Join us on Sunday, Aug. 30 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, Aug. 31 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you a Haydn symphony, Ravel’s Bolero, Strauss’s Don Juan, and a Grammy-winning concerto written by Kevin Puts for the genre-crossing string trio Time for Three. Principal guest conductor Marin Alsop is on the podium.
The concert opens with the Symphony No. 59 in A Major by Franz Joseph Haydn, who is often called the “father of the symphony,” and with good reason. Though he didn’t start writing symphonies until his mid-twenties, he made up for his late start in sheer volume and invention, churning out more than a hundred symphonies of astonishing variety that clearly advanced the form over four decades. This symphony came rather early in this musical journey; the numbering is somewhat suspect, as it probably dates from around 1769. It displays the dramatic contrasts that many composers were incorporating in their symphonies around this time, and bears the nickname “Fire” — which almost certainly is not Haydn’s doing. But there is a fiery connection. At some point after writing this symphony, Haydn lifted several sections to serve as incidental music for a play called The Conflagration. And the music is indeed “really fiery,” according to Marin Alsop: “energized and youthful sounding and fun” — perfect to set up the irrepressible presence of Time for Three, featured in the second work on the program.
In 2017, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Kevin Puts heard Time for Three in performance and was impressed by their easy mix of classical and popular styles, their gift for improvisation, and their singing. He determined to write a concerto tailored to the group’s talents. Titled Contact, the work envisions a cosmic encounter across galaxies. As the project began to take shape, the COVID pandemic brought on a lengthy period of social separation, felt especially keenly by performers. The work’s title, Contact, took on a double meaning — evoking not only cosmic communication, but the longing for human connection during a time of profound isolation.
The four-movement concerto opens with an unexpected gesture. The soloists begin not with bows to their instruments, but by singing. Their gentle a cappella refrain is echoed by the orchestra, and forms the basis for the movement, which bears the title “The Call” and communicates a sense of yearning for connection. The second movement is completely different, a rapid-fire scherzo titled “Codes” that suggests transmissions racing from one galaxy to another at the speed of light. The slow third movement, called “Contact,” opens in complete stillness, with a sense, as the composer writes, of “an abandoned vessel floating inert in the recesses of space.” True connection seems to arrive in the exuberant fourth movement, which is based on a very earthy Bulgarian folk melody in asymmetric meter. Time for Three’s members are violinists Nick Kendall and Charles Yang, and double bassist Ranaan Meyer. Their 2022 recording of Contact, made with the Philadelphians, won Grammy awards for the trio and the composer.
The remainder of the concert is devoted to two colorful orchestral classics: the symphonic poem Don Juan by Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel’s Bolero. Strauss based his musical portrait of the famous libertine on two accounts — one a play, the other a poem — both of which characterized Don Juan rather sympathetically. This Don Juan is a philosophical sort whose promiscuity is the result of his fruitless search for an ideal woman. When he finally loses hope he will ever meet her, he allows himself to be killed in a duel by the father of a woman he has seduced. The heroic horn theme that represents Don Juan is persuasive, and the story unfolds through seductive melodies and compelling orchestration. The progress of the music closely follows the narrative of the play and poem. His demise is chillingly rendered and we can clearly hear the thrust of the sword that kills him.
Bolero makes a fitting close — Alsop calls it a “slow-burn” piece that ends with an explosion, “a piece way ahead of its time.” Ravel composed this orchestral tour de force in 1928, and commented that he set out to produce “a piece consisting wholly of orchestral effects without music — one long and very gradual crescendo.” It gives every section of the orchestra and many of its principal players an opportunity to shine.
PROGRAM:
Haydn: Symphony No. 59 in A major (“Fire”)
Puts: Contact
R. Strauss: Don Juan
Ravel: Bolero
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Marin Alsop, conductor
Time for Three
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).
