(COVER)

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Alan Gilbert, Conductor

Recorded live January 9–11, 2014Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)

Fidelio Overture, Op. 72 (1814) 6:41

BEETHOVEN (b. 1949)

Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21 (1799–1800) 24:03

I. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio 9:10

II. Andante cantabile con moto 5:56

III. Menuetto (Allegro molto e vivace) 3:27

IV. Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace 5:40

GERSHWIN (1898–1937)

An American in Paris (1928) 18:54

NEWYORKPHILHARMONIC NEWYORKPHILHARMONIC

“Over our five years together, the New York Philharmonic musicians and I have developed a fundamental mutual trust that lets us take risks: this is what makes always-fresh music-making possible. Our concerts are made even more vibrant because of the musicians’ positive and generous musical spirit, not to mention their unbelievably high level of play-ing.” That is what Alan Gilbert said in the middle of the Orchestra’s 2013–14 season. This energy is being combined with the Music Director’s quintessential programs, which explore the widest range of repertoire and combine works in illuminating ways, to create concerts of excitement and beauty.

These performances are now avail- able for download, thanks to Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2013–14 season, so that listeners can share in the close connection between the musicians and their audiences inAvery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center

thanks to high-quality, live recordings of more than 30 works. From the Ba- roque grandeur of Handel to the latest sounds by Anthony Cheung; from the eloquence of Mozart to the powerof Richard Strauss; from seldom-performed masterpieces by Britten to a newly created piece by Mark-Anthony Turnage; plus lots and lots of Beethoven — Alan Gilbert and the Philharmonic excel in all, and are joined by a stellar ar-ray of soloists, including Yefim Bronfman, the Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence.

These downloads include the pro-gram notes published in each perfor-mance’s Playbill, and often add to the official concert's audio recordings of Alan Gilbert’s onstage commentaries and encores played by the soloists — all in the highest possible audio quality available for download. For more information about the series, visit nyphil.org/itunes.

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These two Beethoven works hail from his years in Vienna, with his First Symphony

reflecting a young emerging symphonist’s mastery of the tradition inherited from Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn, while taking his first steps toward defining the Romantic symphony; and his Fidelio manifesting the spirit of humanism and independence that would underlie his later compositions. Both pieces are fun to play, and I have looked forward to performing them with the Philhar-monic for years.

We conclude with An American in Paris by Gershwin, truly one of the greatest American composers of the last century. This piece is infused with vibrancy and vitality, an insouci-ance coupled with a bittersweet longing, and the Philharmonic plays it with just the right combination of sophisticated swing and classical precision.

I hope you enjoy these varied masterpieces we have arranged, from such contrasting yet essential composers, and that you find each work as compelling and engaging as we do.

ALAN GILBERTONTHISPROGRAM

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New York Philharmonic

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work”; one of its principal idiosyncrasies is that it grafts together a story of heroic hu-manitarianism and an opéra comique plot. In any case, Beethoven set about revising the piece and on March 29, 1806, he intro-duced a truncated and restructured version of Leonore. This fared hardly any better, and its run was cut short by an argument between the composer and the theater’s

NOTESONTHEPROGRAMBy James M. Keller, Program Annotator

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Bethoven seemed perpetually stymied when it came to opera. At different times he toyed with writing operas based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the medieval-fairy tale Melusine, a drama about ancient Rome titled Vestas Feuer, and legends of the deceived knight Bradamante and of the questing scholar Faust. The one opera he did manage to carry through to completion — and another completion, and yet another af-ter that — was the work he unveiled in 1805 as Leonore and transformed by fits and starts into what is known today as Fidelio.

In the years immediately following the French Revolution theatrical plots involving-political oppression, daring rescues, and the triumph of humanitarianism gained popular-ity in Europe. The plot of Leonore/Fidelio fit the bill perfectly. It involves a marriage rendered rocky not by spousal squabbling, but rather by the imposition of ominous political forces from the outside. Flores-tan has been unjustly imprisoned by Don Pizarro (a nobleman in 18th-century Spain), but his devoted wife, Leonore, manages to get a job in the prison disguised as a boy, calling herself Fidelio. Don Pizarro decides to execute Florestan before the imminent arrival of the Prime Minister and his virtu-ous prison inspection team, but “Fidelio” intercedes and holds him at bay with a pistol until the good guys arrive — at which point Leonore (shedding her disguise) and

Florestan are reunited and Don Pizarro’s goose is cooked.

