Season 2020111111----2020202011112222

The

Friday, March 161616,16 , at 888:008:00:00:00 Saturday, March 11171777,, at 8:00 Sunday, March 18, at 2:00

GGGianandreaGianandrea Noseda Conductor Juliette Kang Violin

Rossini Overture to William Tell

Prokofiev Violin No. 1 in D major, Op. 19 I. Andantino—Andante assai II. Scherzo: Vivacissimo III. Moderato

Intermission

Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 (“Scottish”) I. Andante con moto—Allegro un poco agitato—Assai animato—Andante come I— II. Vivace non troppo— III. Adagio— IV. Allegro vivacissimo—Allegro maestoso assai

This program runs approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Born in Milan, Gianandrea Noseda serves as music director of the Teatro Regio in Turin, conductor laureate of the BBC Philharmonic, chief guest conductor of the Israel Philharmonic, Victor de Sabata Guest Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony, principal conductor of the Orquesta de Cadaqués, and artistic director of the Stresa Festival. He became the first foreign principal guest conductor at the in St. Petersburg in 1997, and he has also served as principal guest conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI.

Mr. Noseda has worked closely with several youth worldwide and has also offered master classes to young conductors at the Royal Northern College of Music. His recent and upcoming engagements include his debut at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan conducting Verdi’s Luisa Miller, his first appearance at the Vienna State conducting Verdi’s I vespri siciliani, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor with the Metropolitan Opera on tour in Japan, Verdi’s Macbeth at the Metropolitan Opera, and appearances at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with the Teatro Regio.

Mr. Noseda has been an exclusive Chandos recording artist since 2002. His discography includes discs of works by Prokofiev, Karłowitz, Dvořák, Smetana, Shostakovich, and Mahler; an extensive survey of the music of 20th-century Italian composers, including a Diapason d’Or Award-winning disc of the works of Wolf-Ferrari; and a cycle of Liszt’s complete symphonic works. With the BBC Philharmonic Mr. Noseda has recorded ’s Francesca da Rimini, The Miserly Knight, and as well as the First, Second, and Third symphonies. His live performances with the BBC Philharmonic of the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, and Brahms have been made available for download by Chandos records. He also led the Vienna Philharmonic on ’s first album for the Deutsche Grammophon label.

Mr. Noseda has received the honour of Cavaliere Ufficiale al Merito della Repubblica Italiana. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2010. For more information please visit www.gianandreanoseda.com.

A native of Edmonton, Canada, violinist Juliette KangKang came to Philadelphia from the Boston Symphony, where she served as assistant concertmaster from 2003 to 2005. Prior to that she was a member of the first violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 2001 to 2003.

Ms. Kang’s solo engagements have included the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas; l’Orchestre National de France conducted by Yehudi Menuhin; the Baltimore, Omaha, and Syracuse symphonies; the Boston Pops; and every major orchestra in Canada. She has also performed with the Czech Philharmonic, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the KBS Symphony in Seoul. She has given recitals in at the Théâtre du Châtelet, in Tokyo at Suntory Hall, in Boston at the Gardner Museum, and in New York at the 92nd Street Y and the Frick Museum. As gold medalist of the 1994 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, she was presented at Carnegie Hall in a recital that was recorded live for the Samsung/Nices label. She has also recorded two discs for CBC Records, including the Schumann Violin Concerto with the Vancouver Symphony. Ms. Kang will be a featured soloist in the May 2012 Carnegie Hall debut of her hometown orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony.

Ms. Kang has been involved with chamber music since studying quartets at the Curtis Institute of Music with Felix Galimir. Festivals she has participated in include Bravo! Vail Valley, Kingston Chamber Music, Bridgehampton, Marlboro, Moab (Utah), Skaneateles (New York), and Spoleto USA. In New York she has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at the Mostly Mozart Festival with her husband, cellist Thomas Kraines, and at the Bard Music Festival.

