Haydn Schubert Ravel

HaydnSchubertRavel

Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic

2011–12 Season

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Alan Gilbert, ConductorAnne Sophie von Otter, Mezzo-Soprano

Recorded live December 28–30, 2011Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

HAYDN (1732–1809)

Symphony No. 88 in G major (Hob. I:88) (1787) 19:47 Adagio — Allegro 6:34

Largo 5:22

Menuetto (Allegretto) — Trio 4:17

Finale (Allegro con spirito) 3:34

SCHUBERT (1797–1828)

Six Orchestrated Songs 22:25Die Forelle (The Trout), D.550 (1817; orch. Britten, date unknown) 2:27

Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel), D.118

(1814; orch. Reger, 1915) 4:08

Im Abendrot (In Evening’s Glow), D.799 (1824–25; orch. Reger,

ca.1914) 4:11

Gesang “An Silvia” (Song “To Sylvia”), D.891 (1826; orch. unknown) 2:53

Nacht und Träume (Night and Dreams), D.827 (1825?; orch. Reger,

ca. 1914–15) 4:34

Erlkönig (Erl King), D.328 (1815; orch. Reger, date unknown) 4:12

New York PhilharmonicAlan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic 2011–12 Season

Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2011–12 Season — twelve live recordings of performances conducted by the Music Director, two of which feature guest con-ductors — reflects the passion and curiosity that marks the Orchestra today. Alan Gil-bert’s third season with the New York Phil-harmonic continues a voyage of exploration of the new and unfamiliar while reveling in the greatness of the past, in works that the Music Director has combined to form telling and intriguing programs.

Every performance reveals the chemistry that has developed between Alan Gilbert and the musicians, whom he has praised for having “a unique ethic, a spirit of want-ing to play at the highest level no matter what the music is, and that trans lates into an ability to treat an incredible variety of styles brilliantly.” He feels that audi-ences are aware of this, adding, “I have noticed that at the end of performances the ovations are often the loud est when

the Philharmonic musicians stand for their bow: this is both an acknowledgment of the power and beauty with which they per-form, and of their dedication and commit-ment — and their inspiration — throughout the season.”

These high-quality recordings of almost 30 works, available internationally, reflect Alan Gilbert’s approach to programming which combines works as diverse as One Sweet Morning — a song cycle by Ameri-can master composer John Corigliano exploring the nature of war on the tenth anniversary of the events of 9/11 — with cornerstones of the repertoire, such as Dvorák’s lyrical yet brooding Seventh Symphony. The bonus content includes audio recordings of Alan Gilbert’s onstage commentaries, program notes published in each concert’s Playbill, and encores given by today’s leading soloists.

For more information about the series, visit nyphil.org/recordings.

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Alan Gilbert on This Program

This concert opens with Haydn’s Symphony No. 88, one of the most charming and delightful works by one of my favorite composers. We continue with a set of Schubert songs, which are arguably the greatest group in that genre of music for voice and piano, so it is no surprise that people have wanted to find ways to bring that music to the or-chestral concert world. The different approaches reflected in the orchestrations we are performing remain true to Schubert, although each has a slightly different twist. The set as a whole might fall into the category of how great art can retain its integrity despite a variety of interpretations and rethinking.

The second half of the concert is all Ravel, and while people do love his music I think there is a lack of appreciation for him. His brilliance as an orchestrator is understood, and for good reason: the range of colors that he created by using the normal, standard instruments in the orchestra is really staggering. The Mother Goose ballet is an absolutely gorgeous piece written for a relatively small orchestra, and the way he brings these little vignettes to life musically is uncanny, and often makes the audience feel that there must be 200 musicians onstage, even if there might only be 40. In La Valse he creates a swirl of sounds that really tells a story about the end of an era, with the image of a ballroom that starts out as a dream but becomes more bizarre and unhealthy, until it literally falls apart at the end — it echoes what the world was experiencing at the end of that gilded age. But I have heard people say that Ravel is merely a craftsman and his music lacks soul, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. There is deep feeling — sometimes an overwhelming sense of loss, of searching. It is truly great music.

RAVEL (1875–1937)

Ma Mère l’oye (Mother Goose), Complete Ballet (1908–10; orch. 1911) 27:44Prelude

Dance of the Spinning Wheel and Scene 7:11

Pavane of Sleeping Beauty; Interlude 2:20

Conversations of Beauty and the Beast; Interlude 4:51

Tom Thumb; Interlude 4:56

Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas; Interlude

Apotheosis. The Enchanted Garden 8:26

RAVEL

La Valse (1919–20) 12:48

New York Philharmonic

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violinist of the Esterházy Orchestra, left his position to develop a business venture as a music agent in, of all places, Paris. Haydn’s stock was riding very high there thanks to the premieres being given by the Orches-tre de la Loge Olympique, and Tost had no trouble selling the French publishing rights for Haydn’s next two symphonies to Jean-Georges Sieber, a German who had opened a publishing firm in Paris. Tost brokered four Haydn symphonies (including No. 88) to Sieber, plus some piano sonatas and six string quartets (Opp. 54 and 55) — and while he was at it, he sold him another completed “Haydn symphony” that wasn’t by Haydn at all. Tost turned out to be a bad egg, and as his commercial aspirations increased he became more and more mercenary: at one point he proposed a business venture at the Esterházy court that would enable him to purvey black market copies of unpublished works by Haydn, a scheme he tried to engi-neer completely behind the composer’s back.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 is a work of characteristic verve and charm, and early on it gained affection, particularly among English and American audiences. It is easy to understand why one would embrace this piece. Its opening movement is one of Haydn’s most brilliantly worked out, its Lar-go is spectacularly beautiful, the Menuetto displays real peasant vigor (with a trio that is truly folklike with its musette-like drones), and the Finale is a sparkling combination of intellect and wit.

Instrumentation: flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings.

Listen for ... the Trumpets and Timpani

Trumpets and timpani made occasional visits in Haydn’s middle-period sympho-nies, but they were not yet standard mem-bers of his orchestras. When he did use them it was normally to forceful effect, to launch and punctuate his fast movements with special brilliance; they were almost always banished from slow movements, where they were considered too strident for an inherently gentle expanse.

We can always count on Haydn for a surprise: in his Symphony No. 88, these instruments don’t figure in the opening movement at all. Haydn withholds them precisely until the slow movement (Largo), where their outbursts lend a splendid sense of drama while a complicated set of variations unfolds. He continues to employ them in the rest of the piece, even spot-lighting the timpani with a few soloistic moments in the Menuetto.