Leonore was not well received at its 1805 premiere and its run ended after three performances. The work’s failure has often been attributed to the fact that Vienna was being invaded by Napoleonic forces just then, and that many of the city’s nobles and other opera-going types were busy getting themselves out of town. The Beethoven biographer Lewis Lockwood has protested that “in fact, the audience at the first performance was well stocked with French army officers, but it may be that the opera was over the heads of many listeners accustomed to lighter stage works.” Actu-ally, Leonore was in part a “lighter stage

In Short

Born: Probably on December 16, 1770 (he wasbaptized on the 17th), in Bonn, Germany

Died: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria

Work composed and premiered: FidelioOverture composed May 1814, for the secondrevision of the opera Leonore, which was thenrecast as Fidelio; premiered May 26, 1814, atthe Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, three days afterthe opera’s premiere. Symphony No. 1 composed1799–early 1800, dedicated to BaronGottfried van Swieten, Viennese Court Librarian;premiered April 2, 1800, at the Hofburgtheaterin Vienna

New York Philharmonic premieres: Fidelio Overture premiered November 19, 1859, Carl Bergmann, conductor. Symphony No. 1 premiered March 4, 1854, Theodore Eisfeld, conductor.

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Fidelio Overture, Op. 72 Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21

management. When plans surfaced to revive the work in 1814, Beethoven ef-fected still further alterations and renamed the opera Fidelio. Finally the opera was a hit, and it is in that final form that we almost always find it produced today.

Each of these versions sported a differ-ent overture. (Beethoven even composed another overture, known today as the

A Deadline Not Met

Georg Friedrich Treitschke, the Kärntnertortheater stage manager who had a hand in rework-ing the libretto for the 1814 version of Fidelio, related that several nights before the premiere Beethoven suddenly started scribbling some musical sketches on the back of a dinner menu at the Römischer Kaiser restaurant, commenting, “I have the idea for my Overture.” Ideas are one thing, completed works another; in this case, the former failed to grow into the latter by opening night and the overture Beethoven had penned several years earlier as incidental music for the play The Ruins of Athens was pressed into service instead. Beethoven later admitted, “The people applauded, but I stood ashamed; it did not belong to the rest.” Only at the second performance, three nights later, did the new Fidelio Overture get its first hearing.

Leonore, disguised as Fidelio, fends off Don Pizarro in Act III of Fidelio, as performed by the Théâtre-Lyrique in 1860

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NOTESONTHEPROGRAM(continued)

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Leonore Overture No. 1, for a performance that was planned for Prague in 1807 but ended up not taking place.) The so-called Fidelio Overture was crafted specifically to introduce the 1814 version of the op-era, and it was greeted with applause so enthusiastic that the composer was called upon to take two bows before the ac-tion of the opera proper could begin. Taut, tense, and dramatic, it serves as a splendid introduction to the opera, more appropriate in that context than the longer, weightier, and better-known Leonore Overture No. 3, which threatened to overwhelm the ensuing action when it opened the opera back in 1806. Where the earlier Leonore Overtures had been cast in the key of C major, cor-responding to the more momentous and heroic sections of the opera’s action, the Fidelio Overture is set in sunnier E major, which relates instead to the opera’s light-hearted secondary plot. And, unlike the Le-onore Overtures, the Fidelio Overture does not try to condense the complete story line, and allusions to the opera’s later music are minimal. Nonetheless, its music foretells the opera’s spirit with power and elegance, from the orchestra’s opening fanfare, through sections of elegiac poignancy, to a blazing conclusion.

When Beethoven left his native Bonn in 1792 to seek his fortune as a pianist and composer in the cultural capital of Vienna, he was enter-ing a world dominated by the spirit of the late lamented Mozart and the still-living, universally revered Haydn. “By untiring work you will receive the spirit of Mozart from the hands of

Haydn,” Count Ferdinand von Waldstein (the future dedicatee of Beethoven’s C-major Piano Sonata, Op. 53) had written in the composer’s autograph book shortly before the aspiring composer packed his bags for Vienna. Shortly after he arrived there, he did indeed seek out Haydn for lessons; although that turned into a not very fruitful experience, it didn’t hurt Beethoven to begin his career through an at-tachment to the eminent composer.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 is clearly an-chored in tradition, yet, as in the case of his first string quartets and concertos, it already strains in new directions. A century later, Gustav Mahler described this work as “Haydn raised to the highest degree of perfection,” adding,

And that was Beethoven’s good fortune! For pre-

cisely this fact gave him access to his contempo-

raries. They could find a link with what they already

understood — whereas he himself, the later, totally

individual Beethoven, would probably have seemed

to them completely incomprehensible — in fact,

quite mad.

