Avery Fisher Hall (New York, NY)
Baritone Thomas Hampson and Soprano Hillevi Martinpelto solo in this evening of music from Beethoven (Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus), Mozart (Symphony No. 38, Prague) and Zemlinksy (Lyric Symphony).
Event summary prepared by the Goldstar Editorial Team.
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The last date listed for Thomas Hampson and Mozart's Prague Symphony was Tuesday November 10, 2009 / 7:30pm. (view all dates)
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First off, excellent Orchestra seats, always a plus! Neeme Jarvi conducted a surprisingly charming Prometheus Overture, and he cleverly emphasized so many of the striking aspects of pre- and now, post-Communist Prague in his intelligent rendering of Mozart's exilharating 38th Symphony.
But best of all was Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony in 7 Songs, which I'd never before heard, or even heard of. A beautiful and painful work written in 1923, after the shock and change of WWI (and here it is, appropriately, Veterans/Remembrance Day) and at the early-discerned beginning of the next great European horror, Zemlinsky seems to predict that neither Tagore's 20th century love's sought-for transcendence (ably sung by Hampson) nor his 19th century, childlike romanticism (breathtaking Hillevi Martinpelto) can save this pair of lovers from what looks to be an approaching apocalypse.
Jarvi, an Estonian conductor of a certain age who knows his country's history, inspiredly conducted the piece as a threatening vision and a heartbreaking lament for an extreme, clattering age in which older ways of being and individual voices have become just frail longings engulfed by the dark clashings of ignorant armies. An added pleasure was Jarvi's repeated, courtly gratitude for the orchestral, soloist, and vocal efforts of his fellow musicians that made this concert all that it was. Bravi tutti!
Avery Fisher Hall opened in the 1960s as "Philharmonic Hall." The 2,738 seat venue was renamed in 1973 after a generous donation from the noted philanthropist. Avery Fisher Hall is home to the New York Philharmonic orchestra and the Great Performers Series. Avery Fisher Hall is located at the northern end of the Lincoln Center Plaza.
Website: http://nyphil.org/attend/season/index.cfm?page=eventDetail&eventNum...
Thomas Hampson
American baritone Thomas Hampson has performed in the world’s preeminent concert halls and opera houses and with many of today’s most renowned musicians and orchestras; he also maintains an active interest in teaching, music research, and technology. An important interpreter of German romantic song, he is known as a leading proponent of the study of American song through his Hampsong Foundation, which he founded in 2003 to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding. In the 2009–10 season Mr. Hampson becomes the first Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic as well as the Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence. In these roles he will perform three programs with the Orchestra, appear on the Orchestra’s European tour, give a recital in Alice Tully Hall, and present three lectures entitled “Listening to Thought” as part of the Orchestra’s Insights Series.
Much of Mr. Hampson’s 2009–10 season is devoted to his “Song of America” project. In collaboration with the Library of Congress, Mr. Hampson is performing recitals and presenting master classes, educational activities, exhibitions, and broadcasts across the country and through a new interactive online resource, www.songofamerica.net; as part of the project, he has just released a new album, Wondrous Free — Song of America II, on his own label, Thomas Hampson Media. Other engagements include Mendelssohn’s Elijah, led by Kurt Masur in Leipzig; Verdi’s Ernani and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with Zurich Opera; Verdi’s La traviata at The Metropolitan Opera; solo recitals throughout the United States and in many European capitals; and the galas of the Vienna Staatsoper and the new Winspear Opera House in Dallas.
Raised in Spokane, Washington, Thomas Hampson has released more than 150 albums that have received many honors, including a Grammy Award, two Edison Prizes, and the Grand Prix du Disque. He has been named Kammersänger of the Vienna Staatsoper; Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France; and Special Advisor to the Study and Performance of Music in America by Dr. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress. Other accolades include the Austrian Medal of Honor in Arts and Sciences (in 2004), and the Edison Life Achievement Award (2005). Mr. Hampson last appeared with the New York Philharmonic on September 20, 2001, in Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, led by Kurt Masur in memory of 9/11.
Hillevi Martinpelto
Soprano Hillevi Martinpelto, a resident of Stockholm, concentrates most of her work this season in Sweden, where she sings regularly with the Royal Opera. Recent operatic engagements, at home and abroad, have included Elisabeth in Wagner’s Tannhäuser; Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello; La Contessa in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro; Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore; Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff; and the Marschallin in R. Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier in Stockholm. She also has sung Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin in Leipzig; Amelia in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera in Gothenburg; Cio-Cio-San in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in Berlin; Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Dresden, Menorca, and Hong Kong; and Vitellia in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at the Maggio Musicale in Florence and in Munich.
