Join us on Sunday, July 26 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, July 27 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, and Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 2. Guest conductor Xian Zhang is on the podium and principal cello Hai-Ye Ni is the soloist.
The concert opens with a beloved orchestral showpiece by Benjamin Britten that has a double identity. In the concert hall, we know it as the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Henry Purcell. But its origins lay in a commission from the British Ministry of Education. In 1945 the agency asked Britten to write music for a film designed to acquaint youngsters with the instruments of the orchestra. He chose a theme from Purcell’s incidental music for a play produced in 1695 as the basis for a sparkling set of variations that take listeners on a tour of the orchestra’s different sections. The resulting score, with bespoke narration, has been a favorite at family concerts ever since. But remove the narration, and it works at least as well as an exhilarating independent concert work. At the outset, the full orchestra states the theme with pomp and circumstance. Then the tour takes us through the woodwinds, strings, brass, and finally percussion. In a brilliant final fugue, all the instruments rejoin the ensemble in sequence.
The Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal cello, Hai-Ye Ni, is featured in Franz Joseph Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 2 in D major from 1783. This concerto seems designed to show off the virtuoso possibilities of the instrument at a time when cello concertos were relatively rare and those that existed tended to make few technical demands. What prompted Haydn to write it is not clear, but the first known performance took place within a year after its composition, in faraway London. This was well before Haydn himself visited London for the first time, and years before the concerto was published. How the score reached one of that city’s leading cellists, John Cervetto, is also a mystery. But his performance met lavish praise in the British press. And then, silence. There is no record of this concerto being performed anywhere until the 1850s. It wasn’t until the 20th century that famous cellists began to perform this concerto widely. Now, it is among the most popular of all concertos for the instrument.
This concert concludes with the Symphony No. 4 in F minor by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, which appeared in the aftermath of an emotionally wrenching event. In 1877, Tchaikovsky, then in his mid-30s, made the fateful decision to marry, partly to please his family and partly to quiet rumors of his homosexuality. Whom to marry seems to have concerned him little. The bride was one of his conservatory students whom he barely knew. The marriage was an immediate fiasco, and lasted a mere six weeks. Tchaikovsky fell into a deep depression. Fortunately, his platonic relationship with his generous new patron, Nadezhda von Meck, provided much solace. She underwrote a period of recuperation in Italy and Switzerland, where Tchaikovsky completed his Fourth Symphony. This is an intensely personal work, and perhaps it is the positive fruit of that chaotic period, during which his patron offered crucial emotional and financial support. Tchaikovsky dedicated the symphony to her.
The form of the symphony grows from the opening fanfare, which the composer admitted was an evocation of inexorable Fate. He called it “the kernel of the whole symphony” and it recurs throughout the first movement, with devastating effect. The second movement is a songful utterance based on a folk-like melody. The scherzo is utterly unique: pizzicato strings play the bulk of the movement, with a trio played by winds, including a brilliant piccolo. The finale alternates an exuberant theme and a subdued folk song, and while the Fate theme recurs ominously near the end, it is utterly defeated in a spirited coda.
PROGRAM:
Britten: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Henry Purcell (“The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”)
Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 2 in D major
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in f minor, Op. 36
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Xian Zhang, conductor
Hai-Ye Ni, cello
WRTI PRODUCTION TEAM:
Melinda Whiting: Host
Alex Ariff: Senior Producer
Tyler McClure: 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).
