The Philadelphia Orchestra

Stéphane Denève ConductorEric Le Sage PianoThe Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco)Joan Myers Brown Executive Artistic Director

Stravinsky Concerto in E-flat major for Chamber Orchestra (“Dumbarton Oaks”) I. Tempo giusto— II. Allegretto— III. Con moto

Poulenc Aubade (choreographic concerto), for piano and 18 instruments Janine N. Beckles Dancer Jennifer Jones Dancer Roxanne Lyst Dancer Courtney Robinson Dancer Lauren Putty White Dancer Tommie-Waheed Evans Choreographer

Intermission

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Season 2013-2014Friday, February 28, at 2:00Saturday, March 1, at 8:00

Prokofiev Excerpts from Cinderella a. Introduction b. Shawl Dance c. Interrupted Departure d. Clock Scene e. Dance of the Prince f. Cinderella’s Arrival at the Ball g. Grand Waltz h. Promenade i. First Galop of the Prince j. The Father k. Amoroso l. Cinderella’s Departure for the Ball m. Waltz Coda n. Midnight

Stravinsky Suite from The Firebird (1919 version) I. Introduction—The Firebird and its Dance II. The Princesses’ Round Dance III. Infernal Dance of King Kastcheï— IV. Berceuse— V. Finale

This program runs approximately 1 hour, 55 minutes.

The March 1 concert is sponsored byMedcomp.

Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 1 PM.Visit www.wrti.org to listen live or for more details.

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The Philadelphia Orchestra

The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the preeminent orchestras in the world, renowned for its distinctive sound, desired for its keen ability to capture the hearts and imaginations of audiences, and admired for a legacy of innovation in music-making. The Orchestra is inspiring the future and transforming its rich tradition of achievement, sustaining the highest level of artistic quality, but also challenging and exceeding that level, by creating powerful musical experiences for audiences at home and around the world.

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin triumphantly opened his inaugural season as the eighth artistic leader of the Orchestra in fall 2012. His highly collaborative style, deeply-rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm, paired with a fresh approach to orchestral programming, have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. Yannick has been embraced by the musicians of the Orchestra, audiences, and the

community itself. His concerts of diverse repertoire attract sold-out houses, and he has established a regular forum for connecting with concert-goers through Post-Concert Conversations.

Under Yannick’s leadership the Orchestra returns to recording with a newly-released CD on the Deutsche Grammophon label of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions. In Yannick’s inaugural season the Orchestra has also returned to the radio airwaves, with weekly Sunday afternoon broadcasts on WRTI-FM.

Philadelphia is home and the Orchestra nurtures an important relationship not only with patrons who support the main season at the Kimmel Center but also those who enjoy the Orchestra’s other area performances at the Mann Center, Penn’s Landing, and other venues. The Orchestra is also a global ambassador for Philadelphia and for the U.S. Having been the first American orchestra

to perform in China, in 1973 at the request of President Nixon, today The Philadelphia Orchestra boasts a new partnership with the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. The Orchestra annually performs at Carnegie Hall while also enjoying annual residencies in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and at the Bravo! Vail festival.

Musician-led initiatives, including highly-successful Cello and Violin Play-Ins, shine a spotlight on the Orchestra’s musicians, as they spread out from the stage into the community. The Orchestra’s commitment to its education and community partnership initiatives manifests itself in numerous other ways, including concerts for families and students, and eZseatU, a program that allows full-time college students to attend an unlimited number of Orchestra concerts for a $25 annual membership fee. For more information on The Philadelphia Orchestra, please visit www.philorch.org.

Jessica Griffin

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Music DirectorYannick Nézet-Séguin triumphantly opened his inaugural season as the eighth music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra in the fall of 2012. His highly collaborative style, deeply-rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm, paired with a fresh approach to orchestral programming, have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. The New York Times has called Yannick “phenomenal,” adding that under his baton “the ensemble … has never sounded better.” In his first season he took the Orchestra to new musical heights. His second builds on that momentum with highlights that include a Philadelphia Commissions Micro-Festival, for which three leading composers have been commissioned to write solo works for three of the Orchestra’s principal players; the next installment in his multi-season focus on requiems with Fauré’s Requiem; and a unique, theatrically-staged presentation of Strauss’s revolutionary opera Salome, a first-ever co-production with Opera Philadelphia.

Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most exciting talents of his generation. Since 2008 he has been music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic, and since 2000 artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain. In addition he becomes the first ever mentor conductor of the Curtis Institute of Music’s conducting fellows program in the fall of 2013. He has made wildly successful appearances with the world’s most revered ensembles, and has conducted critically acclaimed performances at many of the leading opera houses.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Deutsche Grammophon (DG) enjoy a long-term collaboration. Under his leadership the Orchestra returns to recording with a newly-released CD on that label of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions. Yannick continues a fruitful recording relationship with the Rotterdam Philharmonic for DG, BIS, and EMI/Virgin; the London Philharmonic for the LPO label; and the Orchestre Métropolitain for ATMA Classique.

A native of Montreal, Yannick Nézet-Séguin studied at that city’s Conservatory of Music and continued lessons with renowned conductor Carlo Maria Giulini and with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College. Among Yannick’s honors are an appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors; a Royal Philharmonic Society Award; Canada’s National Arts Centre Award; the Prix Denise-Pelletier, the highest distinction for the arts in Quebec, awarded by the Quebec government; and an honorary doctorate by the University of Quebec in Montreal.

To read Yannick’s full bio, please visit www.philorch.org/conductor.

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ConductorStéphane Denève is chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony and the former music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He is a familiar presence with The Philadelphia Orchestra on stage in Verizon Hall, at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail, having appeared as guest conductor numerous times since making his debut in 2007. He conducted the Orchestra in two subscription series in the 2012-13 season and returns for two more this season.

Recent European engagements include appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw and Philharmonia orchestras; the Bavarian Radio, Swedish Radio, and London symphonies; the Munich Philharmonic; the Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome; and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. In North America Mr. Denève made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2012 with the Boston Symphony. He appears regularly with the Chicago and San Francisco symphonies, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In the field of opera Mr. Denève has conducted productions at the Royal Opera House, the Glyndebourne Festival, La Scala, Netherlands Opera, La Monnaie in Brussels, Paris Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Comunale Bologna, and Cincinnati Opera. He enjoys close relationships with many of the world’s leading artists, including Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, Lars Vogt, Nikolaï Lugansky, Yo-Yo Ma, Pinchas Zukerman, Joshua Bell, Leonidas Kavakos, Hilary Hahn, Gil Shaham, and Natalie Dessay.

As a recording artist, Mr. Denève has won critical acclaim for his recordings of the works of Poulenc, Debussy, Roussel, Franck, and Connesson. He is a double winner of the Diapason d’Or, was shortlisted in 2012 for Gramophone’s Artist of the Year award, and won the prize for symphonic music at the 2013 International Classical Music Awards. A graduate of, and prizewinner at, the Paris Conservatory, Mr. Denève worked closely in his early career with Georg Solti, Georges Prêtre, and Seiji Ozawa. Mr. Denève is a champion of new music and has a special affinity for the music of his native France.

J. Henry Fair

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SoloistsPianist Eric Le Sage made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut earlier this week. He has appeared with the Los Angeles, Toronto, Rotterdam, Radio France, Dresden, and Bremen philharmonics; the Saint Louis, NHK, Netherlands Radio, and Stuttgart Radio symphonies; the Royal Scottish National and Munich Chamber orchestras; the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse; and the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France, with conductors such as Stéphane Denève, Armin Jordan, Edo de Waart, Louis Langrée, Michel Plasson, and Simon Rattle. Mr. Le Sage has performed recitals and chamber music concerts in venues across Europe, North and South America, and Japan. He has won numerous recording awards, including the Diapason d’Or, the Choc du Monde de la Musique, and the Grand Prix du Disque. In 2010 he completed recording Schumann’s complete works for piano on the independent French label Alpha. He has also recorded for RCA-BMG, Naïve, and EMI. Born in Aix-en-Provence, Mr. Le Sage was the winner of major international competitions including Porto in 1985 and the Robert Schumann competition in Zwickau in 1989. He was also a prizewinner at the 1989 Leeds International Piano Competition.

