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New York Philharmonic
David Robertson
Conducts
2009 – 2010
New York Philharmonic
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Alan Gilbert: The Inaugural Season
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Alan Gilbert: The Inaugural Season
About This Series
In Alan Gilbert: The Inaugural Season,
the New York Philharmonic breaks new
ground by being the first orchestra to
offer a season’s worth of recorded music
for download. Offered exclusively through
iTunes, this series brings the excitement
of Alan Gilbert’s first season to an
international audience.
The iTunes Pass will give subscribers
access to more than 50 works, comprising
new music (including New York Philhar­
monic commissions) and magnificent
selections from the orchestral repertoire,
performed by many of the world’s top
artists and conductors. The subscription
also features bonus content, such as
Alan Gilbert’s onstage commentaries,
and exclusive extras, including additional
performances and lectures.
For more information about the series,
visit nyphil.org/itunes.
The 2009–10 season — Alan Gilbert’s
first as Music Director of the Philharmonic
— introduces his vision for the Orchestra,
one that both builds on its rich legacy
and looks to the future and reflects the
diver­­­sity of his interests. He sees the
Orchestra as a place that both celebrates
the greatest of the classical repertoire
and nurtures today’s composers and
tomorrow’s music. The season's program­
ming reflects his belief in the importance
of artistic collaboration, his commitment
to raising audience awareness and
understanding of music, and his interest
in making the Philharmonic a destination
for all.
“I’d like to develop a special kind of
rapport and trust with our audience,” Mr.
Gilbert says. “The kind of belief that would
make them feel comfortable hearing
anything we program simply because we
programmed it. Looking ahead, I hope
my performances with the Orchestra will
consist of our tightly combined human
chemistry, a clear persona that is both
identifiable and enjoyable.”
Executive Producer: Vince Ford
Producers: Lawrence Rock and Mark Travis
Recording and Mastering Engineer: Lawrence Rock
Performance photos: Chris Lee
Alan Gilbert portrait: Hayley Sparks
Danzas from Estancia, Op. 8a by Alberto Ginastera ©Copyright 1953 by Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.
Copyright Renewed.
Dance Figures by George Benjamin © Faber Music Ltd.
Major funding for this recording is provided to the New York Philharmonic by
Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser.
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.
Instruments made possible, in part, by The Richard S. and Karen LeFrak Endowment Fund.
Steinway is the Official Piano of the New York Philharmonic and Avery Fisher Hall.
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New York Philharmonic
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New York Philharmonic
David Robertson, Conductor
Recorded live February 18–20, 2010,
Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
George BENJAMIN (b. 1960)
Dance Figures: Nine Choreographic
Scenes for Orchestra (2004)
15:30
DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the
Afternoon of a Faun) (1892–94)
10:43
GINASTERA (1916–83)
Danzas del Ballet Estancia (Dances from the
Ballet Estancia), Op. 8bis (1941)
The Land Workers
Wheat Dance
The Cattle-Men
Final Dance: Malambo
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11:49
3:03
3:01
1:52
3:53
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Notes on the Program
By James M. Keller, Program Annotator
Dance Figures: Nine
Choreographic Scenes
for Orchestra
George Benjamin
In Short
Born: January 31, 1960, in London, England
Resides: in London
Work composed: 2004, on a joint commission
from the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie/Koninklijke
Muntschouwburg (Brussels); the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra for its MusicNOW series; and Strasbourg
Musica. Dedicated: “For Sam, Rosie, Alex, and
Francesca”
After 18 years teaching at the Royal
College of Music, George Benjamin was
named the Henry Purcell Professor of
Composition at King’s College, London,
in 2001, succeeding Harrison Birtwistle
in that position. Recognized as one of the
foremost British composers of his time,
Benjamin has been widely acknowledged
in his native country and abroad. He was
named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et
des Lettres by the French government in
1996, elected to the Bavarian Academy
of Fine Arts in 2000, and awarded the
Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester’s firstever Schoenberg Prize for composition in
2001.
