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New York Philharmonic
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Alan Gilbert and the New York
Philharmonic: 2010–11 Season
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,
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.
New York Philharmonic
Alan Gilbert, Conductor
Sheryl Staples, Violin, The Elizabeth G. Beinecke Chair
Michelle Kim, Violin, The William Petschek Family Chair
Marc Ginsberg, Violin
Lisa Kim, Violin, In Memory of Laura Mitchell
Recorded live December 28–30, 2010,
Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
TCHAIKOVSKY (1840–93)
Polonaise from Eugene Onegin (1877–78)
TCHAIKOVSKY
Selections from The Nutcracker, Op. 71 (1891–92)
Overture
March
Divertissement
Chocolate (Spanish Dance)
Coffee (Arabian Dance) Tea (Chinese Dance)
Trepak (Russian Dance)
Mirlitons (Dance of the Reed Flutes)
Mother Gigogne and the Clowns Waltz of the Flowers
5:01
25:33
3:20
2:41
1:14
3:43
1:08
1:09
2:31
2:40
7:07
(continued)
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New York Philharmonic
VIVALDI (1678–1741)
Concerto in B minor for Four Violins, Op. 3, No. 10 (RV 580) (ca. 1700–10)
Allegro
Largo — Larghetto
Allegro
10:05
4:10
2:26
3:29
SHERYL STAPLES, MICHELLE KIM, MARC GINSBERG, LISA KIM, Violins
CARTER BREY, Cello
PAOLO BORDIGNON, Harpsichord
RAVEL (1875–1937)
Boléro (1928)
15:56
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New York Philharmonic
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Notes on the Program
By James M. Keller, Program Annotator
Polonaise from
Eugene Onegin
Act Two of The Nutcracker,
Op. 71
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
In Short
Born: May 7, 1840, in Votkinsk, in the district of
Viatka, Russia
Died: November 6, 1893, in St. Petersburg
Works composed and premiered:
Polonaise: The opera Eugene Onegin was composed
May 1877–January 1878; premiered March 29, 1879,
in a student production of the Moscow Conservatory at
the Maly Theatre in Moscow
An impassioned reader, Pyotr Ilyich
Tchaikovsky enjoyed close familiarity with
the literary classics of both Russia and
Western Europe. Great books served as
the inspiration for many of his instrumental
compositions, including writings by Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest,
Hamlet), Dante (Francesca da Rimini),
Byron (Manfred), and Ostrovsky (The
Storm). Some of his operas also boast
distinguished literary lineage, including,
most remarkably, his three operas after
Pushkin: Eugene Onegin, Mazeppa, and
The Queen of Spades.
Pushkin’s narrative poem Eugene Onegin (written in 1831), as expanded into a
libretto by Tchaikovsky and a colleague,
offers one of those plots that make opera
what it is. There are two sisters: one is
engaged to a passionate fellow, while
the other has a crush on the passionate
fellow’s foppish friend, Eugene Onegin.
Onegin rejects her but nurtures an interest
in the first sister (his friend’s girlfriend),
as a result of which his friend challenges
him to a duel and is thereby killed. Onegin
flees abroad, but years later he returns
to Russia, where at a ball he meets the
elegant wife of a prince. She turns out to
be the sister he once rejected. He realizes
he does love her after all and he tries to
The Nutcracker: composed 1891–92; the ballet was
first staged December 18, 1892, in St. Petersburg
New York Philharmonic premieres:
Polonaise: premiered July 16, 1901, Walter Damrosch
conducting the New York Symphony (which would
merge with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to
form today’s New York Philharmonic)
The Nutcracker: The Orchestra’s first performance of
music from The Nutcracker was January 12, 1901,
Frank Damrosch conducting the New York Symphony
(which would merge with the New York Philharmonic in
1928 to form today’s New York Philharmonic)
pry her away from the noble life she has
found, but while she still loves Onegin, she
has chosen her path and dismisses him.
