23
Season 2016-2017
Thursday, May 11, at 8:00
Friday, May 12, at 8:00
Saturday, May 13, at 8:00
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Tugan Sokhiev Conductor
Renaud Capuçon Violin
Liadov Kikimora, Op. 63
Korngold Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35
I. Moderato nobile
II. Romance: Andante
III. Finale: Allegro assai vivace
Intermission
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
I. Andante—Allegro con anima
II. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza
III. Valse: Allegro moderato
IV. Andante maestoso—Allegro vivace
This program runs approximately 1 hour, 50 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.
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
Conductor
Mat Hennek
Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev is music director of
the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse (ONCT),
which he has led for over a decade. He is also music
director and chief conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre in
Moscow and recently ended his tenure as music director
of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester (DSO) Berlin.
His Philadelphia Orchestra debut was in 2014 and he
makes his second appearance with the ensemble at
these concerts. Other highlights of his 2016-17 season
include Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, Bizet’s Carmen,
Shostakovich’s Katerina Izmailova (the revised version of
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District), Rossini’s Il viaggio
a Reims, and Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans at the
Bolshoi Theatre; return visits to the Berlin and Vienna
philharmonics and the Philharmonia Orchestra; a return
to Japan for the NHK Music Festival; and tours of Europe
and the Far East with the ONCT.
Highlights of recent seasons include appearances with the
Chicago and London symphonies and the Gewandhaus
Orchestra, and European tours with the Philharmonia
and Mahler Chamber orchestras. Mr. Sokhiev has toured
extensively with the ONCT in Europe, Asia, the U.K., and
South America, and with the DSO Berlin in Europe. In
addition to touring with the Philharmonia Orchestra, he
has conducted the ensemble in London every season
since 2003. He has also appeared as guest conductor
with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Mozart Week Festival
in Salzburg. His extensive opera experience includes
many productions for the Mariinsky Theatre and Welsh
National Opera. He has appeared as guest conductor at
the Metropolitan Opera (with the Mariinsky), the Houston
Grand Opera, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and in Madrid.
He was named “Révélation musicale de l›année” by the
French Critics’ Union in 2005 for his performance in the
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with the ONCT.
Mr. Sokhiev’s discography includes numerous acclaimed
recordings for Naïve Classique with the ONCT, including
Tchaikovsky’s Fourth and Fifth symphonies, Musorgsky’s
Pictures from an Exhibition, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic
Dances, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and Stravinsky’s
The Rite of Spring and The Firebird. DSO Berlin releases
include Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible, Symphony No. 5, and
Scythian Suite for SONY Classical.
26
Soloist
Mat Hennek
French violinist Renauld Capuçon was born in
Chambéry in 1976 and studied at the Conservatoire
National Supérieur de Musique de Paris with Gérard
Poulet and Veda Reynolds, and later with Thomas Brandis
in Berlin and Isaac Stern. Since then he has collaborated
with many of the world’s most important orchestras and
conductors, including the Berlin Philharmonic under
Bernard Haitink, David Robertson, and Matthias Pintscher;
the Dresden Staatskapelle with Daniel Harding; the
Bamberg Symphony with Jonathan Nott; the Leipzig
Gewandhaus Orchestra with Kurt Masur; the Orchestre
de Paris with Wolfgang Sawallisch and Christoph
Eschenbach; the Orchestre National du Capitole de
Toulouse with Tugan Sokhiev; and the Chamber Orchestra
of Europe with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He made his
Philadelphia Orchestra debut at Saratoga in 2006 and his
subscription debut in 2010.
In addition to these current performances, highlights of
Mr. Capuçon’s 2016-17 season include appearances
with the Singapore Symphony and Gustavo Dudamel, the
Orchestre de Paris and Mr. Harding, the Boston Symphony
and Alain Altinoglu, the Royal Philharmonic and Charles
Dutoit, and the Orchestre National de France and Valery
Gergiev; a tour of China and Hong Kong with the Hong
Kong Philharmonic and Jaap Van Zweden; and recitals
with pianists Khatia Buniatishvili and Nicholas Angelich.
Passionate about chamber music, Mr. Capuçon also
performs with pianists Martha Argerich, Hélène Grimaud,
Frank Braley, David Kadouch, Yefim Bronfman, MyungWhun Chung, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Maria João
Pires, Mikhail Pletnev, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet; violinist
and violist Yuri Bashmet; violist Gérard Caussé; and cellists
Truls Mørk, Mischa Maisky, and Yo-Yo Ma.
