23
Season 2016-2017
Wednesday, May 3, at 8:00
Friday, May 5, at 2:00
Saturday, May 6, at 8:00
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor
Sasha Cooke Mezzo-soprano
Radu Lupu Piano
Bernstein Symphony No. 1 (“Jeremiah”)
I. Prophecy
II. Profanation
III. Lamentation
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491
I. Allegro
II. Larghetto
III. Allegretto
Intermission
Schumann Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61
I. Sostenuto assai—Allegro ma non troppo
II. Scherzo: Allegro vivace
III. Adagio espressivo
IV. Allegro molto vivace
This program runs approximately 2 hours, 5 minutes.
Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI
90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 1 PM. Visit wrti.org
to listen live or for more details.
24
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Jessica Griffin
The Philadelphia Orchestra
is one of the preeminent
orchestras in the world,
renowned for its distinctive
sound, desired for its
keen ability to capture the
hearts and imaginations of
audiences, and admired for
a legacy of imagination and
innovation on and off the
concert stage. The Orchestra
is inspiring the future and
transforming its rich tradition
of achievement, sustaining
the highest level of artistic
quality, but also challenging—
and exceeding—that level,
by creating powerful musical
experiences for audiences at
home and around the world.
Music Director Yannick
Nézet-Séguin’s connection
to the Orchestra’s musicians
has been praised by
both concertgoers and
critics since his inaugural
season in 2012. Under his
leadership the Orchestra
returned to recording, with
two celebrated CDs on
the prestigious Deutsche
Grammophon label,
continuing its history of
recording success. The
Orchestra also reaches
thousands of listeners on the
radio with weekly Sunday
afternoon broadcasts on
WRTI-FM.
Philadelphia is home and
the Orchestra continues
to discover new and
inventive ways to nurture
its relationship with its
loyal patrons at its home
in the Kimmel Center,
and also with those who
enjoy the Orchestra’s area
performances at the Mann
Center, Penn’s Landing,
and other cultural, civic,
and learning venues. The
Orchestra maintains a strong
commitment to collaborations
with cultural and community
organizations on a regional
and national level, all of which
create greater access and
engagement with classical
music as an art form.
The Philadelphia Orchestra
serves as a catalyst for
cultural activity across
Philadelphia’s many
communities, building an
offstage presence as strong
as its onstage one. With
Nézet-Séguin, a dedicated
body of musicians, and one
of the nation’s richest arts
ecosystems, the Orchestra
has launched its HEAR
initiative, a portfolio of
integrated initiatives that
promotes Health, champions
music Education, eliminates
barriers to Accessing the
orchestra, and maximizes
impact through Research.
The Orchestra’s awardwinning Collaborative
Learning programs engage
over 50,000 students,
families, and community
members through programs
such as PlayINs, side-bysides, PopUP concerts,
free Neighborhood
Concerts, School Concerts,
and residency work in
Philadelphia and abroad.
Through concerts, tours,
residencies, presentations,
and recordings, The
Philadelphia Orchestra is
a global ambassador for
Philadelphia and for the
US. Having been the first
American orchestra to
perform in China, in 1973
at the request of President
Nixon, the ensemble today
boasts a new partnership with
Beijing’s National Centre for
the Performing Arts and the
Shanghai Oriental Art Centre,
and in 2017 will be the firstever Western orchestra to
appear in Mongolia. The
Orchestra annually performs
at Carnegie Hall while also
enjoying summer residencies
in Saratoga Springs, NY, and
Vail, CO. For more information
on The Philadelphia
Orchestra, please visit
www.philorch.org.
4
Music Director
Chris Lee
Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is now confirmed
to lead The Philadelphia Orchestra through the 2025-26
season, an extraordinary and significant long-term commitment.
Additionally, he becomes music director of the Metropolitan
Opera beginning with the 2021-22 season. Yannick, who
holds the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Chair, is an inspired
leader of the Orchestra. His intensely collaborative style, deeply
rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm have been
heralded by critics and audiences alike. The New York Times
has called him “phenomenal,” adding that under his baton, “the
ensemble, famous for its glowing strings and homogenous
richness, has never sounded better.” Highlights of his fifth
season include an exploration of American Sounds, with works
by Leonard Bernstein, Christopher Rouse, Mason Bates, and
Christopher Theofanidis; a Music of Paris Festival; and the
continuation of a focus on opera and sacred vocal works, with
Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Mozart’s C-minor Mass.
Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the
highest caliber and one of the most thrilling talents of his
generation. He has been music director of the Rotterdam
Philharmonic since 2008 and artistic director and principal
conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain since
2000. He was also principal guest conductor of the
London Philharmonic from 2008 to 2014. He has made
wildly successful appearances with the world’s most
revered ensembles and has conducted critically acclaimed
performances at many of the leading opera houses.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
enjoy a long-term collaboration. Under his leadership The
Philadelphia Orchestra returned to recording with two CDs
on that label. He continues fruitful recording relationships with
the Rotterdam Philharmonic on DG, EMI Classics, and BIS
Records; the London Philharmonic for the LPO label; and
the Orchestre Métropolitain for ATMA Classique. In Yannick’s
inaugural season The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to the
radio airwaves, with weekly Sunday afternoon broadcasts on
WRTI-FM.
A native of Montreal, Yannick studied piano, conducting,
composition, and chamber music at Montreal’s Conservatory
of Music and continued his studies with renowned conductor
Carlo Maria Giulini; he also studied choral conducting with
Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College. Among
Yannick’s honors are an appointment as Companion of the
Order of Canada, Musical America’s 2016 Artist of the Year,
Canada’s National Arts Centre Award, the Prix Denise-Pelletier,
and honorary doctorates from the University of Quebec in
Montreal, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and
Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ.
To read Yannick’s full bio, please visit www.philorch.org/conductor.
25
Soloist
Dario Acosta
Grammy Award-winning American mezzo-soprano Sasha
Cooke is sought after by the world’s leading orchestras,
opera companies, and chamber music ensembles for
her versatile repertoire and commitment to new music.
Operatic highlights of her 2016-17 season include
Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel at Seattle Opera
and the world premiere of composer Mason Bates and
librettist Mark Campbell’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs
at Santa Fe Opera. Orchestral engagements include
appearances with the Chicago Symphony and Riccardo
Muti in Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible, Bernstein’s First
Symphony with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and
a staged version of Verdi’s Requiem with Houston Grand
Opera under Patrick Summers. Her season also features
performances of Christopher Theofanidis’s Creation/
Creator with the Atlanta Symphony and Robert Spano;
Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Milwaukee Symphony
and Edo de Waart; Duruflé’s Requiem with the Cleveland
Orchestra conducted by Matthew Halls and with the
National Symphony under Donald Runnicles; Handel,
Mahler, and Mozart with the Los Angeles Chamber
Orchestra; Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Krzysztof
Urbański and the Indianapolis Symphony; and Mozart’s
Requiem with the Oregon Symphony.
Ms. Cooke appears with the Minnesota Orchestra to sing
and record Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 conducted by Osmo
Vänskä and with the Nashville Symphony for Harbison’s
Requiem, also being recorded. On DVD she can be seen in
the Metropolitan Opera’s productions of Hansel and Gretel
and Adams’s Doctor Atomic under conductor Alan Gilbert,
which won a Grammy Award. Her recordings can be found
on the Hyperion, Naxos, Bridge Records, Yarlung, GPR
Records, and Sono Luminus labels.
Ms. Cooke made her Philadelphia Orchestra debut in
Handel’s Messiah in 2013 and makes her subscription
debut with these current performances. A graduate of
Rice University and the Juilliard School, she also attended
the Music Academy of the West, the Aspen and Marlboro
music festivals, the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music
Institute, the Wolf Trap Foundation, the Metropolitan
Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program,
and Central City Opera’s Young Artist Training Program.
26
Soloist
Zdenek Chrapek
Pianist Radu Lupu is firmly established as one of the
most important musicians of his generation and is widely
acknowledged as a leading interpreter of the works
of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Schubert. Since
winning the prestigious Van Cliburn (1966) and Leeds
(1969) piano competitions, he has regularly performed
as soloist and recitalist in the musical capitals of Europe
and the United States. He has appeared many times
with the Berlin Philharmonic since debuting with that
ensemble at the 1978 Salzburg Festival under Herbert
von Karajan, and with the Vienna Philharmonic, including
the opening concert of the 1986 Salzburg Festival under
Riccardo Muti. He is also a frequent visitor to the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra and all the major London and
American orchestras. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra
debut in 1973. He has played at most of the notable music
festivals and has been a regular guest at the Salzburg and
Lucerne festivals.