After receiving a Bachelor of Music degree from Curtis as a student of Jascha Brodsky, where she entered the school at age nine, she earned a Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Dorothy Delay and Robert Mann. She was a winner of the 1989 Young Concert Artists Auditions, and she subsequently received first prize at the Menuhin Violin Competition of Paris in 1992. These current performances mark her Philadelphia Orchestra solo subscription debut. She lives in Center City with her husband and two daughters.

FRAMING THE PROGRAM

The program today offers a grand musical tour as Italian, Russian, and German composers visit Switzerland, Paris, and Scotland.

William Tell proved to be Rossini’s last opera. He was 37 when he composed it and the most famous living composer in Europe, but he opted for early retirement and lived for nearly another 40 years without again composing for the theater. The marvelous four-part Overture is not only one of his most famous works, but also one of his most innovative.

Sergei Prokofiev completed his First Violin Concerto in 1917, not long before the Russian Revolution. He left his native country in the aftermath of the political turmoil that event unleashed and wended his way to America before settling a few years later in Europe. It took him some time to find a home for his Concerto, which finally premiered in Paris in 1923.

Nearly a century earlier Felix Mendelssohn made a grand tour of Europe that inspired fascinating letters, remarkable drawings, and enduring music. His trip to Scotland at age 20 left its mark on various compositions, including his evocative Symphony No. 3, the “Scottish.”

Parallel Events 1829 Rossini Overture to William Tell Music Bellini La straniera Literature Tennyson Timbuctoo Art Delacroix Sardanapalus History Slavery abolished in Mexico

1842 Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3 Music Glinka Ruslan and Lyudmila Literature Longfellow Poems of Slavery Art Turner Snowstorm History Treaty of Nanking ends Opium War

1917 Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 Music Respighi Fountains of Rome Literature Eliot Prufrock and Other Observations ArtArtArt Modigliani Crouching Female Nude History U.S. enters World War I Overture ttoo William Tell

Gioachino Rossini Born iiinin Pesaro, February 29, 1792 Died iiinin Paris, November 13, 1868

In the first important German-language history of music, published in 1834 and written by Raphael Georg Kiesewetter, the years 1800-32 are characterized as “The Epoch of Beethoven and Rossini.” This description may seem somewhat odd today because it reflects distinctions between instrumental and vocal music, aesthetic ideologies, and a north/south geography that are no longer much discussed. What Kiesewetter recognized was that even though Beethoven had already been considered the greatest composer for some two decades, Rossini was the most popular by the 1820s. His operas dominated Europe’s opera houses—and beyond: This music was so endlessly arranged that it could be heard in almost every conceivable setting, from intimate domestic gatherings to large orchestral concerts.

A Master’s Last Opera No composer of Italian opera formed a more significant bridge between Mozartean Classicism and Verdian high Romanticism than Rossini. His some three dozen operas defy easy categorization: They are Classical in musical design yet often Romantic in dramatic outlook. His contribution to the history and development of grand opera was critical; but more to the point for most contemporaries and for posterity, his unique comic idiom and fluid melodic style are utterly irresistible to the ear.

Rossini was not only a brilliant composer, but also a shrewd one. He knew what worked and once he had perfected a formula, be it how to write an overture, mold an aria, or craft a finale, he tended to stick to it for some time. The lilting melodies, infectious rhythms, and bubbling crescendos found in most of his overtures were widely admired and imitated. (Beethoven esteemed Rossini’s operas; Schubert wrote two “Overtures in the Italian Style,” which is to say, à la Rossini.) But Rossini wrote not only opera buffa (comic opera). For one thing, he married a celebrated singer who desired more serious fare and that was surely one of various reasons he concentrated on writing opera seria for about the last 10 years of his career, beginning in 1817.

For his last opera, William Tell, composed for the Paris Opera and premiered in 1829, Rossini based his libretto on Friedrich von Schiller’s play Wilhelm Tell (1804), which tells a story of Swiss patriots struggling against Austrian imperial dominance in the 13th century. Although it is not clear whether Rossini at the time intended this long and demanding work to be his final opera—audience tastes were changing—it does synthesize many elements of his style. After the premiere Rossini in essence retired, at the height of his fame and at the age of 37. He lived a rich and famous man for nearly 40 more years.

