Join us on Sunday, Dec. 9 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1, and Monday, Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 when The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you a performance from the Orchestra’s 2023-24 season, recorded live in April 2024. Eminent pianist András Schiff is featured as soloist and leader of the Orchestra in two piano concertos, one by Haydn and one by Mozart. In between, he conducts Schubert’s Second Symphony.
The concert opens with a piano concerto written in 1782 by Franz Joseph Haydn. This concerto is a bit of an outlier among the composer’s works at this time, when he mostly was preoccupied with composing and directing operas. There’s a hint of that in this concerto’s slow movement, which feels very much like an opera aria. The operatic connection is something it shares with the greatest piano concertos of Haydn’s younger friend, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart was just starting to unveil his remarkable series of mature piano concertos in concerts in Vienna when Haydn wrote this concerto, and it’s thought that the older composer might have felt Mozart’s influence. The last of his piano concertos, it is the only one that is played frequently today.
The program also includes Mozart’s last piano concerto, completed in early 1791 when the composer had less than a year left to live. Schiff calls the Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major “very special, and it's very different from the others,” adding that it “feels like a farewell from the genre of the piano concerto. I’m sure Mozart knew that he was not going to write another one.” It would be followed in quick succession by an extraordinary series of masterpieces: the operas La clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte, the Clarinet Concerto, and of course the Requiem that Mozart was not able to finish before his death on Dec. 5, 1791 at age 35.
Between the two piano concertos, Schiff steps away from the keyboard to conduct Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 2 in B-flat major, produced when the composer was still a teenager. The industrious youngster had written his first symphony at age 16, and the next several followed roughly on an annual basis. The second symphony appeared in 1815. “There is an enthusiasm and exuberance” in this symphony, says Schiff, who notes that the 18-year-old Schubert was highly influenced by the towering musical figure in Vienna at the time. “Schubert worshiped Beethoven. The two never met, because Schubert was just too shy to approach Beethoven. Schubert, that's why we love him so much. He's the most lovable figure among composers. I think it's because of his modesty and his humility.”
PROGRAM:
Haydn: Piano Concerto in D major
Schubert: Symphony No. 2 in B-flat major, D
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K. 595
The Philadelphia Orchestra
András Schiff, piano and conductor
WRTI PRODUCTION TEAM:
Melinda Whiting: Host
Alex Ariff: Senior Producer
Joseph Patti: 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 favorite 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.
