02-23 Gilbert Bday.qxp Layout 1 2/16/17 12:18 PM Page 31 · PDF fileThe origins of Johann...

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The origins of Johann Sebastian Bach’sConcerto in D minor for Two Violins areshrouded in mystery. One of today’s leadingBach scholars, Christoph Wolff, believes thatthis work dates from Bach’s years in Leipzig,where he lived from 1723 until the end of hislife. His is a minority opinion, however, andmost musicologists support the idea that it is aproduct of Bach’s time in Cöthen, where hewas employed immediately prior to his moveto Leipzig. He was there from December 1717through May 1723 as Kapellmeister (music di-rector) at the court of the music-loving PrinceLeopold of Anhalt. Because Prince Leopold ad-hered to the Reformed faith, his church serv-ices didn’t require elaborate music; that freedup his music director to spend most of his timewriting secular instrumental pieces such assonatas, concertos, and orchestral suites.

The D-minor Concerto for Two Violinscomes down to us not in full score, but ratherin a set of manuscript parts that were writtenout jointly by Bach, his son Carl Philipp

Emanuel, his son-in-law Johann ChristophAltnikol, and his student Johann LudwigKrebs. Bach later arranged the piece in a ver-sion for two harpsichords and strings (BWV1062), just as he did with many of his Cöthenconcertos, to breathe new life into them forperformances in Leipzig.

Two violinists are equal soloists in thiswork, often sharing their musical material inclose alternation. The opening movement(Vivace) begins with a fugal exposition in theorchestra, to which the solo violins respond(as a team) with a passage in which fluidmelodic runs are given a memorable contourby sudden leaps of a tenth. The concerto’sLargo ma non tanto provides a particularlyfine example of Bach’s ability to make timeseem to stop while the players weave a mag-ical tapestry from threads of poignancy, res-ignation, and tenderness. Anything wouldseem an intrusion after such a slow move-ment, but Bach offers an unusually blustery,even angry, Allegro finale.

Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, BWV 1043Johann Sebastian Bach

Born: March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany

Died: July 28, 1750, in Leipzig

Work composed and premiered: composed ca. 1720, in Cöthen, an independent principalityof Anhalt-Cöthen (Germany); premiere unknown

New York Philharmonic premiere andmost recent performance: premiered,December 10, 1881, Theodore Thomas,conductor, Hermann Brandt, RobertArnold, soloists; most recently played, October 7, 2011, AlanGilbert, conductor and soloist, FrankPeter Zimmermann, soloist

Estimated duration: ca. 17 minutes

Two violinists as equal soloists — Frank PeterZimmermann and Alan Gilbert performingBach’s Concerto for Two Violins with the

Philharmonic in 2011

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32 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

Johannes Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1,completed in 1858, is a stormy work of tumul-tuous Romanticism, closely related in its ex-pression to the ideals of the composer’s mentor,Robert Schumann. Brahms’s Piano ConcertoNo. 2 would be a different kettle of fish alto-gether when it came into being two decadeslater. Where the First was hyper-charged in itsdrama, the Second is Apollonian; it suggests amore serene, warm-hearted landscape, draw-ing heavily on the dulcet tones of the most rich-toned instruments of the orchestra —including, in the slow movement, a solo cello.Where the earlier work had stressed the force-fulness of human passions and the “tragic sen-timent of life” that the Romantics foundirresistible, the Second Piano Concerto regardsthe breadth of human emotions from a moreknowing remove. It sounds like a work of ripe

maturity in a way the earlier piece does not.One might go so far as to view Brahms’s PianoConcerto No. 2 as a sort of symphony for pianoand orchestra — a conflation of two of the prin-cipal genres that the composer felt still heldplenty of creative opportunities for an up-to-date Romantic of the late 19tth century.

