BEETHOVEN'S VIOLIN CONCERTO
New York PhilharmonicMusic Director Jaap van Zweden opens the Philharmonic residency with Copland’s monumental Symphony No. 3 and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.
Did you know?
Copland bounced around a succession of domiciles in Mexico and four U.S. States while focusing on his Third Symphony over two years (1945-46), but he managed to keep his esthetic center, producing one of the unquestionable masterworks among American symphonies.
Featured Artists
Jaap van Zweden
Augustin Hadelich
Jaap van Zweden
conductor
Jaap van Zweden began his tenure as the 26th music director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2018. He also serves as music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, a post he has held since 2012, and becomes music director of the Seoul Philharmonic in 2024. He has conducted orchestras on three continents, appearing as guest with, in Europe, the Orchestre de Paris, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and London Symphony Orchestra, and, in the United States, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and other distinguished ensembles.
In 2023–24, Jaap van Zweden’s New York Philharmonic farewell season will celebrate his connection with the Orchestra’s musicians as he leads performances in which six principal players appear as concerto soloists. He also revisits the oeuvres of composers he has championed at the Philharmonic, ranging from Steve Reich and Joel Thompson to Mozart, conducting the Requiem, and Mahler, leading the Symphony No. 2, Resurrection.
By the conclusion of his Philharmonic tenure, which has included the reopening of the transformed David Geffen Hall, he will have led the Orchestra in world, US, and New York premieres of 31 works. Among them are pieces commissioned through Project 19 — which marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment with new works by 19 women composers, among them Tania León’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Stride. During the 2021–22 season, when David Geffen Hall was closed for renovation, he conducted the Orchestra at other New York City venues — including his first-ever Philharmonic appearances at Carnegie Hall — and in the residency at the Usedom Music Festival, where the New York Philharmonic was the first American orchestra to perform abroad since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic inaugurated the new David Geffen Hall in October 2022 with HOME, a monthlong housewarming for the Orchestra and its audiences. Other 2022–23 season highlights include SPIRIT, a musical expression of the trials and triumphs of the human spirit featuring performances of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie and J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and EARTH, a response to the climate crisis that includes Julia Wolfe’s unEarth and John Luther Adams’s Become Desert. Over the course of David Geffen Hall’s inaugural season, he conducted repertoire ranging from Beethoven and Bruckner to premieres by Marcos Balter, Etienne Charles, Caroline Shaw, and Carlos Simon, in addition to the works by Wolfe and Adams.
Jaap van Zweden’s New York Philharmonic recordings include the World Premiere of David Lang’s prisoner of the state (2020), and Wolfe’s GRAMMY-nominated Fire in my mouth (2019), both released on the Decca Gold label. He conducted the Hong Kong Philharmonic in first-ever performances in Hong Kong of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, released on the Naxos label. His acclaimed performances of Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal — the last of which earned him the prestigious Edison Award for Best Opera Recording in 2012 — are available on CD and DVD.
Born in Amsterdam, Jaap van Zweden, at age 19, was appointed the youngest-ever concertmaster of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and began his conducting career almost 20 years later, in 1996. In April 2023, van Zweden receives the Concertgebouw Prize, for exceptional contributions to that organization’s artistic profile. He remains conductor emeritus of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and honorary chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, where he was chief conductor (2005–13); he also served as chief conductor of the Royal Flanders Orchestra (2008–11), and as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (2008–18). Under his leadership, the Hong Kong Philharmonic was named Gramophone’s Orchestra of the Year in 2019. He was named Musical America’s 2012 Conductor of the Year and was the subject of an October 2018 CBS 60 Minutes profile on the occasion of his arrival at the New York Philharmonic.
In 1997 Jaap van Zweden and his wife, Aaltje, established the Papageno Foundation to support families of children with autism. The Foundation has grown into a multifaceted organization that focuses on the development of children and young adults with autism. The Foundation provides in-home music therapy through a national network of qualified music therapists in the Netherlands; opened the Papageno House in 2015 (with Her Majesty Queen Maxima in attendance) for young adults with autism to live, work, and participate in the community; created a research center at the Papageno House for early diagnosis and treatment of autism and for analyzing the effects of music therapy on autism; develops funding opportunities to support autism programs; and, more recently, launched the app TEAMPapageno, which allows children with autism to communicate with each other through music composition.
