Join us on Sunday, Oct. 12 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you a program of German Romantic masters from the 2024/2025 season. Tugan Sokhiev leads the Prelude to Richard Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser, two works by Richard Strauss, and the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major by Franz Liszt, with Haochen Zhang as soloist.
While still in his 20s, Wagner published an essay expressing his strong feelings about the history, aesthetics, and future of the operatic overture. He declared that opera overtures were a form in decline, merely a collection of tunes from the drama or comedy to follow — much as we would expect in the overture to a Broadway musical today. In fact, his own operas to this point had shared this medley construction. But he was aiming for something higher. As Wagner put it, the ideal overture must capture an opera’s “leading thought.” It was several years before he was able to master this aspiration, with his 1845 music drama Tannhäuser. Its Prelude eloquently captures the struggle of the story’s title character, a medieval knight torn between sensual pleasures and sacred piety.
While Wagner was focused on music dramas, Franz Liszt was enjoying huge success as one of the great piano virtuosos of all time. He performed constantly all over Europe, amazing audiences with his technical prowess and imaginative improvisations. Essentially he was the 19th century’s equivalent of a rock star. Around this time, in the 1830s, he composed his two piano concertos, possibly with the intent of playing them on his wildly successful concert tours. But with little experience writing for orchestra, Liszt didn’t get very far. He stashed the unfinished concertos in a drawer and kept on touring. Eventually, though, he tired of concertizing and began to concentrate on composing for orchestra.
As he worked on a series of symphonic poems, Liszt quickly developed a distinctive and colorful orchestral voice. His unfinished Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major came out of the drawer for revision, and the composer was the soloist in its 1855 premiere, with no less a conductor than Hector Berlioz. Our soloist, Haochen Zhang, has a special enthusiasm for Liszt, having recorded an acclaimed traversal of Liszt’s monumentally difficult Transcendental Etudes. He says the composer was especially versatile, with a gift that was “ richer than just virtuosity. He really expanded the possibilities in terms of sound, colors, ranges, dynamic ranges, tone ranges in the piano.”
The remainder of the program is devoted to music by Richard Strauss. His colorful symphonic poem, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, is based on a beloved character from medieval German folklore, a notorious rebel who constantly thumbed his nose at convention. Strauss seems to have identified with his protagonist, and he even came up with a complete libretto for an opera about Till. The opera was never composed, but it’s likely that the musical ideas he had in mind for that unrealized project found their way into this entertaining orchestral work. There’s the roguish character of Till Eulenspiegel, poking fun at authority, represented by a famous wide-ranging horn solo. And there are the pranks he pulls: galloping on his horse through an open market, teasing pompous academics, chasing women, and mocking priests. This latter sin brings him in full conflict with the law, and he is eventually sentenced to death. Strauss’s tone poem takes us through all of it, including Till’s execution. But somehow, the spirit of Till Eulenspiegel lives on beyond this sombre event, as we hear in the music.
Closing the concert is the famous Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome. In this opera it is Strauss himself who is flouting authority, by his choice of subject: the Biblical tale of a young princess, dancing for her stepfather, King Herod, in exchange for the head of John the Baptist. In 1905, that was questionable material for an opera to start with. And for Strauss to base the opera on a lurid drama by Oscar Wilde was simply shocking to bourgeois sensibilities. Salome’s dance for her lustful stepfather is essentially a striptease. A mesmerizing moment in the opera, it blends the Viennese waltz with exotic Orientalism, which was much in fashion in Europe at the time.
But Salome was a triumph. Its premiere in Dresden brought both success and scandal. In Vienna, Gustav Mahler, who wanted to present the work at the Court Opera, was refused permission. New York’s Metropolitan Opera staged a production, only to have it shuttered after a single performance. Every ban brought more publicity, with the result that wherever Salome was staged, it drew eager crowds. Strauss liked to say that royalties from Salome helped him build the beautiful villa where he would spend the rest of his life.
PROGRAM:
Wagner: Tannhäuser Prelude
Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
Strauss: Salome: Dance of the Seven Veils
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Tugan Sokhiev, conductor
Haochen Zhang, piano
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.