Benjamin’s formation as a composer
was international in nature. Following early
work in piano and composition in England,
he moved to France to studycomposi­
tion with Olivier Messiaen and piano
with Yvonne Loriod; he then returned to
England to become a pupil of Alexander
Goehr at King’s College, Cambridge. Both
nations provided platforms for his early
successes in the 1980s. Since then his
music has been warmly embraced in the
United States as well: his symphonic
pieces have been commissioned by the
orchestras of San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Cleveland, Chicago, and Boston, and he
has become a frequent faculty member at
World premiere: as a concert work, on May 19,
2005, at Orchestra Hall, Chicago, Daniel Barenboim
conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; as a
ballet, on May 17, 2006, conducted by Kazushi Ono
at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels with
the Rosas Dance Company, choreographed by Anne
Teresa de Keersmaeker
New York Philharmonic premiere: these concerts,
which mark the work’s New York premiere
the Berkshire Music Festival at Tangle­
wood. Retrospectives of his work have
been undertaken by the London Sym­
phony Orchestra, as well as by ensembles
in Brussels, Tokyo, Berlin, Strasbourg, and
Madrid. He also provided compositions for
the opening festivities of two important
concert halls: Manchester’s Bridgewater
Hall and Tokyo’s Opera City Concert Hall.
In addition to being a composer, Benja­
min has often appeared as a pianist and a
conductor, more often as the latter. On the
podium he typically champions the music
of 20th- and 21st-century composers, and
he has led the premieres of compositions
by György Ligeti, Gérard Grisey, Unsuk
Chin, and Wolfgang Rihm, among other
notable figures.
Although his writing displays the sort
8
of meticulous attention to detail we may
associate with many French composers,
Benjamin’s own evolving style has not usu­
ally seemed particularly French, unless we
would consider his fascination with some
of the interests of the musique spectrale
composers in the 1980s as such. At least
in their fastidiousness, some of his works
may more directly suggest his interest in
the compositional rigor of Webern and, by
extension, the canonic processes of Re­
naissance composers. Indeed, a prominent
canon is to be heard in the eighth section
of Dance Figures.
Benjamin’s works often take an inor­
dinately long time — years, even — to
germinate, but when they reach the point
he’s seeking, he knows it. He observes:
There may be millions of notes in a work,
but when you really find the right notes, and
they resonate in the right way, something
mysterious happens. It’s that moment when
things suddenly lock into each other, and
you realize: I’ve got a piece!
In this context, the work played here was
an exception:
Dance Figures really is different, not least
because it took me only three months to
write from beginning to end. I had seen
Balanchine’s wonderful choreography to
Stravinsky’s Agon, with its little forms that
leave space and air for dancers to work in,
and it seemed to me that writing for dance
demands a succession of small forms rather
than narrative, symphonic discourse.
The Work at a Glance
George Benjamin has provided this listening guide
in the published score of Dance Figures:
Nine short movements, several interlinked, all
defined by strong contrasts in character, form,
and color.
I. A simple introduction, exclusively for divided
high strings, leading through a suspended
chord to:
II. An ornate melody shared amongst the winds,
underpinned by a sonorous harmonic texture.
Its calm conclusion is joined to:
III. A brief polyphonic movement, divided into
two halves — the first legato and plaintive, the
second more energetic and pointed.
IV. Various musical materials cross-cut and
superimpose in this volatile movement: virtuoso
woodwind flourishes, heavy chords in the lowest regions of the orchestra, a fierce quartet of
horns, a hesitant oboe solo ... On its third appearance a distant, slow chorale links to:
V. A flowing song, sharing the main line between a viola solo and muted trumpets. An
abrupt change of atmosphere marks the coda,
where an E-flat clarinet takes the foreground.
VI. The full orchestra, employed as a single
mass, placed almost entirely in a high register. Monolithic pulses are disrupted by abrupt
changes in pace while blaring melodic fragments hocket across the brass.
VII. After a pause, a complete contrast — a
veiled texture, subdued and low in tessitura. A
deep major third in muted trombones leads to:
VIII. A longer movement, reflective in mood and
scored for chamber-like resources. A darkhued canon between bass clarinets and cellos
prefaces three statements of the same simple
melody. At each recurrence the tempo slows
considerably while the melody is harmonized
and embellished in different ways.
IX. A very short but energetic Presto, exploiting
a play of perspectives across the full orchestra
as a melodic line, mainly in the first violins,
spins its way through a mass of other materials.
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Notes on the Program (continued)
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un
faune (Prelude to the
Afternoon of a Faun)
Claude Debussy
In fact, Benjamin had something of a
head start on this work, since he describes
Dance Figures as “a much expanded orchestral transcription of Piano Figures, a
series of short piano pieces intended for
children to play.”
