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New York Philharmonic
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About This Series
Alan Gilbert’s journey of musical discovery
can be traced on Alan Gilbert and the New
York Philharmonic: 2010–11 Season; the
series’ wide-ranging repertoire reflects his
programmatic belief that individual works,
both familiar and brand-new, should be
combined in innovative ways in order to
surprise, challenge, and delight the listener.
“When I became the Music Director of
the New York Philharmonic a year ago, I
was excited by the prospect of creating a
close connection with the audience,” Alan
Gilbert has said, adding, “I wanted our
listeners to know that we choose every
work we perform out of a real commitment
to its value, so that even if someone isn’t
familiar with a piece, they would feel
comfortable coming to hear it simply
because we programmed it.”
Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2010–11 Season — 12 highquality recordings of almost 30 works,
New York Philharmonic
available internationally — represents the
breadth of Alan Gilbert’s programs in his
second season as Music Director. Building
on the success of last year’s Alan Gilbert:
The Inaugural Season, the first time an
orchestra offered a season’s worth of recorded music for download, the new series
is more accessible and more flexible, offering performances either as a complete
series or as individual works.
The 2010–11 series allows listeners to
explore and own music that spans world
premieres of Philharmonic commissions to
works by past masters. Subscribers also
receive bonus content, including audio
recordings of Alan Gilbert’s onstage commentaries, the program notes published in
each concert’s Playbill, and encores given
by the soloists — all in the highest possible
audio quality available for download.
For more information about the series,
visit nyphil.org/itunes.
Alan Gilbert, Conductor
Recorded live September 22–25 & 28, 2010,
Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
R. STRAUSS (1864–1949)
Don Juan, Tone Poem after Nikolaus Lenau, Op. 20 (1889)
18:44
Henri DUTILLEUX (b. 1916)
Métaboles (1961–64)
18:34
I. Incantatoire
II. Linéare
III. Obsessionnel
IV. Torpide
V. Flamboyant
HINDEMITH (1895–1963)
Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes of Carl Maria von Weber (1940–43)
21:18
Allegro
Turandot, Scherzo (Moderato)
Andantino
Marsch
2
3
4:04
8:22
4:17
4:35
New York Philharmonic
4
5
Notes on the Program
By James M. Keller, Program Annotator
Don Juan, Tone Poem after
Nikolaus Lenau, Op. 20
Richard Strauss
In Short
Born: June 11, 1864, in Munich, Bavaria
Died: September 8, 1949, in Garmisch, Germany
Work composed: May–September 30, 1889
The idea of the symphonic (or tone) poem
may trace its ancestry to descriptive overtures of the early 19th century, but it was
Franz Liszt who molded it into a clearly
defined genre. This he did through a dozen
single-movement orchestral pieces that
he composed in the 1840s and ’50s that
drew inspiration from, or were in some way
linked to, literary sources. As time went by,
composers would similarly derive influence
for their symphonic poems from paintings
or other visual artworks; whatever the
source, in every case the music grew from
some non-musical germ. The genre proved
popular, and the repertoire quickly expanded thanks to impressive contributions by
such composers as Smetana, Dvořák, Musorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns, Franck,
and — most impressively of all — Richard
Strauss, who stubbornly and gloriously carried the precepts of romanticism through to
the middle of the 20th century.
Many lesser figures had also jumped
onto the symphonic poem bandwagon.
One of them was Alexander Ritter, an
Estonian-born violinist and composer who
fell in with the forward-looking crowd that
took up the ideals known as the Music
of the Future, and eventually acceded to
the position of associate concertmaster
of the Meiningen Court Orchestra. It was
there that he grew friendly with the young
Richard Strauss, who had been brought
World premiere: November 11, 1889, in Weimar,
with the composer conducting the Grand Ducal Court
Orchestra
New York Philharmonic premiere: December 15,
1905, Max Fiedler, conductor
in as an assistant music director in 1885.