Hector Berlioz, however, sensed that Beethoven’s point of departure in this symphony was not Haydn: “The composer evidently remained in the course of writing it under the influence of Mozart’s ideas, which he sometimes enlarges, and everywhere imitates with ingenuity.”

Succinct themes capable of extensive development; endlessly imaginative melodic manipulation; startling dynamic contrasts; complete, if sometimes radical, formal mastery: these are all glimpsed at least in embryonic form in Beethoven’s First Symphony. On the

other hand, we find here a young Beethoven eager to court favor in the musical establish-ment of a Vienna that prided itself on consum-mate musical achievement. As Mahler pointed out, Beethoven would logically reach his goal by demonstrating expertise within recognizable boundaries rather than by coming across as a complete radical. Arguably the most radical composer in history, Beethoven sat squarely on the shoulders of his predecessors as he launched his magnificent succession of symphonies.

This symphony was warmly received at its premiere, as the capstone of a concert that also included an unidentified Mozart symphony, an aria and a duet from Haydn’s Creation, a piano concerto by and featuring Beethoven (his C-major, apparently), along with his Septet and a piano improvisation by him. The critic for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung found that the symphony displayed “considerable art, novelty, and a wealth of ideas,” though he felt the composer made too much use of the or-chestra’s wind section. Concerns were quickly swept aside, and before long critics were singling out the work’s orchestration — and particularly its telling use of wind instruments — for special praise.

Instrumentation: The Fidelio Overture calls for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, and strings. Symphony No. 1 employs two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, tim-pani, and strings.

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NOTESONTHEPROGRAM(continued)

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An American in Paris

George Gershwin

In the spring of 1928 George Gershwin took his fifth trip to Europe — along with

his sister, Frances; his brother, Ira; and Ira’s wife, Leonore — and it was there that he worked on his tone poem An Ameri-can in Paris. Gershwin, therefore, was an actual American in Paris for part of the time that he labored over the piece, and Ira reported that the entire “blues” section was composed in the Hotel Majestic in that city. Other parts, however, were written in New York City (where he had sketched a good deal of the piece before he set sail), in Vienna, and (after his return from abroad) at a farm in Connecticut; all of the orchestration was carried out in the United States.

Gershwin’s career was going swim-mingly, and if he had cared to he could have sat back and basked in the knowl-edge that he had two shows running concurrently on Broadway — Funny Face and Rosalie — and another, Oh, Kay, packing in crowds in London. But he was often driven by a desire to be more than “just” a composer of musical comedies, and much of his time in Europe was given over to seeking out advice and coaching from esteemed composers of concert music. One of the composers Gershwin most admired was Maurice Ravel, whom he had met during a trip the latter made to New York in January

1928. During his visit Ravel had marveled at hearing Gershwin improvise at the piano and enjoyed a grand time attending a performance of Funny Face. Gershwin had asked Ravel if he might study with him, but the French composer politely declined, insisting that Gershwin’s talent was already perfectly formed and that he would have nothing to contribute. But since Gershwin was so obviously sincere in his desire to pursue more “classical” instruction, Ravel wrote a letter of introduction that Gershwin should present to the esteemed teacher Nadia Boulanger, should he find himself in France. This Gershwin did, but she reiter-ated Ravel’s opinion and firmly refused to risk suffocating the American’s originality through the imposition of academic rigor. Despite his efforts, Gershwin was left to his own devices, forced to clear his own path toward a distinctive fusion of popular and classical styles on the concert stage.

