WRTI concludes its special mini-series on The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert, “From the Vault,” on Sunday, March 2 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1, and Monday, March 3 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2. This week’s archival performances, conducted by music and artistic director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, include Igor Stravinsky’s complete ballet The Firebird, Franz Berwald’s Symphony No. 3 (“Singulière”), Une Barque sur l’Océan by Maurice Ravel, and the premiere performance of a bassoon concerto by David Ludwig, featuring principal bassoon Daniel Matsukawa.
Music by Franz Berwald opens the program, in a performance from 2018. To say that his Third Symphony is “singular” is simply to quote the composer, who used this term as the title of his third symphony. But “singular” also describes the person. Born in Sweden at the dawn of the Romantic era, Berwald had multiple professions in succession: violinist, orthopedist, and manager of several manufacturing enterprises. Perhaps the latter careers were simply more lucrative than music. But even as he pursued them all, Berwald composed steadily. (We might wonder when he slept, in fact.) It wasn’t until the last year of his eventful life that he took an academic position in music, teaching at the Royal Academy in Stockholm. Berwald would counsel his composition students to avoid convention, and develop their own style – advice he clearly followed himself, as his music is characterized by brief, distinctive musical motifs and an unsettled character, with surprising outbursts.
This week’s broadcast features two works of watery inspiration. One is Maurice Ravel’s Une Barque sur l’Ocean (A Boat on the Ocean), which the Orchestra performed in 2015. Like many of Ravel’s orchestral works, this tone poem began as a piano piece. Almost immediately after finishing it, Ravel seems to have envisioned how a full orchestra could embody the sound of the sea, with a boat tossed by wind and waves as it makes its way through the waters. You can hear the sun glinting on the surface, the rocking of the vessel, the wind picking up, the gathering of dark clouds that never quite serve up a storm. At the end, there is a final impression of salt spray before the boat disappears from view.
In 2013 the Orchestra presented the world premiere of a bassoon concerto by David Ludwig. Pictures from the Floating World also takes its inspiration from water – specifically, from “watery” pieces by Claude Debussy. Ludwig’s titles for the five sections of the concerto reference Debussy’s music directly: “The Sunken Cathedral,” “Sirens,” “On the Boat,” “Sails,” and “Reflections in the Water.” Ludwig wrote Pictures from the Floating World with principal bassoon Daniel Matsukawa’s distinctive lyricism and virtuosity firmly in mind.
The remainder of the program is devoted to a complete performance of Igor Stravinsky’s 1909 ballet The Firebird. This was the first of several scores that Stravinsky composed for the Ballet Russes and its dynamic impresario Sergei Diaghilev. The company retained superbly gifted dancers and choreographers, groundbreaking young visual artists, and composers who – like the young Stravinsky – were at the leading edge of contemporary music. In the next few years Stravinsky and Diaghilev would continue their collaboration with Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. This week we’ll hear a performance from 2015. Later this year, Philadelphia Orchestra In Concert audiences will be able to compare it with a performance from a decade later, as we air Firebird in a 2025 concert, also led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
PROGRAM:
Berwald: Symphony No. 3 in C Major (“Singulière”)
Ravel: Une Barque sur l'Océan
Ludwig: Pictures from the Floating World
Stravinsky: The Firebird (complete ballet)
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Daniel Matsukawa, bassoon
WRTI PRODUCTION TEAM:
Melinda Whiting: Host
Alex Ariff: Senior Producer
Joseph Patti: Broadcast Engineer
Mel Spiegel and Kayla John: Production Assistants
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 favorite 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.