Whether many children are actually
playing Piano Figures is not known; the
ten-movement suite (composed in 2004)
was premiered in 2006 by Pierre-Laurent
Aimard, and Benjamin sometimes per­
forms it himself.
In the solo-piano setting (Piano Figures),
the sections are identified by subtitles,
which are omitted from the published
orchestral score (Dance Figures). The
first six numbers are performed without
a break, as are the final three, yielding a
two-part structure that stops for a breather
only about two-thirds of the way through
the piece. Dance Figures was imagined
from the outset as both a score to be
choreographed and as a stand-alone
orchestral work.
In Short
Born: August 22, 1862, in St. Germain-en-Laye, just
outside Paris, France
Died: March 25, 1918, in Paris
Work composed: begun in 1892 (perhaps as early as
1891); completed in 1894
Claude Debussy achieved his musical matu­
rity in the final decade of the 19th century,
a magical moment in France when partisans
of the visual arts fully embraced the gentle
luster of impressionism, poets navigated the
indirect locutions of symbolism, composers
struggled with the pluses and minuses of
Wagner, and the City of Light blazed even
more brightly than usual, enflamed with the
pleasures of the Belle Époque.
Several early Debussy masterpieces of the
1890s remain firmly ensconced in the endur­
ing repertoire, perhaps most strikingly the
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Debussy
was hardly a youngster when he composed it.
He had begun studying at the Paris Conser­
vatoire in 1872, when he was only ten, then
served as resident pianist and musical pet for
Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s mysteri­
ous patroness, in Russia and on her travels
during the summers of 1880–82. He finally
gained the imprimatur of the Prix de Rome
in 1884 (for his cantata L’Enfant prodigue),
enabling him to spend the next two years in
Italy. After inhaling the Wagnerian breezes of
Bayreuth in 1888 and 1889, he then grew
enamored of the sounds of the Javanese
gamelan at the Paris International Exposition
of 1889. During all this he also composed a
great many songs and piano pieces, some of
which are still widely performed today.
While defining the composer’s distinc­
Instrumentation: three flutes (two
doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets
(one doubling E-flat clarinet, one doubling
bass clarinet) plus an E-flat clarinet, two
bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns,
two trumpets, three trombones, tuba,
timpani, temple blocks, guiros, ratchets,
tam-tam, bass drum, orchestra bells, cym­
bals, anvils, fishing-rod reel (or very quiet
ratchet), cowbells, vibraphone, whip, vibraslap, snare drums, tambourine, log drums,
alarm bell, harp, celesta, and strings.
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World premiere: December 22, 1894, at a concert
of the Société Nationale de Musique in Paris, Gustave
Doret, conductor
New York Philharmonic premiere: November 12,
1905, Walter Damrosch conducting the New York
Symphony (which would merge with the New York
Philharmonic in 1928 to form today’s New York
Philharmonic)
tive voice, the Prelude to the Afternoon of a
Faun baffled many early listeners. Debussy’s
fellow-composer Alfred Bruneau wrote of
the piece:
[It] is one of the most exquisite instrumental
fantasies which the young French school has
produced. This work is too exquisite, alas! it is
too exquisite.
Even at the distance of more than a
century, listeners can appreciate Bruneau’s
concern. Debussy — or at least the Debussy
of the 1890s — sometimes seemed so
obsessed with minute details of timbre that
other musical concerns appeared to be over­
looked; everything threatened to implode into
a mass of sensual loveliness. Of the Prelude
to the Afternoon of a Faun the composer
Ferruccio Busoni said (intending, one would
think, a compliment), “It is like a beautiful
sunset; it fades as one looks at it.”
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Notes on the Program (continued)
Debussy’s eventual style was not to display
the sort of firm, unmistakable architecture that
most composers up until that time had cher­
ished. His method would evolve into something
more intuitive, with themes that invite little
development, and with harmonies that inspire
momentary excitement rather than underscore
long trajectories. Although Debussy is some­
times called a musical impressionist, his aes­
thetic affinities would seem to be more allied
to the symbolists, those poets and artists of the
late-19th century who disdained the purely ex­
pository or representational and sought instead
to evoke a specific, fleeting emotional illumina­
tion in the reader or viewer through sometimes
mysterious metaphors.
