Join us on Sunday, May 18 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, May 19 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you a Baroque and Classical program from the 2024/2025 season, featuring works by Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, and Franz Joseph Haydn.
Celebrated early-music specialist Masaaki Suzuki, founder of the Bach Collegium of Japan, leads the first half from the harpsichord, opening with the second of three concerti “a due cori” written by Handel in 1748 to serve as interludes in London performances of his popular oratorios. Handel gave them this Italian designation (“with two choirs”) to describe his use of two separate groups of wind instruments in addition to the usual strings and keyboard continuo. These wind choirs of oboes, bassoons, and horns were spaced apart in performance, to increase the dramatic effect when they answered one another across the orchestra. To compose these concertos quickly, Handel relied on an old habit: recycling his own earlier works in a new guise. So in the Concerto No. 2 “a due cori,” he repurposed choruses from earlier oratorios. Modern audiences will most readily recognize a famous chorus from Messiah, “Lift up your heads, o ye gates.” The second concerto also includes music from Esther and The Occasional Oratorio.
In the program’s second half, Suzuki moves to the podium to conduct Haydn’s final symphony, the Symphony No. 104 in D major (“London”). The composer had spent most of his career in a position of comfortable patronage. Working at the court of a regional prince who loved music, Haydn had an orchestra and opera singers at his disposal. He had the resources to hire superb musicians to realize his symphonies, chamber music, and operas, and led a more comfortable existence than many of his contemporaries. And by his late 50s, his industry had paid off. Haydn’s music was revered across Europe.
One day in 1791, an impresario from overseas came calling. Johann Peter Salomon, one of many Central European musicians who had found success in England, saw a great commercial opportunity in bringing Europe’s leading symphonic composer to London. His partnership with Haydn resulted in the composer’s last twelve symphonies, and they premiered to adoring crowds in England with the composer conducting. His final symphony, No. 104 in D major, is typically called his “London” Symphony (although he actually had produced a dozen symphonies for his London concerts). One reviewer of the time described the 104th this way: “For fullness, richness, and majesty, it is thought by some of the best judges to surpass all Haydn’s other compositions.” Perhaps the composer felt it was a summation. Although Haydn lived another fourteen years, he let this 104th symphony stand as his final statement in the form. And it is a deeply satisfying, entertaining, and witty work indeed.
PROGRAM:
Handel: Concerto “a due cori” No. 2 in F major
Bach: Cantata No. 51, “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen”
Haydn: Symphony No. 104 in D major (“London”)
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Masaaki Suzuki, conductor
Jone Martínez, soprano
Esteban Batallán, trumpet
Juliette Kang, violin
Kimberly Fisher, violin
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.