The Largo, where the trumpets and timpani make their first appearance, is unusually inventive even by Haydn’s standards, as the solo oboe and cello at its opening suggest the spirit of a sinfonia concertante. It was of this slow movement, very evolved in its approach to variation form, that Johannes Brahms would later say, “I want my Ninth Sym-phony to sound like that.”

Notes on the ProgramBy James M. Keller, Program AnnotatorThe Leni and Peter May Chair

Symphony No. 88 in G major (Hob. I:88)Joseph Haydn

When Joseph Haydn was approached in 1784 with a commission to write a group of symphonies for a concert series in Paris for the Concerts de la Loge Olympique (which held its performances in the guard-room of the Tuileries palace in Paris), he was frankly astonished. It seems the composer had not really noticed that, while working diligently for a quarter of a cen-tury as a court musical director for the Es-terházy princes in Austria and Hungary, he had gradually grown famous in the world outside. He could only marvel at the sum the Parisian group proposed to him: 25 louis d’or for each of six symphonies, plus another five for the right to publish them. That was five times what they normally paid for a symphony; in today’s currency, 25 louis d’or would translate to something around $60,000. That a major concert presenter in the heady cultural center of Paris should approach Haydn on such terms served as a reminder to him that he had come up quite a bit in the world in the 52 years since he had been born in an Austrian village to a father who was a wheelwright and a mother who worked as a cook for the local count until she started giving birth to her 12 children.

The income would have been wel-come, of course, but surely Haydn was additionally thrilled at the prospect of writing symphonies for a large cosmo-politan orchestra. At the Esterházy court

he could count on an orchestra of about 24 instrumentalists — the exact count fluctuated a bit over the years — which was a good-sized orchestra at that time. Still, the Orchestre de la Loge Olympique was enormous in comparison, boasting a string section with fully 40 violins on top and 10 double basses on the bottom, not to mention two players for each of the usual wind instruments (though normally only one flute, but nonetheless a luxury for a composer accustomed to doling out his parts with consideration to which play-ers could double on which instruments). Haydn could only imagine these expanded sounds as he composed his six sympho-nies in 1785–86, in Eisenstadt, Austria, and Esterháza, Hungary. He never got to hear the Orchestre de la Loge Olympique play his symphonies in their 1787 season, but they made a great impression.

The opulent sound of these “Paris” Sym- phonies (Nos. 82–87) must have still been in Haydn’s mind when he went on to his next two symphonies, Nos. 88 and 89, in 1787. (No. 88 may have been begun the preceding year.) Just then Haydn’s col-league, Johann Tost, the principal second

In ShortBorn: almost certainly March 31, 1732, since he was baptized April 1, in Rohrau, Lower Austria

Died: May 31, 1809, in Vienna

Work composed: 1787

World premiere: probably in 1787 at Esterháza, Hungary, Haydn conducting

New York Philharmonic premiere: January 6, 1872, Carl Bergmann, conductor

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clarinet as the child, a French horn as the title character (the Erl King), and a bass trom-bone as the father. Within a few decades it became almost commonplace for compos-ers, conductors, and editors to arrange the piano parts of Schubert’s songs for the more colorful possibilities of the orchestra.

The result was an ongoing enrichment of the orchestral song literature linking Schubert to such gifted composer-arrangers as Hector Berlioz, Jacques Offenbach, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Max Reger, Hans Pfitzner, Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Michael Tippett, among many others. The set of songs we hear in this concert does not intend to epitomize the chamber-musical intimacy of Schubert’s voice and piano settings. Instead, it affords a glimpse of how later generations of gifted composers paid tribute to Schubert by adapting his songs to the evolving orches-tral aesthetic of their own times.

The circumstances surrounding Benjamin Britten’s orchestration of Die Forelle are unknown. The score, which is in manuscript, bears the date 1979 — three years after Britten died. It employs an unattributed English translation of Christian Schubart’s poem: “There was a sparkling brooklet where once a playful trout / as swift as any arrow went lurking in and out”; the original German text can easily be retrofitted. Brit-ten eliminates Schubert’s piano introduction and leaps into the heart of the song, where bubbling clarinets portray the agile fish. There is less to be said about the setting we hear of Gesang “An Silvia,” which is anonymous, undated, and entirely honorable.

Max Reger — who made orchestral tran-

Schubert’s Songs

Franz Schubert was not the first compos-er of Lieder. The genre was already alive and well in the half-century preceding his first efforts, and fine specimens are found by such masters as Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. But Schubert was the first important composer to dedicate himself deeply to the composition of Lie-der, and between his first effort, in 1811, and his last, perhaps a month before his death 17 years later, he produced ap-proximately 600 songs, dozens of which have remained essential repertoire for nearly two centuries. They range from miniatures hardly more than a minute long to vast, half-hour ballads. Some are cast in relatively simple strophic forms, while others display more complicated, carefully en- gineered structures. Some are grouped into large-scale, semi-narra-tive cycles, but most were conceived as stand-alone works, depicting a complete atmosphere in the course of only three or four minutes.

Notes on the ProgramBy James M. Keller, Program AnnotatorThe Leni and Peter May Chair

Six Orchestrated SongsFranz Schubert

In the refined, jewel-like genre of the Lied, or German art song, the name of Franz Schubert stands indisputably at the top of the list. He wrote his songs for voice and piano, and he approached the piano part with a great sense of democracy vis-à-vis the vocal line, certainly when compared to his predecessors. In a song by Schubert we assume that the piano will not provide a mere accompaniment that fills out the implicit harmonies; instead, we expect it to interact with the singer in an elegant bal-ance of musical partnership. This attitude toward balance would set the standard against which future art songs would be measured. To a large degree, the ensu-ing mainstream of the Lied — the songs of Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler, and the rest (and one could extend the influence to non-Germanic composers, too) — can be viewed as elaborations of the principles of songwrit-ing that Schubert defined.

