“leipzig week in boston” sunday, 3pm october 27, 2019 brahms double concerto for violin and cello schubert symphony in c, “ the great” andris nelsons gewandhauskapellmeister BRINGING THE WORLD FACE-TO-FACE WITH BEETHOVEN DHL are proud to deliver ‘BTHVN on Tour’, in cooperation with Beethoven-Haus Bonn, to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday. His music remains as inspiring and revolutionary today as it was when it was written. Discover more about the musical genius, see priceless exhibits and perhaps wish the maestro a Happy Birthday yourself. Visit us at New England Conservatory (Burnes Hall) from 27 October until 2 November or go to InMotion.dhl/BTHVN The Gewandhausorchester would like to thank its Official Logistics Partner DHL for the generous support. Table of Contents 2 the bso/gho alliance 3 bso/gho historical connections 5 a message from german federal president frank-walter steinmeier 6 a message from andris nelsons 9 this afternoon’s program Notes on the Program 10 Today’s Program in Brief… 11 An Introduction to This Week’s Programs by Christoph Wolff 14 Johannes Brahms 18 Franz Schubert Artists 22 Andris Nelsons 22 Leonidas Kavakos 23 Gautier Capuçon 24 Gewandhausorchester Leipzig 28 sponsors and donors The background of this week’s program cover is a photo of the second Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig, which was home to the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig from 1884 until it was destroyed in 1944 (see larger image on page 11 of this program). program copyright ©2019 Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc. cover photo of Andris Nelsons by Marco Borggreve cover design by BSO Marketing The BSO/GHO Alliance “I am incredibly grateful to all my colleagues at the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gewandhausorchester for coming together with me in a spirit of great camaraderie to create a new and absolutely unique partnership in music-making.” Andris Nelsons, BSO Ray and Maria Stata Music Director, and GHO Gewandhauskapellmeister Under the direction of Andris Nelsons, the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (GHO) Alliance established a new, multidimensional collaboration in the 2017-18 season designed to create opportunities for the two orchestras and their respective audiences to explore each ensemble’s unique world of music-making, and to discover the great traditions and historic accomplishments that have played an important role in building their reputations as two of the world’s great orchestras. In addition, the programs of the BSO/GHO Alliance celebrate the shared mutual heritage of these two orchestras, while also shedding light on the overall culture of each ensemble and the cities they are proud to call home. Taking place over a five-year period starting in 2017-18, the BSO/GHO Alliance encom- passes an extensive co-commissioning program, educational programs designed to spotlight each orchestra’s culture and history, and tour performances by the BSO at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and the GHO at Symphony Hall in Boston—providing an extraor- dinary opportunity for orchestra musicians and audiences alike. This unprecedented alliance also includes the BSO/GHO Musician Exchange program, whereby members of the BSO play in the Gewandhausorchester while GHO members play with the BSO, as well as an exchange component within each orchestra’s acclaimed academy for advanced music studies. A major highlight of the BSO/GHO Alliance, to take place annually over the five-year period of the collaboration, is a focus on complementary programming, through which the BSO celebrates “Leipzig Week in Boston” and the GHO celebrates “Boston Week in Leipzig,” thereby highlighting each other’s musical traditions through uniquely programmed concerts, chamber music performances, archival exhibits, and lecture series. To learn more about the BSO/GHO Alliance, please visit www.bso.org/leipzigweek. 2 The BSO/GHO Alliance: Sharing Historical Connections The history of close cultural connections between Boston and Leipzig began in 1881, when the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s founder, Henry Lee Higginson, appointed Leipzig Conservatory-trained Georg Henschel as the BSO’s first conductor. Subsequent con- ductors of the BSO, including Wilhelm Gericke, Emil Paur, Max Fiedler, Karl Muck, and particularly Arthur Nikisch, were either educated in Leipzig and/or held posts with the Gewandhausorchester (GHO). In the mid-20th century, the Leipzig tie was reinforced when Charles Munch was the BSO’s music director from 1949 to 1962; Munch, who studied in Leipzig, was concertmaster of the Gewandhausorchester from 1926 to 1933. Symphony Hall in Boston, which was inaugurated in 1900, is not simply a replica of the historically renowned second Gewandhaus, which opened its doors in 1884 and was destroyed in 1944. Major Higginson had visited the Leipzig concert hall while touring Europe and had instructed his team of architects to design, for Boston, a larger version of the Gewandhaus, with as many as 2,600 seats. Boston’s new hall also added the latest acoustical principles to the overall design of its Leipzig counterpart. These acoustical principles played a major role in