Mr. Capuçon’s discography for Erato includes Frank,
Grieg, and Dvořák sonatas for violin and piano with Ms.
Buniatishvili, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Ms.
Argerich and Mr. Maisky. The French government has
honored Mr. Capuçon as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre National
du Mérite and a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. He is
artistic director of the Easter Festival in Aix-en-Provence,
which he founded in 2013, and Les Sommets Musicaux, a
winter music festival in Gstaad. He also teaches violin at the
High School of Music in Lausanne.
27
Framing the Program
Parallel Events
1888
Tchaikovsky
Symphony
No. 5
1909
Liadov
Kikimora
Music
RimskyKorsakov
Sheherazade
Literature
Zola
La Terre
Art
ToulouseLautrec
Place Clichy
History
Jack the Ripper
murders
Music
Strauss
Elektra
Literature
Wells
Tono-Bungay
Art
Matisse
The Dance
History
Peary reaches
the North Pole
1945
Music
Korngold
Bartók
Violin Concerto Viola Concerto
Literature
Orwell
Animal Farm
Art
Moore
Family Group
History
Independent
republic of
Vietnam formed
Russian composers frame the concert this evening. Anatoli
Liadov was a fantastically imaginative composer who
produced little—procrastination, self-doubt, and teaching
duties (Prokofiev was one of his students) make his body
of compositions frustratingly small. For a number of years
he worked on an opera but when the project stalled he
diverted some of the music to three orchestral pieces. One
is Kikimora, about a mythical Russian house spirit.
Tchaikovsky’s beloved Fifth Symphony was an immediate
hit with audiences, though the composer himself wavered
in his affection for the piece. That may have been related
to his mood, as the work carried deep autobiographical
associations. Like that other famous Fifth—Beethoven’s—it
deals with the theme of fate.
In between we hear the sumptuous Violin Concerto of Erich
Wolfgang Korngold. Korngold grew up in Vienna where
he won the support of Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss
and was widely hailed as the greatest musical prodigy
since Mozart and Mendelssohn. History dealt him a difficult
hand and as a Viennese Jew he ultimately immigrated to
America, where he settled in Hollywood. His second career
was as a great film composer. For his Violin Concerto,
premiered by Jascha Heifetz, he drew from some recent
movie scores and wrote in a Romantically lush style rarely
encountered in concert music of the time.
28
The Music
Kikimora
Anatol Liadov
Born in St. Petersburg,
May 11, 1855
Died in Polinovka,
Novgorod district,
August 28, 1914
The brilliant, erratic Anatol Liadov was perhaps Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov’s most talented pupil at the St.
Petersburg Conservatory. He was also evidently the
laziest. Only 11 years younger than his distinguished
teacher, Liadov was born into one of the city’s most
prominent musical families: His father, Konstantin, was a
leading conductor at the Imperial Opera Theater. Expelled
from Rimsky-Korsakov’s class for non-attendance, the
young Liadov nevertheless completed his training with
a graduation piece that consisted of a splendid operatic
scene drawn from Friedrich Schiller’s play Die Braut von
Messina (The Bride of Messina). The setting drew praise
from his teacher and, of equal importance, from the
influential music critic Vladimir Stasov.
Because he had a special talent for counterpoint, Liadov
was appointed instructor in theory at the Conservatory and
in 1906 became Professor of Composition. (Prokofiev was
one of his students.) The comfortable teaching position
had the unfortunate side-effect of further discouraging
productivity. His career continued to be plagued by
procrastination, intense self-criticism, and by large musical
projects begun but never completed.
Russian Fairy Tales in Music One such notorious
affair concerned a ballet requested by the great
impresario Sergei Diaghilev in 1909. In this case we
can be thankful that Liadov’s score never got out of the
planning stages—for it was his very procrastination that
enabled a young, ambitious composer by the name of
Igor Stravinsky to step in and launch his career with The
Firebird. In fairness, it must be said that Liadov did indeed
write several brilliant orchestrations and arrangements
in collaboration with other composers; the creation of
original works was simply not a high priority for him.
The inception of the symphonic poem Kikimora, Op. 63,
dates from the decade before the Diaghilev debacle.
