CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The Philadelphia Orchestra

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 8:00 PM

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Christoph Eschenbach, Music Director and Conductor
Rinat Shaham, Mezzo-Soprano

TCHAIKOVSKY Romeo and Juliet
BERNSTEIN Jeremiah (Symphony No. 1)

TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 13, "Winter Daydreams"

Program Notes:

LEONARD BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 1, “Jeremiah”
Born August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts; died October 14, 1990, in New York City.

Composed in 1942, Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony was first performed on January 28, 1944, with Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano, and Bernstein conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony; the work received its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall on March 29, 1944, again with Tourel as soloist and Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.

Scoring: 3 flutes (III doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, maracas, snare drum, suspended cymbals, triangle, wood block), piano, strings, and mezzo-soprano soloist.

From those to whom much is given, much is expected. It is a good thing that Leonard Bernstein’s many talents were so incandescent and his personality so full-speed-ahead, because the burdens of expectation that he carried would have crushed a lesser man. His father, Sam Bernstein, thought his teenaged son was throwing away his verbal and intellectual gifts on summer-camp shows and skits, and devoutly hoped that Leonard would become a distinguished rabbi. The young man attended Harvard at his father’s insistence, and did well at everything, but his heart was in the theater and the concert hall. In 1943, when he was just 25 years old, he made the most spectacular conducting debut in American history, stepping in on short notice to conduct the New York Philharmonic in place of the indisposed Bruno Walter, in a concert that was broadcast nationwide. That event made him the only—and I mean the only—native-born American superstar of classical music until the much-publicized triumph of the pianist Van Cliburn in Moscow in 1958. So add national pride to the burdens that he carried.

Meanwhile, his camp-show talent made him boffo on Broadway as the composer of such classic musicals as On the Town (1944) and West Side Story (1957). He also became a TV star, talking about (of all things) classical music. Besides his articulateness and good looks, it was his command of the subject and personal conviction that made these pop-culture products successful. On the conductor’s podium, he took more risks, advocating (as Bruno Walter had) the sprawling symphonies of Mahler when the fashion in new music favored the 12-tone miniatures of Schoenberg and Webern. Of course, with all these accomplishments came still more expectations.

In the post-Beethoven era, every composer approaches his or her “Symphony No. 1” with trepidation. Just ask Johannes Brahms, who was 43 by the time he finished composing his First. Now try to imagine what this milestone would have meant to the mature Leonard Bernstein, who was doing a pretty good job of being all things to all music fans in America and abroad, and yet had been hearing “he’s throwing his talent away” for his whole life, from father Sam right up to yesterday’s newspaper reviews.

Happily for him, young Lenny got the “First Symphony” hurdle out of the way early. In response to a competition at the New England Conservatory, with his own teacher Serge Koussevitzky as chairman of the jury, he plunged into his First Symphony in 1942, at age 23, before he knew how hard it is to write a symphony. Although the piece, completed in haste to make the deadline, didn’t win a prize, Bernstein sent it a few months later to Koussevitzky and his other teacher, Fritz Reiner, and was thrilled when the latter responded favorably. Bernstein’s correspondence with his mentor Aaron Copland sheds light on both their personalities. Bernstein writes impulsively: “[Reiner] wants to do my Symphony in Pittsburgh next fall, and he loves it, and he wants me to conduct a program anyway, and maybe to do the Symph myself. Lovely, lovely news! But he is most anxious for a fourth movement; insists it’s all too sad and defeatist. Same criticism my father had: which raises Pop in my estimation no end. I really haven’t the time or the energy for a fourth movement. I seem to have had my say as far as that piece is concerned and I want to get on with something else.”

Copland responds wryly and presciently: “I know you want me to be amazed at your successes but nothing that happens to you can ever surprise me. Isn’t that too bad. Least of all your triumphs as a composer. But I am pleased that Reiner wants you to conduct in Pittsburgh. Koussie will be jealous that he didn’t get you first. Maybe you can start a career as our first native guest conductor.”

Then came the famous Philharmonic debut, for which the whole Bernstein family had rushed to Carnegie Hall from Lawrence, Massachusetts. The young conductor later said that after the concert his previously skeptical father was “all aglow . . . absolutely dazzled,” and there was “a great moment of forgiveness and very deep emotion.” At that moment, he said, he decided to dedicate the Jeremiah Symphony to his father.

Jeremiah had its premiere at last with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the composer conducting, on January 28, 1944. At the time, reflecting on the Symphony’s Biblical text of lamentation, Bernstein told an interviewer, “How can I be blind to the problems of my own people? I’d give everything I have to be able to strike a death blow at Fascism.” Despite Reiner’s reservations about no happy ending, the Symphony seemed to catch the spirit of the times. Acclaimed at its premiere, the piece was performed on NBC Radio a few months later, and within three years Bernstein himself had led performances in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Rochester, Prague, and Jerusalem.

Looking back 35 years, Bernstein told reporters at a 1977 press conference in Berlin that he was “always writing the same piece, as all composers do . . . The work I have been writing all my life is about the struggle that is born of the crisis of our century, a crisis of faith. Even way back, when I wrote Jeremiah, I was wrestling with that problem.”