Since its inception in 1970, the Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco) has had a significant impact on the dance world. Its artistic direction and renowned national and international guest choreographers have developed a reputation of producing a dance repertory with passion, power, skill, and diversity. Its faculty has trained over 4,500 dancers in a program achieving the highest level of technical skills in dance and performance. The unique blend of dance styles of Philadanco and its annual schedule of 50-60 performances and 45 residencies has made them one of the most sought after companies in the U.S. Joan Myers Brown is the founder of Philadanco and the Philadelphia School of Dance Arts. She serves as honorary chairperson for the International Association of Blacks in Dance, is a distinguished visiting professor at the University of the Arts, and is a member of the dance faculty at Howard University. In July 2013 she received the National Medal of Arts Award presented by President Obama.

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SoloistsJanine N. Beckles, from New York City, started dancing at the age of six at Dance Theatre of Harlem and studied there for eight years under fellowship scholarship. She continued her training at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and the Ailey School (performing Memoria, Hymn, and Revelations) both on full scholarship. She received a BFA in Dance Performance and a BA in Sociology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Ms. Beckles was a National Foundation of the Arts award recipient in Modern Dance in 2000. A former member of Dallas Black Dance Theatre for five years, she is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

With a background in ballet, modern, and jazz Jennifer Jones studied at the Ballet Royale Institute in Ellicott City, MD. She earned her BFA in Jazz Dance from the University of the Arts, where she studied with Zane Booker, Donald Lundsford, Wayne St. David, and Molly Misgalla; she also worked with Michael Sheridan at PA Ballet, Brian Sanders at JUNK, and Roni Koresh at Koresh Dance Co. She has appeared with New York City Dance Alliance’s Scott Jovovich in a performance honoring Roberta Flack called Bright Lights, Shining Stars, and she was featured on So You Think You Can Dance, Season 10. Ms. Jones, originally from Costa Rica, has danced with the 76ers Dreamteam and performed for Tommie-Waheed Evans and Gunnar Montana.

Roxanne Lyst began her professional training in Washington, DC, under the tutelage of Adrian Bolton and Alfred Dove. She attended Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival and was a scholarship student at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She was a member of the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble and joined Philadanco in 1999. Ms. Lyst, originally from Annapolis, MD, performed with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for five years before rejoining Philadanco in 2010. She is currently adjunct faculty at Mason Gross School of the Arts of Rutgers University. Most recently she received her MFA from Hollins University in Roanoke, VA.

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SoloistsCourtney Robinson, originally from Richmond, VA, began training at age four at Pine Camp Arts and Recreational Center under the direction of Annette Holt and Rodney Williams. She attended Appomattox Regional Governor’s School for the Arts and Technology where she received training with Rebecca Hodal, Starrene Foster, and Willie Hinton, among others. Ms. Robinson has been a part of programs such as Richmond Ballet, the Ailey School’s Fellowship Program, and Bates Dance Festival. She later went to the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase College. She also studied at Codarts Rotterdam Dance Academy in the Netherlands. She has performed works by Bella Lewitzky, Pam Tanowitz, Wallie Wolfgruber, Stephen Petronio, and others.

Originally from Baltimore, Lauren Putty White began studying dance at a young age. In 2005 she earned her BFA from the University of the Arts, where she received the Choreography Prize and the award for Outstanding Performance in Modern Dance. Her professional choreography debut was at the 2005 Elan Awards. Her performing experience includes Washington Reflections, Urban Bush Woman II, and Parsons Dance Company. She received the Individual Artist Fellowship Grant for choreography and in 2007 Reflections Dance Company performed her first company work, Shades of Thought. In 2010 her piece Hide premiered with BalletX. Her Sleeping in Wonderland was featured in the 2011 Regional Dance America showcase in Pittsburgh.