As the genre of the song accompa-nied by orchestra rose to prominence in the mid-19th century, it was natural that transcribers should set their sights on this fountainhead of the song repertoire. In fact, orchestral translations of Schubert Lieder go back a long way. In 1830 Fer-dinand Schubert, the composer’s brother, arranged Erlkönig for solo voice, mixed chorus, and orchestra. For the budget-conscious, he offered a strictly instrumental alternative that cast a flute as narrator, a

In ShortBorn: January 31, 1797, in Liechtenthal, then a suburb of Vienna, Austria

Died: November 19, 1828, in Vienna

Works composed and premiered: Die Forelle: composed in 1817, orchestrated by Benjamin Britten (1913–76), date unknown; Gretchen am Spinnrade: composed in 1814, orchestrated by Max Reger (1873–1916) in 1915; Im Abendrot: composed in late 1824 or as late as February 1825, orchestrated by Reger, whose setting was published in 1914; Gesang “An Silvia”: composed in 1826, and heard here in an unattributed orchestration (date unknown); Nacht und Träume: probably composed in 1825 (it was published that year) and orchestrated by Reger, whose setting was published in 1914; Erlkönig was composed in 1815, and orchestrated by Reger, probably around 1914–15.

We rarely know precisely when Schubert’s songs were premiered, but the composer typically unveiled them at private gatherings of his friends in Vienna, at which he played the piano accompaniments. We do know that Erlkönig was first performed in concert on December 1, 1820, at a private gathering at the Vienna home of the Imperial Councillor Dr. Ignaz Edler von Sonnleithner, and that it received its public premiere on March 7, 1821, at Vienna’s Kärntnertor Theater, in a concert sponsored by the Society of Ladies of the Nobility for the Promotion of the Good and Useful.

New York Philharmonic premieres: The only previous Philharmonic performance of Die Forelle and Im Abendrot took place on October 3, 1985, Zubin Mehta, conductor, Hermann Prey, soloist; the only previous performance of Gesang “An Silvia” was February 5, 1897, Anton Seidl, conductor, David S. Bispham, soloist; these performances mark the New York Philharmonic premieres of the Reger orchestrations of Gretchen am Spinnrade, Erlkönig, and Nacht und Träume.

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scriptions of Lieder by Schumann, Brahms, Grieg, and Wolf as well — apparently made his Schubert transcriptions late in his career. The first set of eight were published in Leip-zig in 1914, and a second set, comprising seven songs, followed posthumously in 1926. His orchestrations capture the mood of Schubert’s songs admirably. Gretchen am

Spinnrade is flavored with deft touches of woodwinds and ominous use of the timpani, and Im Abendrot, a hymnlike Lied that suspends the transience of the surrounding world (just as does the sunset it depicts), has a small complement of winds respond

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Notes on the Program(continued)

antiphonally to the singer’s declamations. Schubert’s friend Franz von Hartmann, a law student at Vienna University, wrote in his diary about hearing Im Abendrot: he described it as “an especially beautiful” song, and noted that it was sung twice through by the tenor Michael Vogl at a Schubertiade gathering in January 1827.

Nacht und Träume conveys an atmo-sphere of hovering quietude, and Erlkönig gallops on relentlessly (if less unbridled than Hector Berlioz’s famous orchestra-tion of the same song). “Schubert would be satisfied with his editor,” wrote Franz Dubitzky in the journal Die Musik, re-viewing the 1914 publication of Reger’s transcriptions.

Instrumentation: in addition to the solo singer, Die Forelle calls for two clarinets and strings; Gretchen am Spinnrade, for flute, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, horn, timpani, and strings; Im Abendrot for flute, oboe, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, timpani, and strings; Gesang “An Silvia” for oboe, bassoon, and strings; Nacht und Träume for flute, clarinet, three horns, timpani, and strings; and Erlkönig for flute, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, timpani, and strings.

An earlier version of this note appeared in the programs of the San Francisco Sym-phony and is used with permission. © James M. Keller

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Erlkönig

This set of song transcriptions concludes with one of Schubert’s most famous Lieder, Erlkönig. On November 16, 1815, the composer’s friend Josef von Spaun wrote: “We found Schubert all aglow reading the Erlkönig aloud from a book. He walked to and fro several times with the book in his hand; suddenly he sat down, and in no time at all the wonderful ballad was on paper.” Goethe’s poem had already been used as a song-text by several composers, but none of their settings comes near to rivaling that of the 18-year-old Schubert in evoking the distinct personalities of the characters — the father, his ailing child, and the bewitching Erl King — and of the terror that attends this night ride to its fatal end. Goethe was indifferent to Schubert’s setting and failed to respond when the com-poser sent him a copy. To add insult to injury, Schubert submitted the piece to the Leipzig pub-lisher Breitkopf, who, not knowing a Schubert in Vienna, returned the manuscript instead to a violinist in Dresden who they happened to know, also named Franz Schubert. That Franz Schubert wrote back to the publishers: “I wish to inform you that this cantata was never composed by me. I shall retain the same in my possession, so that I might learn who has sent you such rubbish in such an impolite manner, and also to discover the scoundrel who has so misused my name.”

Erlkönig is notorious for straining the technical possibilities of the piano to the limit; many a fine pianist has dropped a few notes in the course of the piece’s four minutes of punishing octave repetitions. In performance, that very difficulty can suggest the reckless abandon of galloping through the stormy night. In Reger’s orchestral setting we feel more secure that the strings will not run amok, but the trade-off has its benefits, too, with the colorful employment of obbligato instrumental voices adding a layer of musical commentary that Schubert’s original leaves unstated. Such is the art of transcription: it does not efface memories of the original, but it can provide a fresh look at a familiar masterpiece.

Texts and Translations

Six Orchestrated Songs by Franz Schubert

Die ForelleIn einem Bächlein helle,Da schoß in froher EilDie launische ForelleVorüber wie ein Pfeil. Ich stand an dem GestadeUnd sah in süßer Ruh’,Des muntern Fischleins BadeIm klaren Bächlein zu.

Ein Fischer mit der RuteWohl an dem Ufer stand,Und sah’s mit kaltem Blute,Wie sich das Fischlein wand.So lang dem Wasser Helle,So dacht ich, nicht gebricht,So fängt er die ForelleMit seiner Angel nicht.

Doch endlich ward dem DiebeDie Zeit zu lang. Er machtDas Bächlein tückisch trübe,Und eh ich es gedacht,So zuckte seine Rute,Das Fischlein zappelt dran,Und ich mit regem BluteSah die Betrogene an.

— Christian Schubart (1739–91)

The TroutA brooklet soft and gentle,rushing on with gleeA trout like arrow dartingso playfully and free.And standing by the brook-sideI gazed in pure delight.At happy fishlet playingIn lucid brooklet bright.