At the head of the score Brahms inscribeda dedication “to his dear friend and teacherEduard Marxsen.” Both Brahms and hisbrother had taken piano lessons from Marxsenduring their childhood in Hamburg and, rec-ognizing the family’s straitened circum-stances, Marxsen never charged them for hisservices. He broadened his pupil’s perspectiveon all sorts of things and, after Brahms movedaway, continued to keep an eye on the family’sneeds. Brahms remained devoted until histeacher died, in late 1887. Earlier that year, he

Andante, from Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 83

Johannes Brahms

Born: May 7, 1833, in the Free City of Hamburg, which would later become part of the unifiedGermany

Died: April 3, 1897, in Vienna, Austria

Work composed and premiered: sketched in late spring 1878, completed July 7, 1881, at Pressbaum, near Vienna; premiered November 9, 1881, in the Redoutensaal in Budapest, by theorchestra of the National Theatre, Alexander Erkel, conductor, with the composer as soloist

New York Philharmonic premiereand most recent performance: pre-miered, December 9, 1882, TheodoreThomas, conductor, Rafael Joseffy,soloist; most recently played, October 2, 2015, at the Tilles Centerfor the Performing Arts, Greenvale,New York, Alan Gilbert, conductor,Emanuel Ax, soloist


Alan Gilbert and Emanuel Ax following their 2015 performance of Brahms’s

Piano Concerto No. 2


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Allegro con brio, from Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37

Ludwig van Beethoven

Born: probably on December 16, 1770 (he was baptized on the 17th), in Bonn, then an independ-ent electorate of Germany

Died: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria

Work composed and premiered: composed 1796 to 1803; dedicated to Prince Louis Ferdinandof Prussia; premiered April 5, 1803, at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, with thecomposer as soloist

New York Philharmonic premiere andmost recent performance: premieredFebruary 1, 1852, Carl Bergmann, con-ductor, Ernst Hartmann, soloist; mostrecently played, December 10, 2016, JiříBělohlávek, conductor, Kun Woo Paik,soloist


Cadenza: by Beethoven, written outin 1809

Yefim Bronfman performed the complete cycleof Beethoven piano concertos, conducted by

Alan Gilbert, in June 2014.

instructed his publisher: “When the newthings appear, you will take care, won’t you?,that Frau Schumann and Ed. Marxsen receivea copy right away!” Few dedications can havegiven Brahms more pleasure than the one heattached to his Second Piano Concerto.

A music lover listening to Ludwig vanBeethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor may entertain more than fleetingthoughts about an earlier C-minor Piano Con-certo — the brooding, even despairing one thatMozart had composed in 1786. During Mozart’slifetime, however, it could be played only frommanuscript parts. It was not published until1800, the same year Beethoven brought thefirst movement of his own C-minor Piano Con-certo into reasonably finished form. Beethovenwent on record as a great aficionado of the

Mozart work. Walking in the company of thepianist-and-composer Johann Baptist Cramer,he came within earshot of an outdoor per-formance (or perhaps a rehearsal) of Mozart’sC-minor Concerto. He is reputed to havestopped in his tracks, called attention to a par-ticularly beautiful motif, and exclaimed, witha mixture of admiration and despondency,“Cramer, Cramer! We shall never be able to doanything like that!” According to the accountrelayed by Cramer’s widow,

As the theme was repeated and wrought upto the climax Beethoven, swaying his bodyto and fro, marked the time and in everypossible manner manifested a delight ris-ing to enthusiasm.

On April 2, 1800, at Vienna’s Burgtheater,

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Allegro energico, from Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26Max Bruch

Born: January 6, 1838, in Cologne, Germany

Died: October 2, 1920, in Friedenau, outside Berlin

Work composed and premiered: 1864–66, drawing on material produced as early as 1857; re-vised in 1867; premiered April 24, 1866, in Coblenz, with the composer conducting and Otto vonKönigslow as soloist; in its revised version on January 5, 1868, in Bremen, with Joseph Joachimas soloist and Karl Martin Rheinthaler conducting

New York Philharmonic premiere and most recent performance: premiered Febru-ary 3, 1872, Carl Bergmann, con-ductor, Pablo de Sarasate,soloist; the performance markedthe U.S. Premiere; most recentlyplayed November 1, 2016, PabloHeras-Casado, conductor, FrankHuang, soloist


Alan Gilbert conducts one of Joshua Bell’s numerous

Philharmonic appearances.