Augustin Hadelich
violin
Augustin Hadelich is one of the great violinists of our time. Known for his phenomenal technique, insightful and persuasive interpretations, and ravishing tone, he tours extensively around the world. He has performed with all the major American orchestras as well as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Concertgebouworkest, Orchestre National de France, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, and many others.
Augustin Hadelich’s engagements in the 2022-23 season included concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Toronto. He performs with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Wiener Symphoniker, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, São Paulo Symphony and Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
As the season’s artist-in-residence of the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Augustin Hadelich joined the orchestra on a summer festival tour to London, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Bonn, in addition to other festival appearances in Aspen, Lucerne, and Salzburg. He returned to the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg as its associate artist and performed on tour with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. In June 2023, he joined the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra on a concert tour to South Korea.
Augustin Hadelich is the winner of a 2016 GRAMMY Award – “Best Classical Instrumental Solo” – for his recording of Dutilleux’s Violin Concerto, L’Arbre des songes, with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot (Seattle Symphony MEDIA). A Warner Classics Artist, his most recent release is “Recuerdos”, a Spain-themed album featuring works by Sarasate, Tarrega, Prokofiev, and Britten with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and Cristian Măcelaru. Writing about his GRAMMY-nominated 2021 release of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany’s most prestigious newspapers, boldly stated: “Augustin Hadelich is one of the most exciting violinists in the world. This album is a total success.” Other albums for Warner Classics include “Paganini’s 24 Caprices” (2018); the Brahms and Ligeti violin concertos with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra under Miguel Harth-Bedoya (2019); and the GRAMMY-nominated “Bohemian Tales”, which includes the Dvořák Violin Concerto with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Jakub Hrůša (2020).
Augustin Hadelich, now an American and German citizen, was born in Italy, to German parents. He studied with Joel Smirnoff at New York’s Juilliard School. Hadelich made a significant career leap in 2006 when he won the International Violin Competition in Indianapolis. Other distinctions include an Avery Fisher Career Grant (2009); a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in the UK (2011); an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter in the UK (2017); and being voted “Instrumentalist of the Year” by the influential magazine “Musical America” (2018).
Augustin Hadelich is on the violin faculty of the Yale School of Music at Yale University. He plays violin from 1744 by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, known as “Leduc, ex Szeryng”, on loan from the Tarisio Trust.
Program Highlights
- Jaap van Zweden, conductor
- Augustin Hadelich, violin
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D major
COPLAND Symphony No. 3
PRE-CONCERT TALK 5:10PM - Jack Sheinbaum (University of Denver), speaker in the Gerald R Ford Amphitheater Lobby.
Bravo! Vail soloist change note
June 20, 2024 - Regretfully, Hilary Hahn is forced to withdraw from her concerts this July on doctors' orders. This withdrawal includes her forthcoming appearance with the New York Philharmonic at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival on Wednesday, July 17, 2024. She is suffering from a double pinched nerve and is unable to perform.
We are disappointed we have to cancel this long-anticipated soloist; however, we are pleased to announce violinist Augustin Hadelich will appear in her stead, and the repertoire remains unchanged. Hadelich will play Beethoven’s Violin Concerto at this concert.
As part of Bravo! Vail’s standard terms, all event details including programs, locations, and artists are subject to change. To review Bravo! Vail’s Ticket Terms, please click here.
If you are unable to attend for any reason, we encourage you to consider donating the value of your tickets back to Bravo! Vail Music Festival to help support our mission. If you prefer an alternative, you may request account credit, which may be used toward another ticket purchase during the 2024 or 2025 Festival seasons.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by this artist cancellation but are thrilled to bring you the original program with Augustin Hadelich and the New York Philharmonic.
As always, we are deeply grateful for your support of Bravo! Vail Music Festival.