A fisherman with rod stoodwatching from nearby,He followed fishlet’s movementsWith cold and scheming eye.“So long stays clear that brooklet”I thought, with comfort sure,“He cannot trap my fishletOr catch it with his lure.”

But soon with crude impatienceHe broke the calmHe stirred and muddied all that water,And just as I had feared,He tugged upon his rodAnd dangled my fishlet on his hook.Oh, how my heart was burningBetrayed were fish and brook!

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Texts and Translations(continued)

Gretchen am SpinnradeMeine Ruh’ ist hin,Mein Herz ist schwer,Ich finde sie nimmerUnd nimmermehr.

Wo ich ihn nicht habIst mir das Grab,Die ganze WeltIst mir vergällt.

Mein armer KopfIst mir verrückt,Mein armer SinnIst mir zerstückt.

Meine Ruh’ ist hin,Mein Herz ist schwer,Ich finde sie nimmerUnd nimmermehr.

Nach ihm nur schau ichZum Fenster hinaus,Nach ihm nur geh ichAus dem Haus.

Sein hoher Gang,Sein’ edle Gestalt,Seine Mundes Lächeln,Seiner Augen Gewalt,

Und seiner RedeZauberfluss,Sein Händedruck,Und ach, sein Kuss!

Meine Ruh’ ist hin,Mein Herz ist schwer,Ich finde sie nimmerUnd nimmermehr.

Mein Busen drängt sichNach ihm hin.Ach dürft ich fassenUnd halten ihn,

Und küssen ihn,So wie ich wollt,An seinen KüssenVergehen sollt!

— from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust (Part One)

Im AbendrotO wie schön ist deine Welt,Vater, wenn sie golden strahlet!Wenn dein Glanz herniederfälltUnd den Staub mit Schimmer malet,Wenn das Rot, das in der Wolke blinkt,In mein stilles Fenster sinkt!

Könnt ich klagen, könnt ich zagen?Irre sein an dir und mir?

Nein, ich will im Busen tragenDeinen Himmel schon allhier.Und dies Herz, eh’ es zusammenbricht,Trinkt noch Glut und schlürft noch Licht.

— Carl Lappe

An SilviaWas ist Silvia, saget an,Daß sie die weite Flur preist?Schön und zart seh ich sie nahn,Auf Himmelsgunst und Spur weist,Daß ihr alles untertan.

Ist sie schön und gut dazu?Reiz labt wie milde Kindheit;Ihrem Aug’ eilt Amor zu,Dort heilt er seine BlindheitUnd verweilt in süsser Ruh’.

Darum Silvia, tön, o Sang,Der holden Silvia Ehren;Jeden Reiz besiegt sie lang,Den Erde kann gewähren:Kränze ihr und Saitenklang!

— Eduard von Bauernfeld after William Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona

Gretchen at the Spinning WheelMy peace is gone,My heart is heavy,I will find it neverand never more.

Where I do not have him,That is the grave,The whole worldIs bitter to me.

My poor headIs crazy to me,My poor mindIs torn apart.

My peace is gone,My heart is heavy,I will find it neverand never more.

For him only, I lookOut the windowOnly for him do I goOut of the house.

His tall walk,His noble figure,His mouth’s smile,His eyes’ power,

And his mouth’sMagic flow,His handclasp,and ah, his kiss!

My peace is gone,My heart is heavy,I will find it neverand never more.

My bosom urges itselftoward him.Ah, might I graspAnd hold him!

And kiss him,As I would wish,At his kissesI should die!

In Evening’s GlowO how beautiful is your world,Father, when it shines with golden beams!When your gaze descendsAnd paints the dust with a shimmering glowing,When the red, which flashes in the clouds,Sinks into my quiet window!

How could I complain, how could I be afraid?How could anything ever be amiss between you and me?No, I will carry in my breastYour Heaven for all times.And this heart, before it breaks down,Shall drink in the glow and the light.

Song “To Sylvia”Who is Sylvia? What is she,That all our swains commend her?Holy, fair, and wise is she;The heavens such grace did lend her,That she might admirèd be.

Is she kind as she is fair?For beauty lives with kindness.Love doth to her eyes repair,To help him of his blindness,And being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Sylvia let us sing,That Sylvia is excelling;She excels each mortal thingUpon the dull earth dwelling;To her let us garlands bring.

(continued)

1716

Texts and Translations(continued)

Nacht und TräumeHeil’ge Nacht, du sinkest nieder;Nieder wallen auch die TräumeWie dein Licht durch die Räume,Lieblich durch der Menschen Brust.Die belauschen sie mit Lust;Rufen, wenn der Tag erwacht:Kehre wieder, heil’ge Nacht!Holde Träume, kehret wieder!

— Matthäus von Collin

ErlkönigWer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,Er fasst ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.

“Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?”“Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?Den Erlenkönig mit Kron’ und Schweif?”“Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif.”

“Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!Gar schöne Spiele spiel ich mit dir;Manch bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand.”

“Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?”“Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind:In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.”

“Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein.”

“Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dortErlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort?”“Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau:Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau.”

“Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.”“Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!” Dem Vater grau-set’s, er reitet geschwind,Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,Erreicht den Hof mit Müh’ und Not:In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Night and DreamsHoly night, you sink down;Dreams, too, drift downLike your moonlight through space,Through the quiet hearts of men;They listen with delightCalling out when day awakens:Return, holy night!Fair dreams, return!

Erl KingWho’s riding so late through night, so wild?It is the father who’s holding his child;He’s tucked the boy secure in his arm,He holds him tight and keeps him warm.

“My son, why hide you your face in fear?”“See you not, Father, the Erl King near?The Erl King in his crown and train?”“My son, ‘tis but a foggy strain.”

“Sweet lovely child, come, go with me!What wonderful games I’ll play with thee;Flowers, most colorful, yours to behold.My mother for you has garments of gold.”

“My Father, my Father, and can you not hearWhat Erl King is promising into my ear?”“Be calm, stay calm, o child of mine;The wind through dried leaves is rustling so fine.”

“Wouldst thou, fine lad, go forth with me?My daughters should royally wait upon thee;My daughters conduct each night their songfestTo swing and to dance and to sing thee to rest.”

“My Father, my Father, and can you not seeErl King’s daughters, there by the tree?”“My son, my son, I see it clear;The ancient willows so grey do appear.”