This season Mr. Lupu performs with the Munich and
Helsinki philharmonics, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the
Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia,
the Boston and Chicago symphonies, and the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra. He also gives recitals in
Leipzig, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Vienna,
and Berlin.
Mr. Lupu has made more than 20 recordings for London/
Decca, including the complete Beethoven concertos with
the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta; the complete
Mozart violin and piano sonatas with Szymon Goldberg;
Grieg and Schumann concertos; Debussy and Franck
violin and piano sonatas with Kyung Wha Chung; and
numerous solo recordings of works by Beethoven,
Brahms, and Schubert. He also has two recordings with
pianist Murray Perahia (CBS); two albums of Schubert
lieder with soprano Barbara Hendricks (EMI); and a disc
of Schubert works for piano, four hands, with Daniel
Barenboim (Teldec). His recordings have won the Grammy
and Edison awards. Born in Romania, Mr. Lupu began
studying the piano at age six. He made his public debut
with a complete program of his own music at age 12 and
won a scholarship to the Moscow State Conservatory. He
is the recipient of the 2006 Premio Internazionale Arturo
Benedetti Michelangeli award.
27
Framing the Program
Parallel Events
1786
Mozart
Piano Concerto
No. 24
Music
Dittersdorf
Doctor und
Apotheker
Literature
Bourgoyne
The Heiress
Art
Goya
The Seasons
History
Shays Rebellion
in MA
1846
Schumann
Symphony
No. 2
Music
Berlioz
The Damnation
of Faust
Literature
Dostoyevsky
Poor Folk
Art
Cole
Catskill
Landscape
History
Potato famine in
Ireland
1942
Bernstein
Symphony
No. 1
Music
Copland
Rodeo
Literature
Wilder
The Skin of Our
Teeth
Art
Bonnard
L’Oiseau bleu
History
World War II:
Germans reach
Stalingrad
The three works on this program, spanning the 18th,
19th, and 20th centuries, are among the most personal
utterances of their composers, offering journeys of the soul.
At age 23 Leonard Bernstein began writing the first of his
three symphonies and soon afterward made his legendary
conducting debut with the New York Philharmonic as a
last-minute replacement in a nationally broadcast concert.
His three-movement “Jeremiah” Symphony uses texts
from the biblical Book of Lamentations. Decades later
Bernstein stated that many of his compositions are “about
the struggle that is born of the crisis of our century, a crisis
of faith. Even way back, when I wrote ‘Jeremiah,’ I was
wrestling with that problem.”
Among Mozart’s dozens of piano concertos and
symphonies only two in each genre are in minor keys.
These particularly intense works, among them the
Concerto No. 24 in C minor, have long invited speculation
about possible autobiographical connections.
Robert Schumann struggled throughout his life with
depression—it ran in his family and led ultimately to a
suicide attempt that landed him in a mental asylum for
the last two years of his life. He composed his Second
Symphony during a period of poor health and admitted that
the deeply felt work “told a tale of many joys and sorrows.”
28
The Music
Symphony No. 1 (“Jeremiah”)
Leonard Bernstein
Born in Lawrence,
Massachusetts, August 25,
1918
Died in New York City,
October 14, 1990
From those to whom much is given, much is expected.
It is a good thing that Leonard Bernstein’s many talents
were so incandescent and his personality so full-speedahead, because the burdens of expectation that he
carried would have crushed a lesser man. His father, Sam
Bernstein, thought his teenage son was throwing away
his verbal and intellectual gifts on summer-camp shows
and skits, and devoutly hoped that Leonard would become
a distinguished rabbi. The young man attended Harvard
at his father’s insistence, and did well at everything,
but his heart was in the theater and the concert hall. In
1943, when he was just 25 years old, he made the most
spectacular conducting debut in American history, stepping
in on short notice to conduct the New York Philharmonic
in place of the indisposed Bruno Walter, in a concert
broadcast nationwide. That event made him the only nativeborn American superstar of classical music until the muchpublicized triumph of the pianist Van Cliburn in Moscow in
1958. So add national pride to the burdens that he carried.
Meanwhile, his camp-show talent propelled him on
Broadway as the composer of such classic musicals as
On the Town (1944) and West Side Story (1957). He also
became a TV star, talking about (of all things) classical
music. Besides his articulateness and good looks, it was
his command of the subject and personal conviction
that made these pop-culture products successful. On
the conductor’s podium, he took more risks, advocating
(as Bruno Walter had) the sprawling symphonies of
Mahler when the fashion in new music favored the atonal
miniatures of Schoenberg and Webern. Of course, with all
these accomplishments came still more expectations.
