The Cleveland Orchestra February 16-18 Concerts

Completely engaged. That’s how Joe Coyle feels about his life at Judson Manor.

An award-winning journalist who has lived in Paris, Santa Fe, and New York City, he arrived in July 2020 via the suggestion of a fellow resident. He’s been delighted ever since.

“As a writer, I enjoy spending time alone, and these surroundings are perfect: my apartment is quiet, and the views overlooking the Cleveland Museum of Art are lovely. But by far the best part of Judson is the people. Everyone is so knowledgeable about art and culture. I wanted to have stimulating company to spend my time with, and I’ve found that here. These are wonderful, interesting people,” says Joe.

Read the full story at judsonsmartliving.org/blog

“Expanding my curiosity about life is what it’s all about.”

Joe Coyle

2022/2023 SEASON

Beethoven’s Seventh

Thursday, February 16, 2023, at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, February 17, 2023, at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, February 18, 2023, at 8:00 p.m.

Herbert Blomstedt, conductor

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 –1791)

Piano Concerto No. 18 (“Paradis”) 30 minutes in B-flat major, K. 456

I. Allegro vivace

II. Andante un poco sostenuto

III. Allegro vivace

Emanuel Ax, piano

INTERMISSION 20 minutes

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 –1827)

Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92 35 minutes

I. Poco sostenuto —Vivace

II. Allegretto

III. Presto

IV. Allegro con brio

Approximate running time: 1 hour 25 minutes

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Orchestra cellists Richard Weiss (L) and Mark Kosower at rehearsal. Photo by Roger Mastroianni.

IT’S HARD TO THINK of anyone who knows Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony better than tonight’s conductor, Herbert Blomstedt (above). After seeing Blomstedt conduct this work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in August 2021, at the age of 94, New Yorker critic Alex Ross glowingly reported of “a performance that surged with vitality,” “an equilibrium between headlong force and melancholy lyricism,” and “a glorious payoff in the last pages of the finale, when the orchestra let loose with a frothing energy that bordered on animal joy.”

A few weeks earlier, Blomstedt brought that same “frothing energy” to Blossom Music Center, where he joined The Cleveland Orchestra in the same symphony. The performance produced equally stirring results for both musicians and the audience, which gave the reigning eminence of the podium a well-deserved ovation.

While a similarly illuminating rendering of Beethoven’s Seventh is

undoubtedly in store for this weekend’s performance, it will almost certainly reveal fresh insights and novel ideas. Over his career, Blomstedt has shifted his perspectives on the composer, from his metronome markings and tempos to his interpretations of larger themes, often humming a passage to make a point. These adjustments come across in Blomstedt’s two recordings of the complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies (first with the Dresden Staatskapelle from 1975 to 1980 and later with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 2014 to 2017).

“Every time we perform a classical work that we’ve played many times, it is new,” Blomstedt said. “It can never be the same. It’s like making bread, it will always be a little bit different.”

His fellow baker this weekend is his longtime collaborator and friend of the Orchestra, Emanuel Ax, who will help cook up an invigorating account of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18 on the first half of the program. Through the able hands of these two luminaries —  one with a baton and the other at the keyboard — Mozart’s two-century-old concerto finds renewed vigor and resonance.

— Amanda Angel

Piano Concerto No. 18 (“Paradis”) in B-flat major, K. 456

By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

BORN : January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria

DIED : December 5, 1791 in Vienna

Ω COMPOSED : 1784

Ω WORLD PREMIERE : Mozart recorded Piano Concerto No. 18 in his own catalog of works on September 30. The date of its first performance is unknown; the composer introduced it to Vienna on February 12, 1785.

Ω CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PREMIERE : October 13, 1949, with George Szell conducting and Leonard Shure as soloist

Ω ORCHESTRATION : flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, strings, and solo piano

Ω DURATION : 30 minutes

BY SEPTEMBER 1784 , Mozart had already composed four piano concertos that year, and two more were to follow.

On September 21, Mozart’s wife, Constanze, gave birth to their second child, Karl, and nine days later her husband completed his fifth piano concerto of the calendar year, this one in B-flat major. Mozart entered the new concerto in his own catalogue of completed works. It was eventually designated as No. 18 in the numbering of his music done long after the composer’s death.