“I love thee, I’m aroused by thy beautiful form;And be thou not willing, I’ll take thee by storm.”“My Father, my Father, he’s clutching my arm!Erl King has done me a painful harm!”The father shudders and onward presses;The gasping child in his arms he caresses;He reaches the courtyard, and barely inside,He holds in his arms the child who has died.

1918


Ma Mère l’oye (Mother Goose), Complete BalletLa Valse

Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel always related well to children, who seem to have appreciated at first glance that his diminutive stature made him more approachable than most grown-ups. In 1939 Mimie Godebska Blacque-Belair wrote:

There are few of my childhood memories

in which Ravel does not find a place. Of

all my parents’ friends I had a predilection

for Ravel because he used to tell me

stories that I loved. I used to climb on his

knee and indefatigably he would begin,

“Once upon a time ...” And it would be

Laideronnette or “Beauty and the Beast” ....

Mimie Godebski (as Mme. Blacque-Belair was known as a child) and her brother, Jean — the children of Xavier Cyprien (“Cipa”) and Ida Godebski — qualified as Ravel’s closest friends from 1904 on.

“There was a childish side to Ravel,” Mimie continued,

and a warmth of feeling which remained

almost invisible beneath his primness. It

was in curious contrast to his face, which

was energetic, even unyielding, and to his

music, in which logic and wit did not always

succeed in disguising the promptings of

his heart. He loved tiny things.

As might be expected, the Godebski children were subjected to music lessons, and though both were far from virtuoso pianists, in 1908 Ravel had the idea of composing a piece that would be within their limited technical grasp. He drew inspiration from 17th- and 18th-century

In ShortBorn: March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, near St-Jean-de-Luz, Basses-Pyrénées, France

Died: December 28, 1937, in Paris

Works composed: Ma Mère l’oye: between 1908 and April 1910 as a suite of Five Children’s Pieces for Piano Four Hands; orchestral transcription created in 1911 (also expanded that year into a larger ballet score)

La Valse: 1919–20, drawing on sketches made as early as 1906

World premieres: Ma Mère l’oye: in its original form on April 20, 1910, at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, by the child pianists Jeanne Leleu and Geneviève Durony, at the first concert of the Société Musicale Indépendente; the complete orchestral ballet premiered January 21 (some sources say January 28), 1912, at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris, under the direction of Gabriel Grovlez

La Valse: October 23, 1920, at the Kleiner Konzert-haussaal in Vienna, played in its two-piano version by Ravel and Alfredo Casella at a concert of Arnold Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances; the orchestral version premiered December 12, 1920, Camille Chevillard conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris

New York Philharmonic premieres: Ma Mère l’oye: the complete ballet on March 29, 1990, Charles Dutoit, conductor

La Valse: premiered February 9, 1922, Willem Mengelberg, conductor; most recently performed April 29, 2008, Charles Dutoit, conductor

French children’s story collections, espe-cially Charles Perrault’s Contes de ma Mère l’oye (Mother Goose Tales, published in 1697). Again, we have Mimie’s account:

Between 1906 and 1908 we used to have long holidays at my parents’ house in the country, La Grangette at Valvins. It was there that Ravel finished, or at least brought us, Ma Mère l’oye.

But neither my brother nor I was of an age to appreciate such a dedication and we regarded it as something entailing hard work. Ravel wanted us to give the first public performance but the idea filled me with a cold terror. My brother, being less timid and more gifted on the piano, coped quite well. But despite lessons from Ravel I used to freeze to such an extent that the idea had to be abandoned.

Doubtless she grew up to rue the day when she forfeited the opportunity to premiere a composition by Ravel — not to mention one that took place at such a historically notable event as the inaugural concert of the Société Musicale Indépen-dente, a concert association formed by disciples of Gabriel Fauré. But business is business and children are stubborn, so Ravel had to accept that the dedicatees of his suite for piano four-hands would not be its first performers. Instead, the honors went to two other youngsters, Jeanne Leleu (aged six) and Geneviève Durony (a year older). The former, a pupil of the renowned pianist Marguerite Long, would

go on to win a Grand Prix de Rome as a composer and eventually taught sight-reading on the faculty of the Paris Con-servatoire. The day after the premiere, Ravel wrote her a note that she must have treasured until she died in 1979:

Mademoiselle, When you are a great virtuoso and I an old fogey, covered with honors or else completely forgotten, you will perhaps have pleasant memories of having given an artist the rare satisfaction of hearing a work of his, of a rather unusual nature, interpreted exactly as it should be. Thank you a thousand times for your child-like and sensitive performance of Ma Mère l’oye. Your devoted, etc. Maurice Ravel

Perfect though these little keyboard pieces were, Ravel’s publisher Jacques Durand and the impresario Jacques Rouché saw bigger possibilities in them. Durand persuaded the composer to orchestrate the set into a symphonic suite, and Rouché went a step further, convinc-ing him to expand it into a full ballet- divertissement, which Rouché himself would direct in a staged production, un-veiled at the beginning of 1912.

Ravel was occasionally given to com-menting on earlier cultural achievements through his own music, to the extent that his “comments” may be said to prefigure postmodern obsessions of the late 20th

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century. One such historical strand of music that intrigued Ravel was the Viennese waltz, which reached its apex in the hundreds of examples by Johann Strauss II, and which came to symbolize the carefree, if some-what formalized, joyfulness of 19th-century Austria. To many it also suggested the assumed cultural superiority of a city (and a populace) that could boast of having supported some of the most notable composers of all time, from the age of Haydn and Mozart through the period of Beethoven and Schubert to the era of Brahms and Bruckner and the modernist fin-de-siècle moment of Mahler and Schoenberg.

In 1911 Ravel paid homage to the Viennese waltz in his Valses nobles et sentimentales, inspired most particularly by Schubert’s waltzes. He clarified his interest in the extramusical connotations of the genre by inscribing an epigram at the top of the first page: “le plaisir délicieux et toujours nouveau d’une occupation inutile” (“the delicious and ever-fresh pleasure of a useless occupation”).

As early as 1906 Ravel started think-ing about creating a musical tribute to Johann Strauss II, but he didn’t get much further with the composition than deciding on its title: Wien (Vienna). Years passed, and Ravel was continually distracted by other projects. Then Europe collapsed with the onset of World War I, during which the composer served as a driver in the motor transport corps, having been turned down in several applica-tions to enlist as an air force pilot.