The Polonaise is the opening music of
the opera’s third and final act, which takes
place during the ball at an aristocratic
mansion in St. Petersburg. The polonaise
was a dance of Polish origin that, after
the 18th century, was widely embraced by
concert composers outside Poland. Always
in triple time and sporting the characteristic accompanimental rhythm of “bum bumda bum bum bum bum,” it first emerged as
a sung folk dance of simple structure, built
from short phrases. In the 17th century
the polonez was transformed by the Polish
nobility into a courtly dance, often figuring
8
Alan Gilbert on This Program
as a processional in formal settings. By the
mid-18th century it was showing up as a
fashionable dance throughout the courts
of Europe, almost always under the French
title “polonaise,” with memorable examples
coming from the pens of Johann Sebastian
Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann, and François
Couperin.
In the opening decades of the 19th
century the polonaise became so popular in
Poland that it gave up some of the grandeur it had achieved in favor of a sort of
domesticity, prompting the Polish composer
Józef Elsner to write in a worried letter to
the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel in 1811
that “everything that is pleasing today may
be converted into a polonaise.” Nonetheless, Elsner did his part in holding up the
grander possibilities of the form, and in no
small way: he instilled an appreciation of
the dance’s potential in his pupil Frédéric
Chopin, who would produce the examples
that to this day stand as the summit of the
polonaise in the keyboard repertoire.
In the symphonic world, however, the
polonaise moved forward most forcefully
in Russia, where its inherent pomp was
perfectly suited to the almost unimaginable grandeur of the imperial court of
the czars and czarinas. Operas by Glinka,
Musorgsky, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov
all made impressive use of the polonaise,
and Tchaikovsky employed the polonaise
for heightened moments in his operas The
Queen of Spades and Vakula the Smith, as
well as in Eugene Onegin. Tchaikovsky’s use
of the polonaise in this last opera might be
criticized as obvious and generic, yet the
I associate Tchaikovsky with December
[when this performance was recorded] —
perhaps it is because of The Nutcracker,
and the fact that that ballet is so much a
part of the holiday season in New York and
elsewhere. Certainly, the ballet’s evocation
of a child’s view of Christmas as well as its
unending succession of memorable and
pleasurable melodies evokes, for me, memories of my own childhood and, in particular,
the holidays. All of Tchaikovsky’s works are
built on such melodies, which are equally as
engaging in his more “serious” works, such
as Eugene Onegin. I can think of no more enjoyable way to bid farewell to one year, and
to welcome another.
popularity of the dance in 1820s Russia
was such that no other would have served
as authentically in such a context.
Ever given to self-doubt concerning his
creations, Tchaikovsky held out little hope
for the success of The Nutcracker. The
Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg commissioned the work early in 1891 as a
follow-up to another Tchaikovsky fairy-tale
ballet, The Sleeping Beauty, which had been
well received the previous year. The tale
derived from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s children’s
story Der Nussknacker und der Mäusekönig
(The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, written in 1816) as filtered through a French
version by Alexandre Dumas père, named
Histoire d’un cassenoisette (The Story of a
Nutcracker). Although Tchaikovsky accepted
the commission, he was not at all drawn to
the scenario, such as it is. It’s not difficult
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Notes on the Program (continued)
Eyewitness Account
to sympathize. The plot (three scenes, the
first two combined into Act I, the final one
standing alone as Act II) is hardly a plot at
all. At a Christmas party in her family’s home,
young Clara receives a nutcracker as a gift,
but it gets broken in the course of horseplay.
After the festivities end and the family goes
to bed, the Christmas toys come to life, and
a Mouse King falls dead in a conflict with
the Nutcracker (who is now a general). In
the second act, Clara and the Nutcracker
Prince travel to the domain of the Sugar
Plum Fairy, where they enjoy a variety show
(divertissement). This is not much of a plot,
and what there is resides almost entirely
in the opening scene. One early critic
complained that “In The Nutcracker there
is no subject whatever.”
Tchaikovsky procrastinated and didn’t
finish sketching his new ballet until after he
had returned from a lengthy visit in Europe
and the United States (where, on May 5,
1891, he conducted the New York Symphony — one of the Philharmonic's forebears
— in the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall).