Ms. Martinpelto has given Lieder recitals and sung in concert performances of Lohengrin, Weber’s Der Freischütz, La clemenza di Tito, and Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Edinburgh Festival, as well as concert performances of La clemenza di Tito with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in London and New York. Her appearances with orchestra have included Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony in Amsterdam; Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Sir Simon Rattle’s valedictory concerts as its music director; Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Paris; Handel’s Messiah in London at the BBC Proms; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Berlin and at the Tanglewood Music Festival; Schumann’s Paradise and the Peri in Torino; and Sibelius’s Luonnatar with the Hallé Orchestra, Manchester.
Hillevi Martinpelto trained in Stockholm and made her debut at the Royal Opera as Cio- Cio-San in Madama Butterfly. Her principal recordings are on the Deutsche Grammophon and EMI labels. These concerts represent her New York Philharmonic debut.
The New York Philharmonic is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world. Founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians led by American-born Ureli Corelli Hill, the Orchestra currently plays some 180 concerts a year. On December 18, 2004, the Philharmonic gave its 14,000th concert--a milestone unmatched by any other orchestra in the world. Lorin Maazel began his tenure as Music Director in September 2002. He succeeded Kurt Masur, who was Music Director from 1991 until the summer of 2002, and who was named Music Director Emeritus on June 1, 2002. Previous Music Directors have included Zubin Mehta (1978-91), and Pierre Boulez (1971-77). Leonard Bernstein, who was appointed Music Director in 1958, was given the lifetime title of Laureate Conductor in 1969. Since its inception, the Orchestra has championed the new music of its time, giving the first performances of many important works such as Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"; Rachmaninoff 's Piano Concerto No. 3; Gershwin's Concerto in F; and Copland's Connotations, in addition to the U.S. premieres of works such as Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9, and Brahms's Symphony No. 4. This pioneering tradition has continued to the present day, with works of major contemporary composers regularly scheduled each season. John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, written in memory of September 11, 2001, and commissioned by the New York Philharmonic with Lincoln Center's Great Performers, received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music; a CD of the work, performed in concert by the Orchestra in 2002, was released on Nonesuch in August 2004, and garnered three Grammy awards. The roster of composers and conductors who have led the Philharmonic includes such historic figures as Theodore Thomas, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Antonin Dvork, Gustav Mahler (Music Director, 1909-11), Otto Klemperer, Richard Strauss, Willem Mengelberg (Music Director, 1922-30), Wilhelm Furtwngler, Arturo Toscanini (Music Director, 1928-36), Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Bruno Walter (Music Advisor, 1947-49), Dimitri Mitropoulos (Music Director, 1949-58), Klaus Tennstedt, George Szell (Music Advisor, 1969-70), and Erich Leinsdorf. The Philharmonic's remarkable achievements in radio, television, and other media have helped shape communications history. In 1922 the Philharmonic became one of the first orchestras to broadcast a live concert, and its coast-to-coast radio broadcast of 1930 was the first of its kind. In addition, the Philharmonic undertakes a diversified touring schedule each season to share its music with new audiences around the world. From its first tour in 1882, through the 2004-05 season, the Orchestra has performed in 416 cities in 57 countries on five continents. Television and the Internet have further expanded the Philharmonic's audiences. For more than 20 years, the Orchestra regularly telecast its legendary Young People's Concerts, most of them led by Leonard Bernstein; and, since 1976, the frequent annual appearances of the Philharmonic on PBS's Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center have made it one of the most "watched" orchestras in the world. In 1999 the Philharmonic launched the hugely popular and award-winning Kidzone, an interactive Website for children and educators alike, and in 2002, a unique initiative in the orchestra world began the streaming of live radio broadcasts for a period of two weeks following the performance, bringing the Philharmonic to a worldwide audience through its Website. Since 1917 the Philharmonic has recorded nearly 2,000 albums; more than 500 recordings are currently available. In February 2003, the Orchestra was honored by The Recording Academy with a Trustees Award in recognition of its outstanding contributions to the industry and American culture. Members of the Philharmonic also performed on the 45th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony, televised internationally from New York's Madison Square Garden--the first time that a major symphony orchestra had performed live on the Grammy Awards.
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