Beethoven had undertaken his first benefitconcert (in those days, a benefit concertbeing understood to mean “for the benefit ofthe composer”). He had planned to unveil hisC-minor Piano Concerto on that high-profileoccasion but managed to complete only thefirst movement and a detailed sketch of thesecond. In the end, the composition of thisconcerto ended up stretching over a goodthree and a half years, not counting prelimi-nary sketches, which reached back to 1796 —plus a further year if you count the time ittook him to actually write out the piano part,and yet another five beyond that till he wrotedown the first-movement cadenza. Neitherof these last two was necessary as long asBeethoven was the soloist; he knew how thepiece should go, after all.

Max Bruch’s G-minor Violin Concerto, towhich he owes most of his currency in mod-ern concert life, was a relatively early work,begun tentatively in 1857 but mostly com-posed between 1864 and 1866, while he wasserving as music director at the court inCoblenz. It was premiered in April 1866, withOtto von Königslow as soloist, but Bruch im-mediately decided to rework it. He accord-ingly sent his score to the more eminentviolinist Joseph Joachim, who responded thathe found the piece “very violinistic,” but thatdidn’t keep him from offering a good deal ofspecific advice pertaining to both the solo andthe orchestral parts. Further emendation en-sued, and finally the concerto was unveiled inits definitive form in Bremen in January 1868.Some years later Bruch wrote to his publisher:



Between 1864 and 1868 I rewrote my con-certo at least a half dozen times, and conferred with x violinists before it tookthe final form in which it is universally fa-mous and played everywhere.

The concerto soon it made its way into therepertoires of other leading violinists of theday, including Ferdinand David (who hadpremiered Mendelssohn’s E-minor ViolinConcerto), Henri Vieuxtemps, and Leopold

Auer, who not only performed the work him-self but also championed it among such ofhis students as Mischa Elman, Efrem Zim-balist, and Jascha Heifetz.

Bruch was inherently conservative, and itwas accordingly his fate to remain in theshadow of Brahms, who was five years hiselder. It is hard to mistake the similarity be-tween the openings of the third movements ofBruch’s G-minor and Brahms’s D-major Vio-lin Concertos, and it is only fair to point out

“Morgen!” (“Tomorrow”) Op. 27, No. 4Richard StraussBorn: June 11, 1864, in Munich, Bavaria, GermanyDied: September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

“Marietta’s Lied,” from Die Tote Stadt, Op. 12Erich KorngoldBorn: May 29, 1897, in Brno, Moravia (then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire)Died: November 29, 1957, in Hollywood, California

Works composed and premiered: “Morgen!” composed May 21, 1894; orchestration by thecomposer completed September 20, 1897; orchestral version premiered on November 21, 1897, inBrussels, Belgium, by the orchestra of the Concerts Populaires, with the composer conducting,Pauline de Ahna, soprano. “Marietta’s Lied,” composed 1916–20; premiered December 4, 1920, atthe Hamburg Stadttheater, Egon Pollak conductor, with Annie Münchow as Marietta, and at theTheater in der Glockengasse in Cologne, Otto Klemperer, conductor, with soprano JohannaGeisler as Marietta

New York Philharmonic premieres and most recent performances: “Morgen!”premiered November 19, 1912, Josef Stransky, conductor, Frances Aida, soprano; most recently performed,April 21, 2015, in Paris, Alan Gilbert, conductor, Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano. “Marietta’s

Lied” premiered January 1,1963, Andre Kostelanetz, con-ductor, Beverly Sills, soprano;most recently performed,December 31, 1976, AndreKostelanetz, conductor, CarolNeblett, soprano

Estimated durations: “Mor-gen!” ca. 4 minutes; “Mari-etta’s Lied,” ca. 5 minutes

Renée Fleming and Alan Gilbert onSeptember 16, 2009, his inauguralperformance as Music Director


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that Bruch’s preceded Brahms’s by a fulldecade. Joachim would premiere that work,too, but when he was asked to characterize thefour most famous German concertos in hisrepertoire — by Beethoven, Mendelssohn,Bruch, and Brahms — he insisted that Bruch’swas “the richest and the most seductive.”