His disinclination was intensified considerably by the incessant demands of the Russian Imperial Ballet’s choreographer Marius
Petipa, who kept barraging the composer
with insulting memos dictating in stifling
detail how the music should proceed. This
might become an acceptable method for
20th-century composers working in Hollywood, but Tchaikovsky found it severely
depressing. Nonetheless, he struggled on,
and by June 25 he had completed the bulk
of his sketches, simultaneously embarking
on his one-act opera Iolanthe, which was to
feet walk badly, or drag themselves along,
but he loses bit by bit the capacity to do any-
Ivan Lipayev was a horn player in the orchestra of Pryanishnikov’s Opera Association of
Kiev. He became acquainted with Tchaikovsky when the composer conducted that
group in Moscow performances of several
operas, including his own Eugene Onegin.
Lipayev reported of his guest conductor:
It is pertinent to say that Tchaikovsky,
because of his nervousness, did not
like to remain sitting in one place. He
stood not only during rehearsal but also
during the performance when he was
conducting, and in his apartment either
paced from corner to corner, or else
tried as often as he could to alter the
position of his body on his chair.
While conducting an opera — and not
only his own but one by another composer — he became extremely worked
up. The slightest slip on stage or in the
orchestra affected him painfully. On
such occasions Tchaikovsky’s face now
turned white, now became covered with
red blotches; the stick trembled in his
hand, his eyes shot in all directions, and
he often resorted to a glass of water.
At the end of Eugene Onegin, Pyotr
Ilyich put his baton down on his conducting desk and paying no attention to
the calls and applause, quite distinctly
declared: “What agony!”
be premiered with The Nutcracker on a double
bill. “The old man,” Tchaikovsky wrote, referring
to himself in the third person,
thing at all. The ballet is infinitely worse than
Sleeping Beauty — so much is certain.
Notwithstanding his desperate state of
mind, Tchaikovsky managed to complete his
orchestration of The Nutcracker by February 1892. Though the ballet would not be
performed until December 17 of that year,
Tchaikovsky culled eight numbers from his
score for a concert performance of the
Imperial Music Society in St. Petersburg on
May 7 — the original Nutcracker Suite. Five
of the eight movements had to be encored.
The full ballet would not be received as
enthusiastically. Just as rehearsals were beginning in August, Petipa fell gravely ill, and
had to delegate most of the actual choreography to his assistant Lev Ivanov. According
to contemporary reports, the choreography
was unexceptional, the sets were considered in poor taste, and the dancing was not
up to snuff. At least one critic, Alexandre
Benois, had harsh words for the musical
execution, as well as for Tchaikovsky’s score:
“Tchaikovsky has never written anything
more banal than some of these numbers!”
But on the whole the music made a far more
favorable impression than did other aspects
of the production.
Instrumentation: The Polonaise calls for
two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two
bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three
trombones, timpani, and strings. The Nutcracker employs three flutes (one doubling
piccolo), two oboes and English horn, two
clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons,
four horns, two trumpets, three trombones,
tuba, timpani, triangle, tambourine, orchestra
bells, cymbals, celesta, harp, and strings.
is breaking up. Not only does his hair drop out
or turn white as snow; not only does he lose his
teeth, which refuse their service; not only do
his eyes weaken and tire easily; not only do his
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Notes on the Program (continued)
Concerto in B minor for
Four Violins, Op. 3, No. 10
(RV 580)
Antonio Vivaldi
In Short
Born: March 4, 1678, in Venice, Italy
Died: July 27 or 28, 1741, in Vienna, Austria
Work composed: during the first decade of the 18th
century, and it was published in 1711
World premiere: There is no information about the
early performance history of this work.
When you are next in Venice, turn left out
of the Piazza San Marco from the corner
nearest the Palace of the Doges, stroll
along the embankment of the Grand
Canal, past the Bridge of Sighs, and along
the Riva degli Schiavoni until you arrive at
the Istituto provinciale per l’infanzia, the
Hotel Metropole, and the Church of Santa
Maria della Pietà. You will have entered
Vivaldi country, as a demure plaque on the
hotel reveals. The church of the Pietà that
one sees today was built between 1745
and 1760, and is the successor to the
building in which Vivaldi often worked. It
is fitting that a children’s agency should
occupy the site, since children have been
nurtured at that spot from as early as
1346, when the Pio Ospedale della Pietà
was established. In Vivaldi’s time the Pietà
was one of four state-supported Venetian
ospedali, foundling hospitals that tended to
the welfare of orphaned, illegitimate, indigent, abandoned, or otherwise unfortunate
youngsters. Beginning in 1703 the hospital became the center of Vivaldi’s work
as a composer of instrumental music, and
it was from this home base that he would
travel as a leading violin virtuoso.