An American in Paris was written in re-sponse to a commission from the conduc-tor Walter Damrosch. He had previously commissioned Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, in 1925 (at about the time Gershwin’s

In Short

Born: September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn,New York

Died: July 11, 1937, in Hollywood, California

Work composed: 1928

World premiere: December 13, 1928, atCarnegie Hall, by the New York Philharmonic,Walter Damrosch, conductor

In the Composer's Words

Gershwin provided insight into his tone poem An American in Paris in an interview for the magazine Musical America, four months before the work’s premiere:

This new piece, really a rhapsodic ballet, is written very freely and is the most modern music I’ve yet attempted. … The opening part will be devel-oped in typical French style, in the manner of Debussy and the Six, though the themes are all original. My purpose here is to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the vari-ous street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere.

As in my other orchestral compositions, I’ve not endeavored to present any definite scenes in this music. … The rhapsody is programmatic only in a general impressionistic way, so that the individual listener can read into the music such episodes as his imagination pictures for him. …

The opening gay section … is followed by a rich “blues” with a strong rhythmic undercurrent. Our American friend, perhaps after strolling into a café, and having a few drinks, has sud-denly succumbed to a spasm of homesickness. The harmony here is both more intense and simple than in the preceding pages. This “blues” rises to a climax followed by a coda in which the spirit of the music returns to the vivacity and bubbling exuberance of the opening part with its impres-sions of Paris. Apparently the homesick American, having left the café and reached the open air, has downed his spell of the blues and once again is an alert spectator of Parisian life. At the conclusion, the street noises and French atmo-sphere are triumphant.

George Gershwin with conductor Walter Damrosch, who com-missioned An American in Paris for the New York Philharmonic

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NOTESONTHEPROGRAM(continued)

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From the outset Gershwin spoke of An American in Paris as a ballet, although it would become far more famous as an orchestral tone poem. Nonetheless, it has been choreographed on several occasions, beginning with a consider-ably abridged setting that Albertina Rasch prepared for Gershwin’s musical Show Girl (1929). In 1936 Ruth Page created a two-person ballet, titled (in the plural) Americans in Paris, which she could dance with Paul Draper, and in 1950 she revised it into Les Américains à Paris and danced it with Bent-ley Stone. Vincente Minnelli’s 1951 MGM film An American in Paris featured choreography by Gene Kelly (appearing with Leslie Caron), although the title number was greatly rewritten by the film’s co-music director, Johnny Green, and re-orchestrated by Conrad Salinger. In 2005 New York City Ballet unveiled a new interpretation of An American in Paris, using the complete or-chestral score, with Christopher Wheeldon’s choreography featuring Damian Woetzel and Jenifer Ringer. Wheeldon is working on a musical version of the work scheduled to premiere in Paris in 2014.

At the Ballet

Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron in the final ballet sequence from the 1951 film An American in Paris

picture appeared on the cover of the fledg-ling Time magazine), and soon after that he broached the idea of a second commission. Although Gershwin began work on it before he left home, the experience of being in Paris proved highly stimulating. The com-poser and pianist Mario Braggiotti, who was studying at the Paris Conservatoire, went to visit Gershwin at the Hotel Majestic, arriving unannounced. Braggiotti reported:

Attired in a dressing gown, Gershwin gaily ush-

ered me inside with that vague and stunned

manner of one who was holding tightly to the

thread of a creative mood. Beside his Steinway

was a group of bridge tables covered with all

sizes and makes of French taxi horns … “I’m

looking for the right horn pitch for the street

scene of a ballet I’m writing. Calling it An

American in Paris. Lots of fun.”

Audiences agreed that it was lots of fun, and the Brooklyn Eagle reported of the premiere that the listeners responded “with a demonstration of enthusiasm impressively genuine in contrast to the conventional applause which new music, good and bad, ordinarily arouses.” At a post-concert recep-tion a group of Gershwin’s friends pre-sented him with a good-sized silver humidor on which their signatures had been incised. Among the signatories were Walter Dam-rosch, Irving Berlin, Edsel Ford, Otto Kahn, Jascha Heifetz, Gertrude Lawrence, Lady Edwina Mountbatten, Condé Nast, Cole Porter, Francis Poulenc, Richard Rodgers, and Paul Whiteman. Those were the days!

Instrumentation: three flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, three saxophones (alto, tenor, and baritone), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, snare drum, bass drum, triangle, orchestra bells, xylophone, small and large tom-toms, four French taxihorns, celesta, and strings. The work is played here in the slightly revised orchestration made after Gersh-win’s death by Frank Campbell-Watson (1898—1980); it somewhat subdues Gershwin’s saxophone parts, entirely elimi-nating a passage in which the composer had indicated that all three players should double on soprano saxophones.