The Hurdle of the “First Symphony” In the postBeethoven era, every composer approaches his or her
“Symphony No. 1” with trepidation. Just ask Johannes
Brahms, who was 43 by the time he finished composing
his First. Now try to imagine what this milestone would
have meant to the mature Leonard Bernstein, who was
doing a pretty good job of being all things to all music fans
in America and abroad, and yet had been hearing “he’s
throwing his talent away” for his whole life, from father
Sam right up to yesterday’s newspaper reviews.
29
Happily for him, young Bernstein got the “first symphony”
hurdle out of the way early. In response to a competition
at the New England Conservatory, with his mentor Serge
Koussevitzky as chairman of the jury, he plunged into
his First Symphony in 1942, at age 23, before he knew
how hard it is to write a symphony. Although the piece,
completed in haste to make the deadline, didn’t win a prize,
Bernstein sent it a few months later to Koussevitzky and to
his conducting teacher, Fritz Reiner, and was thrilled when
the latter responded favorably. Bernstein’s correspondence
with his mentor Aaron Copland sheds light on both their
personalities. Bernstein writes impulsively: “[Reiner] wants
to do my Symphony in Pittsburgh next fall, and he loves
it, and he wants me to conduct a program anyway, and
maybe to do the Symph myself. Lovely, lovely news! But
he is most anxious for a fourth movement; insists it’s all
too sad and defeatist. Same criticism my father had: which
raises Pop in my estimation no end. I really haven’t the time
or the energy for a fourth movement. I seem to have had
my say as far as that piece is concerned and I want to get
on with something else.”
Copland responded wryly and presciently: “I know you
want me to be amazed at your successes but nothing that
happens to you can ever surprise me. Isn’t that too bad.
Least of all your triumphs as a composer. But I am pleased
that Reiner wants you to conduct in Pittsburgh. Koussie
will be jealous that he didn’t get you first. Maybe you can
start a career as our first native guest conductor.”
Then came the famous Philharmonic debut, for which the
whole Bernstein family had rushed to Carnegie Hall from
Lawrence, Massachusetts. The young conductor later said
that after the concert his previously skeptical father was
“all aglow ... absolutely dazzled,” and there was “a great
moment of forgiveness and very deep emotion.” At that
moment, he said, he decided to dedicate the “Jeremiah”
Symphony to his father.
A Crisis of Faith “Jeremiah” had its premiere at last with
the Pittsburgh Symphony, the composer conducting, on
January 28, 1944; the mezzo-soprano soloist was Jennie
Tourel. At the time, reflecting on the Symphony’s biblical text
of lamentation, Bernstein told an interviewer, “How can I be
blind to the problems of my own people? I’d give everything
I have to be able to strike a death blow at Fascism.” Despite
Reiner’s reservations about no happy ending, the Symphony
seemed to catch the spirit of the times. Acclaimed at its
premiere, the piece was performed on NBC Radio a few
months later, and within three years Bernstein himself had
30
Bernstein composed his
Symphony No. 1 in 1942.
led performances in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit,
Rochester, Prague, and Jerusalem.
The Philadelphia Orchestra
first performed the “Jeremiah”
in March 1965, with Elyakum
Shapira conducting and Betty
Allen as the mezzo-soprano
soloist. The last subscription
performances were in January
2008, led by Christoph
Eschenbach with mezzosoprano Rinat Shaham.
Looking back 35 years, Bernstein told reporters at a 1977
press conference in Berlin that he was “always writing the
same piece, as all composers do. ... The work I have been
writing all my life is about the struggle that is born of the
crisis of our century, a crisis of faith. Even way back, when
I wrote ‘Jeremiah,’ I was wrestling with that problem.”
The Symphony is scored
for three flutes (III doubling
piccolo), two oboes, English
horn, two clarinets, E-flat
clarinet (doubling bass
clarinet), two bassoons,
contrabassoon, four horns,
three trumpets, three
trombones, tuba, timpani,
percussion (bass drum,
cymbals, maracas, snare drum,
suspended cymbals, triangle,
wood block), piano, strings,
and mezzo-soprano soloist.
Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1
runs approximately 24 minutes
in performance.
This work began even further back than 1942, with a
sketch for a Lamentation for soprano and orchestra, which
Bernstein wrote in the summer of 1939. Three years
later, with Mahler as his model, he made this song the
centerpiece of “Jeremiah.” (That the centerpiece comes at
the end is maybe what bothered Sam Bernstein and Reiner.)
A Closer Look The first movement (Prophecy) is
very much in the fervent style of wartime American
symphonies by composers such as Copland, Bernstein’s
teacher Walter Piston, and especially William Schuman:
Impassioned, high-reaching string passages give way to
melancholy wind solos, with muscular brass chords as
punctuation. In a program note, the composer described
this music as aiming “to parallel in feeling the intensity of
the prophet’s pleas with his people” to return to the path
of righteousness. This free-form musical poem, which
ends inconclusively, is not so much a traditional symphonic
first movement as a prelude to what follows.
The so-called “scherzo” (Profanation) is no joke, but a
turbulent outburst whose furious Latin rhythms and brassand-wind sonorities not only refer again to the American
symphonic school, but suggest an intriguing link between
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Bernstein’s West Side Story.
The composer wrote that he wanted “to give a general
sense of the destruction and chaos brought on by the
pagan corruption within the priesthood and the people.”
Bernstein described the climactic final movement
(Lamentation) as “the cry of Jeremiah, as he mourns his
beloved Jerusalem, ruined, pillaged, and dishonored after his
desperate efforts to save it.” If Bernstein’s debt to Copland
is evident in this music, he wields that style with a skill that
sometimes surpasses his model, especially in text-setting,
displaying the singer, and dramatic timing. The tender
instrumental interludes are effective foils for the impassioned
vocal passages, and the long orchestral epilogue, far from
“sad and defeatist,” invites the listener to reflect on the
prophet’s last appeal, “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord. ...”
—David Wright
31
From “The Lamentations of Jeremiah”
Echa
PEREQ 1.1-3
Ēcha yashva vadad ha-ir
Rabati am
Hay’ta k’almana;
Rabati vagoyim
Sarati bam’dinot
Hay’ta lamas.
CHAPTER 1.1-3
How doth the city sit solitary,
That was full of people!
How is she become as a widow!
She that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces,
How is she become tributary!
Bacho tivkeh balaila,
V’dim’ata al lecheya;
Ēn la m’nachēm
Mikol ohaveha;
Kol rēeha bag’du va,
Hayu la l’oy’vim.
She weepeth sore in the night,
And her tears are on her cheeks;
She hath none to comfort her
Among all her lovers;
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
They are become her enemies.
Galta Y’huda mēoni,
Umērov avoda;
Hi yashva vagoyim,
Lo matsa mano-ach;
Kol rod’feha hisiguha
Bēn ham’tsarim.
Judah is gone into exile because of affliction,
And because of great servitude;
She dwelleth among the nations,
She findeth no rest.
All her pursuers overtook her
Within the narrow passes.
PEREQ 1.8
Chēt chata Y’rushalyim
(Ēcha yashva vadad ha-ir
… k’almana.)
CHAPTER 1.8
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned …
How doth the city sit solitary
… a widow.
PEREQ 4.14-15
Na-u ivrim bachutsot
N’go-alu badam,
B’lo yuchlu
Yig’u bilvushēhem.
CHAPTER 4.14-15
They wander as blind men in the streets,
They are polluted with blood,
So that men cannot
Touch their garments.
Suru tamē kar’u lamo,
Suru, suru al tiga-u …
Depart, ye unclean! they cried unto them,
Depart, depart! touch us not …
PEREQ 5.20-21
Lama lanetsach tishkachēnu …
Lanetsach taazvēnu …
CHAPTER 5.20-21
Wherefore dost Thou forget us forever,
And forsake us so long time? …
Hashivēnu Adonai ēlecha …
Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord …
32
The Music
Piano Concerto No. 24
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart
Born in Salzburg,
January 27, 1756
Died in Vienna,
December 5, 1791
It is not difficult to see why the 19th century favored
“minor-key” Mozart. Works such as the G-minor Symphony,
K. 440, the Piano Concerto in D minor, K. 466, or the
Don Giovanni Overture possessed the drama and pathos
that the Romantic period craved, and these compositions
helped engender the view of Mozart as precursor to the
histrionics of Beethoven, Schumann, and Wagner. Today
we see Mozart from broader perspectives, not just as
proto-Romantic but as Italianate melodist and as slightly
out-of-step Classicist. Investigations into late-Baroque
opera have uncovered sources for his incomparable bel
canto, and studies of J.C. Bach have revealed the extent
to which he drew upon the music of this youngest of
Sebastian’s sons toward developing a mature concerto
style. Still, even as these studies have increased our
estimation of the major-key concertos, fascination with
such works as the C-minor Piano Concerto remains strong.
