On April 29, 2016, Zubin Mehta will celebrate his 80th birthday. On April 17, however, he will offer himself a birthday present of his own, together with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, which has appointed him Musical Director for Life. The event will take place in the new National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mehta’s birthplace, Mumbai, in India.
It will be a celebratory concert with works by three of Mehta’s favorite composers: The program will include Dvoráks “Carnival Overture”, Beethoven’s Concerto for Violin in D major, Op. 61 as well as Ravels’ “La Valse” and the second suite of “Daphnis & Chloé”. Pinchas Zukerman, one of Mehta’s closest colleagues – who has also always had a close connection to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra – will be the soloist.
Max Reger’s Piano Concerto was created in the summer of 1910 in Leipzig and was there brought into the world by pianist Frieda Kwast-Hodapp and the Gewandhausorchester under Arthur Nikisch. To date, few other artists have dared to undertake this pianistic challenge: The American Peter Serkin, however, is one of those few whose repertoire includes this rare piece. In the second part of the concert, Herbert Blomstedt approached Beethoven’s evocative impressions of nature in the Symphony No 6, the “Pastoral”. PROGRAM: Reger: Piano Concerto in F minor; Beethoven: Symphony No. 6
When Andris Nelsons made his debut with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig in 2011, the conductor and the orchestra are said to have felt a magical connection, which only a few years later resulted in his appointment as the 21st principal conductor of the world-renowned orchestra, beginning in 2018. In 2016, one of his concerts with the Gewandhausorchester featured three works by three composers, each of whom revolutionized the musical traditions of their times. Anton Webern, Richard Wagner and Igor Stravinsky. PROGRAM: Webern: Six Pieces for Orchestra; Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder; Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps
The Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt is a phenomenon – as he approaches his 88th birthday, he is one of the oldest conductors in the world. And yet: on the rostrum he embodies such a vitality and energy, that he at once enthralls his musicians as well as his audiences. Blomstedt directs the orchestra in two symphonies that could scarcely be less alike: The musicians play Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Symphony No. 5 by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen with concentrated intensity, honouring Nielsen in his 150th anniversary year.
Almost no other orchestra has been so involved with Gustav Mahler and established such an outstanding Mahler sound as the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. This tradition was continued in the summer of 2015. In his concerts with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the renowned 37-year-old Andris Nelsons conducted Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a work whose emotional spectrum ranges from the opening movement’s funeral march, through the declaration of love in the famous Adagietto – which Nelsons interpreted as an “intense chamber music love song in the passionate dimensions of Tristan” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) – to the jubilant hymn of the finale.
With Gustav Mahler, laughter and tears are often closely connected. As performed by Matthias Goerne, Andris Nelsons, and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn showed this at the Lucerne Summer Festival in 2015. The gaiety of Rheinlegendchen is placed here with the tale of starvation in Das irdische Leben, and the satirical Fischpredigt of St. Anthony is juxtaposed with the march of the fallen soldiers in Revelge. Baritone Goerne shapes these songs with “introspection and narrative clarity”, while Nelsons “proves to be a sensitive accompanist”, according to Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Gustav Mahler was 28 when he wrote his First Symphony in Leipzig in 1888. For a long time, he was uncertain whether the work was a symphonic poem or a symphony and finally abandoned the first version and later also the work’s subtitle, Titan. A few years later, Mahler went on to revise the symphony into the four-movement work we know today, which was premiered in 1896. Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester continue their Leipzig Mahler cycle by bringing Mahler’s First Symphony to life in a riveting performance, paying homage to the composer.
PROGRAM: Johann Strauss: Overture from The Bat; Johannes Brahms: Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102; Peter Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23
Even if the music world is often dominated by rivalry, examples of genuine friendships can certainly be found. Take Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvorák: a pair whose friendship was free of self-interest. And sure enough, his first publication, the spirited Slavonic Dances, enjoyed a sensational success. The Berlin Philharmonic paid homage to this musical friendship by pairing Dvorák’s bravura Slavonic Dances with the Second Symphony of Brahms, also composed in 1877. And as an “appetizer” Sir Simon Rattle has commissioned a new work from his compatriot Julian Anderson. PROGRAM: Julian Anderson: Incantesimi for Orchestra; Dvorák: Slavonic Dances, Op. 46; Brahms: Symphony No. 2
It was only logical that Claudio Abbado should start his tenure with the Berliner Philharmoniker in December 1989 conducting Mahler’s First Symphony. Firstly, because Abbado was even then considered one of the great Mahler conductors of his time, and secondly because this symphony by the still young composer is infused with an irresistible expression of freshness and new beginnings. Even today we can feel the special magic of this new beginning in this video document. The election of Claudio Abbado came as a surprise to the music world – not least to the conductor himself. In many ways he embodied a contrast to Herbert von Karajan who, particularly in his later years, had became ever more remote from his musicians. Claudio Abbado, however, made it clear from the outset that he was simply “Claudio” to everyone. Furthermore, he followed new musical directions; he aimed at a more transparent sound, and put an emphasis on new music – and also on Mahler who had only occasionally appeared in Philharmoniker concerts under Karajan.