Tommie-Waheed Evans, originally from Los Angeles, began his dance training with Michelle Blossom at Dance Connection and Andrea Calomee at Hamilton High School. As the result of Karen McDonald’s guidance, he studied under a fellowship at the Alvin Ailey School. He has worked and performed for Matthew Rushing, Benoit-Swan Pouffer, and Debbie Allen, and he was an assistant to Troy O’Neil Powell. Mr. Evans’s professional appearances include the Emmy Awards, the Ailey Student Showcase Group, and Lula Washington Dance Theatre. Recently he founded Waheed-Works and his choreography has appeared at the Painted Bride Art Center and DanceBoom at the Wilma Theater. He is the resident choreographer for Eleone Dance Theatre.

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Framing the ProgramThe program today, primarily dedicated to music and dance, features a collaboration between The Philadelphia Orchestra and dancers of Philadanco. The second half of the program offers captivating ballet suites based on beloved fairytales as imaginatively set by Stravinsky and Prokofiev.

The concert opens with Stravinsky’s Concerto in E-flat, written to celebrate the 30th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss. The couple commissioned the piece to be played at Dumbarton Oaks, their estate in Washington, D.C., the location that has given the work its nickname. “Dumbarton Oaks” is scored for a small ensemble, harkening back to the lively spirit of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos while tinged with modern harmonies and striking rhythmic effects.

Private patronage and a premiere at a palatial home also led to the composition of Francis Poulenc’s Aubade, a “choreographic concerto” for 18 instruments, solo piano, and dancers. The Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles commissioned what is in essence Poulenc’s first piano concerto to be danced at their mansion on the Place des États-Unis in Paris. Today the Orchestra collaborates with Philadanco for a unique presentation of this animated and expressive work, based on the mythological tale of Diana, the Greek goddess of the hunt. The title alludes to a dawn song and depicts her struggle between love and purity, sensuality and loneliness.

Stravinsky’s Firebird was the young composer’s breakout success with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris. Prokofiev’s Cinderella came in the wake of the composer’s return to the Soviet Union after living abroad for some 20 years. Both suites, performed in concert version today, are brilliant orchestral showpieces that have found as welcome a place in the concert hall as on the theater stage.

Parallel Events1910StravinskyThe Firebird

1929PoulencAubade

1937Stravinsky“Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto

MusicElgarViolin ConcertoLiteratureForsterHoward’s EndArtModiglianiThe CellistHistoryJapan annexes Korea

MusicRavelPiano Concerto in G majorLiteratureHemingwayA Farewell to ArmsArtKleeFool in a TranceHistoryTrotsky expelled from USSR

MusicShostakovichSymphony No. 5LiteratureSteinbeckOf Mice and MenArtPicassoGuernicaHistoryAmelia Earhart disappears

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The Music“Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto

Igor StravinskyBorn in Lomonosov, Russia, June 17, 1882Died in New York City, April 6, 1971

It was perhaps only natural that Igor Stravinsky, after composing some of the most startlingly revolutionary music of this century, should have looked backward in history for inspiration. A decade after Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913) he was a celebrity in Paris, exiled from his native Russia, teeming with an enormous creativity—and looking for a new musical direction. What critics later termed his “neo-Classical” period actually began with such 18th-century masters as Pergolesi and J.S. Bach, but it also ultimately embraced the music of the Viennese Classicists and even that of Tchaikovsky and Brahms.

A Connection to the Past Yet the relationship of Stravinsky’s neo-Classical music to the works of earlier composers is complex and easily misunderstood. The sometimes conventional-sounding harmonies of these works, beginning with the ballet Pulcinella and including such works as the Octet and the Concerto for Piano and Winds, do not function in traditional ways, and often result from the almost coincidental juxtaposition of pitches that arise from contrapuntal lines. In the Concerto, for example, it is the driving rhythms and spun-out melodic lines that recall a Baroque concerto, as much as it is any harmonic elements. Nevertheless the work’s connection to the past is unmistakable.

In any event this process of continued homage to the past continued to the end of Stravinsky’s life, and the music and example of Bach inspired many of the composer’s most celebrated works, including the Symphony in C; Symphony in Three Movements; Oedipus Rex; the Serenade for piano; ballets such as Apollon musagète and Jeu de cartes; the opera The Rake’s Progress; the Symphony of Psalms; and several concertos. As late as the 1950s, Stravinsky was still writing homages to Bach, as attested by the Chorale-variations on Bach’s setting of “Vom Himmel hoch.”

