Esa-Pekka Salonen to Conduct NY Philharmonic with Pianist Jeremy Denk, 10/16-18

Esa-Pekka Salonen will return to the New York Philharmonic to conduct Beethoven's King Stephen Overture; Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, with pianist Jeremy Denk in his Philharmonic debut; and Stravinsky's The Firebird (complete), Thursday, October 16, 2014, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, October 17 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, October 18 at 8:00 p.m.

Jeremy Denk - recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 as well as the 2014 Avery Fisher Prize and named Musical America's 2014 Instrumentalist of the Year - is also known for his insightful writing on music, which has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and on Think Denk, his own acclaimed website. Among the subjects about which he has written is Beethoven, whose Piano Concerto No. 1 he is performing in these concerts, noting in the liner notes for his album Ligeti / Beethoven that in "the greatest Beethoven pieces, the structure itself becomes a message: A question is overwhelmed by its answer. By the time the answer is over, the question is more than forgotten; it has been unwoven, made inconceivable." The pianist's collaborations with Philharmonic musicians have, thus far, comprised chamber performances, in the New York Philharmonic Ensembles series in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, and also a Saturday Matinee Concert in 2007, on which he performed Beethoven's Archduke Trio. Mr. Denk is making his first appearance with the Orchestra in these performances.

Esa-Pekka Salonen is equally renowned as a composer, and his music will be featured later this season when Music Director Alan Gilbert leads the Philharmonic in Mr. Salonen's Nyx, March 19-20 and 24, 2015, in concerts that mark the first time that a conductor other than Mr. Salonen will lead one of his works with the Philharmonic. Alan Gilbert and the Orchestra will subsequently perform the U.K. Premiere of Nyx during the EUROPE / SPRING 2015 tour. Mr. Salonen has conducted the Philharmonic in 27 previous performances, including in the March 10-26, 2011, Hungarian Echoes: A Philharmonic Festival.

Related Events

- Pre-Concert Insights
Writer, music historian, and former Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic Harvey Sachs will introduce the program. Admission/Tickets to Pre-Concert Insights are $7; discounts are available for multiple talks, students, and groups. These events take place one hour before performances, and are held in the Helen Hull Room, unless otherwise noted. Attendance is limited to 90 people. Information: nyphil.org/preconcert or (212) 875-5656.

Artists

Esa-Pekka Salonen is currently principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was music director from 1992 until 2009. In the 2014-15 season he becomes the first-ever creative chair at Zurich's Tonhalle Orchestra, which has commissioned a new piece for orchestra and chorus from him, and which will perform nine of his other works during the season. During the 2014-15 season, Mr. Salonen will make guest conducting appearances with the Bavarian Radio, Finnish Radio, and Chicago symphony orchestras; Los Angeles and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic orchestras; and Orchestre de Paris and Philharmonia Orchestra, among others. Throughout their relationship, Mr. Salonen and London's Philharmonia Orchestra have curated landmark multidisciplinary projects, such as the award-winning RE-RITE and UNIVERSE OF SOUND installations, which allow members of the public to conduct, play, and step inside the orchestra with Mr. Salonen through audio and video projections of musicians in performance. He also drove the development of The Orchestra, a much hailed app for iPad that allows the user unprecedented access to the internal workings of eight symphonic works; last spring, he was featured in an iPad television commercial. Trained in the austere world of European modernism and also enjoying a close relationship with the sunny city of Los Angeles, Mr. Salonen composes works that move freely between contemporary idioms, combining intricacy and technical virtuosity with playful rhythmic and melodic innovations. He has written several works for symphony orchestra, including Foreign Bodies (2001), Insomnia (2002), and Wing on Wing, which received its World Premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2004. Mr. Salonen's extensive recording career includes a disc of his orchestral works performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which he also conducted; his Piano Concerto (a New York Philharmonic co-commission) and Dichotomie, both performed by Yefim Bronfman, and Helix; and the album Out of Nowhere featuring Nyx and Mr. Salonen's Violin Concerto, which won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award, performed by Leila Josefowicz and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Salonen made his New York Philharmonic debut in December 1986 leading a program of Castiglioni, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Nielsen. Most recently, in November 2013, he led a performance of Ravel, Sibelius, and his own Violin Concerto with Leila Josefowicz as soloist; in that same week, Mr. Salonen hosted An Evening with Esa-Pekka Salonen, a program of his works performed by Philharmonic musicians as part of CONTACT!, the new-music series.