A Closer Look The music of William Tell, an opera in four acts that lasts some four hours (not counting intermissions), manifests a seriousness that contrasts with the composer’s comic successes, such as The Italian Girl in Algiers (1813) and The Barber of Seville (1816). Likewise the Overture to this opera is unique, functioning programmatically in a new way. Rossini’s overtures often have no musical connection to the opera that follows (one reason is that he freely reused earlier ones for new operas), but in this case the Overture both sets the mood and prefigures musical content heard in the drama.

Structured in four independent sections, it forms a remarkably effective concert-piece, even divorced from its operatic context. The intimate opening, scored for five solo cellos, sets the scene of pastoral quietude that is the backdrop of the opera; French composer Hector Berlioz praised the way in which this depiction of the Swiss countryside evoked “the calm of profound solitude, the solemn silence of nature when the elements and human passions are at rest.” A nervous transitional passage leads to the second section, a striking re-creation of the terror and chaos of a sudden storm. The third section, a famous English horn solo meant to evoke the shepherd’s ranz des vaches, a melody that returns at various points in the opera (and that Berlioz would adapt the following year for the slow movement of his Symphonie fantastique ). The fourth section is the best known, featuring the rousing trumpet gallop finale that would become such a familiar part of popular culture in the 20th century, most notably from its use in the TV Western The Lone Ranger.

—Christopher H. Gibbs

William Tell was composed in 1829.

Carl Pohlig was on the podium for the first Philadelphia Orchestra performances of the William Tell Overture, in March 1909. The most recent appearance of the work on subscription concerts was in January 2006, with Rossen Milanov conducting.

The Orchestra has recorded the Overture three times: in 1954 and 1968 with Eugene Ormandy for CBS, and in 1973 with Ormandy for RCA.

The score calls for piccolo, flute, two oboes (II doubling English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle), and strings.

The Overture runs approximately 12 minutes in performance. Violin Concerto No. 1

Sergei Prokofiev Born iiinin Sontsovka, , April 23, 1891 Died in Moscow, March 5, 1953

“Paris is the undisputed leader in women’s fashion,” said Sergei Prokofiev of the city that he temporarily adopted as his home during the 1920s, “and the same necessity of creating a vogue is felt in other fields, including the arts. After they show an interest in one composer, they look for the sensational discovery of another.” The early ’20s found Prokofiev a long way from home, alone and embittered. He was disappointed by the dim view that his fellow-exile Stravinsky took of his music, and by the general disregard with which the arbiters of Parisian taste treated the early compositions he had brought from St. Petersburg. Stravinsky, with the help of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, had already made his way well into Parisian circles, with shocking works such as Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of (1913). Prokofiev, reserved and aloof, remained an outsider.

One of Prokofiev’s initial points of contention with Paris upon his arrival in 1922 was the First Violin Concerto, composed some five years earlier in but not yet premiered. None of the city’s major soloists showed much interest in the work; when fellow expatriate Serge Koussevitzky finally conducted its premiere in Paris in October 1923, the only soloist he could enlist was the orchestra’s concertmaster, a violinist named Marcel Darrieux. The critics found the music too transparent, not radical enough. Prokofiev was stung, and responded with an overreaction: his most complex work of all, the Second Symphony, whose concentration of ideas was so extreme as to make it the least performed of all the composer’s symphonic pieces.

A Recollection ooofof Fonder Times But that is to jump ahead. The inception of the First Violin Concerto belongs to an earlier time: It was forged during one of the most idyllic periods of the young composer’s life. He had recently completed 10 years at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where between the ages of 13 and 23 he had studied not only composition but also piano and conducting. He had already launched a remarkable career as a concert pianist, the force of which alone was to catapult him to international fame. A member of the aristocratic landed class in pre-Soviet Russia, he vacationed at spas and summer homes; it was at one of the latter, near St. Petersburg, that he completed the Violin Concerto during the summer of 1917. Its principal theme, however, had come to him two years before.

