CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The Met Orchestra

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 3:00 PM

The MET Orchestra
James Levine, Music Director and Conductor
Diana Damrau, Soprano

SCHUBERT Symphony No. 8, "Unfinished"
R. STRAUSS "Das Bächlein," Op. 88, No. 1
R. STRAUSS "Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden," Op. 68, No. 2
R. STRAUSS "Allerseelen," Op. 10, No. 8
R. STRAUSS "Zueignung," Op. 10, No. 1
R. STRAUSS "Morgen," Op. 27, No. 4
R. STRAUSS "Ständchen," Op. 17, No. 2
R. STRAUSS "Wiegenlied," Op. 41, No. 1
R. STRAUSS "Amor," Op. 68, No. 5
R. STRAUSS "Grossmächtige Prinzessin" from Ariadne auf Naxos
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5

Encore:
R. STRAUSS "als ein Gott kam jeder gegangen" from "Grossmächtige Prinzessin" from Ariadne auf Naxos

Program is approximately 2 hours, including one intermission

Program Notes:

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)

Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, D. 759, "Unfinished"

Franz Schubert, a dizzyingly gifted composer who composed a huge amount of music over the course of his tragically abbreviated 31-year life, left behind a number of unfinished works. Of those, the Eighth Symphony has provoked by far the most speculation. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that we will ever know for sure why it was not completed. Some have theorized that Schubert decided that his symphony was perfect in its two-movement form and that he could do nothing to better it. However, there is an extensive piano sketch of a scherzo third movement, the first nine measures of which are fully orchestrated, which would seem to eliminate that possibility. The only reasonable explanation given the extant evidence is that Schubert simply put the piece away for some reason and never got around to finishing it. From our perspective, listening to these two brilliant, inspired movements, it’s hard to imagine just leaving them behind, but Schubert was a composer of overflowing ideas and was constantly juggling multiple projects. For reasons unknown, this one was abandoned.

In any case, Schubert’s "Unfinished" is still a masterpiece, towering above all his other symphonies, save the "Great" C-Major Symphony. Written in 1822, the two surviving movements of the Eighth are bittersweet, displaying Schubert’s supreme gift for beautiful melody but shrouding it in darkness. The first movement rises up ominously from silence, cellos and basses singing a hushed, mournful tune. Then, over a soft, syncopated accompaniment in the strings, the oboe and clarinet establish a poignant waltz—an important moment that foreshadows the essential role woodwinds play throughout the symphony. Suddenly, timpani, strings, and brass crescendo and pound out a forceful climax; from this point on, the first movement is a continual struggle between subdued melancholy and abrupt, powerful outbursts. The waltz melody established at the outset by the clarinet and oboes is a recurring presence, both in the woodwinds and passed around the string section, and the movement never emerges from its gloom. Just when it seems that the waltz will drift to a tranquil halt, it is punctuated by a brief coda and an anguished, percussive cadence.

The Andante, slower in tempo and more serene in character, nevertheless carries over much of the spirit of the opening Allegro. Again the clarinet introduces a striking melody over an accompaniment of syncopated strings, this time serving as the second theme, which is passed to the oboe and once more struggles against more energetic interruptions. Sighing cellos and basses recall the opening bars of the symphony and lead into furious falling patterns before another period of calm descends and eventually brings the return of the woodwind theme, now introduced by the oboe and continued by the clarinet. The final pages of the symphony are peaceful, drawing to a close with a gently swelling E-major chord, which still doesn’t sound very cheerful.

Schubert’s "Unfinished" Symphony is an unsettled, conflicted work, always searching for solace and never quite finding it. In this way, it is much like its composer, and indeed much like us listeners, who find within it a moving reflection of our own uncertain—and unfinished—lives.



RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949)

Das Bächlein, Op. 88, No. 1; Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden, Op. 68, No. 2; Allerseelen, Op. 10, No. 8; Zueignung, Op. 10, No. 1; Morgen!,
Op. 27, No. 4; Ständchen, Op. 17, No. 2; Wiegenlied, Op. 41, No. 1;
Amor, Op. 68, No. 5

Nearly 80 years passed between the composition of Richard Strauss’s first and last lieder; over the course of his long, productive career, Strauss continually enriched the art song repertoire. The only significant period of time during which Strauss produced no lieder was between 1907 and 1918—the frenzied stretch of operatic inspiration that produced Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Die Frau ohne Schatten. A natural composer for the human voice, Strauss crafted lieder that sound pure and effortless, no matter how difficult they may actually be to sing—and indeed many of them are quite demanding.