Program Notes
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 (1806)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61
Allegro ma non troppo
Larghetto
Rondo
Beethoven’s Violin Concerto has long been considered one of the most essential works of its genre, but it earned its reputation only after a slow start. It made little effect at its premiere, in Vienna in 1806, surely not helped by the fact that the composer finished it only two days earlier, leaving the orchestral musicians little time to prepare what is at heart a very symphonic concerto. At least the soloist, Franz Clement, seems to have acquitted himself with distinction, since a review noted, “To the admirers of Beethoven’s muse it may be of interest that this composer has written a violin concerto—the first, so far as we know—which the beloved local violinist Klement [sic] ... played with his usual elegance and luster.” Clement hedged his bets with the audience by also programming a set of variations, probably of his own composition, that he played on a single string while holding his violin upside down. It may be that Clement had already gotten to know the concerto as a work-in-progress. One hopes so, since the solo writing involves extended work in the upper positions, which would not have been at all standard for violinists at the time. Nonetheless, Beethoven’s manuscript shows that he wrote so hastily that he left some of the notation of the solo part on the sketchy side; he didn’t fill in the blanks until it came time to publish it. Not until 1844, when Felix Mendelssohn conducted it with the London Philharmonic, with 12-year-old Joseph Joachim as soloist, did this concerto score a triumph. Beethoven did not write out cadenzas for this piece, and the ones proposed by Joachim remain the most commonly heard, although many other violinists have written competing versions.
The Concerto’s opening sounds are strange indeed: five beats sounded quietly on the timpani, the last coinciding with the entrance of the other orchestral instruments. It hardly qualifies as a melody, but Beethoven was a master of exploring the musical implications of even the most modest motifs. The strings pick up the rhythm right away, and it returns often in the course of the first movement. A year after the Violin Concerto was premiered, Beethoven altered it into a version for solo piano with orchestra (again unsuccessful), and for that he did supply a first-movement cadenza—not for solo piano, as one would expect, but for piano plus timpani, the latter making much use of its five-note figure. The first movement, imposing and monumental in character, is balanced by the second, poignant and heartfelt; and the rollicking finale, which follows without a complete break, is designed for fun and bravura.
INTERMISSION
Third Symphony (1942-46)
AARON COPLAND (1900-90)
Third Symphony
Molto moderato
Allegro molto
Andantino quasi allegretto
Molto deliberato (Fanfare); Allegro risoluto
Aaron Copland had already produced two symphonies, in 1924/28 and 1934, when in March 1944 the conductor Serge Koussevitzky extended a commission for another major orchestral work, which he hoped to introduce at the outset of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 1946 season. Copland had been thinking about writing such a piece for some time—his friends Elliott Carter, David Diamond, and Arthur Berger kept urging him in that direction—but he kept the new commission secret for quite a while. “I did not want to announce my intentions until it was clear in my own mind what the piece would become (at one time it looked more like a piano concerto than a symphony). The commission from Koussevitzky stimulated me to focus my ideas and arrange the material I had collected into some semblance of order.”
In the summer of 1944, he retreated to the remote village of Tepoztlán, Mexico, to work on the symphony’s first movement in relative isolation. The second movement waited until the following summer, which he spent in Bernardsville, New Jersey. “By September, I was able to announce to [the composer] Irving Fine, ‘I’m the proud father—or mother—or both—of a second movement. Lots of notes—and only eight minutes of music—such are scherzi! ... Having two movements finished gave me the courage to continue, but the completion seemed years off.” In the fall of 1945, he retreated to a rented property in Ridgefield, Connecticut. “Again, I told almost no one where I could be found. I felt in self-exile, but it was essential if I was to finish the symphony.” A stay at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and then a stint in the Berkshire Mountains, allowed him to put the last movement into place. He had a head start on that finale, having decided that it would incorporate the Fanfare for the Common Man, which he had written three years before. Here, it appears as an introduction to the rest of the movement, although its general contours do pervade a fair amount of the symphony’s material. (Copland, by the way, employed the locution Third Symphony as a specific title for this work, preferring it to the more generic implication of “Symphony No. 3.”) He viewed this instance of self-borrowing not as a short-cut but rather as a way to intensify what he hoped to communicate. “I used this opportunity to carry the Fanfare material further and to satisfy my desire to give the Third Symphony an affirmative tone,” he wrote. “After all, it was a wartime piece—or more accurately, an end-of-war piece—intended to reflect the euphoric spirit of the country at the time.”
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