A Rare Struggle for Mozart The C-minor Concerto
was one of the trio written in early 1786 for Lenten
concerts presented at Vienna’s Burgtheater. Since Mozart
dated the manuscript of K. 491 as having been completed
on March 24, 1786, scholars have reasonably presumed
that the work formed a part of the benefit concert Mozart
gave there on April 7. But as no program for that concert
survives, uncertainty remains; in any case the Concerto
was not published until after Mozart’s death, in 1800.
The 12 concertos that Mozart completed from 1782
to 1786 constitute his most important instrumental
music, “symphonic in the highest sense,” in the words of
musicologist Alfred Einstein. No fewer than six of these
were written in 1785 and 1786, and they are among
Mozart’s best-known works: K. 466, 467, 482, 488, 491,
and 503. Each of these is unique; each creates its own
individual ethic. The C-minor Concerto contains some of
the composer’s darkest moments, and is filled with chilling
intimations of the introverted fury of Mozart’s last music,
such as that of The Magic Flute and the Requiem.
The C-minor Concerto apparently caused Mozart some
difficulty, as indicated by the alternative versions he
provided in the third variation of the finale. Here the
33
Mozart composed the C-minor
Piano Concerto in 1786.
Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler
was the soloist in the first
Philadelphia Orchestra
performances of the Concerto,
in February 1915; Leopold
Stokowski was the conductor.
The most recent subscription
performances were in January
2013, with Imogen Cooper as
conductor and soloist.
Mozart scored the work for an
orchestra of flute, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons,
two horns, two trumpets,
timpani, and strings, in addition
to the solo piano.
The Concerto lasts
approximately 30 minutes in
performance.
composer seems to have struggled—right in the pages of
the autograph manuscript itself, atypically for him—to find
a “right” solution. The soloist is left to make the choice for
him- or herself, and is furthermore called upon to fill out
some of the implied rapid passagework that Mozart has
left in a sort of skeletal shorthand of widely separated
long notes. And finally, Mozart has left no written-out
cadenzas or Eingänge (lead ins) for the Concerto. Mr.
Lupu plays his own cadenzas in these performances.
A Closer Look The Concerto’s first movement (Allegro)
opens with a principal subject of marvelous interest
and potential. The listener can hardly help thinking that
Beethoven had this theme in his ear when he wrote his
Third Concerto in C minor—a piece that bears more than
passing resemblance, in fact, to Mozart’s Concerto. But
Mozart’s first subject is more elusive and unpredictable
than Beethoven’s, and it keeps us in suspense for a full 12
bars of motivic prolongation before arriving at a splashy
tutti reiteration. The piano enters, typically, with a theme
all its own, and quickly launches into one of the most
turbulent, unsettled movements in Mozart’s oeuvre.
Momentary and welcome respite is provided by the
uncomplicated Larghetto (the tempo marking is not the
composer’s), a free interplay of spontaneous pianism and
sympathetic instrumental underpinning. The Allegretto
brings us back to the restless world of C minor (again, the
tempo indication has been added in a later hand)—a set
of somber variations on a square and halting theme. There
is no deus ex machina here, no felicitous final turn to the
major mode, as in the finale of the D-minor Concerto,
K. 466. All is mood here, wonder and mystery. But if
the storm clouds are never fully dispersed, the absolute
consistency of affect remains perfect throughout—a virtue
that provides its own gloomy sense of satisfaction.
—Paul J. Horsley
34
The Music
Symphony No. 2
“For several days, there has been much trumpeting and
drumming within me (trumpet in C). I don’t know what
will come of it.” The result of the inner tumult that Robert
Schumann reported to his friend and colleague Felix
Mendelssohn, in a letter of September 1845, was a
symphony: the third of the four he would complete, though it
was published as Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61, in 1847.