Richard Strauss’s more than 200 Liederweave a nearly continuous strand through hislife, interrupted by a single 12-year hiatus be-tween 1906 and 1918. His first composition, asa child of six, was a Christmas carol; he died atthe age of 85, leaving his supernal Four LastSongs as a valedictory statement and one finalsong — “Malven” — to be rediscovered andperformed as recently as 1984, 36 years afterhis death.

Nearly all of them were conceived as classicLieder — that is, for solo singer with piano ac-companiment. But Strauss lived in an agewhen the “orchestral Lied” was emerging as aviable genre, nowhere more vividly than in theworks of Gustav Mahler. It seemed natural fora composer with so rich a palette as Strauss toexpand his piano parts into orchestral scores,especially since he was more accomplished asa conductor than as a pianist. In some casesStrauss orchestrated his songs immediatelyupon completing their piano versions or evencomposed both versions simultaneously. Inother cases he returned to orchestrate a songyears after it had been composed.

“Morgen!” sets a rapturous love poem byJohn Henry Mackay, who was born in Scotlandbut raised in Germany. In Strauss’s poignantsetting, the singer remains mute until well intothe piece, as if lost in reverie. She joins in mid-thought: “And tomorrow the sun will shineagain.” The true melody of this song is neverpresented in its entirety by the singer. In turn-ing it into an orchestral song, Strauss empha-sized its nostalgic atmosphere by drawing onthe sweet tones of a solo violin to enunciate thetheme — an irresistible choice, if perhaps an

obvious one. Strauss published “Morgen!”along with three further songs, and he pre-sented the set of four to his bride, the sopranoPauline de Ahna, as a wedding present — apractical one, since as husband and wife theywould perform them often in recital.

Erich Korngold was one of history’s most ex-traordinary child prodigies. He was born into amusical family: his father, Julius Korngold,was a music critic who succeeded the es-teemed Eduard Hanslick (Brahms’s friend) onthe staff of Vienna’s Neue Freie Presse. Musiccame naturally to him. His mother, askedwhen her son began playing the piano, replied,“Erich always played the piano.” He never pur-sued a performing career, but people whoheard him play remarked on how he seemedalmost organically connected to the keyboard.

In 1906 Gustav Mahler declared the nine-year-old boy a genius and recommended thathe be put under the care of Alexander vonZemlinsky. Korngold’s music soon had com-posers all over Europe gaping in awe. In 1934the theatrical director Max Reinhardt invitedhim to Hollywood to compose the sound trackfor his film adaptation of A MidsummerNight’s Dream. It was a fateful and fortunateinvitation. During this later phase of his careerKorngold would create masterful symphonicscores for 22 motion pictures, earning Acad-emy Awards for Anthony Adverse and The Ad-ventures of Robin Hood. He completed his finaloriginal film scene, for Deception, in 1947, atthe age of 50, saying that the year was a turningpoint “if I don’t want to be a Hollywood com-poser the rest of my life.”

His opera Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City)harks back to his earlier days. It received simul-taneous premieres in two cities — Hamburg andCologne — on the same day, December 4, 1920.Based on the Symbolist dream-novel Bruges lamorte by Georges Rodenbach, rendered into alibretto by the composer and his father, it in-volves a widower who falls in love with the



dancer Marietta, the double of his late wife,Marie; the two women become rivals, at leastin his mind. In Act I, he requests that Mariettasing him a song, and she responds with “Glück,das mir verblieb,” which develops into a duet.Often arranged as a solo for soprano, “Mari-etta’s Lied” is an ode to the joy of love and thetransitory reality of life.