One of the highpoints of symbolist poetry
was L’Après-midi d’un faune (The Afternoon
of a Faun), by Stéphane Mallarmé. The poem
first appeared in 1865 under the title Monologue d’un faune and then kept evolving until
it reached a definitive version in 1876. At that
point Mallarmé published it, under its new title,
in a slim volume embellished with a drawing
by Édouard Manet. Vintage symbolism it is:
a faun (a rural deity that is half man and half
goat) spends a languorous afternoon observ­
ing, recalling, or fantasizing about — it’s not
always clear which — some alluring nymphs
who clearly affect him in an erotic way. The
poem became iconic in its time (although it
was merely a point of departure for Mallarmé’s
further, even more revolutionary poetry), and
Debussy fell under its spell by the early 1890s,
when he seems to have discussed with Mal­
larmé the idea of creating a musical parallel.
Debussy appears to have embarked on the
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project sometime in 1892; by October 23,
1894, the score was complete. The piece
was premiered two months later to such
acclaim that it was immediately encored
on the same program. Certainly the work
was radical in its unremitting sensuality,
but its harmonic implications were also
profound, and in retrospect the Prelude to
the Afternoon of a Faun may be considered
a harbinger of the musical century that lay
ahead.
Instrumentation: three flutes, two oboes
and English horn, two clarinets, two bas­
soons, four horns, antique cymbals, two
harps, and strings.
The Path to the Premiere
pressing my hands and hiding his
anxiety behind a grin that I had come
to recognize. There was a vast silence
in the hall as I ascended to the podium
and our splendid flutist, Barrère,
unfolded his opening line. All at once
I felt behind me, as some conductors
can, an audience that was totally spellbound. It was a complete triumph, and
I had no hesitation in breaking the rule
forbidding encores. The orchestra was
delighted to repeat this work, which it
had come to love and which, thanks to
them, the audience had now accepted.
Radical though the Prélude à l’après-midi
d’un faune was, its premiere was entrusted
to a relatively untried conductor, Gustave
Doret (1866–1943). Doret would go on to
become principal conductor of the OpéraComique, but in 1894 he was a recent graduate of the violin and composition programs
of the Paris Conservatoire. He recalled the
experience of premiering this Debussy
work in his memoirs, Temps et contretemps,
published in his native Switzerland a year
before his death:
The first concert I was to conduct
at the Société Nationale was set for
December 22, 1894, and, as I expected,
it was to be a considerable test.
At this debut of mine, Claude Debussy was to entrust me with the first
performance of his Prélude à l’aprèsmidi d’un faune. He took me to his tiny
apartment on the rue Gustave-Doré (a
strange coincidence!), spread out the
proofs of the orchestral score, which
were already covered with corrections,
and sat down at the piano; while I,
open-mouthed and with eager ears, sat
beside him. I was completely seduced,
entranced, overwhelmed.
I promised that we would take as
much time preparing the score as
was needed. And never, I believe, did
rehearsals take place in such an atmosphere of intimate collaboration. Debussy was constantly modifying this or
that sonority. We tried it out, repeated
it, compared it. Once the players had
come to understand this new style,
they realized that we would have a
serious battle on our hands. Of course,
Debussy’s name was familiar to the
real connoisseurs, but to the general
public it was still unknown. The hour
of the great test duly arrived, Debussy
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Notes on the Program (continued)
Danzas del Ballet Estancia
(Dances from the Ballet
Estancia), Op. 8bis
Alberto Ginastera
Música Argentina
He is never off the cuff, but speaks always
Alberto Ginastera made a greater impact on
the international classical music scene than
did any other Argentine composer. Born into
a family with Catalan and Italian roots, he
was schooled entirely in his native country,
principally at the National Conservatory of
Music in Buenos Aires. By the time he was
18 he was awarded first prize in a composi­
tion contest, and in quick succession he
produced numerous pieces with a distinc­
tive flavor, often employing native Argentine
rhythms or folk melodies. Many of these ear­
ly works he would later destroy or withdraw,
denouncing them as immature examples of
his art, but some have found places in the
repertoire, including his Danzas argentinas
(for piano, 1937), his ballet Estancia, and
his chamber composition Impresiones de la
Puna (1934).