determining the size of the stage and the placement of sound-absorbing statues in the auditorium, among other features. In 1974, the Gewandhaus- orchester appeared in Boston’s Symphony Hall during its first tour of the United States. To date, Boston has welcomed the Gewandhausorchester for ten guest performances, including its most recent appearance in the 2014-15 concert season. Though the BSO made its debut appearance at the Gewandhaus in May 2016, the Leipzig hall had already featured the BSO-affiliated Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2008, during that ensemble’s European tour. Most recently, Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig this past September, during the BSO’s 2018 European tour. Since its founding in 1743, the GHO has been associated with some of the greatest figures of music history, including Johann Sebastian Bach, who lived and worked in Leipzig from 1723 until 1750, the year of his death. Besides the GHO’s widely known reputation for performances of Bach’s works, the orchestra also gave the premieres of works by Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, among others. This tradition has continued into the 20th and 21st centuries with scores by such significant composers as Henze, Kancheli, and Rihm, among others. The BSO’s own commissioning legacy is similarly distinguished, including seminal 20th-century scores from composers ranging from Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Bartók, to Messiaen and Dutilleux, and myriad Americans, among them Copland, Bernstein, Sessions, Carter, and Harbison. the bso/gho alliance 3 About Celebrity Series of Boston Founded in 1938 by pianist and impresario Aaron Richmond, the Celebrity Series of Boston is one of the nation’s largest and most highly regarded independent non-profit performing arts presenting organizations. From its inception, the Celebrity Series became a mainstay of Boston’s cultural life. Many nationally and internationally recognized artists have made their Boston debuts presented by the Celebrity Series. Today’s orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, made its Boston debut in October 1974 under the baton of Kurt Masur. Other notable artists presented by Celebrity Series in their Boston debuts include soprano Leontyne Price (1959), Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (1968), flutist James Galway (1978), cellist Yo-Yo Ma (1981), pianists Emanuel Ax (1981) and Evgeny Kissin (1991), and violinist Joshua Bell (1991). With a reputation for artistic excellence and innovative curation honed over the decades, Celebrity Series now presents more than sixty-five main stage performances in eight to ten different venues. In a region rich with cultural offerings, Celebrity Series is a critical part of the cultural fabric of Boston and New England, not only bringing great artists to Boston whom audiences might not otherwise experience but also introducing new artists, new art forms, and new artistic experiences. Today, Celebrity Series’ audiences experience the world’s great orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists, and leading artists in contemporary dance, jazz, world and folk music, and spoken word. Alongside mainstage performances, Celebrity Series’ Arts for All! community engagement programs connect with a dynamic network of hundreds of community collaborators, reaching thousands of individuals annually, through 150+ activities. Arts for All! programs include Neighborhood Arts (hands-on, interactive workshops for youth and free community concerts for audiences of all ages at neighborhood venues, both led by a core group of Boston-area artists); Artist Connections (master classes with mainstage artists in public schools and conservatories); Take Your Seat (free and discounted tickets to mainstage performances); and large-scale, participatory Public Performance Projects, such as Street Pianos, Let’s Dance Boston, and most recently, Concert for One. From the Celebrity Series of Boston archives… Celebrity Series presented the Boston debut of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig in October 1974, under the baton of Kurt Masur. This afternoon’s performance is the orchestra’s tenth for the Celebrity Series, the most recent being November 2014 with conductor Riccardo Chailly. Andris Nelsons leads the GHO in Boston for the first time today. Violinist Leonidas Kavakos’ Boston recital debut in February 2014 was presented by Celebrity Series and his most recent appearance on the Series was in February 2018, with Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma, performing Brahms trios. Cellist Gautier Capuçon made his Celebrity Series recital debut with pianist Yuja Wang in April 2019. A Message From Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier Patron of Deutschlandjahr USA 2018/19 Friendship, according to Aristotle, is a single soul dwelling in two bodies. The soul that unites us and forms the basis of the friendship between the United States of America and Germany is our belief in democracy, the inalienable rights of all people, and the rule of law. This is a constant struggle, an ideal that we both uphold and strive to perfect. We know that friendship is not a miraculous gift that materializes without effort.