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Home , Die drei Pintos, Die tote Stadt, Hilary Hahn, Jascha Heifetz, Stride (composition), Violanta

27 Season 2012-2013

Friday, May 3, at 8:00 Saturday, May 4, at 8:00 The Philadelphia Sunday, May 5, at 2:00 Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor

Strauss Love Scene from Feuersnot, Op. 50

Korngold in D major, Op. 35 I. Moderato nobile II. Romance: Andante III. Finale: Allegro assai vivace

Intermission

Mahler Symphony No. 1 in D major I. Langsam. Schleppend. Wie ein Naturlaut— Immer sehr gemächlich II. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell— Trio: Recht gemächlich—Tempo primo III. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen— IV. Stürmisch bewegt

This program runs approximately 1 hour, 55 minutes.

The May 3 concert is sponsored by the Louis N. Cassett Foundation.

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 , Eugene Through concerts, 50,000 annually, including Ormandy, , tours, residencies, its Neighborhood Concert Wolfgang Sawallisch, and presentations, and Series, Sound All Around Christoph Eschenbach, and recordings, the Orchestra and Family Concerts, and Charles Dutoit, 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 , 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, and choral music. annually performs at please visit www.philorch.org. 4 Music Director

Jessica Griffin Yannick Nézet-Séguin triumphantly opened his inaugural season as the eighth music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra in the fall of 2012. From the Orchestra’s home in Verizon Hall to the Carnegie Hall stage, 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. has called Yannick “phenomenal,” adding that under his baton, “the ensemble, famous for its glowing strings and homogenous richness, has never sounded better.”

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 Berlin 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 , La Scala, London’s Royal Opera House, and the Salzburg Festival.

In February 2013, following the July 2012 announcement of a major long-term collaboration between Yannick and Deutsch Grammophon, the Orchestra announced a recording project with the label, in which Yannick and the Orchestra will record Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. 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.

A native of Montreal, Yannick studied at that city’s Conservatory of Music and continued studies with renowned conductor 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. 29 Soloist

Peter Miller A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, American violinist Hilary Hahn was 14 years old when she made her Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 1993. Now, at age 33, she has achieved international fame and recognition, including seven Echo Klassik awards, two Grammy awards, and the 2008 Gramophone Artist of the Year award. Highlights of her 2012-13 season include concerts throughout South America, Spain, and Scandinavia; a tour of Europe with the Dallas Symphony; a tour of Japan; a series of European recitals performing works by Fauré, Bach, Corelli, and pieces from her multi-year “In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores” project; and appearances with the London and Vienna philharmonics, the Seattle Symphony, and the Spanish National Orchestra. In the 16 years since she began recording, Ms. Hahn has released 14 feature albums on the Deutsche Grammophon and Sony labels, as well as three DVDs, an Oscar-nominated movie soundtrack, an award-winning recording for children, and various compilations. All of her recordings have debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard classical chart. A concerto recording pairing Schoenberg and Sibelius spent 23 weeks on the Billboard chart and won Ms. Hahn her second Grammy, the 2009 award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra. Her first Grammy win came in 2003 for her Brahms and Stravinsky concerto album. A recording of ’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Violin Concerto, written for Ms. Hahn, was released in 2010. Her most recent album, Silfra, is a collaboration with German pianist and composer Hauschka and features entirely improvised performances. Ms. Hahn has appeared on the covers of all the major publications and has been featured in mainstream periodicals such as Vogue, Elle, Town and Country, and Marie Claire. In January 2010 she appeared as guest artist on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Ms. Hahn is an avid writer, posting journal entries and information for young musicians and concertgoers on her website, hilaryhahn.com; she also produces a YouTube channel, youtube.com/hilaryhahnvideos. You can learn about life as the traveling companion of a famous musician by following Ms. Hahn’s violin case on Twitter and Instagram at @violincase. 30 Framing the Program