Strauss would later say that it was Ritter
who revealed to him the greatness of
the music of Wagner, Liszt, and Berlioz,
and, by extension, opened his eyes to
the possibilities of the symphonic poem.
In 1886 he produced what might be
considered his first symphonic poem, Aus
Italien (which, more precisely, is a sort of
descriptive symphony), and he continued
with hardly a break through the series
of works that many feel represent the
genre at its height: Macbeth (1886–88),
Don Juan (1888), Tod und Verklärung
(Death and Transfiguration, 1888–89), Till
Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, 1894–95), Also
sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1895–96), Don Quixote (1896–97),
Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life, 1897–98),
and Symphonia domestica (1902–03), with
Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony,
1911–15) a late pendant to the catalogue.
Strauss was drawn to the concept (as
he would recall in his memoirs) that “new
ideas must search for new forms; this
basic principle of Liszt’s symphonic works,
6
Sources and Inspirations
in which the poetic idea was really the
formative element, became henceforward the guiding principle for my own
symphonic work.”
Don Juan, which falls near the beginning of this procession, is the first of
Strauss’s works to reveal his distinct
personality as a composer. Its extramusical impetus was Don Juan, the famous
womanizer of legend, whose libertine
exploits were apparently born in popular
literature of the 16th century and were
then embroidered by generations of
poets, playwrights, and novelists. The
composer based his symphonic poem
on a version of the tale produced by the
Austro-Hungarian poet Nikolaus Lenau
in 1844. Lenau’s Don Juan is a Romantic dreamer, whose compulsion to
seduce and desert an endless succession of women derives from a quest for
the ever-elusive ideal — in this case, “to
enjoy in one woman, all women, since
he cannot possess them as individuals.”
Strauss depicts Don Juan’s exploits
with several episodes of love music
conveying the disparate characters of
the women he conquers. (In a 1904
rehearsal with the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, Strauss stopped the proceedings at one point with the admonishment, “Gentlemen, I must confess
that I did not intend this passage to
be so beautiful; that woman was just
a common tramp!”) Don Juan meets
his inevitable doom in the end. Killed
by a father avenging the death of one
of the roué’s victims, a violent crash in
Don Juan — the fictional character we love
to hate — has inspired artists and captivated audiences for centuries in depictions
ranging from cruel seducer to hero that
are often a reflection of the social mores
of the time. Strauss’s orchestral Don Juan
— based on Nikolaus Lenau’s depiction of
Don Juan as the Romantic dreamer — and
Mozart’s unrepentant womanizer in the
opera Don Giovanni are among the most
prominent on a long list of works inspired
by the legendary rogue. Other notable depictions include Molière’s play Dom Juan ou
le Festin de pierre (1665), the final installment in his hypocrisy triology; Christoph
Willibald Gluck’s ballet Don Juan (1761);
and Lord Byron’s satirical epic poem Don
Juan (1818–24),
The character has remained popular in
the era of film, most notably in The Private
Life of Don Juan (1934), an updated satirical
interpretation starring Douglas Fairbanks;
the swashbuckling Adventures of Don Juan
(1948) with Errol Flynn; and, more recently,
Don Juan DeMarco (1994), starring Johnny
Depp in a portrayal of the lothario as a
delusional and hopeless romantic.
— The Editors
the orchestra represents the thrust of a
sword, and Don Juan’s life slips away via
a discordant note on the trumpet, bringing to a close the work’s final tableau.
Instrumentation: three flutes (one
doubling piccolo), two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons
and contrabassoon, four horns, three
trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, orchestra bells,
harp, and strings.