Pianist Jeremy Denk is the winner of a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship. He has appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and London, and regularly gives recitals in New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, and throughout the U.S. In the 2014-15 season he starts his three-year tenure as artistic partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and makes debuts with The Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Denk is also known for his witty and personal writing; his blog, Think Denk, is widely read and enjoyed both within and outside the industry, and he has written pieces for The New Yorker, The New York Times Review of Books, Newsweek, The New Republic, and the website of NPR Music. One of his New Yorker contributions, "Every Good Boy Does Fine," will be the basis of a book he is writing for publication by Random House. Jeremy Denk served as music director of the 2014 Ojai Music Festival, where, in addition to performing and curating, he composed the libretto for a semi- satirical opera The Classical Style. His debut recording for Nonesuch Records presented music by Ligeti and Beethoven and was included on many "Best of 2012" lists, including those of The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and NPR Music; his second recording for the label - featuring Bach's Goldberg Variations - reached number one on Billboard's "Classical Albums" chart and was named one of the "Best of 2013" by The New Yorker and The New York Times.

Repertoire

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) wrote incidental music for half a dozen dramatic productions, including Kotzebue's King Stephen. In 1811 Kotzebue was commissioned by the managers of the New Theater at Pesth to prepare a trilogy based on Hungarian historical subjects for the opening of the New Theater, and Beethoven was tasked with composing the incidental music. Most of the music written for King Stephen has fallen into obscurity, but the overture has survived and has become a staple of the concert repertoire. The complete title of Beethoven's score is "King Stephen, Hungary's first benefactor, a Prologue in one act by Kotzebue, Music by Ludwig van Beethoven, written for the Opening of the New Theater in Pesth, February 9, 1812." This work was first performed by the New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today's New York Philharmonic) in February 1884, led by Leopold Damrosch; the Philharmonic most recently performed it in October 2006, conducted by Jonathan Nott.

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 was written in 1797 while the composer was living as a house guest of Prince Carl Lichnowsky. The work follows the classical model of Mozart and Haydn, but already begins to show Beethoven's personal mark. Although it bears the title "No. 1," it was not the first piano concerto that Beethoven composed; rather, it was the first to be published. It is in three movements: Allegro con brio, Largo, and a lighthearted Rondo. The New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today's New York Philharmonic) first performed the concerto in December 1918, with Walter Damrosch conducting and Alfred Cortot as soloist. Yefim Bronfman, the 2013-14 Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, most recently performed the work in June 2014 as part of The Beethoven Piano Concertos: A Philharmonic Festival and in July 2014 during the Bravo! Vail festival, conducted by Alan Gilbert.

The score that first awakened the world to a young Russian composer named Igor Stravinsky was The Firebird, music composed for a two-scene ballet for a 1910 Paris production by the Ballets Russes. Russian folklore lent the work its plot and vivid characters: the young Tsarevich Ivan, the mystical Firebird, the ogre Kashchei, and 13 imprisoned princesses (one destined to marry Ivan). In this score Stravinsky, at the tender age of 28, had already composed what would endure as one of his most popular works. Over time he would develop three concert suites from the original ballet - the first emerged in 1911; a second, from 1919, is the most widely performed; a final version dates from 1946 - and these are often how concert audiences experience the work. However, these performances present the complete ballet score. The New York Symphony (which merged in 1928 to become today's New York Philharmonic) first performed a suite from The Firebird in 1916, conducted by Walter Damrosch, and the Orchestra's first performance of the complete score was in January 1975, led by Pierre Boulez. The most recent performance of the complete score was in April 2010 during The Russian Stravinsky: A Philharmonic Festival, conducted by Valery Gergiev; the Orchestra most recently performed the Firebird Suite (1919) in June 2013, led by Lionel Bringuier.

Tickets for these performances start at $33. Tickets for Open Rehearsals are $20. Pre-Concert Insights are $7; discounts are available for multiple talks, students, and groups (visit nyphil.org/preconcert for more information). 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 Avery Fisher 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. A limited number of $16 tickets for select concerts may be available through the Internet for students within 10 days of the performance, or in person the day of. Valid identification is required. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic's Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656. [Ticket prices subject to change.]

Pictured: Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the New York Philharmonic. Photo by Chris Lee.