The three composers featured on the program today Parallel Events enjoyed fascinating personal connections. Mahler and 1888 Music Strauss were friends and rivals—they conducted each Mahler Tchaikovsky other’s pieces and sparred over what path the future of Symphony Symphony music should take. Mahler’s famous comment “My time No. 1 No. 5 will come” is usually quoted out of context: The rest of the Literature sentence reads: “when his [Strauss’s] has passed.” Zola La Terre We hear two early works by these Modern masters. Art When Mahler composed what we now know as his First Van Gogh Symphony in 1888 it was a five-part “Symphonic Poem” The Yellow with a program, much along the lines of what Strauss was Chair doing at the same time. Over the next few years Mahler got History rid of the program and recast the work as a Symphony in Jack the Ripper D major—one of the most imaginative and remarkable first murders in symphonies ever composed. London The year 1888 was also when Strauss composed Don 1901 Music Juan, his first great tone poem. In the years to come he Strauss Sibelius would win wide acclaim with his orchestral works (hence Love Scene Symphony Mahler’s jealous comment), but he initially struggled with from Feuersnot No. 2 opera, a genre in which he hoped to emerge as Richard Literature Wagner’s heir. Today we hear a marvelous orchestral Kipling excerpt, a sumptuous love scene from the end of his Kim rarely performed second opera, Feuersnot. Art Klimt was a generation younger than Buchenwald Mahler and Strauss but was admired and supported History by both of them. He was widely hailed as the greatest McKinley musical prodigy since Mozart and Mendelssohn. History assassinated dealt him a difficult hand. As a Viennese Jew he ultimately immigrated to America, where he had already established 1945 Music ties with Hollywood, and emerged as a leading film Korngold Bartók Violin Concerto composer. In his colorful Violin Concerto, premiered by Literature Jascha Heifetz, he drew from some of his movie scores Orwell and exhibited a Romantic lushness rarely heard in music Animal Farm from the 1940s. Art Moore Family Group History Independent republic of Vietnam formed 31 The Music Love Scene from Feuersnot

“It is, in its way, a kind of prelude.” So the 85-year-old commented in a diary entry a few months before he died about Feuersnot (Fire Famine), his second opera, which had premiered in 1901, nearly a half century earlier. His first attempt, Guntram, had bombed badly in 1894, yet Strauss’s compositional career was nonetheless thriving at the time due to his daring orchestral works. He hit his operatic in 1905 with the premiere of Salome. Haunting this trio of early is the ghost of Wagner, “Richard the First.” (Strauss referred to himself Richard Strauss as “ the Third,” noting that conductor Hans Born in Munich, von Bülow said there could be no Richard the Second.) June 11, 1864 Allusions and outright quotations from Wagner are Died in Garmisch- sprinkled throughout Feuersnot, which Strauss planned Partenkirchen, as an attack on the bourgeois provincialism of Munich, September 8, 1949 his own hometown. Strauss believed the city had failed to recognize either Richard the First or the Third. The Wagnerian Path Strauss had been raised in a musical household where Wagner was perceived as poison. His father played principal in the Munich Court Orchestra and often performed Wagner operas but could not stand the music. He steered his talented son in more conservative directions. Strauss’s youthful works were thus allied with the tradition of such “Classical Romantics” as Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Amidst the fraught musical politics of the time, the allegiances of the Strauss family were clear, as was the enemy: the so-called New German School epitomized by Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner. Then came what Strauss called his “conversion.” Alexander Ritter, a composer and musician who had known both Liszt and Wagner (he was married to Wagner’s niece), became like a second father. Strauss began writing symphonic “Tone Poems” and with Don Juan (1888) emerged as the leading avant-garde figure in orchestral music. While the first Munich performance of Guntram proved a setback, Strauss’s orchestral successes continued with Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (1894–95), Also sprach Zarathustra (1896), Don Quixote (1897), and Ein Heldenleben (1897-98). At the same time, like his slightly older friend and rival , he was also 32