During the last years of the 19th century, Liadov worked
on an opera that was to be called Zoryushka. Alas, this
too remained incomplete; but in the first decade of the
new century he forged three lovely orchestral tone poems
from the substantial material left over from the aborted
opera. He had a particular affinity for supernatural tales
29
Kikimora was composed in
1909.
The Philadelphia Orchestra
first performed Kikimora in
February 1933, with Issay
Dobrowen conducting. The
piece has been performed on
subscription concerts only
three times since then, the last
in October 1988, led by Yuri
Temirkanov.
The score calls for piccolo, two
flutes, two oboes, English horn,
two clarinets, bass clarinet,
two bassoons, four horns, two
trumpets, timpani, percussion
(xylophone), celesta, and
strings.
Performance time is
approximately eight minutes.
that allowed him to combine flights of fancy with a brilliant
orchestral technique and imagination. He once remarked:
“Give me fairies and dragons, mermaids and goblins
and I am thoroughly happy.” This is evident in Baba-Yaga
(1904), The Enchanted Lake (1909), and Kikimora (1909).
The latter two were performed to great acclaim in St.
Petersburg in December 1909 and remain Liadov’s bestloved works.
A Closer Look Kikimora recreates a traditional Russian
folk legend. “Kikimora, ‘the phantom,’ was raised by a
sorcerer,” as the preface in the score describes the
traditional tale, “who lived in a rocky mountain. Each day
a wise old cat told her bizarre tales of exotic deeds. After
seven years she is fully grown—tall and dark, her head
as small as a thimble, her body as thin as a straw. During
the daylight hours she is noisy; from dusk to midnight
she whistles and hisses, and from midnight to dawn she
works at spinning hemp, reeling yarn and fitting her silken
dress—all the while plotting evil against mortals.”
The piece begins ominously with cellos and basses
in a slow introduction against which woodwinds and
timpani expand the texture until, atop a flowing string
accompaniment, the English horn intones a melancholy
and distinctively Russian sounding theme. After a brief
burst from the fuller orchestra the introduction is repeated
and the music takes on a more supernatural mood as the
celesta magically enters. Just after the mid-point of the
eight-minute piece the tempo abruptly shifts to presto
and we may feel we are in a lively fairy world—not quite
Mendelssohnian, but still charming and often delicate.
The music accelerates to a presstissimo coda with the full
orchestra playing loudly and then suddenly shifts yet again
to a delightfully playful soft conclusion.
—Paul J. Horsley/Christopher H. Gibbs
30
The Music
Violin Concerto
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Born in Brno (Moravia),
May 29, 1897
Died in Hollywood,
November 29, 1957
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 AustroHungarian Empire could offer, for he was raised in a social
circle that included the principal figures of the day. He
astonished those around him, not just with brilliant pianism
but with big, serious compositions.
A Child Genius Gustav Mahler, upon perusing the cantata
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 Joseph’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 Violanta (1916), Die tote Stadt (1920), and Das
Wunder der Heliane (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 California; and when
the Anschluss of 1938 blocked the staging of his opera Die
Kathrin in Vienna, he knew that he must leave. Settling in
America, 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
31
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 Cello Concerto,
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 on
February 14, 1947, with Vladimir Goldschmann conducting
the Saint Louis Symphony and went on to make a
marvelous recording of the piece with the Los Angeles
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
32
Korngold composed his Violin
Concerto in 1945.
William dePasquale was the
soloist in the first Philadelphia
Orchestra performances of the
Concerto, in December 1994;
James DePreist conducted.
The work has appeared only
two other times on subscription
since then, in April 1999 with
Elmar Oliveria as soloist and
Gerard Schwarz, and in May
2013 with Hilary Hahn and
Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
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, trombone,
timpani, percussion (bass
drum, cymbals, glockenspiel,
vibraphone, xylophone), harp,
celesta, and strings.
The work runs approximately
24 minutes in performance.
melodic flow. A middle section (Misterioso) in a
contrasting key features the soloist soaring over an
eerie orchestral fabric; soloist and ensemble join in a
shimmering climax. The finale (Allegro assai vivace) is
a series of folk-like dances; a coda sums up the Concerto
with an expansive orchestral statement, in which the
violinist joins for a final virtuosic display.
