FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826)
As was the case with all the German Romantics, Mendelssohn fell under the spell of Shakespeare. His plays, in magnificent translations by August Wilhelm Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, took Germany by storm in the early 1800s, including the children of the Mendelssohn household, who especially loved A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Thus inspired, the 17-year-old Felix composed the delightful concert overture that evokes the comedy’s world of gossamer spirits, young lovers, and earthy creatures who visit the forest around Athens. Seventeen years later King Frederick William IV of Prussia invited Mendelssohn to compose additional musical numbers (the most famous of which is the celebratory “Wedding March”) to accompany an 1843 performance of the play in Potsdam. Mendelssohn’s score for the complete incidental music grew out of the Overture so seamlessly that any evidence of the lapse of nearly two decades was non-existent. A perfect snapshot of the play to come, four soft chords in the winds whisk us off to the enchanted forest, followed immediately by scurrying strings bowing the lightning-quick, delicate fairy music. Before long, Mendelssohn introduces music of the other characters of the play: the hunting horn calls Theseus, Duke of Athens, the romantic music of the mortal lovers, and a series of chords in the brass and lower strings announcing the “rude mechanicals” (laborers) come to rehearse their play. (Listen for the unmistakable braying of Bottom, transformed temporarily into an ass by Puck.) At the end, the four opening chords are reprised, bringing Mendelssohn’s miniature masterpiece to a beautiful close.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Violin Concerto (1844)
In 1835, when Felix Mendelssohn was just 27 years old, he was appointed conductor of the famed Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and hired Ferdinand David to be concertmaster. The two had been friends since their teens—a friendship that would continue throughout their lives. Mendelssohn started thinking about a violin concerto in 1838, and wrote to him, “I want to write a violin concerto next winter. One in E Minor is running through my head, and the beginning of it gives me no peace….” But it would be another six years before the concerto was completed, thanks to Ferdinand David’s encouragement, advice, and gentle pressure to get it done. David was the dedicatee and the soloist at the premiere. The work was a great success, and other performances soon followed. One was particularly memorable, as it launched the career of the then-14-year-old violin prodigy Joseph Joachim, a last-minute substitution for the indisposed Clara Schumann, originally scheduled to perform her husband’s piano concerto in Dresden. The genially-inspired work takes the concerto genre to realms far exceeding the many empty show-off pieces that were then a-dime-a-dozen, but are now forgotten. While soloists can certainly display their technical brilliance, the Mendelssohn concerto also calls upon them to interpret the emotional content of the gorgeous melodies. The work has been praised for its tight construction, such as the immediate entrance of the violin at the beginning, linking phrases between the movements, and placing the first cadenza in the middle, instead of at the end of the first movement. But audiences don’t need to understand the technical aspects of this popular score. It’s ultimately about the beauty of the sound. It was Joachim who summed it up best many years later: “The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, the one that makes fewest concessions, is Beethoven’s. The one by Brahms comes close to Beethoven’s in its seriousness. Max Bruch wrote the richest and most seductive of the four. But the dearest of them all, the heart’s jewel, is Mendelssohn’s.”

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Horn Concerto No. 2, K. 417 (1783)
Mozart composed his four horn concertos (plus a horn quintet and a concert rondo for horn and piano) for Joseph Ignaz Leutgeb (c. 1745-1811), his colleague in the court orchestra of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Hieronymus Colloredo. Leutgeb, a Salzburger who had known Mozart from childhood, eventually moved to Vienna in 1777 to work in the cheese business owned by his wife’s family, and made music a sideline. But when Mozart himself moved to the capital in 1781 the two men reestablished their friendship. Ever the prankster, Mozart enjoyed making Leutgeb the butt of some rather strange jokes—both musical and otherwise. Having his fun with the dedicatee, Mozart inscribed the score for the Second Horn Concerto as follows: “Wolfgang Amadé Mozart takes pity on Leutgeb, that ass, ox, and simpleton, at Vienna on May 27, 1783.” In the various horn concertos Mozart includes crazy directions and remarks to the soloist, a sketch of Leutgeb, and uses red, blue, green, and black inks in one of the manuscripts. All four horn concertos were written for the valveless horn of the time—not at all an easy instrument to play. In the Rondo finale of the present concerto listen for the sound of hunting fanfares which are reminiscent of the sound produced on hunting horns. Though K. 417 bears the publication No. 2, it was actually the first to be composed. Cast in the traditional three movements, the concerto showcases the many sides of the instrument’s emotional and technical characteristics: nobility, lyricism, and robustness.

EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934)
Enigma Variations (1899)
It was Joseph Cooper, who, according to the November 3, 1991 London Sunday Telegraph, cracked the code of Sir Edward Elgar’s mystery: the “Enigma” theme of his famed Variations. The composer launched the guesswork with words that have had inquiring minds scratching their heads for more than a century: “The enigma I will not explain—its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes,’ but is not played.... So the principal Theme never appears, even as in some late dramas ... the chief character is never on stage.” Guesses have included everything from “Auld Lang Syne” to the slow movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 (John Cooper’s candidate) to “Rule Britannia”—but none of them wholly satisfactory. Elgar introduces his Theme and then follows it with 14 Variations, each bearing the initials or disguised names of the “friends pictured within.” The musical portraits reflect not only the personality of the subject, but also an unmistakable characteristic or event associated with each of them. By now all the characters have been identified satisfactorily, except perhaps “XIII ***,” but even that mystery may have been solved. But the true enigma may never be known. Some of the highlights of this marvelous work include: “I (C.A.E.)” passionate music for Elgar’s wife Caroline; “VIII (W.N.)” includes a suggestion of Winifred Norbury’s laugh; “IX (Nimrod)” August Jaeger, Elgar’s dear friend, whose name translated from the German means “hunter,” and Nimrod is the Old Testament hunter; “X (Dorabella)” Dora Penny and her slight stammer; “XI (G.R.S)” George Robertson Sinclair’s bulldog Dan’s happy bark; and finally “XIV (E.D.U.)” Elgar himself, whom Lady Elgar called by his pet name Edoo. Whether we will ever puzzle out the answer to the enigma, the one certainty is that this composition is Elgar’s crowning achievement, beloved by concertgoers everywhere.

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.

VIVIANE HAGNER
Violin, born 1976 in Munich, Germany
It was an important occasion when in 1990 Zubin Mehta chose 13-year-old Viviane Hagner as soloist for the famous “Joint Concert” in Tel-Aviv by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestras. She played Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. The public debut of the Munich-born violinist had come just a year before. As the recipient of many scholarships and grants she came to public and critical notice and has performed with the world’s great conductors and soloists, including Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim, and Christoph Eschenbach. Speaking of the Mendelssohn concerto she performs with the Philharmonic she says: “It is among the concertos I have played the most; it was also the first ‘big’ violin concerto I ever played with orchestra—I was about 11 years old at the time. I genuinely believe it’s the most perfect concerto written for the violin. It is full of most beautiful melodies, both in the solo violin part and in the orchestra, technically very demanding, and at the same time extremely well set for every instrument. To me it combines the best qualities of both classical and romantic music.” Viviane Hagner also has a lively interest in contemporary music (she recently performed Rejoice, a duo for violin and cello by Sofia Gubaidulina at Zankel Hall as part of a portrait concert of the composer) and has given world premieres of concertos by Unsuk Chin and Simon Holt, and has championed such composers as Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Karl Goldmark, and Krzysztof Penderecki. “This season I will premiere a concerto by the young Italian composer Aureliano Cattaneo at the Konzerthaus Berlin, where I will be the artist-in-residence.” She is an active recitalist and appears regularly at prestigious music festivals around the globe. Viviane Hagner’s sister Nicole is a pianist with whom she has performed and recorded works by Beethoven, Saint-Saëns, and Schubert. Her concertizing travels around the world seem to inspire the activities of her free time; “having just been to Troy and Ephesus, I dug out some old school books by Greek historians and philosophers such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Plato. I am especially fascinated by some of Plato’s Dialogues. This time, however, I am reading them in German and not in old-Greek as we did at high school. I have also just started to learn Japanese. So maybe next time I visit Japan, I will be able to order my favorite Japanese dishes in the original language.”

“Her rich, burnished tone, crystalline articulation and subtle expression grab attention and leave a lasting impression... the 27 year-old violinist from Munich gave a spine-chilling recital, an almost hauntingly masterful display of technique and artistry.” Washington Post

“Listening to Viviane Hagner play the violin is an enchanting experience... she is both a thoughtful and brilliant violinist. In her playing, she knows how to combine reflection and luminosity in the most striking way.” Berliner Morgenpost

Philip Myers joined the Philharmonic as Principal French Horn (The Ruth F. and Alan J. Broder Chair) in January 1980, and made his solo debut with the Orchestra that month in the premiere of William Schuman’s Three Colloquies for French Horn and Orchestra. He has since appeared as a Philharmonic soloist often, most recently performing Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 2, conducted by Lorin Maazel, in New York in January 2008 and again in February 2008 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and Shanghai, China. Mr. Myers began his orchestral career in 1971 with a three-year term as principal horn of the Atlantic Symphony in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was third horn with the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1974 until 1977. As principal horn of the Minnesota Orchestra for a season and a half, he made a solo debut with that ensemble in 1979, performing Richard Strauss’s Horn Concerto No. 1, Sir Neville Marriner conducting. A native of Elkhart, Indiana, Mr. Myers holds two degrees from Carnegie–Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He plays Engelbert Schmid French horns.

Find additional upcoming performances with Philip Myers