building a career as a prominent conductor, which included leading Wagner operas in Bayreuth. He would eventually emerge as Wagner’s great operatic heir. Strauss’s total of 15 operas, written over a period of nearly 50 years, vary in subject matter and style, yet there remain fairly consistent Wagnerian affinities in his use of leitmotivs, his colorful deployment of large orchestras that place substantial demands on singers, and in his repeated attraction to mythology. But Strauss had a terrific sense of humor (something Wagner cannot be accused of) and even if the “in jokes” of Feuersnot sometimes fall flat, there is plenty of irony. By 1900, after an interval of six years during which he “lost the courage to write for the stage,” Strauss was ready to try his hand again at opera and collaborated with librettist Ernst von Wolzogen on a project he hoped would extract revenge on Munich. Feuersnot is based on a bawdy old Flemish legend about a young man who, after being humiliated by the girl he loves, meets a magician who casts a spell on the town that puts it in complete darkness—the “famine of fire” that gives the opera its title. Only when the girl is made to undress can people light their fires from flames that spring from her behind. Such a colorful plot clearly poses challenges for a librettist! Wolzogen sanitized the story somewhat, although it still proved too scandalous for certain opera houses and audiences. He explained his adaptation to Strauss: “The young hero lover is himself a magician, and the Grand Old Master, his mentor, who was once expelled by the people of Munich, never appears in person. The wicked young girl is forced to sacrifice her virginity at the conclusion, to end the town’s fire famine.” Strauss loved working autobiographical elements into his music and in Feuersnot he identifies with the young lover Kunrad while Wagner is the unseen master magician. Strauss weaves in folk songs connected to his native Munich together with the quotations from Wagner. The opera was a considerable success when it debuted in Dresden in November 1901 and Mahler presented it in Vienna two months later. The American premiere was in Philadelphia in 1927 with the lead sung by Nelson Eddy a few years before he would make his name in Hollywood films. A Closer Look The one-act Feuersnot is rarely performed these days except for the marvelous orchestral excerpt heard on the concert today. It comes at the end of the opera and represents the love scene—actually the deflowering—of the maiden Diemut, daughter of the town mayor. At the start of the opera Kunrad is infatuated with 33

Strauss composed Feuersnot her and steals a kiss. That evening he serenades her from 1900 to 1901. beneath her balcony window and they sing an over-the-top Leopold Stokowski was on the love duet that prefigures much of the musical substance podium for the first Philadelphia of the conclusion. But Diemut is just pretending to be Orchestra performances of the interested in Kunrad, angered as she is by his actions Love Scene from Feuersnot, earlier in the day. She says she will hoist him up in a basket, in March 1913. The work has but in fact pulls him up only half way and leaves him been heard a handful of times hanging there to be gawked at by all the town. since then, most recently in January 1981, with William Kunrad retaliates by causing the blackout and eventually Smith conducting. everyone wants Diemut to submit to him so that the lights will come back on. The orchestral love scene lets us listen and the and imagine what is happening behind closed doors. As Orchestra recorded the work for the music reaches its climax there is a grand pause and CBS in 1952. the fires of the town are reignited. This all owes a lot to The Love Scene is scored Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, except in this case everyone for three flutes (III doubling ends up living happily ever after. For listeners who know piccolo), two , English and love Strauss’s later operas this sumptuous orchestral horn, two , D love scene from his second opera does indeed seem “a (doubling clarinet), three kind of prelude” to a brilliant career. , , four horns, three , three —Christopher H. Gibbs , , , percussion (, cymbals, glockenspiel, snare drum, tam-tam, triangle), three harps (III is offstage), offstage harmonium, and strings. Performance time is approximately eight minutes. 34 The Music Violin Concerto

