglewood, leading the opening concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 75th-anniversary summer season and three additional BSO concerts in August. He led season-opening concerts at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala and for Orchestre de Paris, and he conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8. In the spring of 2013, he leads the Israel Philharmonic in Schoenberg’s opera Moses und Aron and returns to the Philharmonia for Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. In North America, Mr. Dohnányi leads subscription weeks with the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony in Washington D.C., and The Cleveland Orchestra, and leads multiple weeks with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony.

Recent highlights include concerts with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; the complete Brahms symphonies with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; a Philharmonia Orchestra residence in Vienna’s Musikverein and U.S. tour; guest appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra; and dates with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia, where he conducted two all-Brahms programs in summer 2011. Mr. Dohnányi frequently leads productions at the world’s great opera houses, including Covent Garden, La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Berlin, and Paris. He has led the Vienna Philharmonic in appearances, including the world premieres of Henze’s Die Bassariden and Cerha’s Baal. He appears regularly with the Zurich Opera and with the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

Christoph von Dohnányi has made many critically acclaimed recordings for London/Decca with The Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic. With the Vienna Philharmonic he recorded a variety of symphonic works and a number of operas, including Beethoven’s Fidelio, (more)

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Berg’s Wozzeck and Lulu, Strauss’s Salome, and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. With The Cleveland Orchestra, his discography includes concert performances and recordings of Wagner’s Die Walküre and Das Rheingold; the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann; symphonies by Bruckner, Dvorak, Mahler, Mozart, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky; and works by Bartók, Berlioz, Ives, Varèse, and Webern.

After winning the Van Cliburn (1966) and Leeds Piano Competitions (1969), pianist Radu Lupu made his first major American appearances in 1972 with The Cleveland Orchestra under in New York, and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under . Concerts with the New York Philharmonic soon followed. In the 2012–13 season, Mr. Lupu performs concertos with the London, Chicago, St. Louis, and Boston symphony orchestras, and Orchestre de Paris. He continues his cycle of the Beethoven piano concertos at the new concert hall in Helsinki with the Finnish Chamber Orchestra. He plays recitals in Paris, Geneva, Genoa, Turin, New York’s , Aix-en-Provence, Vicenza, and the Brescia and Bergamo Festivals. He will undertake his tenth tour of Japan and will perform in Seoul, South Korea.

Mr. Lupu has made more than 20 recordings for London/Decca, including the complete Beethoven concertos with the Israel Philharmonic and , the complete Mozart violin and piano sonatas with , and solo recordings of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert. His London/Decca releases of Schubert’s Sonatas, D. 960 and 664, won a Grammy Award in 1995.

Born in in l945, Mr. Lupu began studying the piano at age six with Lia Busuioceanu. At age 12 he made his public debut with a complete program of his own music, continuing his studies for several years with Florica Muzicescu and Cella Delavrance. In l96l he won a scholarship to the Moscow State Conservatory, where he studied with Heinrich Neuhaus and his son, Stanislav Neuhaus. During his seven years at the he won first prize in the l967 Enescu International Competition. In 1989 and again in 2006, he was awarded the prestigious “Abbiati” prize, given by the Italian Critics’ Association. He is also the recipient of the 2006 Premio Internazionale Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli award.

Repertoire ’s music has often been labeled “Promethean” for its sometimes unruly boldness and humanism, qualities symbolized by the Titan of Greek mythology who defied the gods to give man fire (and, by extension, science, industry, and the arts). Ironically, the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus is one of his tamer scores. As far as we can tell, the ballet was typical 18th-century-style pleasant entertainment. But Beethoven is Beethoven, and while the piece contains echoes of Mozart’s lyricism and Haydn’s nature imagery, both are filtered through Beethoven’s novel scoring and volatile musical imagination. Like the composer’s First Symphony, the Overture opens tentatively, playfully avoiding the home key of C major. Soon the Allegro molto con brio arrives to whisk the listener to the ballet’s anticipated pleasures. The New York Philharmonic first performed this overture in 1913, under the baton of Josef Stransky. The Philharmonic’s most recent performance was led by Neeme Järvi in November 2009. (more) Christoph von Dohnányi / Radu Lupu / 4

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 was written in 1797 while the composer was living as a house guest of Prince Carl Lichnowsky. The work follows the classical model of Mozart and Haydn, but for the most part already begins to show Beethoven’s personal mark. Although it bears the title “No. 1,” this was not the first piano concerto that Beethoven composed; rather it was the first to be published. The New York Philharmonic first performed the concerto in December 1918, with Walter Damrosch leading the New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today’s New York Philharmonic) and Alfred Cortot as soloist. The most recent performance was in November 2011, with pianist Jeffrey Kahane conducting from the keyboard.

With its famous opening motif of three short notes and one long, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 is one of the most recognizable and popular compositions in the orchestral repertoire. As the composer wrote: “Let us be silent about this work! No matter how frequently heard, whether at home or in the concert hall, this symphony invariably wields its power over people of every age like those great phenomena of nature that fill us with fear and admiration at all times, no matter how frequently we may experience them.” Beethoven wrote the symphony under difficult conditions: the realization of his worsening deafness, familial tensions, romantic disappointment, and dismay at political events in Europe. The work, which took four years to write, was finished in 1808, and was premiered in Vienna the following year with the composer conducting. New York Philharmonic founder Ureli Corelli Hill conducted the Fifth Symphony on the very first Philharmonic concert, December 7, 1842. The Orchestra’s most recent performance took place in February 2011, led by Paavo Järvi.

* * * Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.

* * * Christoph von Dohnányi’s appearance is made possible through the Daisy and Paul Soros Endowment Fund.

* * * Radu Lupu’s appearance with the New York Philharmonic is made possible through the Hedwig van Ameringen Guest Artists Endowment Fund.

* * * Programs of the New York Philharmonic are supported, in part, by public funds from the Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Tickets Tickets for these concerts start at $28. Tickets for Open Rehearsals are $18. Pre-Concert Talks are $7; discounts are available for multiple concerts, students, and groups (visit nyphil.org/preconcert for more information). All other tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and (more) Christoph von Dohnányi / Radu Lupu / 5

12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets may also be purchased at the Avery Fisher Hall Box Office. The Box Office opens at 10:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and at noon on Sunday. On performance evenings, the Box Office closes one-half hour after performance time; other evenings it closes at 6:00 p.m. A limited number of $13.50 tickets for select concerts may be available through the Internet for students within 10 days of the performance, or in person the day of. Valid identification is required. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic’s Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656. [Ticket prices subject to change.]

For press tickets, call Lanore Carr in the New York Philharmonic Communications Department at (212) 875-5714, or e-mail her at [email protected].

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New York Philharmonic

Avery Fisher Hall

Thursday, January 31, 2013, 7:30 p.m. Open Rehearsal — 9:45 a.m Friday, February 1, 2013, 8:00 p.m. Saturday, February 2, 2013, 8:00 p.m.

Pre-Concert Talk (one hour before each concert) with Harvey Sachs, The Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic

Christoph von Dohnányi, conductor Radu Lupu, piano

BEETHOVEN Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1 BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 ______

Saturday Matinee Concert

Avery Fisher Hall

Saturday, February 2, 2013, 2:00 p.m.

Christoph von Dohnányi, conductor Glenn Dicterow, violin Marc Ginsberg, violin Rebecca Young, viola Irene Breslaw, viola Maria Kitsopoulos, cello Wei Yu, cello

BEETHOVEN Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 BRAHMS String Sextet No. 2

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