FOR RELEASE: February 22, 2012 SUPPLEMENT THE BACH VARIATIONS: A PHILHARMONIC FESTIVAL A COLLABORATION WITH 92ND STREET Y SPRING 2013 Perspectives on Bach by MASAAKI SUZUKI, ALAN GILBERT, ANDRÁS SCHIFF, BERNARD LABADIE Mass in B Minor, Orchestral Suites, Mendelssohn, and Schumann _________________________________________ “Bach’s music really can be full of its most meaningful expression in a huge range of interpretations and stylistic approaches, and that’s one of the things that we’re trying to show. We also want to show that there are different, equally valid ways to approach the music through different lenses.” — Alan Gilbert __________________________________________ In the spring of 2013 the New York Philharmonic will present The Bach Variations: A Philharmonic Festival, exploring the work of Baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach through the lens of a variety of conductors’ and artists’ interpretations. Four orchestral programs, spanning March 6–April 6, 2013, will be led by different conductors, each bringing a different perspective to the composer’s work. Also in 2012–13, 92nd Street Y presents Bach Through the Season, which includes performances by some of the artists featured at the Philharmonic as well as a symposium with Mr. Gilbert. Together, the two institutions will offer a multidimensional portrait of Bach, featuring events that will explore varying interpretations of some of the composer’s greatest works. Alan Gilbert said: “Bach is the composer who, more often than not, ends up at the top of anybody’s list of greatest composers or favorite composers. The idea that great music, and particularly Bach’s music, can withstand interpretation and can be treated in different ways led us to try to find different conductors who would approach the music in different ways.” The festival’s first orchestral program, March 6–9, 2013, will be conducted by Japanese Bach specialist Masaaki Suzuki in his Philharmonic debut; Alan Gilbert will lead the festival’s second orchestral program, featuring Bach’s Mass in B minor, March 13–16, 2013; Bernard Labadie, who takes an early-music approach but with modern instruments, will conduct the 2 concerts on March 21–23, 2013; and pianist András Schiff will make his Philharmonic conducting debut leading the final program, April 3–6, 2013. Mr. Gilbert said: “I think it will be fascinating to see Suzuki, who has mostly worked with his own ensembles, with his rigorous performance practice. Bernard Labadie has been very successful in applying the principles of performance practice with modern symphony orchestras. András Schiff’s program, in which he’ll be playing and conducting, is really exciting because it combines the music of Bach with that of Mendelssohn and Schumann, composers who both loved Bach very much and were very influenced by him. I’m conducting the B-minor Mass; I’m not a Bach specialist, but I will try to approach the music with sincerity as a musician. I think it will be fascinating to see how these weeks play out.” PROGRAM I Japanese Bach Specialist Masaaki Suzuki To Make His Philharmonic Debut Conducting J.S. Bach and Mendelssohn With the Bach Collegium Japan, Yale Schola Cantorum, and Soloists For the first orchestral program of the festival, March 6–9, 2013, Japanese Bach specialist Masaaki Suzuki, known for his mastery of Bach and his work with period instruments, will make his New York Philharmonic debut conducting the Orchestra, sopranos Sherezade Panthaki (debut) and Joelle Harvey (debut), countertenor Iestyn Davies (debut), tenor Nicholas Phan, baritone Tyler Duncan (debut), the Bach Collegium Japan (debut), and Yale Schola Cantorum (debut) in an historically-informed interpretation of Bach’s motet Singet dem Herrn and Magnificat, followed by Mendelssohn’s Christus and Magnificat. Masaaki Suzuki said: “It is a wonderful and great honor for me to work with the New York Philharmonic. My earliest experience with a symphony orchestra was the concert of Mahler’s Ninth with Leonard Bernstein and the Philharmonic in the early 1960s in Osaka, Japan, which I will always remember, so this project is very emotional for me.” Bach composed the first version of the Magnificat in E-flat in 1723 for Christmas Vespers, during his first year as director of music at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. A revised version, from which Bach had removed the Christmas-specific portions and which he transposed to D major, was premiered at that church in July 1733. The Magnificat — a grand work for large orchestra, five-part choir, and five soloists — sets a libretto that is based on the canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is perhaps the most often-used liturgical text other than the Mass. Mr. Suzuki said: “Bach’s music can be interpreted and performed not only by the period instruments. I think there must be another way for the symphony orchestra to present it, and the wonderful quality of music-making of the New York Philharmonic