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Season 2013-2014 27 Thursday, December 19, at 7:00 Friday, December 20, at 7:00 Saturday, December 21, at 7:00 The Philadelphia Orchestra The Glorious Sound of Christmas Sarah Hicks Conductor Jennifer Check Soprano Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia Alan Harler Artistic Director Mendelssohn/arr. Harris Hark! the Herald Angels Sing Traditional/arr. Harris Angels We Have Heard on High Mozart Alleluia, from Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165 Rimsky-Korsakov Polonaise, from Christmas Eve Various/arr. Bennett & Shaw The Many Moods of Christmas, Suite IV Tchaikovsky Waltz of the Flowers, from The Nutcracker, Op. 71 Wade/arr. Harris O Come, All Ye Faithful Intermission

28 Faith Brazilian Sleigh Bells Anderson Song of the Bells Leontovich/arr. Dragon Carol of the Bells Traditional/arr. Dragon What Child Is This? Traditional/arr. Dragon The Twelve Days of Christmas Pierpont/arr. Dragon Jingle Bells Fantasy Bach Gounod Ave Maria Mason/arr. Harris Joy to the World Handel Hallelujah, from Messiah This program runs approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes. Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 1 PM. Visit www.wrti.org to listen live or for more details.

3 Story Title The Philadelphia Orchestra 29 Jessica Griffin The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the preeminent orchestras in the world, renowned for its distinctive sound, desired for its keen ability to capture the hearts and imaginations of audiences, and admired for a legacy of innovation in music-making. The Orchestra is inspiring the future and transforming its rich tradition of achievement, sustaining the highest level of artistic quality, but also challenging and exceeding that level, by creating powerful musical experiences for audiences at home and around the world. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin triumphantly opened his inaugural season as the eighth artistic leader of the Orchestra in fall 2012. His highly collaborative style, deeplyrooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm, paired with a fresh approach to orchestral programming, have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. Yannick has been embraced by the musicians of the Orchestra, audiences, and the community itself. His concerts of diverse repertoire attract sold-out houses, and he has established a regular forum for connecting with concertgoers through Post-Concert Conversations. Under Yannick s leadership the Orchestra returns to recording with a newlyreleased CD on the Deutsche Grammophon label of Stravinsky s The Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions. In Yannick s inaugural season the Orchestra has also returned to the radio airwaves, with weekly Sunday afternoon broadcasts on WRTI-FM. Philadelphia is home and the Orchestra nurtures an important relationship not only with patrons who support the main season at the Kimmel Center but also those who enjoy the Orchestra s other area performances at the Mann Center, Penn s Landing, and other venues. The Orchestra is also a global ambassador for Philadelphia and for the U.S. Having been the first American orchestra to perform in China, in 1973 at the request of President Nixon, today The Philadelphia Orchestra boasts a new partnership with the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. The Orchestra annually performs at Carnegie Hall while also enjoying annual residencies in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and at the Bravo! Vail festival. Musician-led initiatives, including highly-successful Cello and Violin Play-Ins, shine a spotlight on the Orchestra s musicians, as they spread out from the stage into the community. The Orchestra s commitment to its education and community partnership initiatives manifests itself in numerous other ways, including concerts for families and students, and ezseatu, a program that allows fulltime college students to attend an unlimited number of Orchestra concerts for a $25 annual membership fee. For more information on The Philadelphia Orchestra, please visit www.philorch.org.

8 Music Director Nigel Parry/CPi Yannick Nézet-Séguin triumphantly opened his inaugural season as the eighth music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra in the fall of 2012. His highly collaborative style, deeply-rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm, paired with a fresh approach to orchestral programming, have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. The New York Times has called Yannick phenomenal, adding that under his baton the ensemble has never sounded better. In his first season he took the Orchestra to new musical heights. His second builds on that momentum with highlights that include a Philadelphia Commissions Micro-Festival, for which three leading composers have been commissioned to write solo works for three of the Orchestra s principal players; the next installment in his multi-season focus on requiems with Fauré s Requiem; and a unique, theatrically-staged presentation of Strauss s revolutionary opera Salome, a first-ever co-production with Opera Philadelphia. Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most exciting talents of his generation. Since 2008 he has been music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic, and since 2000 artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal s Orchestre Métropolitain. In addition he becomes the first ever mentor conductor of the Curtis Institute of Music s conducting fellows program in the fall of 2013. He has made wildly successful appearances with the world s most revered ensembles, and has conducted critically acclaimed performances at many of the leading opera houses. Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Deutsche Grammophon (DG) enjoy a long-term collaboration. Under his leadership the Orchestra returns to recording with a newly-released CD on that label of Stravinsky s Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions. Yannick continues a fruitful recording relationship with the Rotterdam Philharmonic for DG, BIS, and EMI/Virgin; the London Philharmonic for the LPO label; and the Orchestre Métropolitain for ATMA Classique. A native of Montreal, Yannick Nézet-Séguin studied at that city s Conservatory of Music and continued lessons with renowned conductor Carlo Maria Giulini and with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College. Among Yannick s honors are an appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the country s highest civilian honors; a Royal Philharmonic Society Award; Canada s National Arts Centre Award; the Prix Denise- Pelletier, the highest distinction for the arts in Quebec, awarded by the Quebec government; and an honorary doctorate by the University of Quebec in Montreal. To read Yannick s full bio, please visit www.philorch.org/conductor.