No history of Vienna and its musical legacy in this century is complete without an appreciation of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The son of Julius Korngold, the city’s most influential music critic after Eduard Hanslick, Erich was perhaps the most amazing prodigy that Europe had seen since the days of the Salzburg phenomenon from whom the boy received his middle name. Like Mozart, Korngold had the opportunity to sample the best that the Austro- Hungarian empire could offer, for he was raised in a social circle that included the principal figures of the day. He Erich Wolfgang Korngold astonished those around him, not just with brilliant pianism Born in Brno (Moravia), but with big, serious compositions. May 29, 1897 Died in Hollywood, A Child Genius Gustav Mahler, upon perusing the cantata November 29, 1957 Gold in 1907, declared its 10-year-old creator a genius. The following year the pantomime Der Schneemann was performed at the Vienna Court Theater in honor of Emperor Franz Josef’s nameday. “One’s first reaction,” wrote Richard Strauss, “upon learning that these compositions are by a boy, is of fear—and of concern that such a precocious genius should follow a normal course of development. The firmness of style, mastery of form, individuality of expression, and command of harmony are amazing.” Korngold quickly ascended to the position of one of Europe’s leading musical figures, particularly with the operas (1916), (1920), and (1927). In 1934 the theater director Max Reinhardt took Korngold with him to Hollywood to supervise the music for a film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It marked the beginning of a long collaboration with Warner Bros., which brought him unprecedented fame—and which would later provide a means of escape when history forced him to emigrate. From 1934 to 1938 he divided his life between Vienna and ; and when the Anschluss of 1938 blocked the staging of his opera in Vienna, he knew that he must leave. Settling in the U.S., he devoted the next decade to scoring such films as Juarez, King’s Row, Of Human Bondage, and Deception. A Return to Concert Works After the war he longed to reestablish himself as a composer of full-scale symphonic works. Having vowed to his father that he would not 35 compose concert music again until Hitler was deposed, in 1945 he resumed with relish, beginning with the Violin Concerto, followed one year later by a , a Symphonic Serenade (1947), and the Symphony in F-sharp major (1952). Korngold’s symphonic works and his film scores were often inextricably linked. The Cello Concerto, for example, was composed simultaneously with the score for Deception, with which it shares a great deal of thematic material. The Violin Concerto, departing only slightly from this, takes passages from four of his preexisting film scores of the 1930s—Another Dawn and Juarez (material for the first movement), Anthony Adverse (second movement, main theme), and The Prince and the Pauper (the finale). According to Luzi Korngold, the composer’s wife, it was the violinist Bronislaw Huberman who had first asked for a violin concerto from the composer, many years before Korngold actually began working on the piece in 1945. Much later, when Jascha Heifetz found out Korngold was composing a concerto, he expressed immediate interest. At the risk of offending his friend Huberman—who had not yet offered to pay for the work—Korngold found it impossible to refuse the great violinist’s request to play it. It was Heifetz, then, who paid for the commission, thus receiving the rights to the first performance. (Huberman, upon learning this, conceded to Heifetz, apparently with no hard feelings.) Heifetz played the world premiere of the Concerto on February 14, 1947, with Vladimir Goldschmann conducting the Saint Louis Symphony. He also made a marvelous recording of the piece with the Philharmonic. A Closer Look The Concerto is in three movements. The soloist opens the first (Moderato nobile) with a noble, nostalgic theme—which quickly gives way to fiery passagework. A developmental section contains much of the orchestral color and harmonic restlessness of Strauss’s tone poems; in fact throughout the Concerto one is reminded of the spirit of those pieces. The movement gently climaxes with a brilliant cadenza of double stops and precipitous passagework; a coda closes it, with bursts of orchestral color. In the second movement (Romance: Andante), gently pulsating chords support the soloist’s sweet opening melody—a lovely tune with an urgent forward motion through shifting meters that correspond to a spontaneous melodic flow. A middle section (Misterioso) in a 36

Korngold composed his Violin contrasting key features the soloist soaring over an eerie Concerto in 1945. orchestral fabric; soloist and ensemble join in a shimmering William de Pasquale was the climax. The finale (Allegro assai vivace) is a series of soloist in the first Philadelphia folk-like dances; a coda sums up the Concerto with an Orchestra performances of the expansive orchestral statement, in which the violinist joins Concerto, in December 1994; for a final virtuosic display. James DePreist conducted. The —Paul J. Horsley work has appeared only one other time on subscription since then, in April 1999 with Elmar Oliveria as soloist and Gerard Schwarz. The Concerto is scored for solo violin, two flutes (II doubling on piccolo), two oboes (II doubling English horn), two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons (II doubling contrabassoon), four horns, two trumpets, , timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, , xylophone), harp, celesta, and strings. The work runs approximately 24 minutes in performance. 37 The Music Symphony No. 1