will certainly shed light on the different aspects of Bach’s music.” Mendelssohn began to compose his unfinished oratorio Christus in 1846, and continued working on it until just before his death the following year. With a German libretto by Christian Karl 3 Josias von Bunsen (who had suggested the idea of the piece to Mendelssohn), the completed portions include a tenor recitative on Christ’s birth, the chorus “Where is the Newborn,” the chorus “There Shall a Star from Jacob Shine Forth” (based on Philipp Nicolai’s chorale Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern), and the concluding chorale “Welt, sieh’ hier dein Leben.” Heavily influenced by Bach, Mendelssohn completed his Magnificat in 1822, when he was only 13, while he was studying the music of the pre-Classical composers with Carl Friedrich Zelter at the Berlin Singakademie. Although he was still a student, Mendelssohn interpreted the Baroque ideas for a contemporary orchestra, creating a sound world that, while tipping his hand to Bach, is definitely Mendelssohn’s own. Mr. Suzuki said: “Mendelssohn is one of the most important composers who loved Bach and was influenced by Bach. When we juxtapose these two composers, it will be possible to appreciate both of them more deeply. This concept is not easy for period instruments, but can be ideally realized by an orchestra like the New York Philharmonic.” PROGRAM II Alan Gilbert Conducts the Mass in B minor With Soprano Dorothea Röschmann, Mezzo-Soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, Tenor Steve Davislim, and Bass-Baritone Eric Owens, with the New York Choral Artists On the festival’s second orchestral program, March 13–16, 2013, Alan Gilbert will conduct the Philharmonic in Bach’s Mass in B minor, with soprano Dorothea Röschmann, mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, tenor Steve Davislim, bass-baritone Eric Owens, and the New York Choral Artists, Joseph Flummerfelt, director. The 1749 work is considered by many to be one of the composer’s greatest, and one of the late-Baroque era’s monumental pieces. A setting of the complete Latin Mass — unusual for someone working in the Lutheran tradition — the Mass in B minor includes pieces Bach had previously composed, as well as new sections that were ultimately his last major compositions. Alan Gilbert said: “The Mass in B minor is a consummate masterpiece that makes me feel humble as a musician when I hear it. Bach took a liturgical, religious starting point and made it even more universal. No matter what you believe, no matter your religious credo, or whether or not you even have a religious credo, it is impossible not to be incredibly moved by this music because it speaks from one human directly into the heart of another. This is the kind of piece that orchestras should be playing. I feel very privileged to be able to touch this music.” The New York Philharmonic has presented selected movements from the Mass in B minor five times in the past (in 1917, 1918, 1927, 1935, and 2011), and has presented the entire work on only four occasions: in 1965, conducted by William Steinberg; 1982, with Erich Leinsdorf conducting his own arrangement; 1989, with Helmuth Rilling; and in 1996, with Kurt Masur. 4 PROGRAM III Bernard Labadie Conducts Two Bach Orchestral Suites, Two Violin Concertos with Violinist Isabelle Faust, And the Sinfonia from Cantata No. 42 The third orchestral program, March 21–23, 2013, will be led by Bernard Labadie — a conductor whose perspective blends traditional and modern — overseeing a program comprising Bach’s Sinfonia from Cantata No. 42, Orchestral Suites Nos. 3 and 4, and Violin Concertos in A minor and E major, performed by violinist Isabelle Faust in her Philharmonic debut. Mr. Labadie said: “I think it’s fantastic that the New York Philharmonic is doing this festival, because for many years symphony orchestras have almost abandoned the field of 18th-century music to specialized groups, and I think it’s sad. Not that specialized groups shouldn’t be doing it — on the contrary, and I’m working with a lot of them – but I think it’s about time symphony orchestras reclaimed that territory. To actually present a complete festival is admirable; I think it’s very important for the orchestra and for the musicians because it basically opens them up to a completely different world. The life of an orchestra is not complete without adding regular access to that world.” Bach wrote his two violin concertos, No. 1 in A minor, BWV 1041 (1723), and No. 2 in E major, BWV 1042 (1730), for his concertmaster at the court of Prince Leopold at Cöthen. The genesis of Bach’s Orchestral Suites is uncertain: the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D minor, BWV 1068, may have been written circa 1730 when he was the director of Leipzig’s Collegium Musicum; it contains one of the composer’s most famous movements, the Air, which was arranged by German violinist August Wilhelmj and has become known as Air on the G String.