When the war ended, Ravel retained his admiration for the waltz as a musical genre, but its sociological implications had changed considerably. What had formerly signified buoyant joie de vivre assumed an ominous tone in retrospect; the self-satisfied pleasure of 19th-century Vienna had led to national hubris and international catastrophe. By the time Ravel composed La Valse, in 1919–20, the gaiety of the Viennese ballroom could no longer be presented without knowing comment.

Thus, Ravel’s tone poem reveals itself to be a sort of danse macabre. The interval of the tritone (the augmented fourth or diminished fifth), historically understood to convey some diabolical connotation, is found throughout the melodies of La

Valse, yielding a bi-tonal sense, a feeling of something being out of kilter. Listen-ers cannot help but feel that something is oddly out of focus in the ballroom the waltz depicts. Nonetheless, anyone encountering La Valse for the first time will find it easy to overlook the disturbing undertones and the general wooziness: the surface is undeniably festive, after all. Not until the piece’s final minutes are we forced to accept that the waltz has run ir-retrievably amok. Even understanding that, we are likely to be shocked by the brutality of the conclusion, which is nothing short of violent, terrifying, and bitterly final.

“I conceived of this work as a sort of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz,” Ravel wrote, “mingled with, in my mind, the im-pression of a fantastic, fatal whirling.” In fact, he intended the piece to serve as a

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The Work at a Glance

Ravel penned this scenario for the staged production of Ma Mère l’oye:

PRELUDE

SCENE 1: Dance of the Spinning Wheel — An enchanted garden. An old woman is seated at her spinning wheel. Princess Florine enters, jumping rope. She stumbles, falling against the spinning wheel, and is pricked by its spindle. The old woman calls for help. The young ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting rush in. They try in vain to revive the Princess. Then they recall the curse of the fairies. Two ladies-in-waiting prepare the Princess for her long sleep.

SCENE 2: Pavane of Sleeping Beauty — Florine falls asleep. The old woman now stands erect, throws off her filthy cape and appears in the sumptuous clothing and charming features of the Good Fairy.

Two little Negroes appear. The fairy entrusts them with guarding Florine and granting her pleasant dreams.

SCENE 3: Conversations of Beauty and the Beast — Beauty enters. Taking her mirror, she powders herself. The Beast enters. Beauty notices him and remains petrified. With horror, she rejects the declarations of the Beast, who falls at her feet, sobbing. Reassured, Beauty makes fun of him coquettishly. The Beast falls down faint with despair. Touched by his great love, Beauty raises him up again and accords him her hand.

But before her is a prince more handsome than Eros, who thanks her for having ended his enchantment.

SCENE 4: Tom Thumb — A forest, at nightfall. The woodcutter’s seven children enter. Tom Thumb crumbles a piece of bread. He looks about but cannot find any houses. The children cry. Tom Thumb reassures them by showing them the bread which he has strewn along their path.

They lie down and fall asleep. Birds pass and eat all of the bread. Upon awakening, the children no longer find any crumbs, and they depart sadly.

SCENE 5: Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas — A tent draped in Chinese style. Male and female pagoda attendants enter. Dance. Laideronnette appears in the Chinese style of Boucher. A green serpent crawls amorously at her side.

Pas de deux, then general dance.

SCENE 6: The Enchanted Garden — Dawn. Birds are singing. Prince Charming enters, led by a cupid. He notices the sleeping Princess. She awakens

at the same time that day is breaking. All of the performers in the ballet group themselves around the Prince and the Princess,

who are united by Cupid. The Good Fairy appears and blesses the couple.

APOTHEOSIS

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ballet score for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and he accordingly prefaced his score with a vague scenario, signaling spe-cifically two spots in the piece:

Through breaks in the swirling clouds, waltzing couples may be glimpsed. Little by little they disperse: one makes out (A) an immense hall filled with a whirling crowd. The stage is illuminated gradually. The light of the chandeliers peaks at the fortissimo (B). An Imperial Court, about 1855.

Diaghilev, however, did not stage this work. When Ravel and Marcelle Meyer, Ravel’s pianist-colleague, played through it in a two-piano arrangement for the great ballet impresario, Diaghilev report-edly said: “Ravel, it’s a masterpiece, but it’s not a ballet. ... It’s the portrait of a bal-let, a painting of a ballet.”

Instrumentation: Ma Mère l’oye employs two flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes (one doubling English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, two horns, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, xylophone, orchestra bells, bell tree, harp, celesta, and strings. La Valse employs three flutes (one doubling piccolo), three oboes (one doubling English horn), two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bas-soons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, tambourine, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, castanets, tam-tam, orchestra bells, crotales, two harps, and strings.

Encoded Emotions

Ravel’s La Valse made musicological headlines in 2009 thanks to a startling announcement by David Lamaze, a pro-fessor at the Conservatoire de Rennes. Attentive listeners have long been aware that the three-note figure E-B-A is so common in Ravel’s music that it serves almost as a musical fingerprint. As Lamaze is French, he knew these notes by their French names, mi-si-la, and he came to imagine them as encoding the name “Misia.” Misia Sert was one of Ravel’s closest friends. She maintained a salon frequented by a “Who’s Who” of artists and musicians and her portrait was painted by the likes of Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec. Her half-brother was Cipa Godebski, for whose daughters Ravel composed Ma Mère l’oye, and she herself was the dedicatee of both La Valse and the song “Le Cygne” (“The Swan”) from Ravel’s song cycle Histoires naturelles. “It has never been done before,” stated Lamaze, “to take one person and to place them at the center of a life-long work.” His analysis of La Valse revealed that the mi-si-la motif ap-pears at crucial junctures of the musical structure. What’s more, he found that at the work’s beginning, before the waltz grows desperate, Ravel has interlinked those notes with an extra A and E; as the only two vowels in the composer’s surname, they may represent the name “Ravel.” By linking the names Misia and Ravel through these musical means, Lamaze believes, the composer may have revealed a romantic attraction that is far from clearly documented through more conventional means.