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Notes on the Program (continued)
Métaboles
Henri Dutilleux
In Short
Born: January 22, 1916, in Angers, France
Resides: in Paris
Henri Dutilleux has always resisted classification as a composer, and the cryptic
style he often adopts when discussing
his own works has not done much to
help listeners grasp the essence of his
art. “It seems to me very hubristic for an
artist to want to define his aesthetic,”
Dutilleux has said, continuing:
Work composed: 1961–64, on commission from The
Musical Arts Association on the occasion of the 40th
anniversary of The Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell,
music director, the work’s dedicatee
World premiere: January 14, 1965, with George Szell
conducting The Cleveland Orchestra
New York Philharmonic premiere: April 14, 1988,
Charles Dutoit, conductor
symphonies and two concertos — one for
cello, the other for violin), a few works for
the stage (ballet or theater), and a handful
of keyboard, chamber, and vocal pieces.
Dutilleux was born in Angers, in the
Loire Valley, where his family had sought
refuge during World War I. When he was
a small child they moved back to their
ancestral city of Douai, in northern France
near the Belgian border. His family was
inclined toward cultural pursuits: his greatgrandfather was a painter who counted
Corot and Delacroix among his friends,
his maternal grandfather was a composer
and organist who had been a teacher of
Roussel, and an uncle was a translator of
Shakespeare’s plays.
Dutilleux began his musical training at
the local music school in Douai and in
1933 left for Paris, where he would spend
five years at the Conservatoire studying
composition with Henri Büsser. He won
the Prix de Rome in 1938, but while it did
not hurt to have this traditional stamp of
approval on his résumé, he was deprived
Building up a body of work is a long
process, consisting mainly of trial and
error and many years must pass before
one achieves the distance, the detachment, the perspective which allows
one to distinguish the broader lines of
development.
Ultimately, one’s understanding of a
composer’s work depends on hearing the
music more than hearing what he has to
say about it. Interested music lovers can
at least acquaint themselves with Dutilleux’s output in rather little time, since he
has been parsimonious in his production.
Although he is approaching his 95th
birthday and has composed steadily
throughout his adult life, Dutilleux’s
catalogue is slender indeed. He suppressed most of his earliest works, essentially began charting his mature compositions with his Piano Sonata (written
for his wife, Geneviève Joy, in 1946–48),
and since then has produced fewer than
a dozen symphonic works (including two
8
of much of the prize’s intended benefit when
the outbreak of World War II ended his
residency in Rome after only four months.
Drafted into the French Army, Dutilleux
served as a medical orderly for a year before
he was reassigned to civilian posts, which
included stints as a teacher of harmony, as
chorus master at the Opéra de Paris, and as
an arranger of music for nightclubs.
During the war years he privately advanced his education by studying Vincent
d’Indy’s celebrated textbook, Cours de
composition musical; only after the war did
he become closely acquainted with such
branches of musical modernism as those
represented by Bartók and by the composers of the Second Viennese School, both
of which influenced him to some degree.
Between 1945 and 1963 he was active
with French Radio as director of musical
production, and he has taught composition
at the École Normale de Musique and the
Paris Conservatoire. Still, most of his time
has been given over to composition.
Although Dutilleux’s output is modest in
quantity, it requires no excuses for its quality,
which is everywhere marked by meticulous
attention to detail. Arguing that interruptions
between movements can inhibit “the music’s
power to enchant,” Dutilleux is fond of linking disparate movements of a composition.
Métaboles was the first piece he structured
in this way. The work’s first four movements
successively spotlight the woodwinds,
strings, brass, and percussion, with the full
orchestra operating with greater equality in
the fifth movement.
Instrumentation: four flutes (two doubling
In the Composer’s Words
Henri Dutilleux has discussed the title of
Métaboles:
In ancient Greek music this name was
given to the passage connecting the
conjunct system to the disjunct system
(or vice-versa). It was therefore a sort of
modulation, a transformation, a change.
In the field of rhetoric, it’s a stylistic figure
by which one repeats in the second part
of the sentence words used in the first
part of the sentence in order to modify
the idea. But it is most importantly a different figure which consists of repeating
a single idea in different ways. In the
world of physiology, metabolism is a
slow and progressive chemical transformation that causes the elements to undergo a change of their basic properties.