Argentina endured a period of political op­
pression in the mid-20th century under the
regime of Juan Perón. In 1945 the govern­
ment forced Ginastera to resign from his
position on the music faculty of the National
Military Academy because he had signed a
petition in support of civil liberties. The then
30-year-old composer traveled with his fam­
ily to the United States, where he studied
from 1945 to 1947 with the support of a
Guggenheim Fellowship. On his return to
Argentina he formed a national composers’
organization similar to the League of Com­
posers in New York. After Perón was over­
In Short
with due consideration for feelings and
Born: April 11, 1916, in Buenos Aires, Argentina
decorum. He’s the last man in the world you’d
Died: June 25, 1983, in Geneva, Switzerland
expect to shock people with a sensational
Work composed: 1941; dedicated to Lincoln Kirstein
opera. A lot goes on inside we don’t know
World premiere: May 12, 1943, at the Teatro Colón
in Buenos Aires, Ferruccio Calusio conducting the
Orquesta del Teatro Colón
New York Philharmonic premiere: February 20,
1969, Seiji Ozawa, conductor
thrown, in 1955, Ginastera assumed several
political-academic posts in Argentina and
begin to introduce important new music from
Europe and North America to eager minds
in his country. In 1969, exasperated with the
political situation in Argentina, Ginastera left
definitively, and he spent most of the rest of
his life in Geneva, where he died in 1983.
Ginastera’s later works moved toward an
abstracted Modernism, even exploring serial
composition and polytonality. Nonetheless,
the composer remained concerned about the
gap that separated audiences from serious
musical composition during his lifetime, and
he proclaimed that the proper aspiration of a
composer was “to be integrated into society,
not stand apart from it.”
Outwardly, Ginastera was reserved, polite,
and formal. In the late 1960s, when his opera
Bomarzo was stunning audiences with its
alleged lewdness, his fellow-composer and
longtime friend Aaron Copland commented
on “the tremendous contrast between the
outward personality and the inner man,”
and observed:
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As with all Latin American countries, Argentina made its first steps in Western art
music under the auspices of the Roman
Catholic Church. Jesuit missionaries from
Spain, France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland,
and Germany helped establish a flourishing
musical culture in Argentina from the 16th
through the 18th centuries, and the eminent
Italian composer and organist Domenico Zipoli arrived in 1717 to oversee music in Córdoba, Argentina’s principal cultural center
at that time. In 1776 the capital of what was
by then the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
was officially established at Buenos Aires,
which from then on would be the hub of
Argentine musical life. Numerous Argentine
composers emerged during the 19th and
20th centuries, but most were appreciated
principally within the nation’s boundaries.
A handful, however, achieved prominence
beyond them, including — apart from Ginastera — the neo-Romantic Carlos Guastavino
(1912–2000), the “new tango” proponent
Astor Piazzolla (1921–92), and the theatrical
avant-gardist Mauricio Kagel (1931–2008),
who worked largely in Germany. Among
Argentina’s current contributions to the
musical scene are three particularly notable
figures whose careers have unrolled mostly
in the United States: Lalo Schifrin (b. 1932),
Mario Davidovsky (b. 1934), and Osvaldo
Golijov (b. 1960).
about, obviously.
Estancia resulted from a commission
tendered in 1941 by American Ballet Cara­
van. The group’s director, Lincoln Kirstein,
envisioned an evening of three one-act
ballets by three Latin American compos­
ers — Ginastera, Francisco Mignone of
Brazil, and Domingo Santa Cruz of Chile
— choreographed by George Balanchine.
The troupe disbanded in 1941 before the
project could be realized, but Ginastera was
able to get some instant mileage out of his
score by extracting four sections to stand as
his Danzas del Ballet Estancia (Op. 8bis), a
huge hit at its premiere in Buenos Aires. The
ballet would not be staged until 1952, also
in Buenos Aires, but with choreography by
Michel Borowski instead of Balanchine.
When Ginastera composed Estancia, he
was going through his phase of objective
nationalism (as he termed it), transpos­
ing elements of folk music directly into a
classical format. The ballet’s scenario was
perfectly suited to this approach. Its plot is
minimal — city boy falls in love with country
girl, who grows to like him only when he
develops the skills of a ranchman — but
its five scenes add up to a celebration of
rural life in Argentina. The complete ballet
(though not the Danzas suite) even includes
sung and recited passages from Martín
Fierro, José Hernández’s epic poem from the
1870s about the lives of the gauchos on
the pampas, a text that is deeply ingrained
in the psyche of all Argentines.
Instrumentation: flute (doubling piccolo)
and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two
bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, tim­
pani, triangle, castanets, tambourine, snare
drum, tenor drum, cymbals, bass drum,
tam-tam, xylophone, piano, and strings.