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ALAN GILBERTMusic Director The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair

Case ScaglioneJoshua WeilersteinAssistant Conductors

Leonard BernsteinLaureate Conductor, 1943–1990

Kurt MasurMusic Director Emeritus

VIOLINS

Glenn Dicterow Concertmaster The Charles E. Culpeper Chair

Sheryl Staples Principal Associate Concertmaster The Elizabeth G. Beinecke Chair

Michelle Kim Assistant Concertmaster The William Petschek Family Chair

Enrico Di CeccoCarol WebbYoko Takebe

Hae-Young Ham The Mr. and Mrs. Timothy M. George

Chair

Lisa GiHae KimKuan Cheng LuNewton Mansfield The Edward and Priscilla Pilcher

Chair

Kerry McDermottAnna RabinovaCharles Rex The Shirley Bacot Shamel Chair

Fiona SimonSharon YamadaElizabeth Zeltser The William and Elfriede Ulrich Chair

Yulia Ziskel

Marc Ginsberg Principal

Lisa Kim* In Memory of Laura Mitchell

Soohyun Kwon The Joan and Joel I. Picket Chair

Duoming Ba

Marilyn Dubow The Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr. Chair

Martin EshelmanQuan Ge The Gary W. Parr Chair

Judith GinsbergStephanie Jeong+Hanna LachertHyunju Lee Joo Young OhDaniel ReedMark SchmoocklerNa SunVladimir Tsypin

VIOLAS

Cynthia Phelps Principal The Mr. and Mrs. Frederick P. Rose

Chair

Rebecca Young*Irene Breslaw** The Norma and Lloyd Chazen Chair

Dorian Rence

Katherine Greene The Mr. and Mrs. William J.

McDonough Chair

Dawn HannayVivek KamathPeter KenoteKenneth MirkinJudith NelsonRobert Rinehart The Mr. and Mrs. G. Chris Andersen

Chair

CELLOS

Carter Brey Principal The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Chair

Eileen Moon* The Paul and Diane Guenther Chair

Eric Bartlett The Shirley and Jon Brodsky Foundation Chair

Maria Kitsopoulos

Elizabeth Dyson The Mr. and Mrs. James E. Buckman Chair

Sumire KudoQiang Tu

Ru-Pei Yeh The Credit Suisse Chair

in honor of Paul Calello

Wei Yu Wilhelmina Smith++

BASSES

Timothy Cobb++ Acting Principal The Redfield D. Beckwith Chair

Orin O’Brien* Acting Associate Principal The Herbert M. Citrin Chair

William Blossom The Ludmila S. and Carl B. Hess

Chair

Randall ButlerDavid J. GrossmanSatoshi Okamoto

FLUTES

Robert Langevin Principal The Lila Acheson Wallace Chair

Sandra Church*Mindy Kaufman

PICCOLO

Mindy Kaufman

OBOES

Liang Wang Principal The Alice Tully Chair

Sherry Sylar*Robert Botti The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Chair

ENGLISH HORN- The Joan and Joel Smilow Chair

CLARINETS

Ricardo Morales Principal Designate

Mark Nuccio Acting Principal The Edna and W. Van Alan Clark

Chair

Pascual Martinez Forteza* Acting Associate Principal The Honey M. Kurtz Family Chair

Alucia Scalzo++Amy Zoloto++

E-FLAT CLARINET

Pascual Martinez Forteza

BASS CLARINET

Amy Zoloto++

BASSOONS

Judith LeClair Principal The Pels Family Chair

Kim Laskowski*Roger NyeArlen Fast

CONTRABASSOON

Arlen Fast

HORNS

Philip Myers Principal The Ruth F. and Alan J. Broder Chair

Stewart Rose++* Acting Associate Principal

Cara Kizer AneffR. Allen Spanjer Howard WallDavid Smith++ TRUMPETS

Philip Smith Principal The Paula Levin Chair

Matthew Muckey*Ethan BensdorfThomas V. Smith

TROMBONES

Joseph Alessi Principal The Gurnee F. and Marjorie L. Hart

Chair

Daniele Morandini++* Acting Associate Principal

David Finlayson The Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen

Chair

BASS TROMBONE

James Markey The Daria L. and William C. Foster Chair

TUBA

Alan Baer Principal

TIMPANI

Markus Rhoten Principal The Carlos Moseley Chair

Kyle Zerna**

PERCUSSION

Christopher S. Lamb Principal The Constance R. Hoguet Friends of the Philharmonic Chair

Daniel Druckman* The Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Ulrich Chair

Kyle Zerna

HARP

Nancy Allen Principal The Mr. and Mrs. William T. Knight III

Chair

KEYBOARD In Memory of Paul Jacobs

HARPSICHORD

Paolo Bordignon

PIANO The Karen and Richard S. LeFrak Chair

- Jonathan Feldman

ORGAN

Kent Tritle

LIBRARIANS

Lawrence Tarlow Principal

Sandra Pearson** Sara Griffin**

ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL MANAGER

Carl R. Schiebler

STAGE REPRESENTATIVE

Louis J. Patalano

AUDIO DIRECTOR

Lawrence Rock

* Associate Principal** Assistant Principal+ On Leave++ Replacement/Extra

The New York Philharmonic uses the revolving seating method for section string players who are listed alphabetically in the roster.

HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY

Emanuel Ax Pierre BoulezStanley DruckerLorin Maazel Zubin MehtaCarlos Moseley

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The Music Director

New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, began his tenure in September 2009, creating what New York magazine called “a fresh future for the Philharmonic.” The first native New Yorker to hold the post, he has sought to make the Orchestra a point of civic pride for the city as well as for the country.

Mr. Gilbert’s creative approach to pro-gramming combines works in fresh and in-novative ways. He has also forged artistic partnerships, introducing the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, an annual three-week festival, and CONTACT!, the new-music series. In 2011–12 he conducts world premieres, three Mahler

symphonies, a residency at London’s Barbican Centre, and tours to Europe and California, with a season-concluding musical exploration of space at the Park Avenue Armory, featuring Stockhausen’s theatrical immersion, Gruppen. He also made his Philharmonic debut as a soloist when he joined Frank Peter Zimmermann in J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in October 2011. Last season’s highlights in-cluded two tours of European music capi-tals, Carnegie Hall’s 120th Anniversary Concert, and the acclaimed performance of Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, hailed by The Washington Post as “another victory,” building on 2010’s wildly success-ful staging of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, which The New York Times called “an instant Philharmonic milestone.”

In September 2011 Alan Gilbert became Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, where he is also the first to hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies. Conductor Lau-reate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra, he regularly conducts leading orchestras nationally and internationally, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Alan Gilbert made his acclaimed Met-ropolitan Opera debut in November 2008 leading John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, the DVD of which was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Opera Record-ing category. Other recordings have also

received Grammy Award nominations, along with top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone magazine.