The composer’s father Leopold almost certainly referred to this concerto in B-flat in a letter dated February 17, 1785, written to his daughter from Vienna, where he was visiting: “On Sunday

evening… Madame Laschi gave a concert in the theater, at which… your brother played a glorious concerto which he had composed for Mlle Paradis for Paris. I was sitting only two boxes away and had the great pleasure of hearing so clearly all the interplay of the instruments that for sheer delight tears came into my eyes. When your brother left the platform the Emperor waved his hat and called out ‘Bravo, Mozart!’ And when he came on to play there was a great deal of applause.”

If only Leopold had obliged us by identifying the concerto by key, for it remains only an educated guess that the concerto he heard that evening was what

Portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, painted posthumously by Barbara Kraft (1819).

we know as No. 18 and not one of the other five he composed in 1784. One clue from the manuscript of the concerto is that it includes cadenzas for the first and last movements. This points to the likelihood that the concerto was written for someone else — when Mozart played his concertos himself, he improvised cadenzas. Two previous concertos whose score include fully composed cadenzas (Nos. 14 and 17) were written for Barbara Ployer, a piano and composition student of Mozart’s. So, it seems logical that No. 18, with its fully composed cadenzas, was indeed written for “Mlle Paradis.”

Mademoiselle Maria Theresia von Paradis was celebrated in her time as a composer and virtuoso. That she was blind only added to her renown, as well as her connection to Empress Maria Theresa, to whom the family was close. But of her relations with Mozart we know very little.

Mlle Paradis’s concert in Paris, to which Leopold obliquely refers in his letter, took place earlier in 1784, before the concerto was completed. It is possible that she played it instead in London, where she appeared after Paris that autumn. It is equally possible that she never played it at all.

Irrespective of its official premiere, this concerto illustrates Mozart’s delight in wind instruments. The second subject of the first movement, for example, has a little chirpy tune on two oboes in thirds, to which a flute and a bassoon respond two octaves apart in a smooth line, as if to say “you have your kind of playing,

we have ours.” Although the soloist later plays this theme, its true point has been made by the wind instruments.

The second movement is a remarkable set of variations, not on a simple tune but on a strained, melancholy melody in the minor key with expressive sighs and chromatic harmony. The tune sounds rather like a variation itself, especially in its second half. Furthermore, the variations each contain internal variations, so a generous counting could find 10 variations, not just five.

The first variation is given almost entirely to the piano, and the repeats are observed. The second has a statement by the orchestra, decorated by the piano. The third has a ferocious opening and a gentle response from the piano. The fourth turns to the major key, and the fifth involves both orchestra and soloist throughout. With its heartfelt close, this movement is one of the most elaborate and expressive in all the Mozart concertos.

The third-movement finale, in contrast, is a relatively simple rondo, with a sharp surprise in the middle when Mozart switches suddenly to B minor —  a jarring key to classical ears — and introduces 2/4 rhythms in the woodwinds in conflict with the prevailing 6/8 in the strings. This delicious effect looks far more complicated than it sounds, but resolves in a cheery conclusion, as Mozart well intended.

— Hugh Macdonald

Hugh Macdonald is Avis H. Blewett Professor Emeritus of Music at Washington University in St. Louis. He has written books on Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, and Scriabin.

The Blind Pianist Who Inspired Mozart

Maria Theresia von Paradis was born in Vienna in May 1759. Her father was an imperial secretary in the court of Empress Maria Theresa, for whom she was named.

By the time she was 5 years old, Paradis was completely blind. Yet, she exhibited extraordinary musical talent, which was nurtured by the Empress with lessons from the city’s best teachers. Paradis learned to play piano, organ, and sang. She studied with Antonio Salieri, one of the most prominent composers in Vienna at the time who wrote her an organ concerto. Franz Joseph Haydn also wrote her a piano concerto.

In 1783, Paradis embarked on an ambitious tour of Europe. Accompanied by her mother and librettist Johann Riedinger, she created a sensation in Berlin, Paris, London, Switzerland, and Prague. She met Queen Marie Antoinette of France, as well as King George III of England and the Prince of Wales. It was during this tour that she is thought to have premiered Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18, now nicknamed in her honor. That same year, she helped establish the first school for the blind in Paris, inspiring Valentin Haüy to found the National Institution for Young Blind People.

During her European tour, Paradis also began composing more music. Riedinger devised a pegboard with differently shaped pegs that allowed her to inscribe notes. Though much of her output has been lost, she wrote several piano sonatas, cantatas, operas, and many songs using this method.

Eventually, Paradis turned her attention away from performing and composition and to teaching. In 1808, Paradis established a music school in Vienna for girls, where she taught singing, piano, and music theory until her death, in 1824.