Each of these works took an individualistic approach to what Stravinsky himself (writing of Pulcinella) called his “discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible.” He had called

Pulcinella “a backward look, of course—the first of many love affairs in that direction—but … a look in the mirror, too.”

“In the Style of the Brandenburg Concertos” Among the seven concertos that Stravinsky composed in the neo-Classical vein is the inspired Concerto in E-flat, which has come to be called “Dumbarton Oaks” after the Washington, D.C., estate of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, who commissioned the piece. The Blisses were celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary in 1938, and a composition by Stravinsky seemed like just the thing for such an occasion. During the work’s conception the composer visited the estate—a venue known for vital social functions of the city’s cultural life—and was delighted with its lavish gardens. Some critics have speculated that the structure of the gardens might have found reflection in formal aspects of the Concerto.

Composed in Arnemasse, Switzerland, and Paris from the spring of 1937 to March 1938, the “little concerto in the style of the Brandenburg Concertos” (as the composer called it) received its premiere at the Bliss estate on May 8, 1938, under the baton of no less a figure than teacher-conductor Nadia Boulanger.

A Closer Look Stravinsky’s statement about Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos is telling, for in fact each of the 15 instruments of “Dumbarton Oaks” is treated as an independent solo voice; the resulting texture of propulsive “busyness” alludes to the distinctively vibrant nature of Bach’s originals. “I played Bach very regularly during the composition of the Concerto,” Stravinsky wrote later, “and was greatly attracted to the Brandenburg Concertos. Whether or not the first theme of my first movement [Tempo giusto] is a conscious borrowing from the third of the Brandenburg set, however, I do not know. What I can say is that Bach would most certainly have been delighted to have loaned it to me; to borrow in this way was exactly the sort of thing he liked to do himself.”

The clean lines of the second movement (Allegretto) produce a striking sense of clarity and repose—the same sorts of words, in fact, that are often applied to the neo-Classicism of Gluck and his contemporaries in the 18th century. The finale (Con moto) is an energetic march filled with a lively contrapuntal gaiety, the likes of which old Johann Sebastian Bach would certainly have approved.

—Paul J. Horsley

Stravinsky composed the “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto from 1937 to 1938.

Erich Leinsdorf led the first Philadelphia Orchestra performances of the Concerto in March 1988. The most recent Orchestra performances of the work were in October 2008, conducted by Charles Dutoit.

The Concerto is scored for flute, clarinet in E-flat, bassoon, two horns, three violins, three violas, two cellos, and two double basses.

The work runs approximately 12 minutes in performance.

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The MusicAubade

Francis PoulencBorn in Paris, January 7, 1899Died there, January 30, 1963

As late as the period between the two world wars, European nobility gave much of its wealth over to the cultivation of the arts. In 1929 the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles, among the last of these great patrons, commissioned Francis Poulenc to compose a score for a ballet about the Greek goddess of the hunt, Diana. The choreography was to be by Bronislava Nijinska, sister of the great dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.

About Feminine Solitude Though ill at the time, Poulenc accepted the commission and in less than two months produced a score tailored to the outdoor staging envisioned by the Vicomte and Vicomtesse: solo piano, with an accompaniment dominated by winds, and no violins at all. Poulenc even supplied a diagram showing how the instruments were to be placed: pairs of violas, cellos, and double basses directly behind the piano; and winds comprising pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns, plus one trumpet, a little off to the side; plus timpani at the back.

The ballet was given a private premiere at the palatial Paris home of its commissioners. A public version, with new choreography by Diaghilev’s young discovery, George Balanchine, was presented the following year in Paris. Poulenc disapproved, however, of Balanchine’s choreography, which added men to the previously all-female scenario. Poulenc later said he had intended his music to be “about feminine solitude,” and that it had been written at a time of personal “melancholy and anguish.”

