Join us on Sunday, Dec. 26th at 1 PM on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, Dec. 27th at 7 PM on WRTI HD-2 for this Philadelphia Orchestra concert from early 2017 featuring works by six French composers: Chabrier, Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Canteloube, Ravel and Florent Schmitt. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.
The concert broadcast, the first in the Orchestra's Paris Festival series, begins joyously with Emmanuel Chabrier’s sparkling Joyeuse Marche. Then, Gabriel Fauré’s haunting Pavane, and Maurice Ravel’s luxuriant Menuet Antique look to France’s celebrated engagement with refined dances.
Although Camille Saint-Saëns wrote more than a dozen operas, the one most regularly performed is Samson and Delilah from which the “Bacchanale” offers a lively, colorful, and seductive sample, and it's also on Sunday's broadcast.
Many competing musical styles in France during the first part of the 20th century found inspiration in different sources that took a backward glance to the past, and Joseph Canteloube turned to folk songs and dances for artistic renewal, particularly from those of his native region of the Auvergne in south central France. We’ll hear selections from his Songs of the Auvergne, sung by superstar mezzo-soprano Susan Graham!
The concert concludes with a thrilling concert suite by Florent Schmitt drawn from the ballet The Tragedy of Salome. The biblical princess fascinated many at the time in the visual arts, literature, and music. Richard Strauss’s scandalous opera provided an impetus for a new ballet version in 1907, and we’ll hear a suite drawn from that ballet to end the concert in dramatic and thrilling fashion.
During intermission, WRTI’s Debra Lew Harder speaks backstage with Susan Graham, and Susan Lewis has a conversation with the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Contrabassoon, Holly Blake.
Read detailed program notes from the concert.
PROGRAM:
Chabrier: Marche Joyeuse
Fauré: Pavane
Saint-Saëns: Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah
Canteloube: Songs of the Auvergne
Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano
INTERMISSION
Ravel: Menuet Antique
Schmitt: Suite from The Tragedy of Salome
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Listen to The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts on WRTI, every Sunday at 1 pm on WRTI 90.1 FM, online at WRTI.org, and on our mobile app! Listen again on Monday at 7 pm on WRTI HD-2 and for up to two weeks after broadcast on WRTI Replay.