Robert Schumann
Born in Zwickau, Saxony,
June 8, 1810
Died in Endenich (near
Bonn), July 29, 1856
Schubert as Catalyst The principal catalyst for
Schumann’s return to symphonic composition in 1845
was almost surely a performance of Franz Schubert’s
Symphony in C major (D. 944) on December 9 of that
year, with the Dresden orchestra under Ferdinand
Hiller. Schumann’s association with Schubert’s “Great”
C-major Symphony dated back to the winter of 1838-39,
when, during a trip to Vienna, he was introduced to the
practically forgotten work by Schubert’s older brother,
and quickly arranged for Mendelssohn to lead the Leipzig
Gewandhaus Orchestra in the long overdue premiere.
The newly excavated masterpiece had a lasting impact on
Schumann, revealing to him that it was indeed possible to
make an original contribution in a realm where Beethoven
reigned supreme.
In his celebrated 1839 review of Schubert’s Symphony,
Schumann described the work in superlatives the likes
of which he had never before bestowed on a piece of
instrumental music: “Here, apart from the consummate
mastery of compositional technique, we find life in every
vein, the finest shades of coloring, expressive significance
in every detail, and the all-pervasive Romanticism to
which Schubert’s other works have already accustomed
us.” In addition to marveling at the Symphony’s “heavenly
length,” Schumann also praised Schubert’s uncanny
ability to “emulate the human voice in his treatment of
the instruments.” Schumann would adopt both qualities
as articles of aesthetic faith in his own Symphony in C
major, especially in the magnificent valedictory hymn that
crowns the finale.
Although Schumann completed the sketches for the
Second Symphony in just two weeks toward the end
of December 1845, he needed the better part of the
following year to fill in the details. Indeed, he was still
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touching up the orchestration of the draft not long before
the premiere, with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
under Mendelssohn’s direction, on November 5, 1846.
As indicated by several entries in Schumann’s household
account books, his labor on the Symphony was frequently
interrupted by recurrent bouts of poor health. During
the winter and spring months of 1846, Schumann made
reference to severe headaches, fits of depression, anxiety
attacks, and auditory disturbances.
Memories of a Dark Time As with so many of
Schumann’s compositions, the Second Symphony
lends itself to interpretation as an essay in musical
autobiography. Schumann himself encouraged a reading
of this kind. In a note to the composer and critic J.C. Lobe,
he claimed that the new work “told a tale of many joys
and sorrows.” Schumann offered a more detailed account
of the Symphony’s personal connotations to D.G. Otten,
founder of the Hamburg Musical Association: “I wrote
the C-major Symphony in December 1845 while I was
still half sick, and it seems to me that one can hear this
in the music. Although I began to feel like myself while
working on the last movement, I recovered totally only
after completing the entire piece.” Above all, Schumann
confided to Otten, the Symphony reminded him of a “dark
time,” symbolized musically “by the melancholy bassoon in
the Adagio.”
While a composer’s view of his own work obviously lays
claim to a special sort of authority, Schumann’s words do
not do justice to the fundamentally affirmative character
of his Second Symphony, which projects just about as
much sorrow as most other symphonic compositions
of comparable scope in a major key, which is to say,
rather little. Even the melancholy mood of the Adagio
is relatively short-lived, confined as it is to the deeply
affective opening phrase and to fleeting shadows in a
movement that strives for—and achieves—an overall
quality of consolation. Heard in the context of the broader
symphonic narrative, the somber hues of the Adagio are
rather like passing storm clouds: ominous but quickly
dispelled. In the final analysis, these darker tints serve as a
foil to the brighter moods of the music that precedes and
follows: the dignified jubilation of the first movement, the
witty repartee between strings and winds in the Scherzo,
and the serene, hymnic apotheosis of the finale.
The initial reaction to the Symphony was not entirely
positive. According to reliable reports, the November 1846
premiere fell considerably short of the success that the
36
composer had hoped for, despite concertmaster Ferdinand
David’s assiduous drilling of the Gewandhaus violins on
the finger-twisting passagework in the Scherzo and the
perilously high trills in the Adagio. Before long, however,
the critics were making the expected obeisances,
comparing Schumann’s work to Mozart’s “Jupiter”
Symphony and Beethoven’s Fifth.