Mr. Gilbert studied at Harvard Univer-sity, The Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School, and has served as the assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra (1995–97). In May 2010 he received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music.

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The Artist

Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter gained an international reputa-tion as Octavian in R. Strauss’s Der Rosen-kavalier, with performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Bavarian Staatsoper, Opéra National de Paris, and the Vienna Staatsoper; she also performed the role as part of a series of engagements with James Levine and The Metropolitan Opera. Other recent highlights have in-cluded her title role debut in Charpentier’s Médée for Oper Frankfurt; concert perfor-mances of Handel’s Tamerlano opposite Plácido Domingo at Gran Teatre del Liceu; and a return to Theater Basel for Offen-bach’s La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein.

Ms. von Otter has appeared as Baba the Turk in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt for Theater an der Wien; Countess Geschwitz in Berg’s Lulu at The Metropolitan Opera, conducted by Fabio Luisi; and in May 2011 she appeared with tenor Jonas Kaufmann and the Berlin Philharmonic, led by Claudio

Abbado, in a televised performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde on the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death. This season she performs in concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Berlin Philharmonic with Sir Simon Rattle, Munich Philharmonic and Iván Fischer, and the Sydney and London Symphony Orchestras with Michael Tilson Thomas. This season she can be heard as Geneviève in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande for Opéra National de Paris, as Clytemnestra in Gluck’s Iphigenie en Aulide for De Nederlandse Opera, and in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at the Salzburg Festival.

Anne Sofie von Otter’s recordings with Deutsche Grammophon include Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro conducted by James Levine, Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice under John Eliot Gardiner, and R. Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos led by Giuseppe Sin-opoli. She has been named Recording Art-ist of the Year by the International Record Critics Association, and received a Grammy Award for best classical vocal performance for Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and a Diapason d’Or for a recording of Swedish songs. She collaborated with pop legend Elvis Costello on the disc For the Stars, and in October 2010 released her first record-ing with the Naïve label, Love Songs.

Anne Sofie von Otter was born into a Swedish family. She graduated from the Stockholm College of Music and studied further at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

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The New York Philharmonic, founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians led by American-born Ureli Corelli Hill, is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world. It currently plays some 180 concerts a year, and on May 5, 2010, gave its 15,000th concert — a milestone unmatched by any other sym-phony orchestra in the world.

Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, began his tenure in September 2009, the latest in a dis-tinguished line of 20th-century musical giants that has included Lorin Maazel (2002–09); Kurt Masur (Music Director 1991–2002, Music Director Emeritus since 2002); Zubin Mehta (1978–91); Pierre Boulez (1971–77); and Leonard Bernstein (appointed Music Director in 1958; given the lifetime title of Laureate Conductor in 1969).

Since its inception the Orchestra has championed the new music of its time, commissioning and/or premiering many important works, such as Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World; Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3; Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F; and Copland’s Connotations. The Philharmonic has also given the U.S. premieres of such works as Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 and Brahms’s Symphony No. 4. This pioneering tradition has continued to the present day, with works of major contem-porary composers regularly scheduled each season, including John Adams’s Pu-litzer Prize– and Grammy Award–winning

On the Transmigration of Souls; Melinda Wagner’s Trombone Concerto; Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto; Magnus Lind-berg’s EXPO and Al largo; Wynton Marsa-lis’s Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3); Christopher Rouse’s Odna Zhizn; and, by the end of the 2010–11 season, 11 works in CONTACT!, the new-music series.

The roster of composers and conductors who have led the Philharmonic includes such historic figures as Theodore Thomas, Antonín Dvorák, Gustav Mahler (music di-rector 1909–11), Otto Klemperer, Richard Strauss, Willem Mengelberg (Music Direc-tor 1922–30), Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini (Music Director 1928–36), Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Bruno Walter (Music Advisor 1947–49), Dimitri Mitro-poulos (Music Director 1949–58), Klaus Tennstedt, George Szell (Music Advisor 1969–70), and Erich Leinsdorf.

Long a leader in American musical life, the Philharmonic has become renowned around the globe, appearing in 430 cities in 63 countries on 5 continents. Under Alan Gilbert’s leadership, the Orchestra made its Vietnam debut at the Hanoi Op-era House in October 2009. In February 2008 the Philharmonic, conducted by then Music Director Lorin Maazel, gave a his-toric performance in Pyongyang, D.P.R.K., earning the 2008 Common Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy. In 2012 the Philharmonic becomes an International Associate of London’s Barbican Centre.

The Philharmonic has long been a me-dia pioneer, having begun radio broadcasts in 1922, and is currently represented by

The New York Philharmonic This Week — syndicated nationally and internation-ally 52 weeks per year, and available at nyphil.org. It continues its television presence on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS, and in 2003 made history as the first symphony orchestra ever to perform live on the Grammy Awards. Since 1917 the Philharmonic has made nearly 2,000 recordings, and in 2004 became the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live. Since June 2009 more than 50 concerts have been released as downloads, and the Philharmonic’s self-produced record-ings will continue with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2011–12 Season, comprising 12 releases. Famous for its long-running Young People’s Concerts, the Philharmonic has developed a wide range of educational programs, among them the School Partnership Program that enriches music education in New York City, and Learning Overtures, which fosters interna-tional exchange among educators.

Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.

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Executive Producer: Vince Ford

Producers: Lawrence Rock and Mark Travis

Recording and Mastering Engineer: Lawrence Rock

Assistant Producer: Nick Bremer

Photos of Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: Chris Lee

Franz Schubert's Die Forelle used with permission from Boosey & Hawkes

Gretchen am Spinnrade used with permission from Universal Edition and European American Music

Distributors, LLC

Im Abendrot used with permission from Breitkopf & Härtel and G. Schirmer, Inc.

Erlkönig used with permission from Universal Edition

Major funding for this recording is provided to the New York Philharmonic by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser.

Alan Gilbert, Music Director, holds The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair.

Classical 105.9 FM WQXR is the Radio Home of the New York Philharmonic.

Instruments made possible, in part, by The Richard S. and Karen LeFrak Endowment Fund.

Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural

Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Steinway is the Official Piano of the New York Philharmonic and Avery Fisher Hall.

Exclusive timepiece of the New York Philharmonic

Haydn Schubert Ravel

Documents

Transcript of Haydn Schubert Ravel