30 Conductor Conductor Sarah Hicks is making her third appearance leading The Philadelphia Orchestra. She debuted on New Year s Eve in 2011 and last summer led the Philadelphians in a performance at Longwood Gardens. In October 2009 she was named principal conductor for pops and special presentations at the Minnesota Orchestra. She also holds the position of staff conductor at the Curtis Institute of Music. Throughout her career Ms. Hicks has collaborated with a range of soloists, including violinists Jamie Laredo and Hilary Hahn; singers Smokey Robinson, Ben Folds, Dianne Reeves, Idina Menzel, Natalie Merchant, and John Mayer; trumpeter Chris Botti; and the Cuban band Tiempo Libre, which she led in the world premiere of Rumba Sinfonica. Ms. Hicks toured with Sting in 2011, conducting his Symphonicity Tour in Europe. In 2012 she led the San Francisco Symphony in the world premiere of Pixar in Concert, a production she also premieres in Europe next spring. She appeared at the 2012 World Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, conducting the St. Petersburg Philharmonic in concert. This past summer she performed with singer Josh Groban and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a July Fourth fireworks spectacular at the Hollywood Bowl. Ms. Hicks has guest conducted extensively both in the U.S. and abroad, including with the Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, Oregon, Atlanta, National, Detroit, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Columbus, Vermont, Charleston, Delaware, and Des Moines symphonies; the Los Angeles, Fort Wayne, Reno, and South Carolina philharmonics; and the Florida Orchestra. This season she debuts with the Boston and Cincinnati pops; the Pittsburgh, Pacific, Victoria, Alabama, and Grand Rapids symphonies; and the Las Vegas Philharmonic. Ms. Hicks s past positions include associate conductor of the North Carolina Symphony; associate conductor of the Richmond Symphony; resident conductor of the Florida Philharmonic; and assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Singers, which she has led in radio broadcasts heard nationwide. She has also been music director of the Hawaii Summer Symphony, an ensemble she founded in 1991 in her hometown of Honolulu and which she led for five seasons.

Soloist 31 Soprano Jennifer Check made her Philadelphia Orchestra debut as the Fifth Maid in the May 2012 performances of Strauss s Elektra. In the 2013-14 season she sings her first performances of the title role of Strauss s Ariadne auf Naxos with Opéra de Toulon; makes her debut with the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, also as the Fifth Maid in Elektra; returns to Palm Beach Opera to reprise the role of Lady Macbeth in Verdi s Macbeth; and returns to the Metropolitan Opera to sing Marianne in Strauss s Der Rosenkavalier and Falke in Strauss s Die Frau ohne Schatten. On the concert stage, Ms. Check sings Strauss s Four Last Songs in her debut with the Shanghai Symphony and Verdi s Requiem in a performance with the Cathedral Choral Society at the Washington National Cathedral. Last season Ms. Check debuted a quartet of Verdi heroines: Lady Macbeth in Macbeth with Opéra de Nancy et de Lorraine, Elisabeth in Don Carlos at the Caramoor International Music Festival, Leonora in Il trovatore with Utah Opera, and the title role of Aida in concert with Berks Opera in Pennsylvania. She also returned to the Metropolitan Opera, as the High Priestess in Aida and joined the company for its production of Poulenc s Dialogues of the Carmelites. In concert she returned to the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. for Verdi s Requiem. Other recent performances include the title role in Bellini s Norma with Palm Beach Opera and Opera Philadelphia, Madame Lidoine in Dialogues of the Carmelites with Austin Lyric Opera, and Lady Billows in Britten s Albert Herring at the Castleton Festival. Ms. Check is an alumnus of the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and received a Bachelor of Music degree in voice performance from Westminster Choir College. Her accolades include first place awards from the Loren L. Zachary Competition, the Licia Albanese- Puccini Foundation, the Oratorio Society of New York Solo Competition, the Liederkranz Foundation, and the Mario Lanza Scholarship Auditions. She was also awarded a Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation and the Zarzuela Prize in Plácido Domingo s Operalia Competition.