Vivaldi’s musical output was enormous.
Twenty-one of his 56 operas survive, as do
dozens of cantatas and motets. Nonetheless, it is as a composer of instrumental
New York Philharmonic premiere: December 16,
1940, John Barbirolli, conductor; Mordecai Dayan,
William Dembinsky, Leo Dubensky, and Joseph Reilich,
soloists
music that he made his most enduring
mark. He penned more than 500 concertos spotlighting one or more players; most
are for violin, but the rest feature an astonishing variety of instruments. Some of
these concertos he wrote for his personal
use, but others he devised for the musically adventurous young ladies of the Pietà. Over the years, the Pietà had become
the most musical of Venice’s ospedali, and,
indeed, the finest music conservatory in all
of northern Italy. It became a magnet for
travelers, such as the Englishman Edward
Wright, who wrote of his Venetian visit in
the early 1720s:
and this is all the more amusing since their
Angels and Muses
persons are concealed from view.
L’estro armonico became one of the most
lauded, influential, and widely circulated instrumental collections of the entire Baroque
era. Among its admirers was Johann Sebastian Bach. Although Vivaldi’s approach to
composition differed greatly from Bach’s essentially contrapuntal style, Vivaldi’s ritornello
procedures — the way he knit a recurring
“principal theme” into the textural fabric of a
movement — provided inspiration for Bach’s
Brandenburg Concertos. Bach went so far
as to transcribe ten of Vivaldi’s concertos,
including this one, which he refashioned as
a concerto for four harpsichords, transposing it down a step to A minor. In fact, it was
through those transcriptions that Vivaldi’s
music was largely kept alive even through
the 19th and early 20th century, when his
music had otherwise fallen into almost total
obscurity.
Since the concerto No. 10 involves four
soloists, Vivaldi must have appeared with
his students when it was performed; that
speaks to the extraordinary level of musicmaking that his pupils achieved.
Only a small percentage of Vivaldi’s
works were published during his lifetime,
among them the B-minor Concerto for
Four Violins, which appeared in 1711 as
the tenth concerto in the composer’s Op. 3
collection, L’estro armonico (The Harmonic
Inspiration), dedicated to Grand Prince
Ferdinando of Tuscany. The 12 concertos
of Op. 3 are divided evenly among works
featuring one, two, and four solo violins.
The B-minor Concerto is the most radical
of those for four violins. Its solo lines are
entirely independent of one another, and
the four players interact with individualized
parts of democratic difficulty.
Instrumentation: four solo violins and
strings, plus a continuo group of cello and
harpsichord.
Every Sunday and holiday there is a performance of music in the chapels of these
hospitals, vocal and instrumental, performed by the young women of the place,
who are set in a gallery above and ... hid
from any distinct view from those below
by a lattice of ironwork. The organ parts,
as well as those of the other instruments,
are all performed by the young women....
Their performance is surprisingly good ...
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Notes on the Program (continued)
Boléro
Maurice Ravel
In Short
Melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, dynamics — these are the irreducible materials
of musical composition, and in nearly every
piece they play a part that follows a certain
hierarchical pecking order. In Western music,
melody and harmony (the tune and the way
the tune weaves through the gravity exerted
by its key) are generally considered to be
the most important elements of composition, with rhythm (the pulse underlying these
musical processes) placing a distant third.
Timbre (the acoustical sound of the instruments) is often viewed as icing on the cake,
as is dynamics (the volume at which the
music is played): while both unquestionably
affect how music comes across, composers have often considered them less vital in
defining the essence of a composition.