... I am basically concerned with presenting one or several ideas in a certain order
and from different aspects to the point
where they undergo, through successive
stages, a true alteration of their essential
nature. There is a métabole on the scale
of the entire piece.
piccolo), three oboes and English horn, two
clarinets plus E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet,
three bassoons and contrabassoon, four
horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba,
timpani, two temple blocks, snare drum, three
tom-toms (high, medium, and low), bass drum,
a variety of cymbals, tam-tams (medium and
low), triangle, cowbell, xylophone, orchestra
bells, celesta, harp, and strings.
Edition: Henri Dutilleux’s Métaboles is published by Heugel & Cie.
9
Notes on the Program (continued)
Symphonic Metamorphosis
of Themes of Carl Maria
von Weber
Paul Hindemith
In Short
Born: November 16, 1895, in Hanau, near Frankfurt,
Germany
Died: December 28, 1963, in Frankfurt
Work composed: partly sketched in March 1940;
composed in earnest in New Haven, Connecticut, in
June and August 1943, completed on August 29 of
that year
Sixty or seventy years ago Paul Hindemith
was regularly cited as one of the most
significant and influential composers of
the 20th century. In ensuing years his
public stock fell sharply, but several of his
compositions continue to hold a relatively
persistent place in the active repertoire,
including his Symphonic Metamorphosis
of Themes of Carl Maria von Weber (the
English version of the title he preferred,
rather than the often-seen title that uses
the plural “Metamorphoses”), Mathis der
Maler Symphony, the cantata When Lilacs
Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d (after Walt
Whitman’s poem), and a number of chamber works. These last include a stream of
challenging and terrifically “useful” solo
sonatas (with piano accompaniment) for
nearly every instrument of the orchestra as
well as chamber works for combinations of
many of them — even such underserved
instruments as English horn, heckelphone,
trombone, alto horn, tuba, and double bass.
The years that followed World War I
marked a free-for-all for creative artists,
who were suddenly operating in a world
that had overthrown central assumptions
about society and humanity. Hindemith
reveled in the variety of styles that swirled
through the musical atmosphere, proving
adept in a multitude of languages that,
World premiere: January 20, 1944, at Carnegie
Hall, with Artur Rodziński conducting the New York
Philharmonic
in retrospect, seem more innate to other
composers: Puccini’s melodic lyricism;
Strauss’s rich-blooded late-romanticism;
Schreker’s symbolist synthesis; Schoenberg’s expressionism; Ravel’s orientalism;
Bartók’s modality and rhythmic intricacy;
and the inevitable allure of American jazz.
Through all this imitation and experimentation Hindemith was developing his own
angular and contrapuntal voice, which
would emerge in its first maturity by the
middle of the 1920s: a style based on
strict harmonic rules of his own devising that he developed out of an idiosyncratic interpretation of musical acoustics.
Hindemith’s music, while sounding firmly
tonal, often wends its way through musical
hierarchies that are not exactly those of
the time-honored tonic-dominant system.
During this time, Hindemith was also
keeping busy as concertmaster of the
Frankfurt Opera Orchestra (1915–23),
and as the violist of the Amar Quartet
(1921–29) and the Wolfstahl (later
Goldberg)-Hindemith-Feuermann Trio
10
(1929–34). He spoke openly about the
challenges busy musicians faced if they
were to avoid falling into stultifying routine, and he put his recommendations
into practice by designing programs
with constantly changing repertoire,
even forming ensembles in which all
members were tapped to perform on an
instrument they did not already know
how to play.
With the rise of the Third Reich,
Hindemith became persona non grata
in his homeland, thanks to his modernist proclivities and to the fact that his
wife was Jewish. The Hindemiths left
for Switzerland in 1937, and in 1940
proceeded on to the United States,
where he took American citizenship and
served as a professor at Yale University
through 1953. Shortly after his arrival
he was approached by the choreographer Leonid Massine, for whom he had
previously composed the ballet Nobilissima visione, who proposed a new ballet
set to arrangements of music written
in the early 19th century by Carl Maria
von Weber. Within two weeks Hindemith
completed two movements and sent
them to Massine. “The Weber ballet has
gone down the drain,” Hindemith wrote
to his wife, and continued:
arrangement of the original Weber. I am
not just an orchestrator and furthermore I
had already told them what I was going to
do. One really cannot work seriously with
Massine.