In the midst of a world war, of which St. Petersburg had seen relatively little action, and on the eve of the virtually unprecedented social conflagration of Soviet socialism, Prokofiev wrote a piece that looked back fondly upon earlier, simpler days. He continued to value the First Concerto throughout his life, commenting later on its “poetic, daydreaming beginning.”

A Closer Look The Concerto is hardly lacking in maturity of form and texture. Composed shortly after the First Symphony (the “Classical”), with which it shares a certain simplicity of line and structure, the work is closer to Richard Strauss or even to than to anything associated with France. Paris found it uninteresting, but Joseph Szigeti’s performance in Prague the following year, 1924, was received more warmly. Even then, the piece was slow to catch on. “I cannot say the music appealed to me at first,” wrote the violinist David Oistrakh. “It contained too much that was strange and unusual at the time.” Later the piece won his heart. “It made me think of a landscape flooded with sunshine,” he wrote.

The Concerto consists of three meticulously structured movements. The first theme of the opening Andantino, marked sognando (dreaming), builds gradually from a simple beginning and develops into a driving perpetual motion that culminates in hammered chords from the soloist. The Scherzo contains a dose of Prokofiev’s acerbic musical sarcasm, expressed here in the spider-like spiccato (a staccato articulation in which the bow is bounced on the string), syncopation, and glissandos. The final Moderato again begins civilly, then develops into a movement that employs Prokofiev’s full palette of instrumental color and virtuosity.

—Paul J. Horsley

Prokofiev composed his First Violin Concerto from 1916 to 1917.

Joseph Szigeti was the soloist in the first Philadelphia Orchestra performances of the Concerto, in November 1927; the conductor was Fritz Reiner. Most recently, the work was performed in September/October 2005 by Midori, with on the podium.

The Orchestra’s only recording of the work was made with Eugene Ormandy in 1963 for CBS with Isaac Stern as soloist.

The First Violin Concerto is scored for two flutes (II doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, tuba, timpani, percussion (snare drum, tambourine), harp, and strings, in addition to the solo violin.

The piece runs approximately 22 minutes in performance.

Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”)

Felix Mendelssohn Born iinn Hamburg, February 3, 1809 Died in Leipzig, November 4, 1847

Like Mozart’s early travels around Europe, Mendelssohn’s “grand tour” of 1829-34 had a profound impact on his music. Several of his best-known compositions—the Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage and Hebrides overtures, and the “Italian” and “Scottish” symphonies— had their conceptual origins during this five-year sojourn, when the young composer broke out of provincial Berlin to see the world for the first time. But unlike the child Mozart, who assimilated the actual musical styles of France, Italy, Bohemia, and Austria, Mendelssohn arrived in the European capitals with his musical personality fairly well-formed. What the precocious 20-year-old absorbed from London, Rome, Paris, Salzburg, and Vienna was more in the way of atmosphere and variety—a deepening and enrichment of a ready technique and brilliant natural talent.

Inspiration at Holyrood England and Scotland were among his first stops. “This evening in the twilight we went to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved,” Mendelssohn wrote to his sister, Fanny, from Edinburgh in July 1829. The young German tourist had come upon the castle known as Holyrood, and its histories had completely fascinated him:

A little room is shown there with a winding staircase leading up to the door; up this way they came and found Rizzio in the little room, pulled him out, and three rooms off there is the dark corner where they murdered him. The chapel close to it is roofless now; grass and ivy grow there, and the altar at which Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland is broken. Everything around is broken and moldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I found today in that chapel the beginning of my “Scottish” Symphony.

