Alan Gilbert: winter 2010 highlights
Alan Gilbert returns to New York City in late December and January for several weeks of concerts with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, with such leading soloists as the celebrated Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (Dec 29, 30, & Jan 2); baritone Thomas Hampson, who is the Orchestra’s first Artist-in-Residence (Dec 31 & Jan 14-16); and powerhouse pianist Yefim “Fima” Bronfman (Jan 7-9 & 12). The concert with Hampson on New Year’s Eve will be broadcast on public television’s Live From Lincoln Center series, which will air in New York on WNET/Channel Thirteen beginning at 8pm (check local listings). From January 21 through February 4, Hampson and Bronfman will join Gilbert for his first European tour with the Orchestra. “Europe / Winter 2010” comprises 13 performances in nine European cities: Barcelona, Zaragoza, and Madrid, all in Spain; Zurich, Switzerland; Frankfurt, Cologne, and Dortmund (the Orchestra’s debut there) in Germany; Paris, France; and London, England. At New York’s Carnegie Hall on February 13, Gilbert will also lead the Philharmonic in a single concert featuring the U.S. premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto; Lindberg is the Philharmonic’s Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence.
In his next few programs with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, Alan Gilbert will explore a wide range of repertoire, including some previews of the works to be toured in Europe. Two great Romantic symphonies anchor programs featuring two superb pianists: Schumann’s deeply expressive Second Symphony, along with two works by Webern, is on the program with Leif Ove Andsnes as soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, while Prokofiev’s formidable Piano Concerto No. 2 with soloist Yefim Bronfman forms the first half of an all-Russian program that concludes with Rachmaninoff’s sweeping Symphony No. 2. Another highlight will be Thomas Hampson singing John Adams’s The Wound-Dresser, a powerful setting of Walt Whitman texts; the work appears on a dark-hued program with Haydn’s Symphony No. 49 (“La passione”), Schubert’s Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”), and Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces.
Soon after their tour of Europe, Gilbert and the Philharmonic return to New York where they will perform the world premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Odna Zhizn, a New York Philharmonic commission, on a program at Avery Fisher Hall featuring two works by Mozart: his Sinfonia Concertante for Winds (with four soloists from the Orchestra: Liang Wang, Principal Oboe; Mark Nuccio, Acting Principal Clarinet; Judith LeClair, Principal Bassoon; and Philip Myers, Principal Horn) and “Jupiter” Symphony (Feb 10-12 & 16). On Saturday, February 13, Gilbert and the orchestra return to New York’s Carnegie Hall for a single concert showcasing the U.S. premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s landmark Clarinet Concerto with soloist Kari Kriikku, for whom the work was written, alongside Wagner’s Rienzi Overture and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2. Last season, Gilbert and the orchestra gave an all-Bernstein concert at Carnegie to honor the legendary composer/conductor’s 50th anniversary as Music Director of the Philharmonic, his 90th birthday year, and the 65th anniversary of his famous last-minute Philharmonic debut.
Alan Gilbert’s first tour of Europe with the New York Philharmonic, which takes place halfway through his inaugural season as Music Director, is his second tour with the Orchestra, following “Asian Horizons” in October 2009. The repertoire for “Europe / Winter 2010” will include the European premiere of EXPO, the first New York Philharmonic commission from Magnus Lindberg, which had its world premiere in September 2009 and which the Orchestra performed in Asia. The New York Philharmonic will also perform John Adams’s The Wound-Dresser, with Thomas Hampson as soloist; Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces; Haydn’s Symphony No. 49 (“La passione”); Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with Yefim Bronfman as soloist; Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2; Schubert’s Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”); and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2.
This tour marks the Philharmonic’s first return to Spain since 2001. The Orchestra last performed in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1985, in Cologne in 2007, and in Frankfurt, Paris, and London in 2008. This will be the Philharmonic’s debut in Dortmund. A complete list of cities and detailed programs for “Europe / Winter 2010” follows below, along with Alan Gilbert’s other winter 2010 engagements.
Fall highlights
Alan Gilbert began his tenure as the Music Director of the New York Philharmonic on September 16 with a gala concert televised on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center; New Yorker critic Alex Ross recently named it one of the ten memorable performances of 2009. Critic Anthony Tommasini included Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic in the New York Times’s “Best of 2009” recap, observing, “Though serious and not flashy, Mr. Gilbert is an adventurous musician with strong ties to living composers.” He went on to call Gilbert, “A natural communicator [who] excels at giving pep talks to audiences about knotty contemporary pieces,” and concluded, “The Philharmonic is playing splendidly for Mr. Gilbert so far.”
In Time Out New York’s year-end wrap up of classical music in New York City, editor Steve Smith and contributing editor Olivia Giovetti paid tribute to several performances and recordings featuring Alan Gilbert. The conductor’s debut as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic was lauded as one of the year’s best performances, and Steve Smith enthused, “The Phil’s new Music Director has created a welcome buzz with his vitality, openness to fresh ideas, and earnest intent to reassert the orchestra’s prime position in New York’s artistic conversation.” Steve Smith’s top ten “Best Albums” of 2009 included Alan Gilbert and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic’s recording of music by Christopher Rouse on the BIS label.
Gilbert’s recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, which was named a Gramophone “Editor’s Choice” and given a top rating (10/10 for artistic/sound quality), also topped John von Rhein’s list of best classical recordings of the year in the Chicago Tribune; von Rhein wrote that his ten picks “testify to the fact that certain segments of the industry haven’t broken faith with a thing called artistic integrity,” and described his choice for number one this way: “With Gilbert at the helm, the New York Philharmonic could be in for an exciting new era. His final concerts as chief conductor of the Stockholm orchestra inspired a studio recording of Mahler’s sublime valedictory that strikes a wonderful balance between desolation and acceptance, with luminous sonics to match.”