The eight orchestral songs chosen for this program span 57 years and catch Strauss in a typically lyrical mood, displaying the elegant beauty of the composer’s melodies and the singer’s voice. Taken as a group, these lieder paint a sweeping picture of Strauss’s lifelong journey in song and depict various subjects, both passionate and mundane. And yet, the most amazing thing is the singularity of voice; there can be no doubt that "Zueignung" (written in 1885 and orchestrated in 1935), a passionate yet intimate declaration of love written just three years after Wagner finished Parsifal, came from the same pen as "Das Bächlein" (written in 1933 and orchestrated in 1935), an innocently burbling imitation of a mountain stream that seems infinitely removed from its historical surroundings.



RICHARD STRAUSS

"Grossmächtige Prinzessin," from Ariadne auf Naxos

Taken from the one-act opera Ariadne auf Naxos (originally completed in 1912, but continually revised until 1916), "Grossmächtige Prinzessin" is a dazzling coloratura aria in which the cheeky Zerbinetta attempts to convince the heartbroken Ariadne, who has just been abandoned by Theseus, that the surest way to recover is to seek out the rush of a new romance. A perfect foil to the understated charm of his lieder, this aria displays Strauss at the height of his full-throated operatic power.



LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)

Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67

Legendary works of art tend to breed an intimidating mystique, an insulating aura of unassailable greatness that does more to distance the work from its audience than to encourage its appreciation. Flocks of tourists wait in line every day to catch a 30-second glimpse of the Mona Lisa—not because they expect to be captivated by Leonardo’s mastery, but simply to be able to say they’ve seen it. Some readers stagger their way through Ulysses, breathing a sigh of relief to have turned the last page, while others find inspiration in Joyce’s linguistic command. In all fairness, Beethoven’s Fifth should battle against the same forces of misunderstanding. Its opening measures are as familiar as anything in music history, and as George Grove writes in his study of Beethoven’s Ninth, "it is the only [symphony] … which is sufficiently well known to have broken the barriers of a repulsive nomenclature, and to have become familiar, outside a certain more or less initiated circle, by its technical name." It has been featured in countless movies, television shows, and commercials. Today it can be heard ringing out in concert halls—not just from the stage, but also from the speakers of unscrupulous audience members’ cellular phones. It has even been used as political propaganda in the darkest of times: During World War II, the Allies co-opted its opening bars to begin radio broadcasts because the short-short-short-long rhythm spells "V" (for victory) in Morse code. In response, Goebbels forbid the broadcast of any performance of Beethoven’s Fifth in Germany, despite the work’s important place at the heart of the Germanic symphonic tradition, which was itself so beloved and so hideously exploited by the Nazi regime.

Writers and scholars are consequently fond of claiming that current-day audiences, with ears desensitized by over-familiarity and cliché, appreciate but little of the shocking originality contained in Beethoven’s famous symphony. This is rubbish—an academic delusion utterly divorced from the exhilarating reality of hearing music so immediate in its impact and so consuming of its listeners’ attention that such pedantic concerns seem absurd. If anything, the symphony’s effect on a new listener is amplified by the incredible discovery of what comes after the ubiquitous first eight notes.

Beethoven’s work on this symphony began in 1804, just after the completion of the "Eroica," but a series of interruptions prevented him from finishing it until four years later. One of the most productive periods in Beethoven’s career, those four years also resulted in the completion of the Fourth Symphony and most of the Sixth, the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, the first two versions of Fidelio, the Op. 59 "Razumovsky" string quartets, the "Appassionata" Piano Sonata, and the Mass in C. In December 1808, at an ill-fated but well-chronicled four-hour-long concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, the Fifth Symphony finally received its premiere performance along with much of the symphonic music listed above. There were many difficulties. The musicians were second-rate and under-rehearsed, the music was fiendishly difficult, the program was far too long, and the heating system in the theater was broken. And yet, despite the poor performance and terrible conditions, Beethoven’s revolutionary new music had a powerful effect on the exhausted, freezing audience. Many listeners were at first confused by the daring and unfamiliar sound of Beethoven’s genius, but soon the Fifth was hailed as a masterpiece and entered the standard repertoire. It has never left.

