GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911)
Symphony No. 3 (1895-96)
It’s an opening week event to savor in all its glorious length. Ninety-plus minutes of gorgeous music, composed by Mahler over the course of several years. Settle back in your seat…always a good idea when you’re fortunate enough to be in the presence of a Mahler symphony. He wrote his Third Symphony at Steinbach, his rustic cabin retreat on the banks of an Austrian lake, where children and animals were banished so as not to disturb him while he was composing. The symphony underwent many revisions, including withdrawing descriptive movement titles in favor of simple tempo markings, and going from seven to six movements (but he didn’t discard the 7th movement, “What the child tells me,” entirely: while some of its themes appear elsewhere in the Third, he recycled it as the last movement of his Symphony No. 4.) Still, the original titles illuminate the composer’s plans, give a glimpse of his inner world, and reveal his BIG subject: nature: I. Summer marches in; II. What the flowers of the field tell me; III. What the animals of the forest tell me; IV. What man tells me; V. What the angels tell me; VI. What love tells me. Mahler opined to fellow-composer Jean Sibelius that “a symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.” And perhaps his own words to his friend Anna von Mildenburg provide the best guide posts for the listener: “[the Third Symphony] is a musical poem that progresses through all the stages of evolution…beginning with inanimate Nature and proceeding step by step to God’s love.” The symphony calls for huge orchestral forces, mezzo-soprano soloist, and women’s and children’s choruses. Its language encompasses everything from folk melodies and marches to dark night music and sublime lyricism. A “watch-for” note: it is traditional for the conductor to step off the podium after the vast first movement, which is about 30 minutes long and gives a musical preview of what is to come. The pause is not intended for seating latecomers, however; it’s for the audience and the performers to get a bit of respite from their exertions and to prepare them for the remaining musical canvas on which Mahler—at the still-youthful age of 36—paints an entire universe.

Alan Gilbert will begin his tenure as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in the 2009–10 season, the first native New Yorker to hold the post. For his inaugural season he has introduced a number of new initiatives: Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg; The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Thomas Hampson; an annual three-week festival; and CONTACT, the New York Philharmonic’s new-music series. He will also lead the Orchestra on a major tour of Asia in October 2009, with debuts in Hanoi and Abu Dhabi; a European tour in January 2010; and performances of world, U.S., and New York premieres. Also in the 2009–10 season Mr. Gilbert becomes the first to hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies at The Juilliard School, a position that will include coaching, conducting, and performance master classes.

Highlights of Mr. Gilbert’s 2008–09 season with the New York Philharmonic included the November 14, 2008, Bernstein anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall, and a performance with the Juilliard Orchestra, presented by the Philharmonic, featuring Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, Kaddish. In May 2009 he conducted the World Premiere of Peter Lieberson’s The World in Flower, a New York Philharmonic Commission, and in July 2009 he led the New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer, and two concerts at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Colorado.

In June 2008 Mr. Gilbert was named conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, following his final concert as its chief conductor and artistic advisor. He has been principal guest conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra (NDRSO) since 2004. Mr. Gilbert regularly conducts other leading orchestras in the U.S. and abroad, including the Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco symphony orchestras; The Cleveland Orchestra; Munich’s Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw; and Orchestre National de Lyon. In 2003 he was named the first music director of Santa Fe Opera, where he served for three seasons.

Born and raised in New York City, Alan Gilbert studied at Harvard University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School; he was a substitute violinist with The Philadelphia Orchestra for two seasons, and assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra from 1995 to 1997. In November 2008 he made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams’s Dr. Atomic. His recording of Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance.

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Born in Frankfurt, Germany, mezzo-soprano Petra Lang began her musical studies on the violin before studying voice with Gertie Charlent at the Music Academy of Darmstadt and, from 1989 to 2006, with Ingrid Bjoner. Currently she is in demand for her Wagnerian roles of Kundry in Parsifal, Sieglinde in Die Walküre, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Venus in Tannhäuser, Ortrud in Lohengrin, and Adriano in Rienzi. Other roles include Judith in Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle; Cassandra in Berlioz’s Les Troyens; and Ariadne in R. Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos; and she is known for her interpretation of works by Mahler. Ms. Lang has appeared in all the major European and American opera houses, and at the festivals of Bayreuth, Salzburg, and Bregenz. She has sung with orchestras worldwide, and won two 2002 Grammy Awards for her interpretation of Cassandra as part of the London Symphony Orchestra’s live recording of Les Troyens conducted by Sir Colin Davis. She has given Lieder recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet and Louvre, Austria’s Schubertiade Feldkirch, Edinburgh Festival, New York’s Carnegie Hall; at the Geneva, Brussels, and Gent theaters; and throughout her native Germany, and has recorded songs by the conductor Clemens Krauss for Oehms Classics. Future plans include performances of Sieglinde in Die Walküre in Berlin; Kundry in Parsifal with Bernard Haitink in London and Vienna; Mahler’s Second Symphony with Pierre Boulez in Berlin and Vienna; Venus in Wagner’s Tannhäuser in San Diego and San Francisco; concerts with Marek Janowski in Paris, Berlin, and Spain; Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle with Christoph von Dohnányi in Geneva; Wagner concerts with Iván Fischer in Budapest; and recitals in Geneva, Paris, and Amsterdam. Ms. Lang is making her New York Philharmonic debut in these concerts.


“A voice like this is rare and a joy, but what is even more special about Ms. Lang is her freshness and willingness to take risks.” (The New York Times)

THE WESTMINSTER SYMPHONIC CHOIR
The Westminster Symphonic Choir, composed of students at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, has recorded and performed with major orchestras under virtually every internationally known conductor of the last 75 years. The choir has sung more than 300 performances with the New York Philharmonic alone. The ensemble’s 2008–09 performances with the Philharmonic will include Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, led by Lorin Maazel (February 17, 2009, at Carnegie Hall). The choir, which is directed by Joe Miller, will also perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in March at Carnegie Hall, and in May will return to Carnegie Hall to join Pierre Boulez and the Berlin Staatskapelle for Mahler’s three choral symphonies. Recent seasons have included performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson, and Brahms’s A German Requiem with the Dresden Philharmonic, conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

The American Boychoir, under the direction of music director Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, is regarded as one of the United States’s premier concert boys’ choirs and one of the finest in the world. Boys from grades four through eight — reflecting the ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity of our nation — come from nine states and four foreign countries to pursue a rigorous musical and academic curriculum at The American Boychoir School, the only non-sectarian boys’ choir school in the nation. Founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1937, The American Boychoir has been located in Princeton, New Jersey, since 1950. In addition to maintaining an active national and international touring schedule, the ensemble performs and records regularly with such world-class artists and ensembles as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, soprano Jessye Norman, pop diva Beyoncé, and Sir Paul McCartney. The American Boychoir last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in March 2008 in a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, led by Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur.