Maurizio Pollini Joins New York Philharmonic in One-Night-Only Concert Tonight

Pianist Maurizio Pollini will return to the New York Philharmonic for the first time since 1994 to join Music Director Alan Gilbert and the Orchestra for a one-night-only performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, tonight, October 16, 2015, at 8:00 p.m. The program also includes Berlioz's Le Corsaire Overture and Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Overture-Fantasy.

"I've always felt that Maurizio Pollini is one of history's legends on the piano," said Music Director Alan Gilbert. "If I need a musical pick-up, I listen back-to-back to his recordings of Chopin's E?tudes. It is an incredible honor to be able to perform with him. How great it is for the New York Philharmonic and for our audiences that he is coming here to play this iconic masterpiece."

Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 is the work that launched Maurizio Pollini's career - he played the work when he won the 1960 International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition - and the concerto he performed in his New York Philharmonic debut in 1969. New York Post wrote of his 1969 Philharmonic debut: "Pollini showed by his nuances of sound and style that he is on the way. The audience embraced him with an ovation."

Maurizio Pollini says of Chopin: "For me, the most important thing when playing Chopin's music is to bring out the greatness of the musical expression and the composer's deep thinking, a profundity unique in the whole history of music. One could certainly say that Chopin invented modern piano playing. Perhaps one could also say that he invented the most beautiful sounds in the history of the piano."

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Music Director Alan Gilbert began his New York Philharmonic tenure in 2009, the first native New Yorker in the post. He and the Philharmonic have introduced the positions of The Marie- Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, and Artist-in-Association; CONTACT!, the new-music series; NY PHIL BIENNIAL, an exploration of today's music; and New York Philharmonic Global Academy, collaborations with partners worldwide offering training of pre-professional musicians, often alongside performance residencies. As The New Yorker wrote, "Gilbert has made an indelible mark on the orchestra's history and that of the city itself."

Alan Gilbert's 2015-16 Philharmonic highlights include R. Strauss's Ein Heldenleben to welcome Concertmaster Frank Huang; Carnegie Hall's Opening Night Gala; and five World Premieres. He co-curates and conducts in the second NY PHIL BIENNIAL and performs violin in Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. He leads the Orchestra as part of the Shanghai Orchestra Academy Residency and Partnership and appears at Santa Barbara's Music Academy of the West. Philharmonic-tenure highlights include acclaimed stagings of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, Jana?c?ek's The Cunning Little Vixen, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson (for which Mr. Gilbert is nominated for a 2015 Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction), and Honegger's Joan of Arc at the Stake starring Marion Cotillard; 24 World Premieres; The Nielsen Project, a performance and recording cycle; Verdi Requiem and Bach's B-minor Mass; the score from 2001: A Space Odyssey alongside the film; Mahler's Resurrection Symphony on the tenth anniversary of 9/11; and nine tours around the world. In August 2015 he led the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in the U.S. Stage Premiere of George Benjamin's Written on Skin, co-presented as part of the Lincoln Center-New York Philharmonic Opera Initiative.

Conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra, Alan Gilbert regularly conducts leading orchestras around the world. This season Mr. Gilbert makes debuts with four great European orchestras - Filarmonica della Scala, Dresden Staatskapelle, London Symphony, and Academy of St. Martin in the Fields - and returns to The Cleveland Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. He made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams's Doctor Atomic in 2008, the DVD of which received a Grammy Award. Rene?e Fleming's recent Decca recording Poe?mes, on which he conducted, received a 2013 Grammy Award. His recordings have received top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone magazine. Mr. Gilbert is Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, where he holds the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies. His honors include an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music (2010), Columbia University's Ditson Conductor's Award for his "exceptional commitment to the performance of works by American composers and to contemporary music" (2011), election to The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2014), and a Foreign Policy Association Medal for his commitment to cultural diplomacy (2015).

