Join us on Sunday, Oct. 19 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you a program of Ravel, Lutosławski, and Mozart. Finnish guest conductor Dalia Stasevska is on the podium.
Pianist Emanuel Ax is featured in the Piano Concerto No. 17 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This work dates from the height of Mozart’s public career as a mature musician in Vienna. He was in his late twenties, and was well past his years as a famous child prodigy. With a young family to support, he launched a series of public performances in which he conducted his own music and appeared as soloist in his own piano concertos. These events allowed him to promote his performing and composing abilities at the same time, and they prompted an extraordinary series of a dozen masterful piano concertos over less than three years. This concerto in particular, Ax notes, “is very chamber-like, very focused on the wind solos. Flute, bassoon, oboe are really just as important as the piano in this piece, and they have just as many solos, almost.” Those who are familiar with Mozart’s great Italian operas will also, at times, recognize the drama, playfulness, and wit of the Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte.
At the center of this concert is the Symphony No. 4 written in 1992 by Witold Lutosławski. Poland’s leading composer of the 20th century, Lutosławski experimented throughout his career with music of chance, allowing musicians to spontaneously determine significant musical choices in his works. Though he returned to more traditional and tonal writing in his last years, this element of chance is still a significant force in his Fourth Symphony. Conductor Dalia Stasevska explains the role of “Lutosławski boxes” in the score. “He writes a box and there are certain lines proposed. And then the musicians can interpret them in their own speed and, for example, own dynamics. And when there's multiple of those people playing in the boxes, it becomes this really, interesting sound world that never can be the same because there's left, for the performer, a space to improvise.”
The program opens and closes with music by Maurice Ravel, based on traditional dance forms. His Pavane pour une infante défunte evokes a sustained courtly dance of the Baroque era, the pavane, providing a serene opening for the concert. At its close, the mood is quite different, as Ravel pays tribute to the Viennese waltz in his choreographic tone poem, La Valse, written in 1919. The First World War was still a fresh and painful memory at the time; Ravel himself was a veteran of that war, and deeply affected by it. He lost friends in battle, and of course found himself on the side opposed to the creators of the Viennese waltz. The composer brushed away any attempts to connect this work with the devastation of the recent war. But many interpreters find the connection unavoidable. Says Dalia Stasevska, “I cannot find a more proper piece for us to end the concert, because it leaves space for different kinds of thoughts and it’s important that art brings those up. Not only answers, but also
questions.”
PROGRAM:
Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453
Lutosławski: Symphony No. 4
Ravel: La Valse
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Dalia Stasevska, conductor
Emanuel Ax, 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 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).