32 Chorus John L. Shipman For the past 140 years Mendelssohn Club has been devoted to sharing great choral music as a way to connect artists, audiences, and communities. One of America s oldest choruses, Mendelssohn Club continues to expand its repertoire in the 21st century by collaborating with a wide range of musical organizations, each of which is devoted to representing or reaching out to new audiences in innovative ways. Earlier this year, Mendelssohn Club received the prestigious Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, which recognizes choruses that demonstrate a commitment to fostering and promoting new music. Founded in 1874 the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia made its Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 1904 with a performance of Beethoven s Symphony No. 9 led by Music Director Fritz Scheel. A decade later the ensemble was part of the monumental Symphony of a Thousand at the Academy of Music, providing more than 300 singers when the Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski gave the U.S. premiere of Mahler s Symphony No. 8. Other historical milestones include the 1929 American premiere of Musorgsky s Boris Godunov in concert version, and the first performance outside the Soviet Union of Shostakovich s Symphony No. 13 under the direction of Eugene Ormandy. The RCA recording of that performance won the Prix Mondiale de Montreux. Mendelssohn Club also appeared in a nationally broadcast performance of Verdi s Requiem with Riccardo Muti and the Orchestra as part of PBS Great Performances series. Artistic Director Alan Harler, who received the Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art, is known for pairing new works with the masterworks. During his 25-year tenure with Mendelssohn Club, he has commissioned over 55 new compositions, including Julia Wolfe s Anthracite Fields (2014), David Lang s battle hymns (2009), Jennifer Higdon s On the Death of the Righteous, and Pauline Oliveros s Urban Echo: Circle Told (2008). Mr. Harler conducted Mendelssohn Club in a critically acclaimed recording of the Moran Requiem for Argo/London Records in 1994.

The Music Alleluia, from Exsultate, jubilate 33 Wolfgang Amadè Mozart Born in Salzburg, January 27, 1756 Died in Vienna, December 5, 1791 Mozart s lifelong bent, late in life a conscious desire, was to write for the theater. The theater, he said, was the composer s ultimate place of expression, in which character and melody met and created a world. When he reached the age of 30, the amount of time he spent writing operas began to increase over that spent on chamber music or symphonies. In the last six months of his life, Mozart composed two full-scale operas of contrasting types: the serious, La clemenza di Tito, and the mystic-comic, The Magic Flute. This love for dramatic music colored all the scores Mozart penned, especially sacred vocal works. Exsultate, jubilate was composed just days before Mozart s 16th birthday, and already contains the seeds of deepening maturity. It was written for one of the last great castratos, Venanzio Rauzzini, for whom he had just composed the title role in his opera Lucio Silla. Because it is a Latin hymn to the Virgin Mary, Exsultate, jubilate is a motet. But in spirit and even in form, it resembles Mozart s operas. Kenneth LaFave

34 The Music Polonaise, from Christmas Eve Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Born in Tikhvin, Russia, March 18, 1844 Died in Lyubensk (near St. Petersburg), June 21, 1908 Though Rimsky-Korsakov is known in the West primarily for a handful of concert works (Sheherazade chief among them), for his fabled orchestration skills, and for the inspiration he provided Igor Stravinsky, he is regarded in his native Russia not only for all that, but also for his operas. He wrote 15, 10 of them crowded in during the final decade of his life. It was as if he was saying to the musical world, Thank you very much for noticing my orchestral works, but this sung drama is my true métier. Russia agrees, and regularly produces at least a few of them. But the West ignores his stage scores one recent review in the International Herald Tribune of a Rimsky-Korsakov opera complained of slow moving dramaturgy except as orchestral excerpts. Christmas Eve, Rimsky-Korsakov s fifth opera, is known here only as a suite of pieces taken largely from the colorful third act. The story is from Gogol, the Ukrainian-born writer of Russian literature. Gogol s retelling of Ukrainian folk tales was immensely popular in the 19th century, and in fact these stories continue to be so popular in Russia that there is even a video game based on them. They mix everyday concerns of love and survival with fantastical elements. Christmas Eve is typical, involving as it does a witch, a wizard, the Devil and some magic dumplings. Christmas has nothing to do with the story, except that the action takes place on that day. The time is the 18th century, and the lovely Oksana is the object of adoration from many in the village. Even the Devil admires her. The village blacksmith, Vakula, is her most ardent suitor. His desire for her is thwarted by Oksana s insistence that he bring her the boots of the Tsarina. Rather than be rebuffed, Vakula goes to the local wizard to get the help of the Devil. The wizard pulls magic dumplings from his mouth and produces the Devil himself. Vakula then flies to St. Petersburg on the Devil s back (though not before his mother, who happens to be a witch, tries to stop him on her broom), and once there manages to gain an audience with the Tsarina. She of course immediately accedes to his request for her boots. He flies back to the village and is greeted by church bells and a surprised Oksana. Kenneth LaFave