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CLARINETS

Stephen Williamson Principal The Edna and W. Van Alan Clark Chair

Mark Nuccio* The Honey M. Kurtz Family Chair

Pascual Martínez FortezaAmy Zoloto++

E-FLAT CLARINET

Mark Nuccio

BASS CLARINET

Amy Zoloto++

BASSOONS

Judith LeClair Principal The Pels Family Chair

Kim Laskowski*Roger Nye The Rosalind Miranda Chair in Memory of Shirley and Bill Cohen

Arlen Fast

CONTRABASSOONArlen Fast

HORNS

Philip Myers Principal The Ruth F. and Alan J. Broder Chair

Leelanee Sterrett**R. Allen Spanjer The Rosalind Miranda Chair

Howard WallMichael Gast ++* Acting Associate Principal

Audrey Flores ++

TRUMPETSPhilip Smith Principal The Paula Levin Chair

Matthew Muckey*Ethan BensdorfThomas V. Smith

TROMBONES

Joseph Alessi Principal The Gurnee F. and Marjorie L. Hart

Chair

David Finlayson The Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen

Chair

BASS TROMBONE

George Curran The Daria L. and William C. Foster Chair

TUBA

Alan Baer Principal

TIMPANI

Markus Rhoten Principal The Carlos Moseley Chair

Kyle Zerna**

PERCUSSION

Christopher S. Lamb Principal The Constance R. Hoguet Friends of

the Philharmonic Chair

Daniel Druckman* The Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Ulrich Chair

Kyle Zerna

HARP

Nancy Allen Principal The Mr. and Mrs. William T. Knight III

Chair

KEYBOARDIn Memory of Paul Jacobs

HARPSICHORD

Paolo Bordignon

PIANO

Eric Huebner

ORGAN

Kent Tritle

LIBRARIANS

Lawrence Tarlow Principal

Sandra Pearson**Sara Griffin**

ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL MANAGER

Carl R. Schiebler

STAGE REPRESENTATIVE

Joseph Faretta

AUDIO DIRECTOR

Lawrence Rock

* Associate Principal ** Assistant Principal + On Leave ++ Replacement/Extra

The New York Philharmonic uses the revolving seating method for section string players who are listed alphabetically in the roster.

HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY

Emanuel Ax Pierre BoulezStanley DruckerLorin Maazel Zubin Mehta

ALAN GILBERTMusic Director

Case ScaglioneJoshua WeilersteinAssistant Conductors

Leonard BernsteinLaureate Conductor, 1943–1990

Kurt MasurMusic Director Emeritus

VIOLINSGlenn Dicterow Concertmaster The Charles E. Culpeper Chair

Sheryl Staples Principal Associate Concertmaster The Elizabeth G. Beinecke Chair

Michelle Kim Assistant Concertmaster The William Petschek Family Chair

Carol WebbYoko Takebe

Quan Ge The Gary W. Parr Chair

Hae-Young Ham The Mr. and Mrs. Timothy M. George

Chair

Lisa GiHae KimKuan Cheng LuNewton Mansfield The Edward and Priscilla Pilcher Chair

Kerry McDermottAnna RabinovaCharles Rex The Shirley Bacot Shamel Chair

Fiona SimonSharon YamadaElizabeth Zeltser The William and Elfriede Ulrich Chair

Yulia Ziskel The Friends and Patrons Chair

Marc Ginsberg Principal

Lisa Kim* In Memory of Laura Mitchell

Soohyun Kwon The Joan and Joel I. Picket Chair

Duoming Ba

Marilyn Dubow The Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr. Chair

Martin EshelmanJudith GinsbergHyunju LeeJoo Young OhDaniel ReedMark SchmoocklerNa SunVladimir TsypinShanshan Yao

VIOLAS

Cynthia Phelps Principal The Mr. and Mrs. Frederick P. Rose

Chair

Rebecca Young* The Joan and Joel Smilow Chair

Irene Breslaw** The Norma and Lloyd Chazen Chair

Dorian Rence

Katherine Greene The Mr. and Mrs. William J. McDonough

Chair

Dawn HannayVivek KamathPeter KenoteKenneth MirkinJudith NelsonRémi PelletierRobert Rinehart The Mr. and Mrs. G. Chris Andersen