Antonín Dvořák was on the brink of a majorchange in his life when he turned 50, on Sep-tember 8, 1891. The day before his birthday,Jeannette Thurber, who had recruited him tobe the director of the National Conservatory ofMusic in New York City, had cabled her colleagues in America to let them know he wasinclined to accept. He served as the conserva-tory’s director from 1892 through 1895, buildingits curriculum and faculty, appearing as a guestconductor, and composing such masterworks

as his String Quartet in F major (Op. 96, theAmerican), String Quintet in E-flat major (Op.97), and Symphony No. 9, From the NewWorld, which occupied him during the winterand spring of 1893. Its premiere that December,with Anton Seidl conducting the New York Phil-harmonic, inspired the critic for the New YorkEvening Post to proclaim it “the greatest sym-phonic work ever composed in this country.”The symphony bids us to recall how interestedDvořák was in African American and NativeAmerican music. Musicologists have found inits melodies echoes of such American tunes as“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Massa Dear.”

The principal theme of the Largo move-ment combines tenderness, nostalgia, and asense of resolute hopefulness. It sounds likea folk song, but it is Dvořák’s original creation. In 1922 William Arms Fisher, whohad been a pupil of Dvořák’s at the National

“Goin’ Home,” from the Largo from Symphony No. 9 in E-minor, From the New World, Op. 95

Antonín Dvořákarr. F. Kreisler (adapted T. Batiashvili)

Born: September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, Bohemia (now Czech Republic)

Died: May 1, 1904, in Prague, Bohemia

Work composed and premiered: composed, December 1892–spring 1893; premiered, Decem-ber 15, 1893, with Anton Seidl conducting the New York Philharmonic in a “public rehearsal”; the

official premiere took place thefollowing evening at Carnegie Hall(then called simply the Music Hall).

Most recent New York Philhar-monic performance: Largo, mostrecently performed January 21,2017, Joshua Gersen, conductor


Lisa Batiashvili and Alan Gilbert backstage at David Geffen Hall in September 2016


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Conservatory, crafted “dialect words” to fitthe tune: “Goin’ home, goin’ home / I’ma’goin’ home / Quiet-like, some still day / I’ma’goin’ home.” An enthusiast for Dvořák’sideas about melding authentic Americansongs with the techniques of classical com-position, Fisher made numerous concert set-tings of African American pieces, which hepublished in 1926 as Seventy Negro Spirituals.This helped confuse the issue, but the fact isthat “Goin’ Home,” which had already beenpublished four years earlier as a stand-alonesong, is strictly a “pseudo-spiritual.” The leg-endary violinist Fritz Kreisler arranged thepiece as a solo for his instrument, by 1924 atthe latest (since he first recorded it thatMarch); he presented it under the title“Negro Spiritual Melody.” That version isheard in this performance, as adapted byTamas Batiashvili, the father of our soloist.

In the spring of 1928 George Gershwin tookhis fifth trip to Europe — along with his sister,Frances; his brother, Ira; and Ira’s wife,Leonore — and it was there that he worked onhis tone poem An American in Paris. Gersh-win therefore was an actual American in Paris

for part of the time that he labored over thescore, and Ira reported that the entire “blues”section was composed in the Hotel Majestic inthat city. Other parts, however, were written inNew York City (where he had sketched a gooddeal of the piece before he set sail), in Vienna,and (after his return from abroad) at a farm inConnecticut; and all of the orchestration wascarried out in the United States.

By that time, Gershwin was driven by a de-sire to be more than “just” a composer of mu-sical comedies. He asked Maurice Ravel if hemight study with him, but the French com-poser politely declined, insisting that Gersh-win’s talent was already perfectly formed andthat he would have nothing to contribute. Asimilar response came from Nadia Boulanger.Gershwin was left to his own devices, forcedto clear his own path toward a distinctive fu-sion of popular and classical styles on theconcert stage.

The Brooklyn Eagle reported of the pre-miere of An American in Paris that the lis-teners responded “with a demonstration ofenthusiasm impressively genuine in contrastto the conventional applause which newmusic, good and bad, ordinarily arouses.”

An American in ParisGeorge Gershwin

Born: September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York

Died: July 11, 1937, in Hollywood, California

Work composed: 1928

World premiere: December 13, 1928, by the New YorkPhilharmonic, Walter Damrosch, conductor

Most recent New York Philharmonic performance:April 22, 2014, Alan Gilbert, conductor


Another American in Paris — Alan Gilbert studies a score during the Orchestra’s stop in that cityt on his first

European Tour with the Philharmonic in 2010.


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