Join us on Sunday, Sept. 15 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you two monumental concertos, one for piano and the other for orchestra. Finnish guest conductor Dalia Stasevska is on the podium.
Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is featured in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. Rachmaninoff was well established as a composer, conductor, and piano virtuoso by 1909, when he embarked on his first tour of America. In preparation, he decided to write a new concerto to unveil during the tour. After completing it, he had no time to fully learn its (now) notoriously difficult solo part before leaving for New York. He practiced on board ship, using a portable silent keyboard, before playing the premiere in New York in the fall of 1909.
Andsnes notes that this “was a restless time in the world,” which comes through in the music. “You feel something dangerous, something of the love of machinery and speed, and it's restless in a different way than the music before... there is some jazz influence in the harmonies.” Though this concerto is famously among the most difficult for pianists, Rachmaninoff himself preferred it to the ever-popular Second, remarking that the Third was actually more comfortable to play — at least for him.
The program concludes with another concerto, showcasing not a soloist, but the virtuosity of the entire ensemble: Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. The Second World War upended the lives of Europe’s leading composers, and propelled many toward exile, often in America. This was the fate of the Hungarian Bartók, who was a fervent anti-Fascist in a country that had joined the Axis alliance. The composer came under increasing government scrutiny, and emigrated to the United States in 1940.
Here he faced a different challenge — not a political one, but simply how to make ends meet. His compositions weren’t well known in America, so he gave lectures, and performed as a pianist occasionally. He obtained a research fellowship in ethnomusicology at Columbia University, on the strength of his pioneering studies of Eastern European folk music. Finally, a couple of Hungarian musicians with thriving American careers — the conductor Fritz Reiner and the violinist Joseph Szigeti — helped Bartók gain a key commission from Serge Koussevitzky, the enterprising conductor of the Boston Symphony. The resulting Concerto for Orchestra work is symmetrical in shape: its opening Introduction and closing Finale, both in sonata form, frame two scherzos. The second-movement Game of Couples is one of them, featuring pairs of wind instruments in succession. The other scherzo is the fourth-movement Interrupted Intermezzo. At the center of the concerto is a mournful and moving Elegy.
PROGRAM:
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Dalia Stasevska, conductor
Leif Ove Andsnes, piano
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 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).