For more than 40 years pianist Maurizio Pollini has performed with the most celebrated conductors and orchestras in all the major concert halls and at festivals throughout Europe, America, and Japan. He has been awarded many international prizes, including the Vienna Philharmonic Ehrenring (1987), the Salzburg Goldenes Ehrenzeichen (1995), the Prize Imperiale in Tokyo (2010), and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award (2012). In 1995 Maurizio Pollini opened the Pierre Boulez Festival in Tokyo. In the same year and in 1999 the Salzburg Festival invited him to curate and present his own series of concerts, which included works of different epochs and styles. Between 1999 and 2006, with the same philosophy, he realized new cycles that he performed at New York's Carnegie Hall and in Paris, Tokyo, Rome, and Vienna with programs including both chamber and orchestral performances. Maurizio Pollini's repertoire ranges from J.S. Bach to contemporary composers (including premiere performances of Giacomo Manzoni, Nono, and Salvatore Sciarrino) and includes Beethoven's complete piano sonatas, which he has performed in Berlin, Munich, Milan, New York, London, Vienna, and Paris. He has recorded works from the Classical, Romantic, and contemporary repertoire to worldwide critical acclaim. His recordings of Schoenberg's complete cycle for piano and of works by Berg, Webern, Manzoni, Nono, Boulez, and Stockhausen are a testament to his great passion for music of the 20th century. Mr. Pollini's recording of Chopin's Nocturnes was received with the greatest enthusiasm by audience and critics alike: he was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance, the Disco d'Oro, an ECHO Klassik Award (Germany), Choc de la Musique, Victoires de la Musique, and Diapason d'Or de l'Anne?e (France). Deutsche Grammophon has recently released the box set The Art of Maurizio Pollini, featuring Stravinsky's Petrushka, Chopin's E?tudes op. 25, and concertos by Beethoven and Mozart, and Maurizio Pollini's performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 from the 1960 International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition. Mr. Pollini made his New York Philharmonic debut in October 1969 performing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, conducted by Seiji Ozawa. He most recently joined the Orchestra in March 1994 for Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1, led by then Music Director Kurt Masur.

REPERTOIRE:

After a pattern set by Mendelssohn and Weber, Hector Berlioz (1803-69) composed his Le Corsaire Overture as a self-standing work, not attached to any opera or play. The final version of the overture as it is performed today was completed in 1844, based on sketches and earlier versions that date to as early as 1831, following a dangerous voyage on the Mediterranean during which the composer narrowly missed disaster in a gale. The title refers to the works of two authors passionately admired by the composer: Byron (author of The Corsair) and James Fennimore Cooper (author of The Red Rover) - in fact, an early version of Berlioz's title was Le Corsaire rouge (the French version of The Red Rover). Le Corsaire Overture was first performed by the New York Philharmonic in November 1887, when Walter Damrosch led the New York Symphony (which later merged with the New York Philharmonic to form today's New York Philharmonic), and most recently in July 2015 at the Philharmonic's Bravo! Vail summer residency, conducted by Bramwell Tovey.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-93) composed Romeo and Juliet, Overture-Fantasy as a "fantasy-overture after Shakespeare." The work received its World Premiere in 1870 at Moscow's Musical Society, led by Nicholas Rubinstein. Tchaikovsky had completed the work in 1869, at age 29, and it would become only the fourth of his published orchestral scores. Following the premiere he revised the work twice, enhancing the intense drama of the music and adding depth to his evocation of Shakespeare's young lovers mired in the escalating hatred of the Montagues and Capulets. The New York Philharmonic performed the work's U.S. Premiere in April 1876, led by George Matzka. It most recently presented the work in July 2014 as part of the Concerts in the Parks and at Bravo! Vail, led by Music Director Alan Gilbert.

Before emigrating to Paris in 1831, Fre?de?ric Chopin (1810-49), a noted piano virtuoso himself, had already composed some six works for that instrument and orchestra, including the Piano Concerto No. 1. This work - written and premiered in 1830 in the composer's native city of Warsaw - reflects the composer's obsession with 19th-century Italian opera, the ornamentation of which he adapted and personalized in his piano works. The New York Philharmonic first performed the concerto in November 1846, with pianist Henry C. Timm and conducted by George Loder. The Philharmonic most recently performed it in January 2011 with pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, led by Music Director Alan Gilbert.

Single tickets for this performance start at $45. Tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday; and noon to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. Tickets may also be purchased at the David Geffen Hall Box Office. The Box Office opens at 10:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and at noon on Sunday. On performance evenings, the Box Office closes one-half hour after performance time; other evenings it closes at 6:00 p.m. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic's Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656. (Ticket prices subject to change.)

Pictured: Maurizio Pollini. Photo by Mathias Bothor/DG.