All five of these elements are present in
Boléro, to be sure, but Ravel manipulates
them in a way that skews their accustomed
balance. The work’s extended, sinuous melody is surely memorable, but there is no more
than a single tune in the entire piece — and
it is repeated over and over without the
slightest development or elaboration until
near the very end. The harmony, working in
lockstep with the melody, is similarly repetitive and unvarying. Since the melody never
changes, neither does the twobar rhythmic
figure that accompanies it. In the course of
Boléro that rhythmic cell is heard ceaselessly, 169 times over, collapsing only in the
rupture of the final few measures. By dint
of obsessive repetition, the interest of the
14
Born: March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, near St-Jean-de-Luz,
Basses-Pyrénées, France
Died: December 28, 1937, in Paris
It is an experiment in a very special and limited
Work composed: July 6–October 1928, in St-Jeande-Luz; dedicated to Ida Rubinstein
direction, and should not be suspected of
World premiere: November 22, 1928, at the Paris
Opéra, in a ballet production by Ida Rubinstein,
directed by Bronislava Nijinska and conducted by
Walther Straram; the first concert performance took
place on November 14, 1929, at Carnegie Hall in
New York, Arturo Toscanini conducting the New York
Phiharmonic
more than, it actually does achieve. [It is] a
melody, harmony, and rhythm is dissipated;
the listener surely remains very much aware
of them, but their unchanging patterns
soothe the ear into a sort of complacency.
As these aspects of the composition fade
into familiarity, timbre and dynamics take on
unaccustomed importance in how the piece
unfolds. From the nearly silent beginning
— the pianissimo drum tattoo, the pizzicato
string chords suggestive of a guitar, and
the melody introduced by a flute in its low
register — the composer builds in a tour de
force of additive instrumentation, increasing the texture of those parts with every
repetition and seizing upon an astonishing
variety of constantly changing instrumental
combinations, including prominent displays
from such rarely spotlighted orchestral
instruments as oboe d’amore and a variety
of saxophones. What begins by occupying
only three separate lines of musical score
grows to occupy huge pages of staves, and,
as one would expect, the volume increases
accordingly, from gentlest pianissimo to
grand fortissimo.
Views and Reviews
The work’s method, however revolutionary,
was essentially simple. In a 1931 letter to his
friend the critic M.D. Calvocoressi, Ravel wrote:
Notwithstanding its great success, so radical
a piece as Boléro left the door wide open to
witty ripostes from critics. Edward Robinson,
in his article “The Naïve Ravel” in The American Mercury (May 1932), took a psychoanalytical approach:
achieving anything different from, or anything
Ravel’s Boléro I submit as the most
insolent monstrosity ever perpetrated in
the history of music. From the beginning to the end of its 339 measures it
is simply the incredible repetition of the
same rhythm ... and above it the blatant
recurrence of an overwhelmingly vulgar
cabaret tune that is little removed, in every essential of character, from the wail
of an obstreperous back-alley cat . ...
Although Ravel’s official biography does
not mention it, I feel sure that at the age
of three he swallowed a musical snuffbox, and at nine he must have been
frightened by a bear. To both phenomena he offers repeated testimony: he
is constantly tinkling high on the harps
and celesta, or is growling low in the
bassoons and double-basses.
piece ... consisting wholly of orchestral tissue
without music — of one very long, very gradual
crescendo. The themes are impersonal — folk
tunes of the usual Spanish-Arabian kind.
Ravel wrote this piece on request as a ballet
score for the troupe of Ida Rubinstein. He initially
demurred at the request, suggesting instead
that he merely orchestrate an existing piece
by Albéniz. After putting off the project, in the
end Ravel decided to write something original,
explaining, “After all, I would have orchestrated
my own music much more quickly than anyone
else’s.” When all is said and done, the piece he
wrote turned out to be principally orchestration.
At the first orchestral rehearsal Ravel was as
astonished as everyone else by the momentum
his piece conveyed, but he nonetheless told his
friends that he had no doubt that so radical an
experiment would never find a place in normal
orchestral concerts. Was he ever wrong! It became an instant megahit. Invitations to conduct
the piece poured into Ravel’s mailbox and today
its niche in the orchestral repertoire remains
utterly secure. “Malheureusement il est vide de
musique,” Ravel remarked — “Unfortunately, it
contains no music.” Audiences tend not agree
with him about that.
Constant Lambert, whose 1934 book Music
Ho!: A Study of Music in Decline threw down
the gauntlet to quite a few progressive styles,
remarked: “There is a definite limit to the
length of time a composer can go on writing
in one dance rhythm. This limit is obviously
reached by Ravel toward the end of La Valse
and toward the beginning of Boléro.”
oboe d’amore) and English horn, two clarinets plus E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet,
two bassoons and contrabassoon, four
horns, three trumpets and piccolo trumpet,
three trombones, tuba, soprano and tenor
saxophones, timpani, bass drum, two snare
drums, cymbals, tam-tam, celesta, harp,
and strings.
