Join us on Sunday, April 27 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1, and Monday, April 28 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 when the Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you music by American masters Margaret Bonds and William Grant Still, as well as Yuja Wang in Tchaikovsky.
Opening the program, music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the orchestra the Montgomery Variations by Margaret Bonds. William Grant Still is represented by his Symphony No. 2 (“Song of a New Race”), which the orchestra is performing for the first time since premiering the work in 1937. In between, Yuja Wang returns to perform Tchaikovsky’s beloved Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Philadelphians.
Bonds wrote the Montgomery Variations in 1964 as a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., after her visit to Montgomery, Alabama – a focal point of America’s civil rights movement. The work is based on the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.” Its seven sections relate to key events in the drive for civil rights, including the Montgomery bus boycott of the mid-1950s and the 1963 church bombing that killed four young girls at a Baptist church in Birmingham. For many years after the composer’s death in 1972, Montgomery Variations was thought lost; Bonds herself never heard the piece performed. The score came to light in 2017 and was restored during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever since, The Philadelphia Orchestra has made movements from this work a frequent feature of its annual Martin Luther King Day concert.
A generation earlier, William Grant Still’s Second Symphony, titled “The Song of a New Race,” was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, an admirer of Still’s music. In 1937, the message of this symphony was poignant. The composer saw African-Americans of his generation looking forward after a painful past toward a hopeful future, fueled by what he called “the progressive and transmuting spirit of America.” This was William Grant Still’s vision of a more integrated America, only partially realized in his time as in our own, according to Yannick Nezet-Seguin: “What is the new race for him? [Still] wanted to emphasize the fact that, yes, many Black Americans come from Africa, and this African background and heritage is still forever there. But it's also, these people are citizens of America. They are here to stay. They are not people in exile forever. It's a new race. It's a new day.”
At the center of this broadcast concert is Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, a perennial favorite given a fresh reading by the inimitable Yuja Wang. Given the popularity of this concerto, it’s surprising that it was initially met with diametrically opposed reactions from two of the most eminent pianists of Tchaikovsky’s day. He wrote it with the virtuoso Nikolai Rubenstein in mind, but the conservative pianist greeted an initial playthrough with withering criticism. Tchaikovsky then approached a revered German pianist, Hans von Bulow, whose reaction was the precise opposite of Rubinstein’s. Von Bulow was just about to embark on a tour of America, and scheduled the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s concerto in faraway Boston. There, the reception was ecstatic. Ever since, Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto has never flagged in popularity with audiences. Yannick praises Yuja Wang’s approach to this oft-played work as “revelatory” and “rhapsodic,” noting that in addition to her renowned virtuosity, she “takes time to smell the roses” in the piano’s quieter solo passages.
PROGRAM
Bonds: Montgomery Variations
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23
Still: Symphony No. 2 in G minor ("Song of a New Race")
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano
WRTI PRODUCTION TEAM:
Melinda Whiting: Host
Alex Ariff: Senior Producer and Broadcast Engineer
Listen to The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts, every Sunday at 1 PM 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 PM on WRTI HD-2. Listen for up to two weeks after broadcast on WRTI Replay or at The Philadelphia Orchestra On Demand.
