Event is Live
CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
8 PM
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
There will be enough electricity to light a city when Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the fabulous Philadelphia Orchestra in the music of Ravel and Prokofiev. Ravel’s unparalleled iridescent orchestra colors and intoxicating melodies make his gentle Le tombeau de Couperin and sensuous ballet Daphnis et Chloé audience favorites. The concert also features Prokofiev’s beautiful Violin Concerto No. 1. Warmly melodic in its outer movements, the concerto’s edgy central-section Scherzo has a piquant quality that is classic, fast-paced Prokofiev.
Performers
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director and Conductor
Benjamin Beilman, Violin
Westminster Symphonic Choir
Joe Miller, Conductor
Program
RAVEL Le tombeau de Couperin
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1
RAVEL Daphnis et Chloé (complete)
Encore:
YSAŸE Finale from Sonata for Solo Violin in E Minor, Op. 27, No. 4
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.
This performance is proudly supported by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
At a Glance
This
concert continues The Philadelphia Orchestra’s season-long exploration of music
inspired by Paris with two works by Maurice Ravel that frame the program. Ravel
originally composed Le tombeau de Couperin for piano and later
orchestrated four of its six movements. The intimate work is an homage—the
title literally means “tomb”—to the great 18th-century French keyboard composer
François Couperin. Ravel wrote it during the First World War, and in each of
the movements he also honors friends of his who died in that horrific conflict.
Ravel composed the ballet Daphnis et Chloé for Sergei Diaghilev and his fabled Ballets Russes. The work premiered in 1912, less than a year before the company scandalously unveiled Igor Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps. The scenario is based on a Greek pastoral drama by the second-century author Longus, and concerns the goatherd Daphnis and his beloved shepherdess Chloé. Although Ravel later extracted two popular orchestral suites for concert performance, the music for the whole ballet is so carefully structured that Daphnis is best heard in its entirety, as presented today, including an evocative wordless chorus.
Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 also shares a Paris connection in that it premiered there in 1923, soon after the composer settled in the city. The work, however, dates back more than six years earlier to Prokofiev’s native Russia. The concerto was one of the last pieces he wrote there before leaving in the wake of the 1917 October Revolution. While some Parisian critics, having already grown accustomed to more modernist shocks, found the piece too tame, its lyrical beauty and brilliant middle-movement scherzo have justly captivated audiences from the start.
Ravel composed the ballet Daphnis et Chloé for Sergei Diaghilev and his fabled Ballets Russes. The work premiered in 1912, less than a year before the company scandalously unveiled Igor Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps. The scenario is based on a Greek pastoral drama by the second-century author Longus, and concerns the goatherd Daphnis and his beloved shepherdess Chloé. Although Ravel later extracted two popular orchestral suites for concert performance, the music for the whole ballet is so carefully structured that Daphnis is best heard in its entirety, as presented today, including an evocative wordless chorus.
Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 also shares a Paris connection in that it premiered there in 1923, soon after the composer settled in the city. The work, however, dates back more than six years earlier to Prokofiev’s native Russia. The concerto was one of the last pieces he wrote there before leaving in the wake of the 1917 October Revolution. While some Parisian critics, having already grown accustomed to more modernist shocks, found the piece too tame, its lyrical beauty and brilliant middle-movement scherzo have justly captivated audiences from the start.