David Zinman and Richard Goode Return to the NY Phil, 12/5
By: Christina Mancuso Oct. 31, 2013
David Zinman will return to the New York Philharmonic to lead Thomas Adès's Three Studies from Couperin, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 18 with Richard Goode as soloist, and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, Scottish, Thursday, December 5, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, December 6 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, December 7 at 8:00 p.m. Richard Goode's Grammy-nominated recording of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 18 was selected as Stereo Review's Record of the Year and Gramophone magazine's Record of the Month, and
The New York Times praised it as "eloquently phrased, elegantly articulated."
The New York Philharmonic commissioned and premierEd Thomas Adès's America (A
Prophecy) in November 1999 as one of the "Messages for the Millennium," led by Kurt Masur.
In January 2011 Mr. Adès made his Philharmonic debut as soloist in his work In Seven Days
(Concerto for Piano with Moving Image), led by Music Director Alan Gilbert, which The New
York Times praised as "riveting, restless and kaleidoscopically colorful." In 2012 Alan Gilbert
conducted Mr. Adès's Polaris, a Philharmonic co-commission, in its New York Premiere and
U.K. Premiere during the Philharmonic's Barbican Centre residency as part of the EUROPE /
WINTER 2012 tour.
Thomas Adès's Three Studies from Couperin is inspired by three keyboard pieces by Couperin,
King Louis XIV's organist, harpsichordist, and court composer. It is believed that Mozart may
have composed his Piano Concerto No. 18 for Maria Theresia von Paradis - the daughter of
Empress Maria Theresa's Court Councilor and Imperial Secretary of Commerce - and Mozart's
father reported in a letter that after he performed it "the emperor tipped his hat and called out
'Bravo Mozart!'" Mendelssohn dedicated his Scottish Symphony to Queen Victoria, and it
evokes Mendelssohn's reaction upon seeing the ruins of Mary Queen of Scots' residence at
Holyrood Castle.
Related Events
? Pre-Concert Talks
Composer Paul Moravec will introduce the program. Pre-Concert Talks are $7; discounts
available for multiple talks, students, and groups. They take place one hour before each
performance in the Helen Hull Room, unless otherwise noted. The December 5 Pre-Concert
Talk takes place at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Attendance is limited to 90 people.
Information: nyphil.org/preconcert or (212) 875-5656.
? National and International Radio Broadcast
The program will be broadcast a later date* on The New York Philharmonic This Week, a
radio concert series syndicated weekly to more than 300 stations nationally, and to 122
outlets internationally, by the WFMT Radio Network.
The 52-week series, hosted by actor Alec Baldwin, is generously underwritten by The
Kaplen Brothers Fund, the Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for
the Arts, and the Philharmonic's corporate partner, MetLife Foundation. The broadcast will
be available on the Philharmonic's Website, nyphil.org. The program is broadcast locally in
the New York metropolitan area on 105.9 FM WQXR on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m.
*Check local listings for broadcast and program information.
Artists
Conductor David Zinman's 2013-14 season is his final as music director of Zurich's Tonhalle
Orchestra. A highlight of his final season with the Tonhalle Orchestra is a tour to Japan in the
spring of 2014, following his return to Tokyo's NHK Symphony Orchestra last season. Also this
season Mr. Zinman returns to the Vienna, Bavarian Radio, and Hamburg's NDR symphony
orchestras; the Royal Stockholm and London Philharmonic Orchestras; and the Orchestre National
de France and Orchestre de Paris. He returns to the Mostly Mozart Festival with Joshua Bell and
appears with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. Mr. Zinman has conducted all the
leading North American orchestras, including the Chicago and Boston Symphony Orchestras and
The Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras. His European engagements have included the Berlin
and Munich Philharmonic orchestras; Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig's Gewandhaus,
and Philharmonia orchestras; and the London, Frankfurt Radio, and Cologne's WDR symphony
orchestras. Mr. Zinman's discography of more than 100 recordings has won international honors,
including five Grammy awards, two Grand Prix du Disque, two Edison Prizes, the Deutsche
Schallplattenpreis, and a Gramophone Award. Mr. Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra have most
recently released a recording titled Wagner in Switzerland, and have collaborated with violinist
Julia Fisher and Decca Classics for Bruch and Dvo?ák's violin concertos. Recently completed
cycles with the Tonhalle Orchestra include Schubert, Brahms, and Mahler (the recording of
Mahler's Symphony No. 8 received a 2011 ECHO Klassik Award), as well as a Beethoven cycle
that has sold more than one million copies. David Zinman, who studied conducting with Pierre
Monteux, has served as music director of the Rotterdam and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras and
principal conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. He was also music director of the
Aspen Music Festival and School and American Academy of Conducting for 13 years. In 2000 Mr.