A bust of the blind pianist, singer, and composer, Maria Theresia von Paradis. Her musical talents inspired composers including Salieri, Haydn, and Mozart. PHOTO BY GEORG HAMANN PRIVATARCHIV

Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92

By Ludwig van Beethoven

BORN : December 17, 1770 in Bonn, Germany

DIED : March 26, 1827 in Vienna

Ω COMPOSED : 1811–12

Ω WORLD PREMIERE : December 8, 1813, at a special concert at the University of Vienna with Beethoven conducting

Ω CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PREMIERE : The second movement was played by itself in November 1919, at the “First Popular Concert” of the Orchestra’s second season. The first performance of the entire symphony at a Cleveland Orchestra subscription concert was by the La Scala Orchestra of Milan, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, on February 2, 1921. The Cleveland Orchestra played the complete symphony for the first time in April 1922, with music director Nikolai Sokoloff conducting. It has been played frequently ever since, most recently at Blossom Music Center on August 1, 2021, with tonight’s conductor, Herbert Blomstedt, at the podium.

Ω ORCHESTRATION : 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings

Ω DURATION : about 35 minutes

IT SEEMS FITTING that the Seventh Symphony, Beethoven’s greatest demonstration of the compelling power of rhythm, received its first hearing through the efforts of Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, inventor of the metronome.

Mälzel was described by one Beethoven biographer as “part Edison and part Barnum,” and while he is best remembered today for the little ticking box that has held generations of music students to the rhythmic straight and narrow,

he mesmerized the public with his more extravagant contraptions, such as the mechanical chess player and the mechanical trumpet, during his lifetime. Beethoven delighted in all sorts of modern devices and was pleased to compose his bombastic Wellington’s Victory for another Mälzel instrument, the orchestra-imitating Panharmonicon.

This portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven from 1820, by artist Joseph Karl Stieler, is the only painting that the composer sat for during his life.

To help promote this confluence of two very different kinds of genius — his own mechanical and Beethoven’s compositional — Mälzel proposed a triumphal tour of England. This was to be funded by a series of concerts in Vienna. The tour never came off, owing to a dispute between the two men regarding the performing and publishing rights to the music, but the concerts did.

The first concert was organized to benefit Austrian soldiers wounded in the Napoleonic Wars; if that concert succeeded, there would be no problem selling tickets to repeat performances, which would benefit Mälzel and Beethoven. On the program was the latter’s new orchestral arrangement of Wellington’s Victory, attracting patriotic Austrians to the concert; Mälzel’s mechanical trumpet performing marches by Dussek and Pleyel; and, for connoisseurs, the unveiling of an “entirely new symphony” Beethoven had recently finished, his Seventh.

To ensure the event’s drawing power, Mälzel lined up an all-star orchestra, with the great Ignaz Schuppanzigh and Louis Spohr leading the violins, the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer and pianists

Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Ignaz Moscheles playing drums and cymbals, and the venerable Antonio Salieri (teacher of Beethoven and Schubert, and rival of Mozart) cueing the fanfares and salvos.

(While the presence of the 15-year-old Schubert at this concert has not been documented, it has been surmised in view of the influence of the Seventh Symphony in Schubert’s later compositions.)

In rehearsal, Beethoven’s infamous temper was not in evidence. When the violinists complained about the difficulty of their part, the composer politely asked them to take it home and practice. At the next rehearsal, there were smiles and compliments all around.

Beethoven’s unique conducting style, however, was in full flower at the concert on December 8, 1813, with his gesturing perhaps exaggerated because of his deafness. Spohr recalled: “Beethoven was in the habit of giving dynamic indications to the orchestra by means of all sorts of peculiar movements of his body. When he wanted a sforzando [suddenly strong] he would vehemently throw out both his arms, which previous-

The best-known invention by Beethoven’s associate Johann Nepomuk Mälzel is the metronome. Coincidently, Beethoven’s metronome markings would become a subject of great interest nearly 200 years later.

ly he had held crossed across his breast. For a piano he would crouch down, going down deeper as he wanted the sound to be softer. Then, at the beginning of a crescendo he would rise gradually, and when the forte was reached he would leap up into the air. Occasionally he would shout with the music in order to make the forte stronger, without being conscious of it…”

At one point, Beethoven’s inability to hear quiet passages led to near disaster when he overlooked the second of two pauses in the recapitulation of the symphony’s first movement. While the orchestra paused, Beethoven continued to beat time, getting himself about 10 bars ahead of the players. Spohr’s description continued: “Beethoven, indicating the pianissimo passage in his own way, had crouched down under the music stand; at the crescendo, which followed, he became visible once more, made himself taller, and then leapt high up in the air at the moment when, according to his calculation, the forte should have begun. When this did not happen, he looked about him in terror, stared in astonishment at the orchestra, which was still playing the pianissimo, and found his place only when the so-long-awaited forte began and became audible to him.”

