Riccardo Muti will conduct the New York Philharmonic in two popular works from the 19th century: Beethoven's only Violin Concerto, performed by Vadim Repin, and Franck's Symphony in D minor - the only symphony ever written by the Belgian-born French composer, Wednesday and Thursday, March 10-11, 2010, at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, March 13, at 8:00 p.m.
Related Events
• Composer/conductor Victoria Bond will introduce the program one hour before each performance. Tickets are $5 in addition to the concert ticket. Attendance is limited to 90 people. Information: nyphil.org or (212) 875-5656
• New York Philharmonic Podcast
Mark Travis, a producer for the WFMT Radio Network since 1999 and the producer of the 52-week per-year nationally syndicated radio series, The New York Philharmonic This Week, is the producer of this podcast. These award-winning previews of upcoming programs - through musical selections as well as interviews with guest artists, conductors, and Orchestra musicians - are available at
nyphil.org/podcast or from iTunes.
• National Radio Broadcast
This concert will be broadcast the week of March 22, 2010,* on The New York Philharmonic This Week, a radio concert series syndicated nationally to more than 295 stations by the WFMT Radio Network. The 52-week series, hosted by the Emmy Award- winning actor Alec Baldwin, is generously underwritten by The Kaplen Foundation, the Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Philharmonic's corporate partner, MetLife Foundation. The broadcast will be available on the Philharmonic's Website, nyphil.org. The program is broadcast locally in the New York metropolitan area on 105.9 FM WQXR on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m.
*Check local listings for broadcast and program information.
Artists
Riccardo Muti was born in Naples, Italy, where he studied piano at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella under Vincenzo Vitale, graduating with distinction. He was subsequently awarded a diploma in composition and conducting by the Conservatory "Giuseppe Verdi," Milan. He first came to the attention of critics and the public in 1967, when he was unanimously awarded first place in the Guido Cantelli Conductors Competition in Milan. The following year he was appointed principal conductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a position he maintained until 1980. In 1971 he was invited by Herbert von Karajan to conduct at the Salzburg Festival, the first of many occasions that led, in 2001, to a celebration of 30 years of artistic collaboration.
During the 1970s Mr. Muti was the London Philharmonia's chief conductor (1972-82), succeeding Otto Klemperer. In 1980 he succeeded Eugene Ormandy as music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra, where he remained until 1992. From 1986 to 2005 he was music director of Milan's Teatro alla Scala, overseeing projects such as the Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy and the Wagner Ring Cycle, in addition to bringing many less-performed and neglected works to light. His long tenure culminated on December 7, 2004, in the re- opening of the restored La Scala, with Salieri's Europa riconosciuta, originally commissioned for La Scala's inaugural opening night performance in 1778.
Over the course of his career, Riccardo Muti has conducted most of the world's important orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, and the Vienna Philharmonic, an orchestra with which he has particularly close ties, and with which he has appeared at the Salzburg Festival since 1971. In April 2003 the French national radio channel, France Musique, broadcast a "Journée Riccardo Muti," comprising 14 hours of his operatic and symphonic recordings. On December 14, 2003, he conducted the opening concert of the newly-renovated opera house "La Fenice" in Venice. In 2004 Mr. Muti founded the "Luigi Cherubini" Youth Orchestra comprising young musicians selected by an international committee from 600 instrumentalists throughout Italy. With the Cherubini Orchestra he is leading a five-year project dedicated to the Neapolitan School of the 18th century for the Salzburg Whitsun Festival.
On May 5, 2008, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association appointed Mr. Muti as its tenth music director; he will begin his five-year contract in September 2010. In the same season he will start as director of the Rome Opera House. Riccardo Muti's last appearance with the New York Philharmonic was in November 2009. He is scheduled to return on April 14-17, 2010.
Born in Siberia in 1971, Vadim Repin began playing the violin at the age of five. At 11 he won the gold medal in the Wienawski Competition and gave his recital debuts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. At 14 he made debuts in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin, and Helsinki, and a year later, at Carnegie Hall. Two years later, Vadim Repin was the youngest ever winner of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition. Since then Mr. Repin has performed with world's greatest orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, NDR Hamburg, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia, Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw, San Francisco Symphony, and La Scala, working with leading conductors.
Vadim Repin has been a frequent guest at festivals such as Tanglewood, Ravinia, Rheingau, Gstaad, Verbier, and the BBC Proms. In summer 2009 Mr. Repin made his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in a performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto conducted by Leonard Slatkin, and appeared at Tanglewood in Beethoven's Violin Concerto conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. In the current season Mr. Repin will perform in North America with the National, San Francisco, Montreal, and Milwaukee symphony orchestras.In addition to an active European schedule, he will embark on three tours of Asia and the Pacific, with the Malaysian Philharmonic under Claus Peter Flor, the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski, and the Munich Philharmonic led by Christian Thielemann.
Vadim Repin's many CDs include prize-winning recordings of the great Russian violin concertos by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky on Warner Classics. His first recording on the Deutsche Grammophon label features the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti, coupled with Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata with Martha Argerich. Mr. Repin plays the 1736 "Von Szerdahely" by Guarneri del Gesù.
Repertoire
Ludwig van Beethoven composed only one Violin Concerto, in 1806. Written in a rush, to be performed at a Christmas-time concert, it survived a disastrous premiere in which the soloist, Franz Clement, the principal violinist and conductor at the Theater an der Wien, stopped between movements to perform his own Fantasia with circus-like gimmicks. Beethoven's concerto entered the standard repertoire only after 1844, when it was championed by the then 12-year-old violinist Joseph Joachim, who performed it with the Philharmonic Society of London conducted by Felix Mendelssohn. The New York Philharmonic's first performance of the concerto, in December 1861, was conducted by Theodore Eisfeld, with Edward Mollenhauer as the soloist. It was played most recently, in September 2007, with Lorin Maazel conducting and Lisa Batiashvili as soloist.
César Franck was born in 1822 in Liège (now Belgium), and died in 1890 in Paris, with a preponderance of his major works created near the end of his life, principally in his final decade. His Symphony in D minor - his only work in the symphonic genre - was one of those pieces, and received its first performance in February 1889. Written in the tradition of the 19th-century symphony, the work shows the influences of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner, Liszt, and also of the organ, Franck's principal instrument. The symphony earned only a lukewarm reception at its premiere, but the composer reported that he was pleased: it sounded exactly as he had imagined it. It has gone on to be regarded as one of Franck's greatest achievements, a landmark synthesis of the French and Germanic traditions. It was first performed in March 1911 by the New
York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today's New York Philharmonic), led by Walter Damrosch, and most recently, in July 2006 in Vail, Colorado, conducted by Bramwell Tovey.