Three years later he returned to the
project, literally “metamorphosing” Weber’s
originals into a virtuosic four-movement
concert work, by general consensus the
most colorful, debonair, and exuberant that
ever issued from his pen. Reviewing the
premiere in The New York Times, the critic
Olin Downes described the Symphonic
Metamorphosis as “diverting and delightful music — one of the most entertaining
scores Hindemith has ever given us,” an
opinion that has been seconded by listeners ever since.
Instrumentation: two flutes and piccolo,
two oboes and English horn, two clarinets
and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three
trombones, tuba, timpani, tambourine,
snare drum, tenor drum, tom-toms, bass
drum, triangle, cymbals, small tam-tam,
tubular bells, wood block, orchestra bells,
and strings.
I wrote two nice numbers for it, coloring the music lightly and making it a
bit sharper.... It seems the music is too
complicated for them and that they
simply wanted an exact orchestral
11
New York Philharmonic
2010–2011 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
The Edward and Priscilla
Pilcher Chair
Kerry McDermott
Anna Rabinova
Charles Rex
The Shirley Bacot Shamel
Chair
Fiona Simon
Sharon Yamada
Elizabeth Zeltser
The William and Elfriede
Ulrich Chair
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
Hanna Lachert
Hyunju Lee
Daniel Reed
Mark Schmoockler
Na Sun
Vladimir Tsypin
Eileen Moon*
The Paul and Diane
Guenther Chair
The Shirley and Jon
Brodsky Foundation Chair
Flutes
Robert Langevin
Principal
The Lila Acheson Wallace
Chair
The Mr. and Mrs. James E.
Buckman Chair
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
Kim Laskowski*
Roger Nye
Arlen Fast
Piccolo
Mindy Kaufman
Contrabassoon
Arlen Fast
Oboes
Liang Wang
Horns
Philip Myers
The Mr. and Mrs. William J.
McDonough Chair
Dawn Hannay
Vivek Kamath
Peter Kenote
Barry Lehr
Kenneth Mirkin
Judith Nelson
Robert Rinehart
Sherry Sylar*
Robert Botti
Basses
Eugene Levinson
Clarinets
Mark Nuccio
Orin O’Brien
Acting Associate Principal
The Herbert M. Citrin Chair
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
Yulia Ziskel
Marc Ginsberg
Principal
Principal
The Alice Tully Chair
Elizabeth Dyson
Maria Kitsopoulos
Sumire Kudo
Ru-Pei Yeh
Wei Yu
Wilhelmina Smith++
Principal
The Redfield D. Beckwith
Chair
In Memory of Laura
Mitchell
Soohyun Kwon
The Joan and Joel I. Picket
Chair
Principal
The Ruth F. and Alan J.
Broder Chair
Stewart Rose++*
Acting Associate Principal
English Horn
Thomas Stacy
The Joan and Joel Smilow
Chair
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++
Lisa Kim*
Principal
The Pels Family Chair
Sandra Church*
Mindy Kaufman
Evangeline Benedetti
Eric Bartlett
Bassoons
Judith LeClair
Cara Kizer Aneff**
R. Allen Spanjer
Erik Ralske+
Howard Wall
Timpani
Markus Rhoten
Orchestra Personnel
Manager
Carl R. Schiebler
Principal
The Carlos Moseley Chair
Kyle Zerna**
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
Kyle Zerna
Harp
Nancy Allen
The New York Philharmonic
uses the revolving seating
method for section string
players who are listed
alphabetically in the roster.
Principal
The Mr. and Mrs. William T.