Other fall highlights for Alan Gilbert included a tour of Asia with the New York Philharmonic (including the Orchestra’s debut concerts in Hanoi, Vietnam and Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.) and concerts with the NDR Symphony Orchestra-Hamburg, where Gilbert has been principal guest conductor since 2004; the concerts with the NDR included Gilbert performing with Leonidas Kavakos as the two violin soloists in Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043.
Alan Gilbert – winter 2010 engagements
December 29 and 30, 2009; January 2, 2010
New York, NY (Avery Fisher Hall)
New York Philharmonic
Webern: Im Sommerwind
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 (Leif Ove Andsnes, piano)
Webern: Symphony, Op. 21
Schumann: Symphony No. 2
December 31, 2009
New York, NY (Avery Fisher Hall)
New York Philharmonic
Copland: Appalachian Spring Suite
Copland: Old American Songs (Thomas Hampson, baritone)
Various: selections from Broadway musicals (Thomas Hampson, baritone)
Gershwin: An American in Paris
January 6, 2010
New York, NY (Avery Fisher Hall)
New York Philharmonic
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
January 7, 8 and 12
New York, NY (Avery Fisher Hall)
New York Philharmonic
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yefim Bronfman, piano)
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
January 9
Brookville, New York (Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, Long Island University)
New York Philharmonic
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yefim Bronfman, piano)
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
January 14-16
New York, NY (Avery Fisher Hall)
New York Philharmonic
Haydn: Symphony No. 49 (“La passione”)
Adams: The Wound-Dresser (Thomas Hampson, baritone)
Schubert: Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”)
Berg: Three Orchestral Pieces
January 21 – February 4
“Europe / Winter 2010” tour
January 21: Palau de la Música (Barcelona, Spain)
Haydn: Symphony No. 49 (“La passione”); John Adams: The Wound-Dresser (Thomas Hampson, baritone); Schubert: Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”); Berg: Three Orchestral Pieces
January 22: Auditorio y Palacio de Congresos (Zaragoza, Spain)
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yefim Bronfman, piano); Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
January 23: Auditorio Nacional de Música (Madrid, Spain)
Magnus Lindberg: EXPO (New York Philharmonic commission); Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yefim Bronfman, piano); Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
January 24: Auditorio Nacional de Música (Madrid, Spain)
Haydn: Symphony No. 49 (“La passione”); John Adams: The Wound-Dresser (Thomas Hampson, baritone); Schubert: Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”); Berg: Three Orchestral Pieces
January 26: Tonhalle (Zurich, Switzerland)
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yefim Bronfman, piano); Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
January 27: Alte Oper (Frankfurt, Germany)
Magnus Lindberg: EXPO (New York Philharmonic commission); Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yefim Bronfman, piano); Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
January 28: Philharmonie (Cologne, Germany)
Haydn: Symphony No. 49 (“La passione”); John Adams: The Wound-Dresser (Thomas Hampson, baritone); Schubert: Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”); Berg: Three Orchestral Pieces
January 29: Philharmonie (Cologne, Germany)
Magnus Lindberg: EXPO (New York Philharmonic commission); Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yefim Bronfman, piano); Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
January 30: Konzerthaus (Dortmund, Germany)
John Adams: The Wound-Dresser (Thomas Hampson, baritone); Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
February 1: Salle Pleyel (Paris, France)
Magnus Lindberg: EXPO (New York Philharmonic commission); Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yefim Bronfman, piano); Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
February 2: Salle Pleyel (Paris, France)
Haydn: Symphony No. 49 (“La passione”); John Adams: The Wound-Dresser (Thomas Hampson, baritone); Schubert: Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”); Berg: Three Orchestral Pieces
February 3: Barbican (London, England)
Magnus Lindberg: EXPO (New York Philharmonic commission); Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yefim Bronfman, piano); Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
February 4: Barbican (London, England)
Haydn: Symphony No. 49 (“La passione”); John Adams: The Wound-Dresser (Thomas Hampson, baritone); Schubert: Symphony in B minor (“Unfinished”); Berg: Three Orchestral Pieces
February 10-12 and 16
New York, NY (Avery Fisher Hall)
New York Philharmonic
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante for Winds (Liang Wang, oboe; Mark Nuccio, clarinet; Judith LeClair, bassoon; Philip Myers, horn)
Rouse: Odna Zhizn (world premiere)
Mozart: Symphony No. 41 (“Jupiter”)
February 13
New York, NY (Carnegie Hall)
Carnegie Hall
Wagner: Overture to Rienzi
Lindberg: Clarinet Concerto (U.S. premiere)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
March 3
New York, NY (Avery Fisher Hall)
New York Philharmonic
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante for Winds (Liang Wang, oboe; Mark Nuccio, clarinet; Judith LeClair, bassoon; Philip Myers, horn)
Mozart: Symphony No. 41 (“Jupiter”)
March 18 and 19
Hamburg, Germany
Sinfonieorchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunk (NDR)
Webern: Im Sommerwind
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto (Joshua Bell, violin)
Schoenberg: Pelléas et Mélisande
March 20
Lübeck, Germany
Sinfonieorchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunk (NDR)
Webern: Im Sommerwind
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto (Joshua Bell, violin)
Schoenberg: Pelléas et Mélisande
March 28 and 29
Hamburg, Germany
Sinfonieorchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunk (NDR)
Beethoven: Die Weihe des Hauses, Overture for Orchestra, Op. 124
Beethoven: Triple Concerto (Lars Vogt, piano; Veronika Eberle, violin; Gustav Rivinius, cello)
Nielsen: Symphony No. 2 (“The Four Temperaments”)
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© 21C Media Group, December 2009