The Music Waltz of the Flowers, from The Nutcracker 35 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Born in Kamsko-Vodkinsk, Russia, May 7, 1840 Died in St. Petersburg, November 6, 1893 Tchaikovsky s last years were marked by melancholy and joy by growing emotional depression and by great artistic successes. With five of the numbered symphonies under his belt, and with splendid operas and ballets such as Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty bringing him growing public acceptance, he could only feel satisfaction at the progress of his life as an artist despite the turmoil and frustrations of his inner life. Indeed, one can t help hearing a certain exhilaration in the music of The Nutcracker, which Tchaikovsky composed between February 1891 and April 1892. The miracle of these last years, in fact, is that the same person who expressed such joyousness in this ballet score could soon compose the tragic strains of the Sixth Symphony ( Pathétique ), full of the most painful premonitions of death. The composer would die in late 1893, less than a year after The Nutcracker first appeared on the stage, and just a few months after completing the Symphony. The Nutcracker is based on the story Nussknacker und Mausekönig by E.T.A. Hoffmann, the great Romantic writer whose work inspired composers as diverse as Jacques Offenbach and Robert Schumann and such ballet classics as Coppélia. The scenario tells the tale of the young girl Clara and the nutcracker she receives for Christmas, which comes to life as a handsome prince and spirits her away to a place she quickly realizes is every child s dream a Kingdom of Sweets. Paul J. Horsley

36 The Music Brazilian Sleigh Bells Percy Faith Born in Toronto, April 7, 1908 Died in Encino, California, February 9, 1976 Only three artists in the history of American popular music have produced a best-selling single-of-the-year twice: Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Percy Faith and his orchestra. (Faith s pair were The Song from Moulin Rouge in 1952, and 1960 s Theme from A Summer Place.) Faith s genre was the easy listening or middle of the road music that dominated much of the recording industry in the 1950s and 60s. Though in hindsight we think of that time as the era of rock n roll, that was not the only music to top the charts. Easy listening was a major market force. Rather than innovate a new sound, easy listening absorbed other genres into an orchestral pops framework. Faith was especially skilled at adapting everything from lounge songs to rock tunes to country ballads for his pops performances. Most of Faith s recordings were what we would today call covers of songs from other sources. But Faith was also a composer, scoring the films Tammy Tell Me True and The Oscar, and supplying the theme music for the longrunning TV series The Virginian. He composed the sambainflected novelty Brazilian Sleigh Bells in 1957, not for his own orchestra, but for Frederick Fennell s Eastman- Rochester Pops on an album called Hi-Fi a la Española. It seesaws back and forth between two chords, swaying to a lightly syncopated beat. The melody alternates between repeated notes (such as the five that begin it), rapid runs of eighth notes, and angular leaps of an octave. The sleigh bells are featured in all but a few measures. Faith endured many changes of style over the decades of his popularity. But hard rock and disco proved musically too distant for translation to orchestral pops, and Faith s popularity waned considerably in the years leading up to his death in 1976. Kenneth LaFave

The Music Song of the Bells 37 Leroy Anderson Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 29, 1908 Died in Woodbury, Connecticut, May 18, 1975 Leroy Anderson s novelty tunes were a staple of American musical culture in the 1940s and 50s. The Typewriter, Bugler s Holiday, Sleigh Ride, and The Syncopated Clock are among the best-known of the many dozens of short pieces penned by the man John Williams has called one of the great American masters of light orchestral music. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Swedish-born parents, Anderson attended Harvard University, where he earned bachelor and master s degrees in music composition, studying with Walter Piston. In 1936 he was on a path to earning a doctorate in German and Scandinavian languages with the intention of a career as a translator, when arrangements he had made for the Harvard Band came to the attention of Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler, who persuaded Anderson to devote his full energies to music. It was wise advice. Within two years, an Anderson tune, Jazz Pizzicato, hit big in the pops repertory. Except for a stint in the U.S. Army s Counter Intelligence Corps in World War II where his mastery of languages came in handy Anderson went on to enjoy an uninterrupted stream of successes. Only when he moved beyond his specialty of short novelties in the musical Goldilocks did he fall short of wide popular esteem. He composed Song of the Bells in 1953. It s a waltz in almost Viennese fashion. Except for one syncopated passage in which the beat takes off in a couple of different directions at once, the emphasis is unfailingly on the first count of each measure. The effect is of a swirling, fast waltz of the traditional, 19th-century sort. The bells of the title are chimes, or tubular bells, in the outer sections, and orchestral bells, a.k.a. the glockenspiel, in the middle. Kenneth LaFave