A Closer Look An “aubade” is a song sung at dawn, and the work gets this title because the action of the ballet took place from dawn on one day until dawn the next. The score is remarkably literal in its tone-painting. Even when presented without dancing, it suggests certain visuals and action. What follows is a description of the score linked to the events of the original scenario:

1. Toccata. It begins with a great brass fanfare that evokes the rising of the sun. This is no gentle sunrise, but a rather brutal one that wakes Diana’s companions from a gentle sleep. The piano latches on to the fanfare’s stoic gesture and thunders in octaves. Immediately the

oboe and bassoon soften the effect and the flutes enter on a trill as if to remind one of a bird singing to the dawn. Then the piano is off on a spectacular series of bravura runs, the sort of which you might expect from the movement’s title.

2. Recitative: Diana’s Companions. Diana’s companions awake to an unwelcome dawn. Unison blasts from the orchestra recall the fanfare, but these are suddenly replaced by the sound of the clarinets, playing doucement (sweetly) a comforting melody. The piano once again grabs hold of the fanfare gesture as the movement ends.

3. Rondeau: Diana with Her Companions. This allegro movement is announced by a deceptively innocent melody in the piano, accentuated by winds. Diana’s entrance is announced in bright colors as the tempo accelerates and the key changes to the rarely used signature of seven sharps: C-sharp major. Diana is in torment over her vowed chastity, for she may have found a potential lover in the woods, and the mood shifts wildly from exuberance to depression, ending on the latter with some solo strokes on the timpani.

4. Presto: Diana Dressing. The fastest movement in the score is a scurrying depiction of Diana being dressed by her friends. The interplay of piano and winds is remarkable, as is the fleet rhythmic writing. Throughout Aubade, the few strings that are included serve mainly to support the piano during certain solo sections, or to provide sustained harmonies under wind solos.

5. Recitative: Introduction to Diana’s Variation. The companions give Diana a bow, which reminds her of her vow of chastity. At the start, only the orchestra plays, with each section given a chance to shine—even the strings, which at last get brief solos. The piano enters and leads the orchestra to the solo variation at the heart of the score.

6. Andante: Diana’s Variation. This solo dance clearly presents the “melancholy and anguish” of both the composer and the ballet’s lead character. Solo winds trace a piquant melody that expands on the music of the third movement. Here and there a trumpet salvo signals determination. Diana’s inner battle between chastity (represented by her bow) and sensual love leads to a kind of sorrowful resignation.

7. Allegro feroce: Diana’s Despair. Suddenly, Diana throws away her bow and, in one last gesture against her

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celibate fate, dashes into the forest. But it is not to be: She returns in despair.

8. Conclusion: Diana’s Farewell and Departure. Grim block chords on the piano announce the finale and the goddess’ decision. At length we hear a startlingly song-like cello solo, the only extended string solo in the 20-plus minutes of the piece. The tone is one of comfort, as Diana’s companions attempt to console her. Diana picks up her abandoned bow and runs one last time into the woods. Armed with her bow of chastity, she will no longer seek love in the forest, but only the hunt. To the music’s quiet close, her companions fall asleep with the coming of another dawn.

—Kenneth LaFave

Aubade was composed in 1929.

The first Philadelphia Orchestra performance of Aubade was earlier this week.

The score calls for two flutes, two oboes (II doubling English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, trumpet, timpani, two violas, two cellos, two basses, and solo piano.

Performance time is approximately 22 minutes.

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The MusicExcerpts from Cinderella

Sergei ProkofievBorn in Sontsovka, Ukraine, April 23, 1891Died in Moscow, March 5, 1953

Sergei Prokofiev’s score for the ballet Cinderella contains music that is fantastical, menacing, broadly comical, strangely grim, and unashamedly romantic. Prokofiev belonged, perhaps, to the last generation of composers for whom fairy tales and romantic love could be given musical life without the admixture of irony.

Prokofiev was born in Imperial Russia but left his native land at the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution, only to return to the new Soviet Union at the height of Stalin’s terror in 1936. The reasons for the curious timing of his return have never been ascertained, but it is clear that the popularity in the USSR of his ballet Romeo and Juliet was a factor. The third of his ballet scores, Romeo and Juliet was the one that cemented Prokofiev’s reputation as a ballet composer. There would be two more, though The Stone Flower, his last, is today rarely performed. In Cinderella, he reached the apex of his skills at writing for dance.