When Mozart wrote his First Symphony, at the tender age of eight, he was probably not much concerned with his place in music history. For the Romantics, however, the symphony was the proving ground of greatness. Expectations were intense, which led some composers, like Brahms and Bruckner, to delay for many years the public presentation of a symphony. Others tried to reinvent the genre, writing not a traditional Symphony No. 1, but rather a symphonic poem or some other kind of large orchestral work, often with an extramusical program based on Gustav Mahler literature, history, or nature. Born in Kalischt (Kališteˇ), Bohemia, July 7, 1860 Mahler began confronting this challenge in his 20s. Died in Vienna, There are what appear to be apocryphal stories of earlier May 18, 1911 “student” symphonies now lost or destroyed, and he tried his hand at , songs, a large cantata (Das Klagende Lied), theater music, and opera (a completion of ’s Die Drei Pintos). Most of the First Symphony was composed during the spring of 1888; Mahler remarked that it “virtually gushed like a mountain stream.” By the time that piece was premiered in the final form we know it today, in Berlin in March 1896, Mahler was 35 years old and already a celebrated conductor. From Symphonic Poem to Symphony The Symphony went through various incarnations before reaching the four- movement version performed today. In November 1889 Mahler premiered a “Symphonic Poem in Two Parts” in Budapest, where he served at the time as director of the Royal Hungarian Opera. This five-movement composition was greeted with bewilderment and hostility. Mahler set about revising the work, now calling it Titan, “A Tone Poem in the Form of a Symphony.” (The title probably alludes to a once-famous novel by Jean Paul Richter.) Still in five movements split in two parts, each one now had a specific title. Mahler further provided some programmatic explanations, generally quite minimal except for the innovative fourth movement, a “funeral march” that had most puzzled the first listeners. The program for Mahler’s concert on October 27, 1893, in Hamburg announced the following: 38

“TITAN” A Tone Poem in the Form of a Symphony Part I. From the Days of Youth: Flower-, Fruit-, and Thorn-pieces 1. “Spring without End” (Introduction and Allegro comodo). The introduction presents the awakening of nature from a long winter’s sleep. 2. “Blumine” (Andante) 3. “Under Full Sail” (Scherzo). Part II. Commedia humana 4. “Stranded!” (A Funeral March “in the manner of Callot”). The following may serve as an explanation: The external stimulus for this piece of music came to the composer from the satirical picture, known to all Austrian children, “The Hunter’s Funeral Procession,” from an old book of children’s fairy tales: The beasts of the forest accompany the dead woodman’s coffin to the grave, with hares carrying a small banner, with a band of Bohemian musicians in front, and the procession escorted by music-making cats, toads, crows, etc., with stags, deer, foxes, and other four-legged and feathered creatures of the forest in comic postures. At this point the piece is conceived as the expression of a mood now ironically merry, now weirdly brooking, which is then suddenly followed by: 5. “Dall’ Inferno [al Paradiso]” (Allegro furioso) The sudden outburst of the despair of a deeply wounded heart. Mahler conducted this five-movement Titan two times, in Hamburg and in Weimar the following year. In 1896, however, he decided to drop the second movement, a lilting andante he had originally written as part of the incidental music to accompany Joseph Viktor von Scheffel’s poem Der Trompeter von Säkkingen (The Trumpeter from Säkkingen). He now called the work simply Symphony in D major. The “Blumine” movement was gone (it sometimes appears as a separate concert piece), as were the two-part format, the titles, and the other extramusical clues. By this time Mahler was increasingly moving away from wanting to divulge what was behind his works. The Viennese Response Opinion was divided in 1900 when Mahler conducted the First Symphony in Vienna’s Musikverein with the Vienna Philharmonic. Theodor Helm reported that the work “was truly a bone of contention for 39 the public as well as for the critics. This is not to say that the piece wasn’t superficially a success: A large majority of the audience applauded, and Mahler was repeatedly called out. But there were also startled faces all around, and some hissing was heard. When leaving the concert hall, on the stairs and in the coatroom, one couldn’t have heard more contradictory comments about the new work.” For many, apparently, the issue was Mahler’s suppression of all background information. Helm stated that Mahler was “not well served by this veil of mystery … it was cruel of the composer to deprive his unprepared Philharmonic audience of not only the program book but also any technical guide to this labyrinth of sound.” The most powerful critic of the day, Eduard Hanslick, champion of Brahms and absolute music, foe of Wagner and all things programmatic, called himself a “sincere admirer” of Mahler the conductor, the man who had accomplished such great feats with the Vienna Court Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra. Although Hanslick did not wish to rush to judgment about this “strange symphony,” he felt he had the responsibility to tell his readers that the work was for him that “kind of music that is not music.” He was placed in the awkward position of wanting to know more about what was behind the work: Mahler’s symphony would hardly have pleased us more with a program than without. But we cannot remain indifferent to knowing what an ingenious man like Mahler had in mind with each of these movements and how he would have explained the puzzling coherence. Thus we lack a guide to show the correct path in the darkness. What does it mean when a cataclysmic finale suddenly breaks forth, or when a funeral march on the old student canon “Frère Jacques” is interrupted by a section entitled “parody”? To be sure, the music itself would have neither gained nor lost anything with a program; still, the composer’s intentions would have become clearer and the work therefore more comprehensible. Without such aid, we had to be satisfied with some witty details and stunningly brilliant orchestral technique. Listeners like Hanslick were baffled by Mahler’s ingenious juxtapositions of irony and sublimity, of parody and exultation, as well as by his merging of the genres of song and symphony. One young critic, Max Graf, perceived that this was the start of something new in music history and believed that only a new “generation can feel the work’s great emotional rapture, pleasure in intensely colored 40

Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 was sound, and ecstasy of passion; only they can enjoy its composed from 1885 to 1888. parody and distortion of sacred emotion. I myself am far The first Philadelphia Orchestra too close to this generation not to empathize with the performances of the First work as if it were my own. Yet I can almost understand Symphony were not until that an older generation finds it alien.” December 1946, with Dimitri A Closer Look Mahler marked the mysterious and Mitropoulos conducting. The extraordinary introduction to the first movement Wie ein most recent appearances of the work were those with Naturlaut—“Like a sound from nature.” The music seems Charles Dutoit in September to grow organically from the interval of a falling fourth. 2010. In between it has (As critics have long noted, this sound of a cuckoo is been led by such conductors “unnatural.” Mahler did not use the interval of the minor as Eugene Ormandy, Itsván third that Beethoven had in his “Pastoral” Symphony.) Kertész, Seiji Ozawa, Carlo The two notes are in fact the opening of the main theme, Maria Giulini, Yuri Temirkanov, derived from one of Mahler’s own songs, “Ging heut’ , Klaus Morgens über’s Feld” (This morning I went out o’er the Tennstedt, Riccardo Muti, Erich fields), the second in his cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Leinsdorf, Rafael Frühbeck Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). The scherzo movement de Burgos, Leonard Slatkin, (Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell) is a Ländler, , and Christoph an Austrian folk-dance that was to become one of Eschenbach. Mahler’s favorites. Once again he uses an earlier song, The Symphony has been “Hans und Grethe,” to provide melodic material. recorded twice by the Philadelphians: in 1969 with The third movement (Feierlich und gemessen) is the Ormandy (which includes the one that Mahler felt most needed explanation. It opens with “Blumine” movement) for RCA, a solo double bass playing in a high register a minor-key and in 1984 with Muti for EMI. version of the popular song “Bruder Martin” (Brother Martin, better known in its French version as “Frère Jacques”). With The work is scored for four the air of a funeral march (as found in so many of Mahler’s flutes (II, III, and IV doubling piccolo), four oboes (III symphonies), it is first presented as a round but interrupted doubling English horn), three by what sounds like spirited dance music in a Bohemian clarinets (III doubling bass style such as Mahler had heard played in village squares clarinet and second E-flat while growing up in the Czech lands. Another contrast clarinet), E-flat clarinet, comes in the middle of the movement when Mahler three bassoons (III doubling uses the fourth Wayfarer song, “Die zwei blauen Augen” contrabassoon), seven horns, (The two blue eyes). The finale (Stürmisch bewegt) five trumpets, four trombones, moves from fiery defiance to reconciliation, from Hell to tuba, two timpanists, Paradise as the original title had it. Natalie Bauer-Lechner, percussion (bass drum, a confidant of Mahler’s, informed a Viennese critic that in cymbals, tam-tam, triangle), the end the hero of the work becomes the master of his harp, and strings. fate: “Only when he has triumphed over death, and when all The First Symphony runs the glorious memories of youth have returned with themes approximately one hour in from the first movement, does he get the upper hand: and performance. there is a great victorious chorale!” —Christopher H. Gibbs