When describing this music, hyperbole is inevitable. From the first note to the last, the tension is unflagging, the sense of forward motion is irresistible. And despite going through a number of Beethoven’s typical, violently scribbled revisions, the Fifth feels like a more seamless, unified whole than virtually any other symphony in the repertoire. Ingenious irregularities are conspicuous: the enigmatic oboe cadenza toward the end of the first movement; the exuberant surge without pause from the dark, foreboding scherzo into the gleaming C-major finale; and the thunderous addition of trombones and contrabassoon in the final movement.

In so many ways, Beethoven broke away from the traditional idea of the Classical symphony, and yet his Fifth has become a definitive example of the expressive power of the form. This is precisely because one does not have to be an expert to feel the incendiary power of the music. Despite its familiarity, Beethoven’s Fifth continues to awe and energize listeners, both new and experienced, as long as there are orchestras to play it. Countless words have been written in analysis of the piece, explaining its form, orchestration, harmonies, thematic structure, and historical significance, but ultimately none of it is essential. Its greatness requires no explanation.

—Jay Goodwin

More Information:

Two of the world’s most beloved symphonies open and close this program. And in the middle there’s a feast of Richard Strauss, including one of the most dazzling arias out of all his operas, as well as a selection of his most affecting songs heard here in their orchestral versions.

The MET Orchestra
James Levine, Music Director and Conductor
James Levine

James Levine conducts four operas at the Metropolitan Opera in 2009–2010, his 39th season there, including opening night's Tosca premiere (the work with which he made his Met debut in 1971), the new production of Les Contes d'Hoffmann, and revivals of Simon Boccanegra and Lulu. He and the MET Orchestra are heard in two concerts at Carnegie Hall this season (the soloists are Stephanie Blythe and Diana Damrau), while Pierre Boulez conducts the third date in the subscription series (with Deborah Polaski in May); Levine and the MET Chamber Ensemble give two performances in Weill and Zankel halls, featuring the music of Boulez, Mozart, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Strauss. (Also in Zankel Hall, he participates in a series of master classes for the Marilyn Horne Foundation next month.)

Maestro Levine leads the Boston Symphony in two programs at Carnegie Hall in coming months with soloists Pierre-Laurent Aimard (in music of Ravel and Carter) and Christine Brewer, Stephanie Blythe, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Shenyang, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (in Mendelssohn's Elijah). His sixth season as Music Director of the BSO began on September 23 and includes world premieres of commissions from Peter Lieberson, John Harbison, and John Williams; the US premiere of Carter's Flute Concerto; his first performances with the BSO of Mahler's Seventh Symphony; and a special Pension Fund concert in February that features music of "all four Strausses": waltzes and polkas of Johann Sr., Jr., and Josef, as well as Richard Strauss's Don Quixote. The BSO recently released the first five in a new series of recordings made in live performances in Symphony Hall, including Mahler's Sixth Symphony, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, William Bolcom's Eighth Symphony and "Lyric Concerto," Brahms's German Requiem, and a two-CD collection of Mozart symphonies.

James Levine makes his debut in March with the Staatskapelle Berlin and Mahler's Third Symphony in the German capital (as well as a gala four-hand piano evening with that orchestra's Artistic Director, Daniel Barenboim, and Dorothea Röschmann, Waltraud Meier, Matthew Polenzani, and René Pape, for the benefit of the Deutsche Staatsoper's imminent renovation), and will help celebrate Cincinnati Opera's 90th Anniversary in June, leading a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in his hometown before returning to the BSO's Tanglewood Festival (July 9–August 4).



The MET Orchestra

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is regarded as one of the world's finest orchestras. From the time of the company's inception in 1883, the ensemble has worked with leading conductors in both opera and concert performances and has developed into an orchestra of enormous technical polish and style.