Prokofiev composed the score between 1940 and 1944, a busy time that also saw him working on the so-called “war sonatas” for piano and on his Symphony No. 5. The Bolshoi Ballet premiered its staging of Cinderella in Moscow in1945, to general acclaim. The score has gone on to inspire many other danced interpretations and to find a place in the symphonic repertoire as well.

The excerpts heard today are as follow. They do not always trace the linear thread of the story.

Introduction (Act I). Marked Andante dolce, the opening for this fairy-tale ballet is a darkly sweeping lyrical gesture in the strings, thickened by clarinets. The foreboding, chromatic flecked minor theme at length gives way to a quiet, C-major section that balances the darkness with a comforting glow.

Shawl Dance (Act I). The action proper starts with this study in deliberate “wrong notes,” a depiction of Cinderella’s goofy stepsisters attempting to collaborate on the making of a shawl; they only succeed in tearing it in two, leaving Cinderella to clean up the mess. Solo woodwinds play a prominent role.

Interrupted Departure and Clock Scene (Act I). Her rags have been turned into a ball gown, and a pumpkin and mice now serve as her coach and footmen, but Cinderella’s attempt to leave is interrupted by her Fairy Godmother, who warns her that she must return before midnight by the clock, or be divested of this magic.

Dance of the Prince, Cinderella’s Arrival at the Ball, Grand Waltz, and Promenade (Act II). These four pieces comprise the core of Act II, the ball scene, although in the ballet itself the majestic Dance of the Prince follows the other three sections, which are here performed in order. Cinderella’s quiet entrance into the ball scene is hushed and magical, and the ensuing waltz of the Prince and Cinderella in the garden begins with a similar sense of awe before it grows into one of Prokofiev’s finest essays in changing moods. The waltz is in turns regal, mysterious, boisterous, winsome, and outlandish. Wide leaps in the melody and sudden shifts of orchestral color dominate. The Promenade is, by contrast, all officialdom and public face, as the pair returns to the ball, and Cinderella returns to the reality of her famous time constraint.

First Galop of the Prince (Act III) finds Prokofiev in motor-mode, one of his most characteristic stylistic frames. Marked Presto from the start, it only intensifies its rhythmic dash toward the end. In this version of the story, Cinderella’s father is a comforting, if not always strong, presence, and The Father (Act I) portrays both that character’s personality and his relationship with the title character in an unusual movement of rapidly changing tempos, dynamics, keys, and textures.

Prokofiev composed Cinderella from 1940 to 1944.

Samuel Antek was on the podium for the first Philadelphia Orchestra performance of music from Cinderella, on a Children’s Concert in January 1955. Most recently on subscription James DePreist led excerpts from the score in December 1994.

The score for today’s excerpts calls for three flutes (III doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, castanets, cymbals, drum, glockenspiel, maracas, tam-tam, tenor drum, triangle, xylophone), harp, piano, and strings.

Performance time is approximately 22 minutes.

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The foreboding motif of the introduction has been transformed into a dolcissimo melody of melting beauty and true love is triumphant in Amoroso (Act III), which actually concludes the ballet. But for our suite, we return to the beginning of the story with Cinderella’s Departure for the Ball from Act I, followed by the Waltz Coda from Act II, with its reminder of that magical, life-changing dance in the garden, and the chimes of Midnight.

—Kenneth LaFave

The MusicSuite from The Firebird (1919 version)

Igor StravinskyBorn in Lomonosov, Russia, June 17, 1882Died in New York City, April 6, 1971

When Igor Stravinsky’s father died in 1902, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov—Russia’s most important living composer and a friend of the Stravinsky family—became for the 20-year-old musician not just an artistic mentor but a sort of father-figure as well. Stravinsky’s early works are best viewed in this light, for the majority of them were written for, or composed in emulation of, this great master. As the young composer’s most important composition teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov played a seminal role in the foundation of Stravinsky’s approach to melody and instrumental color. In 1907 Stravinsky dedicated his Op. 1, the Symphony in E-flat major, to him, and the normally taciturn Rimsky-Korsakov demonstrated his approval by engaging a private performance of this exuberant work with the St. Petersburg court orchestra. Emboldened by this success, shortly afterward Stravinsky presented for his teacher’s approval a piece for large orchestra, the Scherzo fantastique.