Schumann’s “New Manner” In their eagerness
to situate the Second Symphony within the classical
repertory, 19th-century journalists tended to overlook
an inspirational source in the even more distant musical
past: the art of J.S. Bach. The initial phase of work on
the Symphony marked the culmination of a nearly yearlong period during which Schumann was in the throes of
what he called Fugenpassion—a veritable “fugal passion”
that led both Schumanns, Robert and his wife, Clara, to
undertake a self-designed course of contrapuntal study
whose chief texts were Luigi Cherubini’s esteemed
counterpoint manual of 1835 and the fugues of Bach’s
Well-Tempered Clavier. The creative yield of this erudite
pastime included Clara’s Three Preludes and Fugues for
piano (Op. 16)—some on themes by her husband—and
Robert’s Four Fugues for piano (Op. 72), Six Studies, in
canonic form, for pedal-piano (Op. 56), and Six Fugues on
the Name BACH for organ (Op. 60).
While this was not the first time (nor would it be the last)
that Schumann had immersed himself in the mysteries
of counterpoint, his exploration in the mid-1840s of
the contrapuntal genres—not to mention the steady
diet of Bach—had a particularly decisive impact on the
subsequent direction of his compositional style. In a
diary entry dating from these years, Schumann called
attention to his adoption of a “completely new manner
of composing” that ran parallel with his refresher course
in counterpoint. Characterized by a more reflective
approach to the invention and development of musical
ideas, the “new manner” is much in evidence in the
Second Symphony. At this stage of his career, Schumann
no longer conceived the “musical idea” as an elemental
motif—like the famous four-note motto of Beethoven’s
Fifth—but rather as a contrapuntal combination of two
distinct melodic lines. The Second Symphony begins
with an idea of precisely this kind: a solemn choralelike melody, stated quietly by the horns, trumpets, and
trombones, and supported by a flowing counterpoint in the
strings. Though presented simultaneously at the outset,
these melodic strands are developed independently as the
37
The Second Symphony was
composed from 1845 to 1846.
music unfolds, a process that Schumann invokes across
the entire four-movement span of the Symphony.
Fritz Scheel conducted the
first Philadelphia Orchestra
performances of Schumann’s
Second Symphony, in February
1903. The work has appeared
consistently throughout
the years, most recently on
subscription in January 2015,
with Christoph Eschenbach
conducting.
While the “new manner” was inspired by an apparently
old-fashioned compositional technique, it lives up to its
name in the Second Symphony. Generally speaking,
symphonic architecture tends toward one of two poles:
the highly articulated designs of Haydn and Mozart, and
the rhapsodic, continuously evolving forms of Liszt and
Richard Strauss. Schumann’s Second Symphony lies
somewhere between these extremes, spinning out a web
of ideas whose musical potential is not fully realized within
the boundaries of a single movement.
The Philadelphians have
recorded the work three times:
in 1937 with Eugene Ormandy
for RCA; in 1977 with James
Levine for RCA; and in 2003
with Wolfgang Sawallisch on
the Orchestra’s own label.
Schumann scored the work
for two flutes, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons, two
horns, two trumpets, three
trombones, timpani, and
strings.
Performance time is
approximately 40 minutes.
The initial motto in the brass (whose upward gesture has
been linked by some listeners to the opening of Haydn’s
“London” Symphony, No. 104) puts in an unexpected
appearance at the conclusion of the Scherzo, and comes
in for spectacular treatment in the closing phase of the
last movement. Similarly, the plaintive Adagio theme is
swept up in the propulsive march rhythms of the first part
of the finale. In a surprising turn of events, Schumann
then transforms the march music into a gentler, more
lyrical idea that he proceeds to combine with the first
movement’s brass chorale. The expressive aim of this
contrapuntal tour de force is unmistakable: In fusing
“secular” song and “sacred” chorale melody, Schumann
demonstrated how it might be possible to transcend
both spheres, the mundane and the religious, through
the medium of the symphony orchestra. Therefore the
message of the Symphony is an eminently “modern”
one, and indeed, it was not lost on later composers as
diverse in stylistic orientation as Bruckner, Dvořák, and
Tchaikovsky. While deeply rooted in the musical past,
Schumann’s Second Symphony pointed confidently
toward the future.
—John Daverio
Program notes © 2017. All rights reserved. Program notes may
not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia
Orchestra Association and/or David Wright.
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