This work began even further back than 1942, with a sketch for a Lamentation for soprano and orchestra, which Bernstein wrote in the summer of 1939. Three years later, with Mahler as his model, he made this song the centerpiece of Jeremiah. (That the centerpiece comes at the end is maybe what bothered Sam Bernstein and Fritz Reiner.)

The first movement (Prophecy) is very much in the fervent style of wartime American symphonies by composers such as Copland, Bernstein’s teacher Walter Piston, and especially William Schuman: Impassioned, high-reaching string passages give way to melancholy wind solos, with muscular brass chords as punctuation. In a program note, the composer described this music as aiming “to parallel in feeling the intensity of the prophet’s pleas with his people” to return to the path of righteousness. This free-form musical poem, which ends inconclusively, is not so much a traditional symphonic first movement as a prelude to what follows.

The so-called “scherzo” (Profanation) is no joke, but a turbulent outburst whose furious Latin rhythms and brass-and-wind sonorities not only refer again to the American symphonic school, but suggest an intriguing link between Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Bernstein’s West Side Story. The composer wrote that he wanted “to give a general sense of the destruction and chaos brought on by the pagan corruption within the priesthood and the people.”

Bernstein described the climactic final movement (Lamentation) as “the cry of Jeremiah, as he mourns his beloved Jerusalem, ruined, pillaged, and dishonored after his desperate efforts to save it.” If Bernstein’s debt to Copland is evident in this music, he wields that style with a skill that sometimes surpasses his model, especially in text-setting, displaying the singer, and dramatic timing. The tender instrumental interludes are effective foils for the impassioned vocal passages, and the long orchestral epilogue, far from “sad and defeatist,” invites the listener to reflect on the prophet’s last appeal, “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord.”

—David Wright

Program note © 2007. All rights reserved. Program note may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association and/or David Wright.

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Christoph Eschenbach, Music Director and Conductor
One of today’s leading international conductors, Christoph Eschenbach is now in his fifth season as music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Held in highest esteem by the world’s foremost orchestras and opera houses for his commanding presence, versatility, and consummate musicianship, Mr. Eschenbach has been acclaimed as a conductor, a collaborator, and ardent champion of young musicians. His 2007–08 Orchestra season celebrates such monumental works as Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (“Symphony of a Thousand”)—part of the Orchestra’s multi-season first-ever Mahler cycle—and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Mr. Eschenbach continues as music director of the Orchestre de Paris. This season he also leads the London Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Hamburg NDR Symphony, and the Curtis Symphony

Mr. Eschenbach has made numerous recordings, as conductor, pianist, or both. His recordings include works from J. S. Bach to music of our time, and he has been a champion of 20th-century music on disc.

Before turning to conducting, Mr. Eschenbach earned a distinguished reputation as a pianist. He began winning major competitions at age 11, and made his United States debut in 1969 with the Cleveland Orchestra. Mr. Eschenbach learned the art of conducting under, among others, George Szell, who personally took him as his protégé. In addition, Herbert von Karajan was his mentor for nearly 25 years, and Mr. Eschenbach credits him as having had a tremendous influence on his development as a conductor. Mr. Eschenbach made his conducting debut in Hamburg in 1972. He was named principal guest conductor of Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra in 1981, becoming chief conductor from 1982 to 1986. Additional posts include music director of the Houston Symphony (1988–99); chief conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony (1998–2004); music director of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival (1999–2002); and music director of the Ravinia Festival (1994–2003).

Among Mr. Eschenbach’s awards are the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France, the Légion d’honneur of France, the Officer’s Cross with Star and Ribbon of the German Order of Merit, the Commander’s Cross of the German Order of Merit, and the Leonard Bernstein Award, presented to him by the Pacific Music Festival, where he served as co-artistic director from 1992 to 1998. Additional information about Mr. Eschenbach can be found at his website, christoph-eschenbach.com.

Rinat Shaham, Mezzo-Soprano
Israeli-born mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham has performed with orchestras throughout the United States and Europe including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the San Francisco Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, and the Israel Philharmonic. She has worked with conductors including Daniel Barenboim, William Christie, Christoph Eschenbach, André Previn, Simon Rattle, David Robertson, and Leonard Slatkin.

Following her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival in the title role of Bizet’s Carmen, Ms. Shaham performed the role for New York City Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Minnesota Opera, L’Opéra de Montréal, and for her debut at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. She has sung Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte for Glyndebourne and the Berlin Staatsoper, where she made her debut as Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Ms. Shaham debuted at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, as Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and has performed that role for New York City Opera, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Vancouver Opera, and Florida Grand Opera, among others. Her other roles include Rosina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville for her Tokyo debut and Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas for her Aix-en-Provence Festival debut.

This season Ms. Shaham will sing the role of Dorabella for Florida Grand Opera and at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She will make her debut with the Opera de Valencia as Cherubino, and she appears as Carmen in Stuttgart. Ms. Shaham will also sing Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, “Jeremiah,” with the Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, in March 2008.

Ms. Shaham is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music. Her recordings include excerpts from operas by Lully with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants for Erato; Marcello’s Salmi di Davide and a solo CD of works by Gershwin and Purcell on Atma Classique/Harmonia Mundi; the soundtrack to the film Taking Sides and Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges for Deutsche Grammophon; and the world-premiere recording of Simon Holt’s Boots of Lead with Sir Simon Rattle and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group on NMC.