38 The Music Ave Maria Johann Sebastian Bach Born in Eisenach, March 21, 1685 Died in Leipzig, July 28, 1750 Charles Gounod Born in Paris, June 18, 1818 Died in St. Cloud, France, October 18, 1893 One hundred and thirty-one years separate the vocal and instrumental parts of this Ave Maria. The instrumental half came first. As any piano student will tell you, it is the Prelude in C major from Book One of J.S. Bach s Well- Tempered Clavier, an exercise in arpeggios, or broken chords, penned in 1722. Only in 1853 was the vocal half created, and even then, it began its life as a second instrumental part. The story goes that the French composer Charles Gounod (whose opera Faust remains in the repertoire to this day) was at the piano idly improvising a melody over the broken-chord frame of the famous Bach Prelude. Apparently unimpressed with his own tune, Gounod neglected to write it down. But upon overhearing this, the composer s father-in-law rushed to find manuscript paper and a pen. Fortunately for Gounod, Pierre- Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman was himself a pianist and composer, and recognized the innate charm of his son-inlaw s improvisation. In fact, Gounod himself never literally wrote the Ave Maria ; that fell to Zimmerman. Zimmerman s initial idea was to publish the Bach-Gounod hybrid as a piece for violin (the melody) and piano (the Bach Prelude). Titled Consideration on Bach s Prelude, it was quite a successful salon piece of the day. Gounod must have had a change of heart about his melody-on-aprogression by Bach, because when the composer fell in love with a certain young lady, he set the words of a thenfamous love poem to his tune. Alphonse de Lamartine s Le Livre de la vie (The Book of Life) sat neatly on the music, and so the accidental melody was yet again a success in the music stores. At last, in 1859, a version for voice and piano was published using the sacred Latin prayer to the Virgin Mary, Ave Maria. Thus, Gounod became the first and perhaps only composer to have made a killing out of three versions of a melody he never actually wrote down. Kenneth LaFave

39 Ave Maria, gratia plena Dominus tecum. Benedictatus in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesus. Sancta Maria, Sancta Maria, Maria ora pro nobis, nobis pecatoribus nunc et in ora, in ora mortis nostrae. Amen. Hail Maria, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Maria, Holy Maria, Maria, pray for us, us sinners now and in the hour of our death. Amen.

40 The Music Halleluja, from Messiah George Frideric Handel Born in Halle, Germany, February 23, 1685 Died in London, April 14, 1759 Program notes 2013. All rights reserved. Program notes may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association and/or Kenneth LaFave. Messiah, the most famous oratorio ever written, is quite unlike Handel s other ones, let alone those by most earlier and later composers. A German who initially made his fame writing Italian operas for English audiences, Handel found in the 1730s that the public wanted something new and more understandable. After composing some three dozen Italian operas, works of great musical brilliance, he shifted his energies to creating what are in essence sacred operas in English. Handel quickly enjoyed considerable success with oratorios such as Esther, Deborah, Saul, and Israel in Egypt. But by the early 1740s, he was in some financial difficulty and suffering from poor health. At this low point in his career he composed what would become his most beloved piece. Various legends, registering differing degrees of reality, inevitably surround such a famous and long-lived composition. It is known that Handel wrote most of the work in some three weeks time, secluding himself beginning on August 22, 1741. Another legend attached to the work relates to his inspiration, which casts the frenzied composition as a sort of divine dictation. Handel is said to have emerged at some point (usually, it is noted, after finishing the Hallelujah chorus,) and proclaimed: I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself! The first performance of Messiah took place not in London, but rather in Dublin, on April 13, 1742. Handel gave the London premiere less than a year later at Covent Garden. It was not well received, in part because of objections to presenting a sacred work in that most profane of buildings a theater! It was only in 1750, when Messiah began to be presented in annual performances for a London charity at the local Foundling Hospital, that the public embraced the work. Messiah is divided into three sections. The first is concerned with the prophesy of the coming of a Messiah and then with Christ s Nativity. Part II deals with Christ s suffering and death and ends with the Hallelujah Chorus. The concluding section offers an affirmation of Christian faith and glimpses of Revelation. Christopher H. Gibbs

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