Instrumentation: two flutes (one doubling
piccolo) and piccolo, two oboes (one doubling
15
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
Yulia Ziskel
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
Stephanie Jeong
Eileen Moon*
The Paul and Diane
Guenther Chair
The Gary W. Parr Chair
Hanna Lachert
Hyunju Lee
Joo Young Oh
Daniel Reed
Mark Schmoockler
Na Sun
Vladimir Tsypin
The Shirley and Jon
Brodsky Foundation Chair
Flutes
Robert Langevin
Principal
The Lila Acheson Wallace
Chair
The Mr. and Mrs. James E.
Buckman Chair
Elizabeth Dyson
Maria Kitsopoulos
Sumire Kudo
Qiang Tu
Ru-Pei Yeh
Wei Yu
Wilhelmina Smith++
Violas
Cynthia Phelps
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
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
Marc Ginsberg
Principal
Kim Laskowski*
Roger Nye
Arlen Fast
Piccolo
Mindy Kaufman
Contrabassoon
Arlen Fast
Oboes
Liang Wang
Horns
Philip Myers
Principal
The Alice Tully Chair
Sherry Sylar*
Robert Botti
In Memory of Laura
Mitchell
Principal
The Ruth F. and Alan J.
Broder Chair
Stewart Rose++*
Acting Associate Principal
English Horn
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
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
David Smith++
The Joan and Joel I. Picket
Chair
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
In Memory of Paul Jacobs
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
Soohyun Kwon
Timpani
Markus Rhoten
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
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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
Alan Gilbert became Music Director, The
Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair of the New
York Philharmonic in September 2009.
The first native New Yorker to hold the
post, he ushered 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.
In January 2011 Alan Gilbert was
named Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School,
a position that will begin in fall 2011.
This adds to his responsibilities as the
first holder of Juilliard's William Schuman
Chair in Musical Studies, establishing
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Mr. Gilbert as the principal teacher for
all conducting majors at the school. He
is also conductor laureate of the Royal
Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and
principal guest conductor of Hamburg’s
NDR 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.
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The Artist
for Strings, Kent/Blossom Music Festival,
University of Southern California, and Colburn
School of Performing Arts. She is on the faculty of The Juilliard School, where she teaches
orchestral excerpts.
Ms. Staples was a scholarship student at
the Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences,
a Young Musicians Foundation Scholar, and
a W.M. Keck Scholar at the Colburn School
of Performing Arts, spending summers at the
Encore School for Strings. She earned an
Artist Diploma from the University of Southern
California.
Sheryl Staples performs on the “Kartman”
Guarnerius del Gesù, ca. 1728.
Violinist Sheryl Staples joined the New
York Philharmonic as Principal Associate
Concertmaster (The Elizabeth G. Beinecke
Chair) in 1998, and made her solo debut
with the Orchestra in 1999. She has
performed as soloist with more than 40
orchestras nationwide, including The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic,
Louisiana Philharmonic, and the San Diego,
Pacific, and Albany symphony orchestras.
An active chamber musician, Ms. Staples
has participated in the Santa Fe, La Jolla,
Brightstar, Martha’s Vineyard, and Seattle
chamber music festivals, and she has been
a faculty artist at the Aspen, Bowdoin, and
Sarasota music festivals. She now performs
with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles
and the Lyric Chamber Music Society.
Previously she was associate concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra; was a
member of the Cleveland Orchestra Piano
Trio; and served as concertmaster of the
Pacific Symphony and the Santa Barbara
Chamber Orchestra. She has taught at the
Cleveland Institute of Music, Encore School
Violinist Michelle Kim has been Assistant
Concertmaster (The William Petschek Family
Chair) of the New York Philharmonic since
2001. She has performed as soloist with the
New Jersey Philharmonic, Santa Barbara
Chamber, and Pacific Symphony orchestras. An active chamber musician, Ms. Kim
has collaborated with violinists Cho-Liang
Lin, Christian Tetzlaff, and Pinchas Zukerman; cellists Mstislav Rostropovich, Lynn
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Harrell, and Gary Hoffman; and pianists
Lang Lang and Yefim Bronfman. She has
performed at the Santa Fe Chamber Music,
La Jolla Chamber Music, Strings in the
Mountain, and Bravo! Vail Valley Music festivals. She has also served as the first violinist
of the Rossetti String Quartet, and was a
Sterne Virtuoso Artist at Skidmore College
in 2007–08. A former Presidential Scholar,
Ms. Kim attended the University of Southern
California’s Thornton School of Music as a
Starling Foundation scholarship recipient.
