2022 EIF 75th Anniversary supported by the Scottish Government's Platforms for Creative Excellence Resilience Fund Saturday 27 August 3pm EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE The performance lasts approximately 1 hour 15 minutes with no interval. Please ensure that all mobile phones and electronic devices are switched off or put on silent. THANK EDINBURGHYOU, Supported by James and Morag Anderson The Philadelphia Orchestra residency is supported by Dunard Fund
Rossini OVERTURE TO THE THIEVING MAGPIE Coleman SEVEN O’CLOCK SHOUT Puccini ‘O MIO BABBINO CARO’ FROM GIANNI SCHICCHI ‘VISSI D’ARTE’ FROM TOSCA Gershwin ‘SUMMERTIME’ FROM PORGY AND BESS Arlen ‘OVER THE RAINBOW’ FROM THE WIZARD OF OZ Price THIRD MOVEMENT FROM SYMPHONY NO. 1 Dvořák CARNIVAL OVERTURE Simon FATE NOW CONQUERS Beethoven FOURTH MOVEMENT FROM SYMPHONY NO. 7 THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN conductor
Born in Washington, DC, and raised in Atlanta, Carlos Simon takes inspiration from the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in his powerful Fate Now Conquers, based around a journal entry in which the composer seems to surrender to the power and unpredictability of fate. Composer and flautist Valerie Coleman has developed a close relationship with The Philadelphia Orchestra. Her Seven O’Clock Shout is a moving, energetic tribute to healthcare workers and the sacrifices they made during the pandemic, and to impromptu music making under lockdown: listen out for sounds that might well take you back to the UK’s own Thursday-evening Clap for our Carers.
PROGRAMME NOTE
A time for celebration, and a time for gratitude: today’s colourful concert marks a joyful 75 years of the Edinburgh International Festival transforming the Scottish capital into the world’s Festival City. It’s also an expression of thanks to everyone who’s supported the city’s community as it emerges from the pandemic.
Among the much-loved classics are the witty, glittering Overture to Rossini’s opera The Thieving Magpie – the opening drumroll should serve to summon everyone’s attention – and the high spirits of Dvořák’s rip-roaring Carnival Overture, surely the ideal musical encapsulation of festival fun. The concert comes to a blazing conclusion with the finale of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, a riot of whirling dance energy that races ever more propulsively towards its conclusion.
© David Kettle David Kettle is a music and arts writer based in Edinburgh, and a former editor of BBC Music Magazine, who contributes regularly to The Scotsman and the Daily Telegraph. He has also written for publications including The Times, The Strad and Classical Music, and for organisations including the BBC Proms, Glyndebourne, the Barbican and Southbank Centre.
Florence Price made history as the first African-American woman composer to have a symphony performed by a major US orchestra; her Symphony No 1 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933. The Symphony’s foot-tapping third movement, ‘Juba Dance’, draws on an African folk dance – complete with ragtime-style syncopations, pattering drums and even a raucous whistle.
The Philadelphia Orchestra is committed to championing diversity in classical music, and features music by three AfricanAmerican composers in today’s programme.
It’s the culmination, too, of the four-concert residency at the International Festival by The Philadelphia Orchestra and its exuberant Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. It marks a vibrant celebration of the richness and diversity of both the Festival’s and the Orchestra’s music making.
Californian-born soprano Angel Blue is the soloist in George Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’, a sultry tribute to the heat of our current season and here heard in its original version from his 1935 opera Porgy and Bess, alongside two of Puccini’s most exquisite opera arias.
Father, have pity, have pity! Father, have pity, have pity! English translation © David Kettle
Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) ‘O MIO BABBINO CARO’ FROM GIANNI SCHICCHI
Oh My Beloved Father
Oh my beloved father, I love him, he is so handsome. I want to go to Porta Rossa To buy the ring! Yes, yes, I want to go there! And if I loved him in vain, I’d go to the Ponte Vecchio And throw myself in the Arno! I’m pining and tormented!
Oh God, I want to die!
O Mio Babbino Caro O mio babbino caro, Mi piace, è bello, bello, Vo’ andare in Porta Rossa A comperar l’anello! Sì, sì, ci voglio andare! E se l’amassi indarno, Andrei sul Ponte Vecchio, Ma per buttarmi in Arno! Mi struggo e mi tormento! O Dio, vorrei morir! Babbo, pietà, pietà! Babbo, pietà, pietà! Giovacchino Forzano
With a secret hand I relieved all the misfortunes I encountered. Always with true faith My Roseprayertothe holy tabernacles. Always with true faith I placed flowers on the altars. In this hour of grief, Why, why, Lord, Why do you reward me thus? I gave jewels for the Madonna’s mantle, And offered songs to the stars, to heaven, Which thus shone with more beauty. In this hour of grief, Why, why, Lord, Why do you reward me thus?
Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore, Non feci mai male ad anima viva!
Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa I Lived for Art I lived for art, I lived for love, I never caused harm to a living soul!
Quante miserie conobbi aiutai. Sempre con fe’ sincera La mia preghiera Ai santi tabernacoli salì. Sempre con fe’ sincera Diedi fiori agli altar. Nell’ora del dolore Perché, perché, Signore, Perché me ne rimuneri così? Diedi gioielli della Madonna al manto, E diedi il canto agli astri, al ciel, Che ne ridean più belli. Nell’ora del dolore, Perché, perché, Signor, Ah, perché me ne rimuneri così?
English translation © David Kettle Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)
Vissi d’arte
Con man furtiva
‘VISSI D’ARTE’ FROM TOSCA
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN
conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin was born in Montreal and studied at the Conservatoire de Musique du Québec and at the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. Formerly Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (2008–14) and Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (2008–2018), he is currently Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain, Montreal (since 2000), Music Director of The Philadelphia Orchestra (since 2012) and Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, New York (since 2018), for which this season he conducts Don Carlo, Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Tosca and Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice. He has also conducted at the Vienna State Opera, La Scala (Milan) and the Salzburg Festival, and with The Royal Opera and Netherlands Opera. He has enjoyed particularly close collaborations with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestras, and has appeared at the BBC Proms, the Mostly Mozart Festival (New York) and the Edinburgh International, Lucerne, Salzburg, Berlin and Grafenegg Festivals. This season his engagements include concert performances of Das Rheingold with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. He won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award in 2009, was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2012 and was named Musical America’s Artist of the Year in 2016.