Chair

CELLOS

Carter Brey Principal The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels

Chair

Eileen Moon* The Paul and Diane Guenther Chair

Eric BartlettMaria Kitsopoulos

Elizabeth Dyson The Mr. and Mrs. James E. Buckman

Chair

Alexei Yupanqui GonzalesPatrick JeeSumire Kudo

Qiang TuNathan VickeryRu-Pei Yeh The Credit Suisse Chair in honor of Paul Calello

Wei Yu

BASSES

Fora Baltacigil Principal The Redfield D. Beckwith Chair

Satoshi Okamoto* Acting Associate Principal The Herbert M. Citrin Chair

Orin O'Brien

William Blossom The Ludmila S. and Carl B. Hess Chair

Randall ButlerDavid J. GrossmanBlake HinsonMax ZeugnerRex Surany++

FLUTES

Robert Langevin Principal The Lila Acheson Wallace Chair

Sandra Church*Yoobin SonMindy Kaufman

PICCOLOMindy Kaufman

OBOES

Liang Wang Principal The Alice Tully Chair

Sherry Sylar*Robert Botti The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Chair

Keisuke Ikuma++

ENGLISH HORN

Keisuke Ikuma++

NEWYORKPHILHARMONIC

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Christopher Rouse, and compos-ers featured on CONTACT!; Mahler’s Second Symphony, Resurrection, on A Concert for New York on September 10; Mr. Gilbert’s Philharmonic debut as violin soloist in J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins; five concerts at Carnegie Hall; five tours to Europe; and the Asia Horizons tour.

In September 2011 Alan Gilbert became Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, where he is the first to hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical Stud-ies. Conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra, he regu-larly conducts leading ensembles such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra,

Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Or-chestra, and Berlin Philharmonic.

Alan Gilbert’s acclaimed 2008 Met-ropolitan Opera debut, leading John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, received a 2011 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. Renée Fleming’s recent Decca recording Poèmes, on which he conducted, received a 2013 Grammy Award. He studied at Har-vard University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and Juilliard and was assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orches-tra (1995–97). His accolades include an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Curtis and Columbia University’s Ditson Conductor’s Award for his commitment to performing American and contemporary music.

THEMUSICDIRECTOR

New York Philharmonic Music Direc-tor Alan Gilbert began his tenure in September 2009. The first native New Yorker to hold the post, he has sought to make the Orchestra a point of pride for the city and country. “He is building a legacy that matters and is helping to change the template for what an Ameri-can orchestra can be,” The New York Times praised.

Mr. Gilbert and the Philharmonic have forged important artistic partner-ships — establishing The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence — and introduced CONTACT!, the new-music series; an annual, multi-week festival; and, beginning in the spring of 2014, the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, an exploration of today's music by a wide range of contemporary and modern composers.

In the 2013–14 season Alan Gilbert conducts Mozart’s three final sympho-nies; the score from 2001: A Space Od-yssey as the film was screened; the U.S. Premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Frieze coupled with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; world premieres; an all-Brit-ten program celebrating the composer’s centennial; and a staged production of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson. He also continues The Nielsen Project, the multi-year initiative to perform and record the Danish composer’s sympho-nies and concertos, the first release of which was named by The New York

Times as among the Best Classical Music Recordings of 2012. The Music Director will preside over the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour, featuring Artist-in-Residence Yefim Bronfman performing Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Composer-in-Residence Christo-pher Rouse’s Rapture, and Alan Gilbert narrating Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in Japanese at a Young People’s Concert in Tokyo.

Last season’s highlights included Bach, Ives, and Dallapiccola, and, during the EUROPE / SPRING 2013 tour, participating in the Vienna Konzer-thaus’s centennial and performing Lindberg’s Kraft and Rouse’s Prospero’s Rooms at the Volkswagen Transparent Factory. The season concluded with A Dancer’s Dream, a multidisciplinary rei-magining of Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss and Petrushka, created by Giants Are Small and starring New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns. A film of the production was screened in movie theaters in the U.S. and internationally.

