Join us on Sunday, Aug. 16 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, Aug. 17 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you a program from the 2025/2026 season featuring the the Overture to Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz, the Symphony in E minor (“Gaelic”) by Amy Beach, and Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with soloist Marc-André Hamelin. Yannick Nézet-Séguin is on the podium.
The program opens with the overture to Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz (“The Marksman”). This opera was a product of the early Romantic era, when interest in the supernatural and sinister reigned supreme. Writers and composers were especially intrigued with the idea of a pact with the Devil that would allow a protagonist to achieve his earthly aims. The price, of course, would be his immortal soul. In Der Freischütz, a young marksman seeks out sorcery to win a shooting contest that will grant him two prizes: a sure route to a secure position as head forester, and marriage to the woman he loves. Max, the hero of the story, strikes a deal to cast magic bullets that will allow him to hit any mark he chooses. Perhaps unexpectedly, the overture, like the opera, ends in triumph. Although deals with the Devil don’t usually end in redemption, Max achieves his goals in this opera, while the villain who led him toward Satan takes the fall.
The Romantic obsession with supernatural powers cast a certain aura around Franz Liszt, whose uncanny abilities at the piano made him a subject of great fascination in his performing years. Had he made a pact with the Devil, perhaps? Through much of his twenties and thirties, Liszt toured Europe, thrilling audiences with his musical wizardry. He composed prolifically, but almost exclusively for solo piano. There was no demonic deal, of course, and Liszt ultimately made an utterly human and understandable decision after a decade of frenetic touring and performing. His peripatetic celebrity began to wear thin, and he accepted a conducting position in the German city of Weimar, a bit of a backwater — which suited Liszt perfectly. What he wanted was to be out of the limelight, where he could develop in new musical directions, undisturbed. In Weimar he focused on writing orchestral music for the first time, including various works for piano and orchestra. His Second Piano Concerto appeared in 1857, and the composer’s manuscript bore the title “Symphonic Concerto” — a clue that Liszt was aiming for something more substantial than just a virtuoso vehicle. “Liszt has to be recognized for having had such an original mind,” says soloist Marc-André Hamelin. “Think of what he brought us. He pretty much originated the piano recital. He really solidified, if not outright invented the symphonic poem.” And, the pianist adds, Liszt was a master at transforming themes through the course of the Second Concerto.
This concert concludes with a work that Yannick Nézet-Séguin characterizes as “absolutely incredible”: the “Gaelic” Symphony completed by American composer Amy Beach in 1896, when she was 29 years old. Already a mature piano virtuoso by her teens, this musical prodigy largely gave up performing when she married at age 18. She shifted very successfully to writing music of her own, and was one of ten composers who were asked to respond in the Boston Herald to Antonin Dvorak’s famous comments on American music. Dvorak was prompting American composers to write symphonies based on their own folk music — by which he meant the African American spirituals and Native American chants that had impressed him so profoundly during his stay in the States. In a lengthy and eloquent response, Amy Beach agreed with Dvorak’s basic premise, but noting her own heritage, she found it easier to imagine being influenced by songs of English, Scottish, and Irish origin. By this time, she was already planning a symphony built on Irish melodies, also incorporating one of her own art songs. In 1896, the Boston Symphony premiered Amy Beach’s “Gaelic Symphony” in E minor to such acclaim that they repeated it the following year. Other orchestras soon followed – including the Philadelphia Orchestra, which presented the work in 1915 and 1919 under Leopold Stokowski’s direction.
PROGRAM:
Weber: Overture to Der Freischütz
Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major
Beach: Symphony in e minor, Op. 32 (“Gaelic”)
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Marc-André Hamelin, 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.
