Gregg Whiteside

This Sunday afternoon at 1 pm, join us for a rebroadcast of a Verizon Hall concert from this past February, which featured the return to Philadelphia of André Watts, who joins forces with the revered Maestro Raphael Frühbeck de Borgos for a performance of Beethoven's grandest piano concerto, the Fifth - the "Emperor." Also on the program, Hindemith's Concert Music for Strings and Brass, a delicate orchestration by Stokowski of Bach's "Sleepers Awake," and the most popular of Liszt's symphonic poems, Les Preludes.

We look forward to your company this Sunday at 1 pm for an archival broadcast concert from November of 2011, when then-Music Director Designate Yannick Nézet-Séguin stepped forward to increase his time with The Philadelphia Orchestra and its audiences, and directed an impressive Italian-themed program, featuring Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, Mendelssohn's 4th Symphony, Verdi's Overture to La Forza del Destino and Respighi's Pines of Rome!

Guest Conductor Jaap van Zweden takes the podium to conduct The Philadelphia Orchestra in an all-Russian program from last April. You'll hear two major works: Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, inspired by the sights and sounds of Italy, and performed in an expanded version for the full strings of The Philadelphians, and - the work that saw Sergei Prokofiev at the pinnacle of his career - his Symphony No. 5, composed in the final days of World War II. It’s a symphonic masterpiece!

Yannick Nezet-Seguin is on the podium this Sunday at 2 pm in a recorded concert from this past May, which featured Hilary Hahn's return to Philadelphia for Korngold's Violin Concerto. This colorful and cinematic score grew out of Korngold's success in Hollywood while writing many of his treasured film soundtracks.

Also on the program, trademark fanfares, folk melodies, and thunderous crescendos punctuate Mahler's First Symphony, along with humorous folk tunes and inventive orchestrations.

It was an unforgettable performance! Re-live it on Sunday, September 22, 2 to 4 pm as then Music Director-Designate Yannick Nezet-Seguin took the podium in March, 2011 to conduct The Philadelphia Orchestra, Westminster Symphonic Choir, and soloists Dorothea Roeschmann and Matthias Goerne in a critically acclaimed performance of Johannes Brahms's humanistic and glorious Ein Deutsches Requiem, A German Requiem - a symphonic as well as a choral masterpiece.

The program also features one of the pillars of the classical repertory: Mozart's Symphony No. 40. Gregg Whiteside is host and producer. 

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Intermission features:

Yannick talks about his deep personal connection to Brahms's choral masterpiece.

More information, including Program Notes, on The Philadelphia Orchestra website.

Program:

MOZART: Symphony No. 40

INTERMISSION

BRAHMS:  Ein Deutsches Requiem

Dorothea Röschmann, soprano

Matthias Goerne, baritone

Yannick Nezet-Seguin, conductor

Join us this Sunday, September 15th at 2 pm on WRTI as Sir Simon Rattle taps into an historic connection that The Philadelphia Orchestra has enjoyed with the great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, conducting his final two symphonies without interruption, right after intermission. 

Before intermission, Curtis grad and piano superstar Lang Lang will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

"O mio babbino caro," from Giacomo Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, sung by soprano Miriam Gauci, with the Belgian Radio and Television Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Alexander Rahbari, is featured on CD 2 in the WRTI 60th Anniversary Classical 3-CD set.

The soprano aria "O mio babbino caro" (Oh, my dear Papa) from Puccini’s only comic opera Gianni Schicchi, is one of Puccini's best-known and popular arias in opera. It’s sung with lyrical simplicity by the young woman Lauretta against a backdrop of hypocrisy, jealousy, double-dealing, and feuding in medieval Florence, after tensions between her father Schicchi and the family of Rinuccio, the young man she loves, has reached a breaking point that threatens to separate her from Rinuccio.

Here, she expresses to her father her love for Rinuccio, and begs him to reconsider his feelings for the young man’s family, threatening to go to the Ponte Vecchio and throw herself into the Arno River if she can’t marry him. It’s a very persuasive plea, and dear Papa finds a way!

The Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 of Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by the Swiss Baroque Soloists, is featured on CD 1 in the WRTI 60th Anniversary Classical 3-CD set.

The six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt in 1721 are among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era. The Third in the set is scored for three violins, three violas, three cellos, and basso continuo, including harpsichord. The Margrave not only never paid Bach for his work, but he failed even to thank him. This third concerto is a highlight of one of the happiest and most productive periods in Bach's life.

Even though he didn't call them the "Brandenburgs" himself, Bach still thought of them as a set. Compiled from short instrumental sinfonias and concerto movements he had already written, Bach re-worked the old music, often re-writing and elaborating where he saw fit, and creating in the process some of the most brilliant and enjoyable of any of his works.

The Prelude and Liebestod from Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, performed by the ​Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Johannes Wildner, conductor, is featured on CD 2 in the WRTI 60th Anniversary Classical 3-CD set.

There are those who feel, quite frankly, that the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde is the greatest piece of music ever written. The final climax of the music drama probably inspired by Wagner’s affair with Mathilde Wesendonck and the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, is certainly one of the peaks of the operatic repertory. Here, before our very ears, we experience the beginning of the move away from conventional harmony and tonality, and witness Wagner laying the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th century as early as 1857!

The very first chord in the piece, the Tristan chord, is of great significance in the move away from traditional tonal harmony as it resolves to another dissonant chord! For me, the anticipation of final release in that last chord of the Liebestod is almost unbearable; but, when it finally comes, the lasting sense of ecstasy is as spine-tingling and blissful as anything in all art. I dissolve every time I hear it, and ask myself, “How could any human being have written this?”

Simon Rattle will be on the podium this Sunday at 2 PM for a performance from late May of Beethoven’s "Pastoral" Symphony, with its vivid scenes of gathering thunderstorms, wandering brooks, and breezy country sides.

We’ll also hear Webern's Passacaglia and three fragments from Alban Berg's shattering opera Wozzeck, both of which received their U.S. premieres in Philadelphia as part of Stokowski's vision for 20th-century music.

Soprano Barbara Hannigan, in her Philadelphia Orchestra debut, will perform scenes from Ligeti's thrilling opera, Le Grande Macabre, in character as the Chief of the Secret Political Police. Her performance, vocally, dramatically, and comically, was one of the highlights of the season!

During intermission, Susan Lewis's interview with the versatile and supremely gifted Barbara Hannigan is not to be missed! Gregg Whiteside is host and producer. That's this Sunday, September 8th from 2 to 4 PM.

Detailed program notes and video here.

PROGRAM:
Webern: Passacaglia
Berg: Three Fragments from Wozzeck
INTERMISSION
Ligeti: Mysteries of the Macabre
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6, ("Pastoral")

Simon Rattle: conductor
Barbara Hannigan: soprano