Saturday, February 22, 2025
8:00 PM
Isabelle Faust and Alan Gilbert return to Symphony Hall for Stravinsky’s bracing, wry Violin Concerto. Bracketing Stravinsky’s concerto are two Joseph Haydn works from early and late in his symphonic career.
Alan Gilbert, conductor
Isabelle Faust, violin
Joseph HAYDN Symphony No. 48, Marie Therese
Igor STRAVINSKY Violin Concerto
HAYDN Symphony No. 99
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To hear a preview of the program with Alan Gilbert, use the player above, and read the transcript below.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Alan Gilbert, back for a concert with the BSO that I think is just a really interesting program and one that doesn't sort of organically fall off a tree, I feel like. So, Alan, I have to ask you, first of all, thank you for a little of your time today, but also how did this program come together?
Alan Gilbert Well, the first thing I have to say is you have to spend some time around some different trees because this is just my kind of fruit of the tree for programing purposes. I think that, it's a sweeping overstatement, undoubtedly, but I don't think orchestras play enough Haydn. It's so central to the entire tradition that followed. And it's such great music in and of itself. And he had such invention and wit and charm and cleverness, but also just sincerity in his composition. It's great, great music. And one symphony after another is a towering masterpiece. I was talking to [BSO Vice President for Artistic Planning] Tony Fogg, who is one of the main people making programs here, and when I made a program for the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra that I conducted last summer, I said I think they should play Haydn. They don't play enough Haydn either, because they almost never plan Haydn symphonies in that kind of summer school festival setting either.
I just got into this Haydn kick, and we were planning all the different programs I get to do with this amazing orchestra at the same time. And I said, "You know what? If we're going to do a Haydn symphony, why don't we do two? You know, why stop at one?" And so Tony said, "Well, okay, if you want to do it, why not?" Which I appreciate, and it's nice to have that kind of trust placed in me because it's difficult music to play. It sounds easy, but it doesn't play itself. And it's really good, I believe, for orchestras to work on the stylistic questions that inevitably come up. Of course, you can just play the pieces down and they sound okay. But you're missing so much and it's been really fun doing these rehearsals with this, you know, again, I say, incredible orchestra. And they're two of my favorite pieces, Haydn 48 and Haydn 99, two amazingly different but wonderful works.
Brian McCreath And the odd fruit that falls from the tree, if I can torture this metaphor a little bit more, is the Stravinsky Violin Concerto in between these two pieces. So, that's the part of this that is so interesting, to hear that piece in the middle of what you just mentioned, the Haydn 48th and the 99th.
Alan Gilbert Stravinsky is, of course, one of the towering compositional figures in the 20th century, and he changed his style of composition a few times. You'll hear different works from different periods in his compositional life that are wildly different. Early on, it sounds a little bit like Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov... lush, very, very romantic, Russian, kind of colorful French Impressionist influenced music. Rite of Spring, of course, came not long after that. Firebird was very much in that vein. But then he explored neoclassicism, going back to the music of Bach and Mozart, taking his examples. Dumbarton Oaks is a little bit of a take on a Brandenburg concerto, and this violin concerto is absolutely in that period, and it harkens back to Mozart and Haydn, if I may say. So, it's not as weird an oddball... It's not like a pineapple falling off an apple tree. (We can carry this to its painfully illogical conclusion.) But anyway, the point is that I actually think that these works fit very well together because they are cut from the same cloth.
The Stravinsky Violin Concerto is a very, very difficult work to play. I'm enjoying working with Isabelle Faust very much. She's a terrific musician and very, very considered and rigorous in her interpretation of the score, which is what I think this piece needs because it's very mathematically composed, but it's also utterly charming and with the kind of, what's the right word, it's not self-conscious exactly, but you know that Stravinsky is aware of the act of composition. And he's reveling in making the choices he makes. You know, you might get a work that feels as if it's just a heartfelt expression. Stravinsky often has a layer at which you are aware of the act of composition. And it's not a criticism. It's just that he plays jokes, and he makes decisions that play on tropes. And there's a bit of an emotional distance which I happen to love, and at the end of the day, it's still a very, very virtuoso, charming, expressive work. So, I like this program, strange fruit, though it may be.
Brian McCreath I noticed that in the rehearsal you were asking the orchestra for particular kinds of sounds, right? And that's part of what the whole fun and magic of a conductor and an orchestra working together is, coming up with this sound that is unique to that particular program. But for the Boston Symphony anyway, how do you get this orchestra to get the sound you want in Haydn's symphonies? Is it a matter of just saying, "I want this to be a light or sound," or whatever and they just do it, or as there a little bit more intricate process involved in that?
Alan Gilbert I would say that it operates on different levels. Basically, what conducting is, is creating a gesture that the orchestra reads visually and incorporates it into their sound. And it's uncanny how different gestures engender different sounds. So, I try to conduct Haydn and Stravinsky in ways that are appropriate for those particular composers, and I would make a different kind of sound-provoking gesture, if you will, for a Bruckner symphony or a Mahler symphony or a Brahms symphony or Beethoven symphony. But then there's a certain amount of talking that I think is useful. You know, orchestras famously don't want to be talked at. They just, you know, say, "show us and we'll do it," and a great orchestra like the BSO is extremely sensitive and responsive to the physical gesture that they see. But I do think it's good to sort of place it in context. Haydn is different from Brahms. There's a different approach to creating sound that you have to embrace, and you have to get there. And often the first rehearsal, especially if they've just come off a week playing Brahms Symphony No. 1, which is exactly what they did, there's something in your body that suits what you've been doing. And so, you have to a little bit consciously rejig. And another dimension of this kind of talking about sound that I think is interesting in Haydn is that the music tends to look quite similar on the page. One passage looks visually quite similar to another but might have a very different meaning. So, it's good to both share my point of view, but also just remind people to look for color in the music, despite the superficial visual simplicity of the parts that they're looking at. There's an infinite variety of expression and color and character that you should be searching for. So you have to talk about it in the right way enough that it's helpful and not so much that it gets annoying.
Brian McCreath Very wise. Well, Alan Gilbert, it's great to have you back. I love talking with you about your programs, and I love the programs no matter what tree they come from. So, thank you very much for your time and looking forward to the concert.
Alan Gilbert Welcome to the Boston Arboretum. [laughs] It's always a pleasure. Thank you so much, Brian.