Join us on Sunday, Oct. 6 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you Ravel’s complete ballet Daphnis et Chloé, as well as works by Kaija Saariaho and Esa-Pekka Salonen, who conducts. Guest organist Olivier Latry is featured in Salonen’s work.
The concert opens with a work dedicated to Salonen by his longtime friend, the late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. They met when both were budding composers at the conservatory in Helsinki. In subsequent years, Salonen often conducted his friend’s music, and in 2009 he led “The Passion of Simone,” Saariaho’s hour-long work about the French philosopher, mystic, and social activist Simone Weil. Afterward, as a gift, Saariaho presented Salonen with an orchestral arrangement of a passage in the Passion that he particularly liked. She titled it Lumière et pesanteur – French for “Light and Heaviness.”
Salonen also leads music of his own in this broadcast concert: the Sinfonia Concertante for organ and orchestra, completed in 2022. In a wide-ranging interview with WRTI senior producer, Salonen commented on the challenge he set for himself in this work: “what to do with the orchestra when the organ is actually capable of doing pretty much everything an orchestra does, in terms of the range and the volume – everything – and the colors. And so how can you combine those two without redundancy so that they wouldn't be doing the same thing?” It’s a challenge Salonen solved brilliantly, in part by deliberately confusing the ear of the listener during transitions, so it’s unclear whether the organ or a part of the orchestra is playing. French organist Olivier Latry, one of the titular organists of Notre Dame de Paris, is the soloist.
This concert concludes with the complete score of the ballet Daphnis and Chloé, by Maurice Ravel. The work is usually represented on concert programs by one of two suites Ravel excerpted from the score, but Salonen prefers playing the whole score. “I really like the 50-minute arc that the full ballet creates,” he says. ”It's a real journey and some of the iconic moments somehow become more meaningful when you experience that journey.”
Ravel wrote Daphnis on commission from the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, leader of the influential Ballet Russes, or Russian Ballet, which performed throughout Europe and the Americas. Diaghilev asked Ravel for a ballet on a pastoral scenario inspired by Classical Greek antiquity, about the love between a goatherd, Daphnis, and a shepherdess, Chloé. The idea captivated Ravel. A fastidious craftsman, he focused on every detail of what would ultimately be an hourlong score of exhilarating color and passion that he would describe as a “choreographic symphony,” complete with wordless chorus. As Ravel perfected his musical vision, the frustrated Diaghilev postponed the premiere several times. Finally, after three years all was ready, and the premiere of Daphnis and Chloé took place at the end of the dance troupe’s season in 1912.
Saariaho: Lumière et pesanteur
Salonen: Sinfonia Concertante for organ and orchestra
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Olivier Latry, organ
The Philadelphia Orchestra
WRTI PRODUCTION TEAM:
Melinda Whiting: Host
Alex Ariff: Senior Producer
Joseph Patti: Broadcast Engineer
Listen to The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts every Sunday at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1, streaming at WRTI.org, on the WRTI mobile app, and on your smart speaker. Listen again on Mondays at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2. Listen for up to two weeks after broadcast on WRTI Replay, accessible from the WRTI homepage (look for Listen to The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert On Demand).