High points of Mr. Gilbert’s first three Philharmonic seasons included the critically celebrated productions of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre (2010) and Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen (2011) — both cited as the top cultural events of their respective years — and Philharmonic 360 (2012), the ac-claimed spatial music program featuring Stockhausen’s Gruppen. Other high-lights include World Premieres of works by Magnus Lindberg, John Corigliano,

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and is currently represented by The New York Philharmonic This Week — syndicated nationally 52 weeks per year and available at nyphil.org. Its television presence has continued with annual appearances on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS, and in 2003 it made history as the first orchestra ever to perform live on the Grammy awards. Since 1917 the Philharmonic has made almost 2,000 recordings, and in 2004 it became the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live. The Philharmonic’s self-produced recordings continue with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2013–14 Season.

The Orchestra has built on its long-run-ning Young People’s Concerts to develop a wide range of education programs, includ-ing Very Young People’s Concerts, for pre-schoolers; School Day Concerts, with supporting curriculum for grades 3–12; the School Partnership Program, enrich-ing music education in New York City; Very Young Composers, enabling students to express themselves through original works; Learning Overtures, fostering international exchange among educators; and online resources used in homes and classrooms around the world.

Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.

Founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians led by American-born Ureli Corelli Hill, the New York Philharmonic is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world. It currently plays some 180 concerts a year, and on May 5, 2010, gave its 15,000th concert — a milestone un-matched by any other symphony orchestra.

Alan Gilbert began his tenure as Music Director in September 2009, the latest in a distinguished line of musical giants that has included Lorin Maazel (2002–09); Kurt Masur (Music Director 1991–2002; Music Director Emeritus since 2002); Zubin Meh-ta (1978–91); Pierre Boulez (1971–77); and Leonard Bernstein (appointed Music Director in 1958; given the lifetime title of Laureate Conductor in 1969).

Since its inception the Orchestra has championed the new music of its time, commissioning or premiering important works such as Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World; Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3; Gershwin’s Con-certo in F; and Copland’s Connotations, in addition to the U.S. premieres of works such as Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 and Brahms’s Symphony No. 4. This pioneering tradition has continued to the present day, with works of major contem-porary composers regularly scheduled each season. These include John Adams’s Pulitzer Prize–and Grammy Award–winning On the Transmigration of Souls; Christopher Rouse’s Prospero’s Rooms; Melinda Wag-ner’s Trombone Concerto; Wynton Marsalis’s Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3); Mag-

nus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2; and, as of the end of the 2012–13 season, 22 works in CONTACT!, the new-music series.

The roster of composers and conductors who have led the Philharmonic includes such historic figures as Theodore Thomas, Antonín Dvorák, Gustav Mahler (Music Director, 1909–11), Otto Klemperer, Rich-ard Strauss, Willem Mengelberg (Music Director, 1922–30), Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini (Music Director, 1928–36), Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Bruno Walter (Music Advisor, 1947–49), Dimitri Mitropoulos (Music Director, 1949–58), Klaus Tennstedt, George Szell (Music Advisor, 1969–70), and Erich Leinsdorf.

Long a leader in American musical life, the Philharmonic has become renowned around the globe, having appeared in 432 cities in 63 countries on five continents. In 2009 the Orchestra, led by Music Direc-tor Alan Gilbert, made its Vietnam debut. Its historic performance in Pyongyang, D.P.R.K., received the 2008 Common Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy. In 2012 the Orchestra became an Interna-tional Associate of London’s Barbican. The ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour, with appear-ances in Japan and South Korea, includes performances of music by The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence Christopher Rouse, performances by The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Ye-fim Bronfman, and Alan Gilbert’s narration of Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in Japanese.

A longtime media pioneer, the Philhar-monic began radio broadcasts in 1922

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Executive Producer: Vince Ford

Producers: Lawrence Rock and Mark Travis

Recording and Mastering Engineer: Lawrence Rock

Photos of Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: Chris Lee

Gershwin's An American in Paris courtesy Warner Bros. Music Publications, Inc.

Major funding for this recording is provided to the New York Philharmonic by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser.

Classical 105.9 FM WQXR is the Radio Home of the New York Philharmonic.

Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural

Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New

York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York

State Legislature.

Instruments made possible, in part, by The Richard S. and Karen LeFrak Endowment Fund.

Steinway is the Official Piano of the New York Philharmonic and Avery Fisher Hall.

Exclusive Timepiece of the New York Philharmonic

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Performed, produced, and distributed by the New York Philharmonic© 2014 New York Philharmonic

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