Despite this auspicious initial inspiration, which evoked 16 measures of musical sketches, Mendelssohn was not to take up his “Scottish” Symphony in earnest until many years later. Immediately after the above visit, in fact, he traveled to Italy and, dazzled by sun and warmth, wrote, “Who can blame me if I am unable to put myself back into the foggy mood of Scotland?” For now, the atmospheric moment was dispelled. Instead the composer took up the “Italian” and “Reformation” symphonies, not returning to complete the “Scottish” until 1842. The latter (“No. 3”) was thus the last of Mendelssohn’s works in this genre to be finished—but because the “Italian” (No. 4) and “Reformation” (No. 5) symphonies were published afterward, the numbering continues to reflect the order of conception, rather than that of completion. The “Scottish” received its belated premiere in March 1842, with Mendelssohn conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig; three months later the composer led the work in London, dedicating it to Queen Victoria. Mendelssohn did not actually title the piece “Scottish” himself, despite having referred to it thus in his correspondence; nonetheless the work retains a palpable flavor of the misty and ancient sadness of Scotland’s green hills.

A Closer Look The movements of this structurally unique work “must follow each other directly,” as the composer has written in the manuscript score, “and are not to be separated by the otherwise customary long pauses.” The brooding introduction (AndanteAndante con motomoto) leads into a bristling main section (AllegroAllegro un pocopoco agitatoagitato). A vibrant scherzo follows (VivaceVivace non troppotroppo); but the sense of melancholy returns in the Adagio, which looks to Beethoven’s later works for thematic inspiration. The complex finale (AllegroAllegro vivacissimovivacissimo———— Allegro maestoso assaiassai) works stealthily and inexorably toward a richly scaled climax of majesty and joy—but always with the tinge of tristesse that is the Symphony’s pervasive mood.

—Paul J. Horsley

Mendelssohn composed his Symphony No. 3 in 1842.

The first Philadelphia Orchestra performances of the “Scottish” Symphony took place in December 1905, with Fritz Scheel on the podium. Since then the work has appeared sporadically on subscription series (it was absent from 1930-46 and then again until 1971). Most recently it was led by Andreas Delfs in March 2005.

The Philadelphians recorded the Symphony in 1977 for RCA with Eugene Ormandy.

Mendelssohn scored the work for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings.

Performance time is approximately 40 minutes.

Program notes © 2012. All rights reserved. Program notes may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association.

GENERAL TERMS Cadence: The conclusion to a phrase, movement, or piece based on a recognizable melodic formula, harmonic progression, or dissonance resolution Cadenza: A passage or section in a style of brilliant improvisation, usually inserted near the end of a movement or composition Chord: The simultaneous sounding of three or more tones Chromatic: Relating to tones foreign to a given key (scale) or chord Coda: A concluding section or passage added in order to confirm the impression of finality Czardas: A national Hungarian dance distinguished by its passionate character and changing tempo Dissonance: A combination of two or more tones requiring resolution Divertimento: A piece of entertaining music in several movements, often scored for a mixed ensemble and having no fixed form Fantasy: A composition free in form and more or less fantastic in character Glissando: A glide from one note to the next Legato: Smooth, even, without any break between notes Leitmotif: Literally “leading motif.” Any striking musical motif (theme, phrase) characterizing or accompanying one of the actors, or some particular idea, emotion, or situation, in a drama. Meter: The symmetrical grouping of musical rhythms Op.: Abbreviation for opus, a term used to indicate the chronological position of a composition within a composer’s output. Opus numbers are not always reliable because they are often applied in the order of publication rather than composition. Rhapsody: Generally an instrumental fantasia on folksongs or on motifs taken from primitive national music Rondo: A form frequently used in symphonies and for the final movement. It consists of a main section that alternates with a variety of contrasting sections (A-B-A-C-A etc.). Scale: The series of tones which form (a) any major or minor key or (b) the chromatic scale of successive semi-tonic steps Sonata form: The form in which the first movements (and sometimes others) of symphonies are usually cast. The sections are exposition, development, and recapitulation, the last sometimes followed by a coda. The exposition is the introduction of the musical ideas, which are then “developed.” In the recapitulation, the exposition is repeated with modifications. Suite: A set or series of pieces in various dance-forms. The modern orchestral suite is more like a divertimento. Symphonic poem: A type of 19th-century symphonic piece in one movement, which is based upon an extramusical idea, either poetic or descriptive Tonality: The orientation of melodies and harmonies towards a specific pitch or pitches Tonic: The keynote of a scale Tutti: All; full orchestra