Knight III Chair
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 Davidson*
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
Duoming Ba
Principal
12
13
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
Alan Gilbert became Music Director of
the New York Philharmonic in September
2009, the first native New Yorker to hold
the post, ushering in what The New York
Times called “an adventurous new era” at
the Philharmonic. In his inaugural season
he introduced a number of new initiatives:
the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis
Composer-in-Residence, held by Magnus
Lindberg; The Mary and James G. Wallach
Artist-in-Residence, held in 2010–11 by
violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter; an annual
three-week festival, which in 2010–11 is
titled Hungarian Echoes, led by Esa-Pekka
Salonen; and CONTACT!, the New York
Philharmonic’s new-music series. In the
2010–11 season Mr. Gilbert is leading the
Orchestra on two tours of European music
capitals; two performances at Carnegie
Hall, including the venue’s 120th Anniversary Concert; and a staged presentation
of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen. In
his 2009–10 inaugural season Mr. Gilbert
led the Orchestra on a major tour of Asia
in October 2009, with debuts in Hanoi and
Abu Dhabi, and performances in nine cities on the EUROPE / WINTER 2010 tour
in February 2010. Also in the 2009–10
season, he conducted world, U.S., and New
York premieres, as well as an acclaimed
staged presentation of Ligeti’s opera, Le
Grand Macabre.
Mr. Gilbert is the first person to hold
the William Schuman Chair in Musical
Studies at The Juilliard School, and is
conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm
Philharmonic Orchestra and principal
guest conductor of Hamburg’s NDR
14
Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted
other leading orchestras in the U.S. and
abroad, including the Boston, Chicago,
and San Francisco symphony orchestras;
Los Angeles Philharmonic; Cleveland and
Philadelphia Orchestras; and the Berlin
Philharmonic, Munich’s Bavarian Radio
Symphony Orchestra, and Amsterdam’s
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. From
2003 to 2006 he served as the first music
director of the Santa Fe Opera.
Alan Gilbert studied at Harvard University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and
The Juilliard School. From 1995 to 1997
he was the assistant conductor of The
Cleveland Orchestra. In November 2008
he made his acclaimed Metropolitan
Opera debut conducting John Adams’s
Doctor Atomic. His recording of Prokofiev’s
Scythian Suite with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was nominated for a
2008 Grammy Award, and his recording
of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 received top
honors from the Chicago Tribune and
Gramophone magazine. On May 15, 2010,
Mr. Gilbert received an Honorary Doctor
of Music degree from The Curtis Institute
of Music.
15
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 May 5, 2010, gave
its 15,000th 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 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 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;
Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto;
Magnus Lindberg’s EXPO; and Christopher
Rouse’s Odna Zhizn.
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 62 countries on 5
continents. In October 2009 the Orchestra, led by Music Director Alan Gilbert,
made its debut in Hanoi, Vietnam. 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 earned 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
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1998 Asia Tour with Kurt Masur, featuring
the first performances in 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. 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 most-watched
television events worldwide. In 2004
the Philharmonic became the first major
American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live, and in 2009
the Orchestra announced the first-ever
subscription download series: Alan Gilbert:
The Inaugural Season, available exclusively
on iTunes, and comprising more than 50
works that were 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 first-ever and
exclusive Global Sponsor.
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Executive Producer: Vince Ford
Producer, Recording and Mastering Engineer: Lawrence Rock
Performance photos: Chris Lee
Alan Gilbert portrait: Hayley Sparks
Métaboles by Henri Dutilleux used by arrangement with SDRM.
Don Juan by R. Strauss used by arrangement with GEMA.
Major funding for this recording is provided to the New York Philharmonic by
Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser.
105.9 FM WQXR is the Radio Home of the New York Philharmonic.
Major support provided by the Francis Goelet 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.
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.
Exclusive timepiece of the New York Philharmonic
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Performed, produced, and distributed
by the New York Philharmonic
© 2010 New York Philharmonic
NYP 20110101
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