15
New York Philharmonic
2009–2010 Season
ALAN GILBERT Music Director
Daniel Boico, Assistant Conductor
Leonard Bernstein, Laureate Conductor, 1943–1990
Kurt Masur, Music 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 Cecco
Carol Webb
Yoko Takebe
Minyoung Chang
Hae-Young Ham
The Mr. and Mrs. Timothy
M. George Chair
Lisa GiHae Kim
Kuan-Cheng Lu
Newton Mansfield
Kerry McDermott
Anna Rabinova
Charles Rex
The Shirley Bacot Shamel
Chair
Fiona Simon
Sharon Yamada
Elizabeth Zeltser
Yulia Ziskel
Marc Ginsberg
Principal
Lisa Kim*
Cellos
Carter Brey
Marilyn Dubow
The Sue and Eugene
Mercy, Jr. Chair
Principal
The Fan Fox and Leslie R.
Samuels Chair
Martin Eshelman
Quan Ge
Judith Ginsberg
Myung-Hi Kim+
Hanna Lachert
Hyunju Lee
Daniel Reed
Mark Schmoockler
Na Sun
Vladimir Tsypin
Eileen Moon*
The Paul and Diane
Guenther Chair
Qiang Tu
The Shirley and Jon
Brodsky Foundation Chair
Evangeline Benedetti
Eric Bartlett
The Mr. and Mrs. James E.
Buckman Chair
Violas
Cynthia Phelps
Elizabeth Dyson
Maria Kitsopoulos
Sumire Kudo
Ru-Pei Yeh
Wei Yu
Principal
The Mr. and Mrs. Frederick
P. Rose Chair
Rebecca Young*+
Irene Breslaw**
The Norma and Lloyd
Chazen Chair
Basses
Eugene Levinson
Dorian Rence
Principal
The Redfield D. Beckwith
Chair
Katherine Greene
The Mr. and Mrs. William J.
McDonough Chair
Orin O’Brien
Acting Associate Principal
The Herbert M. Citrin Chair
Dawn Hannay
Vivek Kamath
Peter Kenote
Barry Lehr
Kenneth Mirkin
Judith Nelson
Robert Rinehart
William Blossom
The Ludmila S. and Carl B.
Hess Chair
Randall Butler
David J. Grossman
Satoshi Okamoto
The Mr. and Mrs. G. Chris
Andersen Chair
Flutes
Robert Langevin
Principal
The Lila Acheson Wallace
Chair
Sandra Church*
Renée Siebert
Mindy Kaufman
Piccolo
Mindy Kaufman
Oboes
Liang Wang
Principal
The Alice Tully Chair
Sherry Sylar*
Robert Botti
English Horn
Thomas Stacy
The Joan and Joel Smilow
Chair
Clarinets
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
In Memory of Laura
Mitchell
Soohyun Kwon
The Joan and Joel I. Picket
Chair
Bass Clarinet
Amy Zoloto++
Duoming Ba
Bassoons
Judith LeClair
Principal
The Pels Family Chair
Kim Laskowski*
Roger Nye
Arlen Fast
Contrabassoon
Arlen Fast
Horns
Philip Myers
Principal
The Ruth F. and Alan J.
Broder Chair
Erik Ralske
Acting Associate Principal
R. Allen Spanjer
Howard Wall
Timpani
Markus Rhoten
Orchestra Personnel
Manager
Carl R. Schiebler
Principal
The Carlos Moseley Chair
Stage
Representative
Louis J. Patalano
Percussion
Christopher S. Lamb
Principal
The Constance R. Hoguet
Friends of the
Philharmonic Chair
Audio Director
Lawrence Rock
Daniel Druckman*
The Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J.
Ulrich Chair
* Associate Principal
** Assistant Principal
+ On Leave
++ Replacement/Extra
Harp
Nancy Allen
Principal
The Mr. and Mrs. William T.
Knight III Chair
The New York Philharmonic
uses the revolving seating
method for section string
players who are listed
alphabetically in the roster.
Keyboard
Trumpets
Philip Smith
Principal
The Paula Levin Chair
Matthew Muckey*
Ethan Bensdorf
Thomas V. Smith
Trombones
Joseph Alessi
Principal
The Gurnee F. and
Marjorie L. Hart Chair
Amanda Stewart*
David Finlayson
The Donna and
Benjamin M. Rosen Chair
Bass Trombone
James Markey
In Memory of Paul Jacobs
Harpsichord
Lionel Party
Piano
The Karen and Richard S.