The MET Orchestra maintains a demanding schedule of performances and rehearsals during its 32-week New York season, when the company performs seven times a week in repertory that normally encompasses approximately 27 operas.

Arturo Toscanini conducted almost 500 performances at the Met, and Gustav Mahler, during the few years he was in New York, conducted 54 Met performances. More recently, many of the world's great conductors have led the orchestra: Walter, Beecham, Reiner, Mitropoulos, Kempe, Szell, Böhm, Solti, Maazel, Bernstein, Mehta, Abbado, Karajan, Dohnányi, Haitink, Tennstedt, Ozawa, Gergiev, and Barenboim. Carlos Kleiber's only US opera performances were with the MET Orchestra.

In addition to its opera schedule, the orchestra has a distinguished history of concert performances. Toscanini made his American debut as a symphonic conductor with the Met Orchestra in 1913, and the impressive list of instrumental soloists who appeared with the orchestra includes Leopold Godowsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, Pablo Casals, Josef Hofmann, Ferruccio Busoni, Jascha Heifetz, Moritz Rosenthal, and Fritz Kreisler. Since the orchestra resumed symphonic concerts in 1991, instrumental soloists have included Itzhak Perlman, Maxim Vengerov, Alfred Brendel, and Evgeny Kissin, and the group has performed four world premieres: Babbitt's Piano Concerto No. 2 (1998), Bolcom's Symphony No. 7 (2002), Shen's Legend (2002), and Wuorinen's Theologoumenon (2007).

The orchestra's high standing led to its first commercial recordings in nearly 20 years: Wagner's complete Ring cycle, conducted by James Levine. Recorded by Deutsche Grammophon over a period of three years, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Götterdämmerung were winners of an unprecedented three consecutive Grammy Awards in 1989, 1990, and 1991 for Best Opera Recording. Other recordings under Maestro Levine include L'elisir d'amore, Idomeneo, Le nozze di Figaro, Der fliegende Holländer, Parsifal, Erwartung, Manon Lescaut, and seven Verdi operas. Maestro Levine has also led the orchestra
for recordings of Wagner overtures, Verdi ballet music, an all-Berg disc with Renée Fleming, and aria albums with Bryn Terfel, Kathleen Battle, and Ms. Fleming. The orchestra's first symphonic recordings are pairings of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition with Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps; Beethoven's "Eroica" with Schubert's "Unfinished" symphonies; and Richard Strauss's Don Quixote and Tod und Verklärung.

In spring 1991 the orchestra, under the leadership of Maestro Levine, began concert touring. They have since traveled across the US and to Europe (including their debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2002), as well as annually to Carnegie Hall. In spring 2006 the company returned to Japan for its fifth tour there in 18 years.

Diana Damrau, Soprano
Diana Damrau, Soprano

Diana Damrau was born in Günzburg, Germany, and made her Met debut in 2005 as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos. She has since appeared with the company as Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Lucia di Lammermoor, Gilda in Rigoletto, Pamina and the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and Aithra in Die Ägyptische Helena. Next month at the Metropolitan Opera she reprises Rosina and adds Marie in La Fille du régiment to her Met repertoire.

In addition to her extensive French and Italian repertoire, and the full lyric roles of the German repertoire, she also appears in contemporary works, including the Small Woman in the world premiere of Friedrich Cerha’s Der Riese vom Steinfeld at the Vienna State Opera, Matthias Pintscher’s Hérodiade Fragmente with the Berliner Philharmoniker, and two roles in the world premiere of Lorin Maazel’s 1984 at Covent Garden.

As a highly sought-after interpreter of Mozart and Strauss roles, she has appeared as Konstanze in Frankfurt, Munich, and Vienna; the Queen of the Night in Munich, London, and Salzburg; Zdenka in Arabella in Munich; Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier in Dresden, Munich, and Vienna; and Zerbinetta in Dresden, Vienna, and London. In 2004, she sang the title role of Salieri’s L’Europa Riconosciuta for the reopening of Teatro alla Scala.

Diana Damrau is an exclusive recording artist with Virgin/EMI Classics,
and her first aria CD with music by Mozart, Salieri, and Righini was launched in November 2007.