Join us on Sunday, May 31 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, June 1 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you a program of Mendelssohn, Julius Eastman, and John Williams. Finnish guest conductor Dalia Stasevska is on the podium, and Principal Tuba Carol Jantsch is featured as soloist.
The program opens with the Symphony No. 2 by Julius Eastman, an innovative composer with Philadelphia connections whose music is being rediscovered after a long period of obscurity. Born in 1940, this Black and gay composer embraced both identities as he navigated a classical music world then dominated by white heterosexual men. Studying composition and piano at the Curtis Institute of Music, Eastman saw early successes as an academic, and as a singer specializing in contemporary works.
But his personal and professional struggles began to accumulate. In his last decade, before his death at age 50, he was physically ill and sometimes homeless. His Second Symphony dates from this time, and bears the subtitle: “The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for the Beloved.” It’s an impassioned outpouring that conductor Dalia Stasevska calls “absolutely heart-gripping… a break-up love letter to the man that Julius Eastman loved.” The original score was missing substantial detail at Eastman’s death, and has recently been reconstructed by Luciano Chessa.
John Williams’ Tuba Concerto was written within a couple of years of Eastman’s work, but is very different in character. Carol Jantsch, Principal Tuba of The Philadelphia Orchestra, finds echoes of the composer’s famous film scores in the music, citing Princess Leia and Jabba the Hutt from the Star Wars franchise. Williams wrote the work while he was the music director of the Boston Pops to showcase that orchestra’s principal tuba at the time, Chester Schmitz. In the decades since, this concerto has become a favorite of countless tuba players.
In his program note for the premiere, Williams confessed, “I’ve always liked the tuba and even used to play it a little. It’s such an agile instrument, like a huge cornet.” He also admitted to inserting passages for what he called “some of my pets in the orchestra: solos for the flute and the English horn, for the horn quartet and a trio of trumpets.”
This concert closes with Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, known as the “Italian Symphony.” As the favored son of a prosperous family, and like many young gentlemen of his time, Mendelssohn happily traveled throughout Europe as a leisure pursuit. He captured his impressions of these tours in letters home, in watercolors and drawings, and most famously in musical works. His Hebrides Overture and Symphony No. 3 were inspired by his travels in Scotland, evoking its misty and brooding landscapes.
With the Symphony No. 4, we are in very different territory: the bright sunshine of Italy. Mendelssohn doesn’t depict specific experiences or places, but rather the sheer vitality and exuberance that captivated him as he traveled throughout the country. In a letter as he worked on the piece, the composer called his “Italian” symphony “the most cheerful piece I have ever written.” Stasevska admits to having a sweet spot for Mendelssohn. “He's just such an amazing and fresh composer,” she says, adding that she programmed his music with American works because she hears an unexpected musical connection: “I know it sounds bizarre, but in some way there's something American also about [Mendelssohn]. The way he treats the rhythm…. It just goes, and flies in a way.”
PROGRAM:
Eastman: Symphony No. 2 (The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for the Beloved)
Williams: Tuba Concerto
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 (“Italian”)
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Dalia Stasevska, conductor
Carol Jantsch, tuba
WRTI PRODUCTION TEAM:
Melinda Whiting: Host
Alex Ariff: Senior Producer and Broadcast Engineer