LeFrak Chair
Harriet Wingreen
Jonathan Feldman
Organ
Kent Tritle
Librarians
Lawrence Tarlow
Principal
Sandra Pearson**
Sara Griffin**
Tuba
Alan Baer
Principal
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Honorary Members
of the Society
Pierre Boulez
Stanley Drucker
Lorin Maazel
Zubin Mehta
Carlos Moseley
New York
Philharmonic
Gary W. Parr
Chairman
Zarin Mehta
President and Executive
Director
The Music Director
In September 2009 Alan Gilbert began
his tenure as Music Director of the New
York Philharmonic, the first native New
Yorker to hold the post. For his inaugural
season he has introduced a number of
new initiatives: the positions of The MarieJosée Kravis Composer-in-Residence,
held by Magnus Lindberg, and The Mary
and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence,
held by Thomas Hampson; an annual
three-week festival; and CONTACT,
the New York Philharmonic’s new-music
series. He leads the Orchestra on a major
tour of Asia in October 2009, with debuts
in Hanoi and Abu Dhabi; on a European
tour in January–February 2010; and in
performances of world, U.S., and New York
premieres. Also in the 2009–10 season,
Mr. Gilbert becomes the first person to
hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical
Studies at The Juilliard School, a position
that will include coaching, conducting, and
hosting performance master classes.
Highlights of Mr. Gilbert’s 2008–09
season with the New York Philharmonic
included the Bernstein anniversary concert
at Carnegie Hall, and a performance with
the Juilliard Orchestra, presented by the
Philharmonic, featuring Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony. In May 2009 he conducted
the World Premiere of Peter Lieberson’s
The World in Flower, a New York Philhar­
monic Commission, and in July 2009 he
led the New York Philharmonic Concerts
in the Parks and Free Indoor Concerts,
Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer, and
four performances at the Bravo! Vail Valley
Music Festival in Colorado.
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In June 2008 Mr. Gilbert was named
conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm
Philharmonic Orchestra, following his final
concert as its chief conductor and artistic
advisor. He has been principal guest
conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony
Orchestra since 2004. Mr. Gilbert regularly
conducts other leading orchestras in the
U.S. and abroad, including the Baltimore,
Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco
symphony orchestras; The Cleveland
Orchestra; Munich’s Bavarian Radio
Symphony Orchestra; Amsterdam’s Royal
Concert­gebouw Orchestra; and Orchestre
National de Lyon. In 2003 he was named
the first music director of the Santa Fe
Opera, where he served for three seasons.
Alan Gilbert studied at Harvard Univer­
sity, The Curtis Institute of Music, and
The Juilliard School. He was a substitute
violinist with The Philadelphia Orchestra
for two seasons and assistant conductor
of The Cleveland Orchestra from 1995
to 1997. In November 2008 he made
his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut
conducting John Adams’s Dr. Atomic. His
recording of Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite
with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award
for Best Orchestral Performance.
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The Artists
In the fall of
2009 conductor
David Robertson
began his fifth season
as music director of the
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra
(SLSO), while continuing as prin­
cipal guest conductor of the BBC
Symphony Orchestra, a post he has held
since 2005. Highlights of his current season
with the SLSO include performances at
New York’s Carnegie Hall and a four-city
tour of California. His guest engagements
include appearances with the New York
Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Chi­
cago Symphony Orchestra, and Cleveland
Orchestra in the U.S.; and the BBC Scottish
Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw
Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Berlin
Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, and Israel
Philharmonic Orchestra abroad. From 2000
to 2004 David Robertson was the first artist
to simultaneously hold the posts of music
director for the Orchestre National de Lyon
and artistic director of Lyon’s Auditorium.
He also served as music director of Paris’s
Ensemble Intercontemporain (1992– 2000)
and was resident conductor of the Jerusa­
lem Symphony Orchestra (1985–87).
His opera credits include The Metropolitan
Opera, Opéra de Lyon, Bavarian Staatsoper,
Théâtre du Châtelet, Hamburg Staatsoper,
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and San Francisco Opera.
Mr. Robertson’s discography features
numerous recordings for the Sony Classi­
cal, Naive, EMI/Virgin Classics, Deutsche
Grammophon, Atlantic/Erato, Nuema,
Adès, Valois, and Naxos labels, in addition
to his recent recording of John Adams’s
Doctor Atomic Symphony with the SLSO
for Nonesuch. His download-only Live from
Powell Hall releases, also with the SLSO,
include works by Adams, Scriabin, and
Szymanowski. Other recordings feature
works by composers such as Bartók, Elliott
Carter, Dvořák, Ginastera, Steve Reich, and
Saint-Saëns.
