Join us on Sunday, Sept. 29 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you the Symphony No. 5 by Sibelius, plus music by Steven Stucky and Esa-Pekka Salonen, who conducts. Principal clarinet Ricardo Morales is featured in Salonen’s work.
The concert opens with Radiant Light, by the late American composer Steven Stucky, who was composer in residence of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the time it was written. Esa-Pekka Salonen, then the L.A. Philharmonic's music director, commissioned this work in 2006 to accompany a Sibelius Symphony cycle. Stucky, who wrote that Sibelius was a strong influence on his own style, gladly embraced the assignment.
As the centerpiece of the program, Esa-Pekka Salonen then leads his own kínēma, a work for clarinet and orchestra that originated with a film score commission. The title means “scenes” or “locales.” There are five contrasting scenes for clarinet and string orchestra, each exploring a different sound world. The performance features The Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal clarinet, Ricardo Morales, whom Salonen calls “one of the great clarinetists in the world at the moment. His version [of kínēma] was very expressive, very musical and very exciting. I was really fascinated and happy to be working with him.”
This concert concludes with the Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major by Jean Sibelius, who endured many struggles during its composition. At the time Sibelius was already revered in his native Finland for having brought international attention to the territory’s quest for independence from Russia, and this symphony was commissioned by the Finnish government to be premiered on the composer’s 50th birthday, which had been declared a holiday. Putting aside the pressure of producing a work that would justify such an occasion, the composer also endured much personal suffering as he composed, including health problems and a traumatic flight from Russian troops. But the work was completed on schedule, and Sibelius himself conducted the premiere in December 1915.
Almost immediately afterward, he withdrew the symphony and significantly revised it. In 1916, he conducted the work in its new form. Again, he was unhappy with the result. Another major revision followed. After leading the third version in concert in 1919, even the self-critical Sibelius could find nothing more he wanted to change. In a wide-ranging conversation for this broadcast with WRTI producer Alex Ariff, Salonen speaks in detail about the “cumbersome genesis” of this beloved symphony and Sibelius’s characteristic method of composition.
Stucky: Radiant Light
Salonen: kínēma
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Ricardo Morales, clarinet
The Philadelphia Orchestra
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).