Zinman was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2002 he was first
conductor and non-Swiss recipient of the City of Zurich Art Prize. He received the Thomas
Theodore award in recognition of outstanding achievement and extraordinary service to one's
colleagues in advancing the art and science of conducting. In 2008 he won the Midem Classical
Artist of the Year award for his work with the Tonhalle Orchestra. Mr. Zinman's first appearance
with the New York Philharmonic was leading the 1973 Neighborhood Concerts Orchestra during
its citywide festival; most recently, he presided over The Modern Beethoven: A Philharmonic
Festival in March 2012, and conducted a program of Sibelius and Schumann in December 2012.
In the 2013-14 season Richard Goode will appear as soloist with the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, Berlin's German Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and
tours Canada with the Toronto Symphony led by Peter Oundjian. He will give recitals at
Carnegie Hall, in London and Paris, at the Aldeburgh Festival, and on leading concert and
university series around the world. Additionally he will perform a chamber music concert with
members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and hold master classes at major conservatories and
music schools on both sides of the ocean. An exclusive Nonesuch artist, Mr. Goode has made
more than two-dozen recordings, including the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas, the complete
Partitas by J.S. Bach, and solo and chamber works by Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin,
Busoni, and George Perle. His four recordings of Mozart piano concertos with the Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra were received with wide critical acclaim, (including many Best of the Year
nominations and awards), and his recording of the Brahms sonatas with clarinetist Richard
Stoltzman won a Grammy Award. He has won numerous prizes, including the Young Concert
Artists Award, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition, and the Avery Fisher Prize. Mr.
Goode is married to the violinist Marcia Weinfeld, with whom he often tours. Mr. Goode's first
appearance with the Philharmonic was in 1974, when he played Ruth Crawford Seeger's Piano
Study in Mixed Accents: Four Preludes, in a program led by Pierre Boulez co-presented with
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; most recently he performed Beethoven's Piano
Concerto No. 4 with Colin Davis in 2008.
Repertoire
Composer Thomas Adès has said about his Three Studies from Couperin, "My ideal day would
be staying at home and playing the harpsichord works of Couperin - new inspiration on every
page." He would certainly have plenty of material to choose from. Organist, harpsichordist, and
court composer for Louis XIV, François Couperin (1668-1733) was already dubbed "Couperin
le Grand" in his own day. He is admired for Pièces de clavecin, a vast compendium of
harpsichord studies (published in 1713, 1717, 1722, and 1730) that includes more than 230
ornate works with unusual and imaginative titles, like the ones Mr. Adès draws upon in his
Studies. He has transformed these chosen pieces for chamber orchestra (two string groups,
winds, brass, and percussion), and retains Couperin's original titles and basic outlines of the
material: "Les Amusemens" ("The Amusements"), "Les Tours de passe-passe" ("The Sleight of
Hand"), and "L'Âme-en-peine" ("The soul in torment"). This is the Philharmonic's first
performance of this work.
Although the autograph copy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 18 bears
no date, Mozart entered it into his thematic catalogue with the date of September 30, 1784 (he
wrote five piano concertos during that year, the height of his popularity when he was in demand
as a pianist and composer). For a time it was believed that he wrote this particular concerto for
the blind virtuoso pianist Maria Theresia Paradies, but scholarship is divided on this point. What
is certain, however, is that this concerto is one of Mozart's finest, with its elegant restraint, a
melancholy theme-and-variations second movement, and a brisk, lively finale. The Philharmonic
has only presented this work twice before: in 1970 with pianist Claude Frank and conducted by
George Szell, and in 2005, performed and conducted by Christian Zacharias.
Completed in 1842, Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, Scottish, was inspired by a walking
tour of Scotland in 1829. The composer led his Gewandhaus Orchestra, over which he presided,
in the Leipzig premiere, and later, when he conducted it in London, Queen Victoria graciously
allowed him to dedicate it to her (following extended informal gathering at which Her Royal
Highness, Prince Albert, and Mendelssohn sang and played piano together). The work's
nickname was not officially part of its title, but Mendelssohn always referred to it as his Scottish
Symphony; his stated antipathy to music drawn directly from folk sources led him to reveal that
it was based, instead, on visual cues, like the country's ruins and moors, and especially Holyrood
Castle, Mary Queen of Scots' residence, and the chapel where she was crowned and which lay
"in ruins, decayed, and open to the skies. I believe I found there today the beginning of my
'Scottish.'" (His protestations notwithstanding, many commentators do hear strains of Scottish
folk music). The New York Philharmonic has presented this symphony on numerous occasions:
the first was in November 1845, in a concert at the Apollo Rooms led by George Loder; the most
recent was in January 2004, conducted by Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur.
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