A Love of Russian Folklore Stravinsky left Russia not long after, settling first in Paris, then Switzerland, and ultimately in the United States, although for all practical purposes he could be viewed as a citizen of the world. Much of the spirit and character of his native Russia remained with him throughout his long and fruitful life. This spirit, which consisted partly of a deep knowledge of Russian folklore, partly of a large repertoire of folk tunes of which he made liberal use in his scores, and partly of his sheer adventurousness, permeated his music and stamped it with a unique character that allows us to identify blind a work by Stravinsky almost immediately.

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Young Stravinsky’s veneration of Russian folklore was manifested early on, in the loving care with which he set to music the fairy-tale of the Firebird in 1909. Written on commission from the great dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev, The Firebird was composed for his second season of ballet in Paris. Its enormous success at the Paris Opéra premiere in June 1910 not only established Diaghilev as the leader of Paris’ avant-garde, it proclaimed Stravinsky as the most promising of Europe’s young generation of composers. Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, also both composed for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, followed in rapid succession, and later Les Noces, Marva, and Apollon musagète. The first three ballets made his name. Igor Stravinsky, aged 27, had arrived. In the early 1960s, he noted that the Firebird quickly became a “mainstay” of his life as a conductor: “I made my conducting debut with it (the complete ballet) in 1915 at a Red Cross benefit in Paris, and since then I have conducted it nearly a thousand times, though ten thousand would not erase the memory of the terror I suffered that first time.”

A Closer Look The tale of the Firebird is simple, even elemental. An enchanted bird, the Firebird, guides Crown Prince Ivan, who is lost in the woods, to the castle of Kastcheï the Immortal. The evil Kastcheï, who holds 13 princesses captive, would ordinarily turn Ivan to stone, as he has all the other knights who have attempted to free the princesses. But Ivan is more valiant; and he has a magic bird on his side, too, which helps a great deal. Aided by the Firebird, who tells him the secret of Kastcheï’s immorality—that his soul is in the form of an egg kept in a casket, which is promptly crushed—the Prince defeats the evil forces, the magic castle vanishes with a “poof,” all the knights come back to life to comfort the freed princesses, and Ivan makes away with the most beautiful princess, of course, who becomes his bride as the dark woods fill with light and all dance to the familiar finale-music.

After the ballet’s premiere, Stravinsky prepared a five-movement concert suite from Firebird (1911); in 1919 he revised this suite, omitting two movements and adding the “Berceuse” and Finale. In 1945 he made a third suite, containing all of the above elements.

—Paul J. Horsley/Christopher H. Gibbs

Program notes © 2014. All rights reserved. Program notes may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association and/or Kenneth LaFave.

Stravinsky composed The Firebird from 1909 to 1910.

Music from The Firebird was first played by The Philadelphia Orchestra in November 1917, when the 1911 Suite was led by Leopold Stokowski. Since that time, barely a year has gone by when some Firebird music hasn’t been heard on one of the Orchestra’s concerts, whether subscription, education, summer, or tour. The most recent subscription performances were in February 2010, when Charles Dutoit conducted the 1911 Suite.

The Philadelphia Orchestra has recorded the Firebird Suite seven times: in 1924, 1927, and 1935 with Stokowski for RCA; in 1953 and 1967 with Eugene Ormandy for CBS; in 1973 with Ormandy for RCA; and in 1978 with Riccardo Muti for EMI.

The score for the 1919 Suite calls for piccolo (doubling alto flute II), two flutes (II doubling alto flute), three oboes (III doubling English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, tambourine, triangle, xylophone), harp, piano (doubling celeste), and strings.

The Firebird Suite runs approximately 20 minutes in performance.