PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Selections from Swan Lake (1876)
While the Swan Lake that audiences know today is one of the most cherished ballet scores in the repertoire, little is known about another Swan Lake ballet composed for his niece and nephews some years before and produced as a “house performance”—something Tchaikovsky often did. According to his nephew, Yury Davydov, a theme from that children’s ballet made its way into the full-fledged Swan Lake score, namely “The Song of the Swans.” Tchaikovsky’s first ballet was commissioned in 1875 by the Moscow Bolshoi Theater and premiered in 1877 at a benefit for the ballerina Pelageaya Karpakova. Opening night was fraught with difficulties, and reports indicated a near-disaster due the Bolshoi’s abysmal financial situation and the resulting poor quality of the production. The music on the other hand received critical raves, such as this one: “The principal hero of the present performance is Mr. Tchaikovsky, who got a sore waist from bowing, and to this moment still has sore ears from the stormy ‘bravos’ with which his delighted public met him.” The ballet had an extraordinarily long run of 41 performances. Julius Reisinger, ballet master at the Bolshoi, was the choreographer, and the scenario was most likely written by Vladimir Begichev (there is some uncertainty). Set in Germany, the story centers on three main characters, Prince Siegfried, Odette, and Odile. Siegfried receives a crossbow at his 21st birthday party and is told he must announce his choice of wife at a celebratory ball next evening. While out hunting later that night, he sees a flock of swans flying overhead, and as he aims his bow, one of them turns into a beautiful woman before his eyes—the Princess Odette. Bound by Von Rothbart’s sorcery she must live as a swan by day and a woman by night. To break the spell requires a pledge of true love. The next evening, Von Rothbart brings his own daughter Odile to the ball (identical in every way, except that she is dressed in black to Odette’s white), and Siegfried mistakenly declares his love for her—realizing only too late that he has been deceived. Different endings to the story exist…some with a happy reunion of the lovers, but more often, but more often with a tragic ending that involves suicide and eternal swanhood, or a glorious apotheosis of Siegfried and Odette. Swan Lake has been a staple of the ballet repertoire for 130 years. Its romantic music was new to the ears of balletomanes, who were not accustomed to the full-bodied sound of a score of symphonic proportion. A “concert performance” of excerpts allows Tchaikovsky’s lustrous sonorities to be savored to their fullest.

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Variations on a Rococo Theme (1876)
Tchaikovsky composed his delightful Rococo Variations for his friend and fellow professor at the Moscow Conservatory, the German cello virtuoso Wilhelm Fitzhagen, who was also the soloist at the Moscow premiere under the baton of Nikolai Rubinstein. When Tchaikovsky posed the rhetorical question to Fitzhagen, “Do you know what Rococo means?” he supplied his own answer: “It is a carefree feeling of well-being,” and illustrated the definition by singing a gavotte-like melody. Tchaikovsky—perhaps to his dismay—got a lot of assistance from the cellist. Fitzhagen helped craft the solo part and even rearranged the order of the Variations. The composer told one of his friends: “That idiot Fitzhagen’s been here. Look what he’s done to my piece—he’s altered everything!” Nevertheless, it is Fitzhagen’s version that is always performed. The Variations are a kind of tribute to Mozart, whom Tchaikovsky called the greatest of all composers—even extending to the only slightly augmented size of orchestra of Mozart’s day. After the statement of the elegant theme, seven variations follow, linked to one another with a ritornello sounded in the woodwinds. They span the spectrum from ravishing to rhapsodic to bravura and are one of the sunniest and most graceful Tchaikovsky compositions. When the composer Franz Liszt heard the Variations he stated categorically: “At last, music again!”

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique” (1893)
Tchaikovsky completed his powerful final work and conducted its premiere just nine days before his death (blamed at the time on a glass of unboiled water during Russia’s cholera epidemic, but more recently thought to have been a suicide). Though this time frame provides a plausible interpretation of the Sixth Symphony as a farewell to the world, it is shrouded in dolorous mystery. Tchaikovsky wrote: “The program will be left as an enigma—let people guess it for themselves. [It] is so intensely personal that as I was mentally composing it I frequently wept copiously.” The nickname “Pathétique” (meaning “emotional,” not “pathetic”) was suggested by Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest, and his publisher—keeping in mind the marketing possibilities of such a title—insisted on using it, even though the composer himself had rejected it. According to Walter Damrosch, Tchaikovsky demurred when asked about the “program” of the Sixth and added, “We parted with the expectation of meeting again, but, alas, in October came the cable announcing [Tchaikovsky’s] death from cholera, and a few days later arrived a package from Moscow containing the score and parts for the ‘Pathétique.’ It was like a message from the dead.” The music begins in the depths of the bassoon register—dark, gloomy, and melancholy; much tumult and anguish follow, but also a waltz with an unusual 5/4, rather than 3/4 rhythm. Resist the urge to applaud after the triumphant ending of the third movement. The finale, Adagio lamentoso, is yet to come, with the real ending announced by a foreboding stroke of the tam-tam, and then sinking into gloomy silence—a shattering final utterance. Some 60,000 people applied to attend Tchaikovsky’s funeral, but even the huge Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg could hold no more than 8,000 mourners. One of them was 11-year old Igor Stravinsky.