She has been a member of the faculty at
the USC Thornton School of Music; Colburn
School of Performing Arts; and University
of California–Santa Barbara. Michelle Kim
currently teaches at Mannes College of
Music. Her most recent solo appearance with
the Orchestra was in June 2009, when she
performed Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto
No. 4, led by Lorin Maazel.
He is a graduate of The Juilliard School,
where he studied with Margaret Pardee, Ivan
Galamian, and Paul Makanowitzky. He was
also a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship
for study in Paris. Mr. Ginsberg frequently
performs chamber music and has appeared
with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles
at Merkin Concert Hall, and with the Washington Square Music Festival. He also formed
the Cleo Quartet with other Philharmonic
members, including his wife, violinist Judith
Ginsberg. Mr. Ginsberg’s prior Philharmonic
solo appearances include his debut in
Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins, led by
Pinchas Zukerman, in 1977; J.S. Bach’s
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in 1994, with
then-Music Director Kurt Masur; and as a
member of the solo string quartet in Benjamin Lees’s Concerto for String Quartet and
Orchestra, in November 1998, with Leonard
Slatkin conducting. More recently, he was
a soloist in the Orchestra’s performances
of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in
December 2008, led by Lorin Maazel.
Marc Ginsberg joined the New York
Philharmonic in 1970 and was appointed
Principal, Second Violin Group, in 1972.
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The Artist
String Competition, Winston-Salem Young
Talent Search, and Durham Symphony
Young Artists Competition. She joined the
faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in
1999. Lisa Kim’s most recent solo appearance with the New York Philharmonic at
Avery Fisher Hall was in December 2008,
performing Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto
No. 3, conducted by Lorin Maazel.
Lisa Kim joined the Philharmonic violin
section in 1994 and was named Associate Principal, Second Violin Group, In
Memory of Laura Mitchell, in 2003. She
teaches in South Korea and in the United
States and has performed with the Seoul
National Philharmonic Orchestra, and the
SooWon, North Carolina, Winston-Salem,
and Durham symphony orchestras. She
has performed chamber music with the
Philharmonic Ensembles series, Brooklyn’s
Bargemusic, Hofstra Chamber Ensemble
series, Mostly Chamber Festival, and Lyric
Chamber Music Society; in collaborations
with Lynn Harrell, Ani Kavafian, Yo-Yo Ma,
Garrick Ohlsson, and the late Lukas Foss;
in Europe, under the International Music
Program; and at Jordan’s Jurash Festival
at the invitation of King Hussein. Lisa
Kim began violin studies at age seven,
attended the North Carolina School of the
Arts, and earned bachelor’s and master’s
degrees from The Juilliard School. She
has won prizes in the Arts Recognition
and Talent Search, Bryan Young Artists
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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 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, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina
Chair, 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 430 cities in 63 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;
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the first Tour to the USSR, in 1959; the
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. The most recent
initiative is Alan Gilbert and the New York
Philharmonic: 2010–11 — downloadable
concerts, recorded live, available either as
a subscription or as 12 individual releases.
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
Producers: Lawrence Rock and Mark Travis
Recording and Mastering Engineer: Lawrence Rock
Performance photos: Chris Lee
Alan Gilbert portrait: Hayley Sparks
Ravel's Boléro used by arrangement with Universal Music MGB Songs OBO Durand SA and SDRM
Major funding for this recording is provided to the New York Philharmonic by
Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser.
Major support provided by the Francis Goelet Fund.
Classical 105.9 FM WQXR is the Radio Home of the New York Philharmonic.
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
© 2011 New York Philharmonic
NYP 20110106
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