Join us on Sunday, July 20 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, July 21 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you a program from the 2024/2025 season featuring the Symphony No. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich, a new work by Philadelphia-area native Missy Mazzoli, and the Cello Concerto by Robert Schumann, featuring soloist Edgar Moreau. Nathalie Stutzmann, music director of the Atlanta Symphony, is on the podium.
For centuries, composers have been inspired by the ancient myth of Orpheus. This legendary musician played his lyre so beautifully that he convinced the powers of the underworld to release his beloved bride Eurydice, who died of a snakebite on their wedding day. For the opening work on this program, Missy Mazzoli takes the inspiration in a new direction with her two-part orchestral work Orpheus Undone. She describes its opening as “a freeze-frame of a single instant in Orpheus’ life, in the immediate aftermath of Eurydice’s death.”

At the center of the concert, the young French cellist Edgar Moreau performs Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A Minor. This poetic work from 1850 was never performed in Schumann’s lifetime, despite the fact that cellists hadn’t seen a great new concerto since the classical masterworks of Haydn and Boccherini. Schumann’s Cello Concerto languished for nearly a century before the advocacy of the legendary cellist Pablo Casals brought it firmly into the center of the repertoire. Moreau comments on the interpretation of the work as realized here under Nathalie Stutzmann’s direction: “During the rehearsal, Nathalie was saying to the orchestra that for her, the cello is the philosopher. There is this kind of very calm and confident personality of the lyrical line of the cello. And at the same time, the orchestra brings a lot of anxiety,” he notes. “This paradox can really create the whole identity, the whole philosophy of this music.”
The program concludes with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, written in 1937. As the composer approached his 30th year, his life and career seemed absolutely charmed. His star had risen steadily since age 19, when leading international conductors championed his First Symphony. All went his way for a decade. Audiences and critics loved his music. Then, in 1936, the axe fell. With no warning, Joseph Stalin took a dislike to Shostakovich. Soviet critics lined up publicly in opposition. Performances were canceled, and the composer lived in constant fear of arrest, or worse. “It was clearly the worst time of his life,” says Stutzmann.

The sudden fall from grace gave birth to a symphony in which Shostakovich pulled off a seemingly impossible sleight of hand. In his Symphony No. 5 he convinced the Stalinist establishment that he had repented of his perceived failings, while thrilling audiences with subversive messages. On one level, Shostakovich evokes the superficial triumphalism that he knew the regime expected him to produce, in order to restore his reputation. Below the surface was the direct expression that Shostakovich aimed at his fellow citizens, who were witnesses to the excesses and atrocities of the Soviet regime. “With Shostakovich, everything he writes is about what's going on in his life and about politics,” notes Stutzmann. “And you need to know exactly what it means, what you play. Otherwise, you can't really play it with the right sentiments and with the feelings. It's breathtaking, if you know what you are playing.”
As Shostakovich set to work on the Fifth Symphony, he had no idea how it might be received or whether it would even be played. But played it was, in November 1937, by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky. The performance was electric, and so was the audience reaction. The thundering 30-minute ovation certainly signaled enthusiasm for the music, but might well have been a collective statement, too, against the authorities’ relentless attacks on Shostakovich. Still, the popular and critical success of the Fifth Symphony rehabilitated Shostakovich in the eyes of the authorities — or perhaps just gave them an excuse to move on to other targets.
PROGRAM:
Mazzoli: Orpheus Undone
Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor
Edgar Moreau, soloist
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 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).