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 Romance: Originally THE SPEED OF MUSIC Cadenza: A passage or a ballad, or popular tale (Tempo) section in a style of brilliant in verse; now a title for Allegro: Bright, fast improvisation, usually epico-lyrical songs or of Andante: Walking speed inserted near the end of a short instrumental pieces Bewegt: Animated, with movement or composition of sentimental or romantic motion Cantata: A multi- nature, and without special Comodo: Comfortable, movement vocal piece form easy, unhurried consisting of arias, Scherzo: Literally “a Feierlich: Solemn, stately recitatives, ensembles, and joke.” Usually the third Furioso: Wild, passionate choruses and based on a movement of symphonies Gemächlich: Comfortable, continuous narrative text and quartets that was leisurely Chorale: A hymn tune introduced by Beethoven Gemessen: At a regular of the German Protestant to replace the minuet. The pace, in steady rhythm Church, or one similar in scherzo is followed by a Kräftig: Vigorously, style gentler section called a trio, forcefully Chord: The simultaneous after which the scherzo is Langsam: Slow sounding of three or more repeated. Its characteristics Moderato: A moderate tones are a rapid tempo in triple tempo, neither fast nor slow Coda: A concluding time, vigorous rhythm, and Nobile: Dignified, stately section or passage added humorous contrasts. Ohne zu schleppen: in order to confirm the form: The form in Without being too slow impression of finality which the first movements Schleppend: Dragging, Double-stop: In violin (and sometimes others) slow playing, to stop two strings of symphonies are usually Schnell: Fast together, thus obtaining cast. The sections are Stürmisch: Stormy, two-part harmony exposition, development, violent, passionate Ländler: A dance similar and recapitulation, the Tempo primo: Original to a slow waltz last sometimes followed tempo : Literally by a coda. The exposition Vivace: Lively “leading motif.” Any striking is the introduction of Wie ein Naturlaut: Like musical motif (theme, the musical ideas, which a sound from nature phrase) characterizing or are then “developed.” In TEMPO MODIFIERS accompanying one of the the recapitulation, the Assai: Much actors, or some particular exposition is repeated with Doch nicht zu: But not too idea, emotion, or situation, modifications. Immer: Always in a drama. Symphonic or tone Recht: Quite, rather Meter: The symmetrical poem: A type of 19th- Sehr: Very grouping of musical rhythms century symphonic Op.: Abbreviation for opus, piece in one movement, a term used to indicate which is based upon an the chronological position extramusical idea, either of a composition within a poetic or descriptive composer’s output Trio: See scherzo 42 May The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin

Tickets are disappearing fast for these amazing concerts! Order your tickets today. and May 9 & 11 8 PM May 10 2 PM Simon Rattle Conductor Lang Lang Piano Andrew Norman Unstuck Beethoven No. 3 Sibelius Symphony No. 6 Sibelius Symphony No. 7 These concerts are sponsored by the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation.

Rattle Conducts Beethoven May 16 & 18 8 PM May 19 2 PM Simon Rattle Conductor Barbara Hannigan Webern Passacaglia Berg Three Fragments from Wozzeck Ligeti Mysteries of the Macabre Beethoven Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”) The May 16 concert is sponsored by the Hassel Foundation.

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