Join us on Sunday, June 7 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, June 8 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Ravel’s sumptuous orchestration of Pictures from an Exhibition by Mussorgsky. Pipa virtuoso Wu Man is featured in a concerto by Du Yun. On the podium is Elim Chan, recently named the music director designate of the San Francisco Symphony.
This concert is a series of pictures, in a way. Claude Debussy’s famous Prelude, based on a poem by his friend Stéphane Mallarmé, paints a portrait of a faun in the forest on a lazy summer day. The composer maintained that the music was not a literal representation of the poem but a very free illustration. In fact, Debussy provided his own narrative. A mythical faun, part man and part goat, plays his pipes one warm afternoon, hoping to attract nearby nymphs. He doesn’t succeed. But his melodies, represented by a solo flute in the orchestra, seem to lure the faun to sleep, and he dreams of the encounter that didn’t actually take place. This scenario holds obvious possibilities for ballet, and several choreographers famously staged Debussy’s symphonic poem. Most often, though, it’s heard in concert, as in this performance.
The visionary pipa virtuoso Wu Man is featured in Ears of the Book, a new concerto written for her by Chinese composer Du Yun. The work was inspired by the idea of Polaroid snapshots. As the composer puts it, “each Polaroid [is] a snapshot in an emotive mosaic.” She explains the title with a question: “When I read a book, I feel like the book has heart and the book has ears. If a book had ears, what would it listen to?” This question led Du Yun to create a musical story with the pipa as narrator. Soloist Wu Man has premiered hundreds of new works for this ancient Chinese instrument, many of them involving Western classical orchestras.
Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition closes the program. Originally written in 1874 for solo piano, the work was intended to honor the memory of Mussorgsky’s dear friend, the painter Viktor Hartmann, who had died the previous year at 39. Attending a retrospective exhibition of Hartmann’s works, the composer chose a selection of images to depict in music.
He conceived the stately “promenade” theme that represents the viewer entering the exhibit, and then moving from one picture to the next. This Promenade is consistent as a theme, but its treatment varies, reflecting the composer’s own evolving reactions as he felt the cumulative effect of Hartmann’s paintings. Perhaps because Hartmann’s death had affected him so profoundly, Mussorgsky worked quickly on his homage, producing the final score in just over three weeks.
Maurice Ravel’s famous orchestration of Pictures came much later — nearly 50 years after Mussorgsky’s original inspiration. It is this form of the work that is most often performed today. The confident opening Promenade is a trumpet solo, bringing the viewer to the first painting, a portrait of a grotesque creature called “Gnomus.” The paintings that follow are: “The Old Castle,” with its mournful song for saxophone; “Tuileries,” depicting children playing and quarreling in the famous Parisian gardens; “Bydlo,” showing a lumbering oxcart; and the “Ballet of Chicks in their Shells,” with its chirping motifs.
Next comes a double portrait, “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle,” two presumably Jewish figures (one rich, the other impoverished). Then we are back in France with “Limoges: Market Day,” which portrays vivacious women gossiping in the town square. The next movement is a supreme contrast: “Catacombs: Roman Sepulchre.” Then, another contrast: “The Hut on Fowl’s Legs, or Baba Yaga,” portraying a malevolent witch from Russian folklore. As its ferocious activity builds, the final image captures our attention without any preceding promenade. This is the climactic, majestic “Great Gate of Kyiv,” with its tolling bells and evocations of ancient liturgical chants.
PROGRAM:
Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Du: Ears of the Book, Concerto for Pipa and Orchestra
Mussorgsky: Pictures from an Exhibition
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Elim Chan, conductor
Wu Man, pipa
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).