—Paul J. Horsley
33
The Music
Symphony No. 5
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Born in Kamsko-Votkinsk,
Russia, May 7, 1840
Died in St. Petersburg,
November 6, 1893
When Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Fifth
Symphony in St. Petersburg, the audience responded
enthusiastically, as did the orchestra, which struck up
fanfares to signal its delight. Critical reaction, however,
proved less positive. A particularly damning view held that
the “symphony is a failure. There is something repulsive
about it, a certain excess of gaudiness, insincerity, and
artificiality. And the public instinctively recognizes this.”
And who was this disparaging critic? None other than the
composer himself, confiding in a letter to his generous
patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, after he had conducted
further performances in Prague.
Tchaikovsky’s insecurities about a composition that would
over time become one of his most famous and beloved
date back to its inception in the spring of 1888. He had
recently concluded a brilliant three-month concert tour
around Europe (“Success, which I enjoyed everywhere,
is very pleasant”), but had not composed a significant
piece in almost a year. Returning to Russia in late March,
Tchaikovsky informed his brother that he wanted to
write a new symphony, but weeks later could only report,
“I have still not yet made a start. … I can honestly say
that once again I have no urge to create. What does
this mean? Am I really written out? I have no ideas or
inspiration whatsoever!” When ideas finally did begin to
come it was “gradually, and with some difficulty, [that] I am
squeezing the symphony out of my dulled brain.” The Fifth
Symphony was finished by late August and ready for its
premiere in November.
Another Fate Symphony In a well-known letter to
Madame von Meck a decade earlier, Tchaikovsky had
provided an elaborate program for his Fourth Symphony,
casting its “central idea” as “Fate, the fatal force that
prevents our strivings for happiness from succeeding.”
Similar thoughts seem to have been behind the Fifth—and
this time they were expressed before the piece was written.
(What Tchaikovsky had told von Meck about the Fourth
came well after its completion, prompted by her specific
request to learn the story behind the work.) In a notebook
Tchaikovsky indicated a program for the first movement:
34
Intr[oduction]. Total submission before Fate, or,
which is the same thing, the inscrutable design of
Providence.
Allegro. I) Murmurs, doubts, laments, reproaches
against … XXX.
II) Shall I cast myself into the embrace of Faith???
A wonderful program, if only it can be fulfilled.
The meaning of “XXX,” which also appears in
Tchaikovsky’s diaries, has traditionally been deciphered
as referring to his homosexuality, although biographer
Alexander Poznansky has recently suggested that it may
refer to problems with gambling.
Fate was a familiar topic in music long before Tchaikovsky.
In the realm of the symphony, it extended back at least as
far as that most famous of Fifths, Beethoven’s, the opening
of which allegedly represented “Fate knocking at the door.”
Perhaps even more common are Fate themes in operas, as
in Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s La forza del destino (The Force
of Destiny), and Wagner’s Ring. In such orchestral and
dramatic works “Fate” provides not only a narrative thread,
but also something to be represented musically.
A Closer Look There is no certainty, of course, that
the slow opening theme of Tchaikovsky’s first movement
(Andante), played by the clarinets in the “chalumeau”
(or lowest) register, represents Fate, even if that is what
the early sketches suggest and what most commentators
have heard for well over a century. The melody itself is
drawn from Mikhail Glinka’s great opera A Life for the
Tsar (1836), where it sets the words “turn not to sorrow.”
Tchaikovsky casts a far more expansive melody than
the well-known Beethoven Fifth motif, although, as in
Beethoven, the theme appears not just at the opening, or
only in the first movement, but rather in all four movements.
Thus “Fate” twice rudely interrupts the lyrical second
movement (Andante cantabile), with its famous slow
horn melody opening, in ways that suggest catastrophe.
As the Symphony progresses, however, Fate seems to be
tamed, or at least integrated with its surroundings. The
theme also reappears near the end of the third movement
waltz (Allegro moderato) and it forms the basis for the
major key finale, from the slow introduction (Andante
maestoso), to the fast core (Allegro vivace), and finally
to its apotheosis in the triumphant coda.
In his Fourth Symphony, Tchaikovsky, like Beethoven,
seemed to shake his fist at Fate—the music is angry
35
Tchaikovsky composed his
Fifth Symphony in 1888.