Lorin Maazel, who has led more than 150 orchestras in more than 5,000 opera and concert performances, became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2002. His appointment came 60 years after his debut with the Orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium, then the Orchestra’s summer venue. As Music Director he has conducted seven World Premiere–NewYork Philharmonic Commissions, including the Pulitzer Prize– and Grammy Award–winning On the Transmigration of Souls by John Adams; Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 3; and Melinda Wagner’s Trombone Concerto. He has led cycles of works by Brahms, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky; and he conducted the Orchestra’s inaugural performances in the DG Concerts series — a groundbreaking initiative to offer downloadable New York Philharmonic concerts exclusively on iTunes.

Mr. Maazel has taken the Orchestra on numerous international tours, including the historic visit to Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in February 2008 — the first performance there by an American orchestra, and an event watched around the world. Other recent tours have included Asia 2008 — to Taipei, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing; the May 2007 Tour of Europe; the November 2006 visit to Japan and Korea; the Philharmonic Tour of Italy in June 2006, sponsored by Generali; the two-part 75th Anniversary European Tour to thirteen cities in five countries in the fall of 2005; and residencies in Cagliari, Sardinia, and at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Colorado.

In addition to the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Maazel is music director of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain. A frequent conductor on the world’s operatic stages, he returned to The Metropolitan Opera in January 2008 for the first time in 45 years to conduct Wagner’s Die Walküre.

Prior to his tenure as New York Philharmonic Music Director, Mr. Maazel led more than 100 performances of the Orchestra as a guest conductor. He served as music director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (1993–2002), and has held positions as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1988–96); general manager and chief conductor of the Vienna Staatsoper (1982–84); music director of The Cleveland Orchestra (1972–82); and artistic director and chief conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (1965–71). He is an honorary member of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic. On February 17, 2009, he will be named a Commander of the Legion of Honor by the government of France.

A second-generation American, born in Paris, Mr. Maazel was raised and educated in the United States. He took his first violin lesson at age five, and first conducting lesson at seven. Between ages 9 and 15 he conducted most of the major American orchestras. In 1953 he made his European conducting debut in Catania, Italy.

Mr. Maazel is also an accomplished composer. His opera, 1984, received its world premiere on May 3, 2005, at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. It was revived in the 2007–08 season at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and has been released on DVD by Decca.

JOHANNES MOSER
Cello, born in 1979 in Munich, Germany
Johannes Moser comes from a musical family, whose members include his mother Edith Wiens who appeared several times with the New York Philharmonic; his father, a cellist in the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; his aunt Edda Moser, the legendary soprano, famous for her role as “Queen of the Night” in Mozart’s Magic Flute; his grandfather Hans-Joachim Moser, a famous musicologist and director of the Berlin Conservatory of Music; and his great-grandfather Andreas Moser, a member of Joseph Joachim’s string quartet. Johannes Moser himself began playing cello when he was just 8 years old and started his formal training with cellist David Geringas at the Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule in Berlin. As with many young virtuosos, winning the legendary Tchaikovsky competition in 2002 in Moscow (plus the Special Prize for the best interpretation of the Rococo Variations) marked the beginning of an international concert career for Johannes Moser. He has already appeared with many of the world’s great orchestras and conductors, performing in London, Florence, Berlin, and with Riccardo Muti, Paavo Järvi, and Valery Gergiev. His American debut in 2005 was with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez, premiering Bernard Rands’ Cello Concerto. And in November 2006 he made his Philharmonic debut under Maestro Lorin Maazel with the Rococo Variations on the Orchestra’s Asia Tour. Johannes Moser shares his thoughts on the Rococo Variations, saying they are “the perfect combination of the most beautiful musical lines with technical fireworks,” and adds that “it’s a particular challenge to make the piece sound like it’s the easiest thing in the world to play and to find the right balance between Rococo ornamentation and simplicity.” When not learning new repertoire—he’s working on concertos by Ligeti, Prokofiev, and Lutosławski—the cellist enjoys sports, reading, cooking, movies, theater, and hanging out with friends. His eclectic taste in music includes Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bryn Terfel, and Dino Saluzzi, and he’s currently reading Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections and Robert Jourdain’s Music, the Brain and Ecstasy.