David Robertson attended London’s
Royal Academy of Music, where he
studied French horn and composition
before turning to orchestral conducting.
His honors include Columbia Univer­
sity’s 2006 Ditson Conductor’s Award;
with the SLSO, the League of American
Orchestras’ 2005–06 A.S.C.A.P.–Morton
Gould Award for Innovative Programming;
Musical America’s 2000 Conductor of
the Year Award; and the Seaver/National
Endowment for the Arts 1997 Conduc­
tors Award. He is the recipient of honor­
ary doctorates from Webster University
(2009) and Maryville University (2007), as
well as of the 2010 Excellence in the Arts
Award from the St. Louis Arts and Educa­
tion Council.
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New York Philharmonic
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 December 18,
2004, gave its 14,000th concert — a
milestone unmatched by any other
symphony orchestra in the world.
Alan Gilbert began his tenure as Music
Director in September 2009, the latest in a
distinguished line of 20th-century musical
giants that has included Lorin Maazel
(2002–09); Kurt Masur (Music Director
from 1991 to the summer of 2002;
named Music Director Emeritus in 2002);
Zubin Mehta (1978–91); Pierre Boulez
(1971–77); and Leonard Bernstein, who
was appointed Music Director in 1958
and given the lifetime title of Laureate
Conductor in 1969.
Since its inception the Orchestra has
championed the new music of its time,
commissioning or premiering many
important works, such as Dvořák’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 works
such 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
contemporary composers regularly
scheduled each season, including John
Adams’s Pulitzer Prize– and Grammy
Award–winning On the Transmigration of
Souls; Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 3;
Augusta Read Thomas’s Gathering
Paradise, Emily Dickinson Settings for
Soprano and Orchestra; and Esa-Pekka
Salonen’s Piano Concerto.
The roster of composers and conductors
who have led the Philharmonic includes
such historic figures as Theodore Thomas,
Antonín Dvořák, Gustav Mahler (Music
Director, 1909–11), Otto Klemperer,
Richard Strauss, Willem Mengelberg
(Music Director, 1922–30), Wilhelm
Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini (Music
Director, 1928–36), Igor Stravinsky, Aaron
Copland, Bruno Walter (Music Advisor,
1947–49), Dimitri Mitropoulos (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 over the last
century become renowned around the
globe, appearing in 429 cities in 61
countries on 5 continents. In February
2008 the Orchestra, led by then-Music
Director Lorin Maazel, gave a historic
performance in Pyongyang, Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea — the first
visit there by an American orchestra,
and an event watched around the world
and for which the Philharmonic received
the 2008 Common Ground Award for
Cultural Diplomacy. Other historic tours
have included the 1930 Tour to Europe,
with Toscanini; the first Tour to the USSR,
in 1959; the 1998 Asia Tour with Kurt
Masur, featuring the first performances in
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mainland China; and the 75th Anniversary
European Tour, in 2005, with Lorin Maazel.
A longtime media pioneer, the
Philharmonic began radio broadcasts in
1922 and is currently represented by
The New York Philharmonic This Week —
syndicated nationally 52 weeks per year,
and available on nyphil.org and Sirius
XM Radio. On television, in the 1950s
and 1960s, the Philharmonic inspired a
generation through Bernstein’s Young
People’s Concerts on CBS. Its television
presence has continued with annual
appearances on Live From Lincoln Center
on PBS, and in 2003 it made history as
the first Orchestra ever to perform live on
the Grammy Awards, one of the mostwatched television events worldwide. In
2004, the New York Philharmonic was
the first major American Orchestra to
offer downloadable concerts, recorded
live. Following on this innovation, in 2009
the Orchestra announced the first-ever
subscription download series, Alan Gilbert:
The Inaugural Season, available exclusively
on iTunes, produced and distributed by the
New York Philharmonic, and comprising
more than 50 works performed during
the 2009–10 season. Since 1917 the
Philharmonic has made nearly 2,000
recordings, with more than 500 currently
available.
On June 4, 2007, the New York
Philharmonic proudly announced a new
partnership with Credit Suisse, its firstever and exclusive Global Sponsor.
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Performed, produced, and distributed
by the New York Philharmonic
© 2009 New York Philharmonic
NYP 20100117
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