The work has been performed
by The Philadelphia Orchestra
probably as often as any piece
in the orchestral repertory.
Fritz Scheel conducted the
first Orchestra performance, in
October 1906; from the 1930s
it was a favorite of Eugene
Ormandy, who led it on tours
and at the Academy. The most
recent performances during the
regular season were Yannick
Nézet-Séguin’s, in January 2015.
The Orchestra has recorded
the Fifth eight times: in
1934 for RCA with Leopold
Stokowski; in 1941 for RCA
with Ormandy; in 1950 and
1959 for CBS with Ormandy;
in 1974, again for RCA, with
Ormandy; in 1981 for Delos
with Ormandy; in 1991 for
EMI with Riccardo Muti; and
in 2005 for Ondine with
Christoph Eschenbach. The
second movement alone was
also recorded by Stokowski, in
1923 for RCA.
and defiant. The mood in his Fifth Symphony is quite
different: Here Tchaikovsky dances with Fate. An early
critic disapprovingly called it “the symphony with three
waltzes,” reflecting not only the waltz replacement of a
traditional scherzo in the third movement, but also the
waltz episodes in the opening two movements. Over the
course of the Symphony Tchaikovsky appears to become
reconciled with Fate, perhaps under “the embrace of Faith”
that he anticipated before beginning the composition. And
in time, his attitude about the quality of the Symphony also
changed. After enjoying another great success with the
work in Hamburg, at a performance attended by Brahms,
Tchaikovsky wrote to his nephew: “The Fifth Symphony
was beautifully played and I have started to love it again.”
—Christopher H. Gibbs
The score calls for three
flutes (III doubling piccolo),
two oboes, two clarinets, two
bassoons, four horns, two
trumpets, three trombones,
tuba, timpani, and strings.
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5
runs approximately 50 minutes
in performance.
Program notes © 2017. All rights reserved. Program notes may
not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia
Orchestra Association.
36
37
Musical Terms
GENERAL TERMS
Cadenza: A passage or
section in a style of brilliant
improvisation, usually
inserted near the end of a
movement or composition
Cantata: A multimovement vocal piece
consisting of arias,
recitatives, ensembles, and
choruses and based on a
continuous narrative text
Chord: The simultaneous
sounding of three or more
tones
Coda: A concluding
section or passage added
in order to confirm the
impression of finality
Counterpoint: A
term that describes
the combination of
simultaneously sounding
musical lines
Divertimento: A piece
of entertaining music
in several movements,
often scored for a mixed
ensemble and having no
fixed form
Double-stop: In violin
playing, to stop two strings
together, thus obtaining
two-part harmony
Harmonic: Pertaining to
chords and to the theory
and practice of harmony
Harmony: The
combination of
simultaneously sounded
musical notes to produce
chords and chord
progressions
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.
Romance: Originally
a ballad, or popular tale
in verse; now a title for
epico-lyrical songs or of
short instrumental pieces
of sentimental or romantic
nature, and without special
form
Scherzo: Literally “a
joke.” Usually the third
movement of symphonies
and quartets that was
introduced by Beethoven
to replace the minuet. The
scherzo is followed by a
gentler section called a trio,
after which the scherzo is
repeated. Its characteristics
are a rapid tempo in triple
time, vigorous rhythm, and
humorous contrasts. Also
an instrumental piece of
a light, piquant, humorous
character.
Serenade: An
instrumental composition
written for a small
ensemble and having
characteristics of the suite
and the sonata
Sonata: An instrumental
composition in three or
four extended movements
contrasted in theme,
tempo, and mood, usually
for a solo instrument
Suite: A set or series of
pieces in various dance
forms. The modern
orchestral suite is more like
a divertimento.
Tone poem: A type of
19th-century symphonic
piece in one movement,
which is based upon an
extramusical idea, either
poetic or descriptive
THE SPEED OF MUSIC
(Tempo)
Allegro: Bright, fast
Andante: Walking speed
Cantabile: In a singing
style, lyrical, melodious,
flowing
Con alcuna licenza:
With some freedom
Con anima: With feeling
Maestoso: Majestic
Moderato: A moderate
tempo, neither fast nor
slow
Nobile: Dignified, stately
Presto: Very fast
Vivace: Lively
TEMPO MODIFIERS
Assai: Much
MODIFYING
SUFFIXES
-issimo: Very
38
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