NY Philharmonic Presents THE MODERN BEETHOVEN, 03/1

The Modern Beethoven: A Philharmonic Festival conducted by David Zinman will take place March 1–20, 2012. The opening program will comprise Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 2 and 7, and Stravinsky's Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, with Peter Serkin as soloist, Thursday, March 1, 2012, at 7:30 p.m., Friday, March 2, at 2:00 p.m., Saturday, March 3, at 8:00 p.m., and Tuesday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m.

The three-week festival will explore Beethoven's world from a modern perspective that honors the composer's original vision, offering performances that are informed by the work of Jonathan Del Mar and others that revisit Beethoven's intentions, including original tempo markings, the use of limited vibrato, and other techniques. Mr. Zinman's approach to the Beethoven symphonies is to remove the accretions of decades of performance tradition from the symphonies in order to bring the listener as close as possible to the composer's original conception as performed by a modern orchestra. "What listeners should know is that they'll be hearing a different approach to the Beethoven symphonies," he says. "Beethoven was breaking ground in his own time, and so the playing style has to come from his own style rather than from the Romantic era.