And how did this cliff-hanging performance of a new, serious work fare amid the hokum and foofooraw of Mälzel’s patriotic spectacle? Very well, thank you. The audience came prepared to be thrilled, and Beethoven’s robust new

The Seventh Symphony’s most striking characteristic may be the synthesis it achieves between the intensity and compression of the Fifth and the rustic high spirits of the “Pastoral” Sixth. Beethoven’s symphonic imagination had lain fallow for three years after he finished those two works, and this new start found him writing with a harmonic daring that enlivens his most obsessive rhythms.

symphony didn’t disappoint. The applause, wrote one journalist, “rose to the point of ecstasy.” Significantly, it was not the symphony’s taut, propulsive outer movements that warranted encores, but the melodious Allegretto, whose major-minor ambiguity so richly anticipated the bittersweet moods of postwar, Biedermeier-era Vienna and its greatest composer, Schubert.

To us latter-day listeners, however, the Seventh Symphony’s most striking characteristic may be the synthesis it achieves between the intensity and compression of the Fifth and the rustic high spirits of the “Pastoral” Sixth. Beethoven’s symphonic imagination had lain fallow for three years after he finished those two works, and this new start found him writing with a harmonic daring that enlivens his most obsessive rhythms. Although the symphony is in A major, the remote keys of C and F

figure so prominently that they become tonal centers in their own right, giving this busy music a much-needed sense of space; the third-movement scherzo, in fact, turns the tables by being in F major, but ending its first phrase firmly on an A-major chord.

It was not Beethoven’s harmonic skill, however, but his persistent rhythms that prompted Richard Wagner to call this symphony “the Apotheosis of the Dance.” The work’s patterns are all versions of the dactylic foot — one strong beat, followed by two weaker ones. The simplest form of this is the scherzo’s steady quarter notes in 3/4 meter. Then there is the famous “Schubert-rhythm” of the second-movement Allegretto, which, sped up, becomes the engine that drives the finale. Even the cantering 6/8 of the first movement’s Vivace section is made up of innumerable tiny dactylic cells.

Beethoven has not neglected the thematic unification of this work, either. In particular, themes from the long Poco sostenuto introduction to the opening section cycle throughout the first and later movements. For example, the introduction’s long, rising scales (like “gigantic stairs,” commented the English writer George Grove) can be heard galloping up and down in the development of the movement’s main Vivace section. And this theme’s graceful turns and leaps eventually grow into the whirlingdervish theme of the finale. Later in the first movement, an immensely long crescendo builds over a bass that moans

in semitones; something very similar happens before the coda of the finale (these are said to be the passages that caused Carl Maria von Weber to say that Beethoven was “ripe for the madhouse”) — and both of these moments have a close cousin in the trio theme of the scherzo, with its wavering half-step. Such observations, however, can carry us only a little way toward understanding how a composer can be so bold and so right at the same time. Even associations beyond or outside the music don’t add much. British music writer Donald Francis Tovey wrote that “the symphony is so overwhelmingly convincing and so untranslatable, that it has for many years been treated quite reasonably as a piece of music, instead of as an excuse for discussing the French Revolution.” The revolution, of course, is in the music. And familiar as this music is, it always catches us off guard, from the opening notes — a pregnant oboe theme that Beethoven promptly discards — to the sudden, final A-major cannon shots, which explode any thought of a lengthy “Beethoven coda.”

Asked why he didn’t compose more music in the vein of his best-selling works, Beethoven replied, “Art always demands something new from us.” Two centuries after he wrote it, the Seventh Symphony sounds as new as tomorrow’s premiere.

Wright

David Wright lives and writes in New Jersey. He previously served as program annotator for the New York Philharmonic.

Herbert Blomstedt recorded two full cycles of Beethoven symphonies: first with the Dresden Staatskapelle (1975–80) and then the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (2014–17). In between, an illuminating new edition of the symphonies, including the composer’s original, faster metronome markings, was released. Blomstedt discusses this development in context of both ensembles’ histories.

Over the last 20 years, there has been a heated argument. In the old editions [of Beethoven’s symphonies], there were no metronome markings, and those editions have been on the stands of all symphony orchestras for over a hundred years. And now in the new editions that came out about the year 2000, there are markings that stem from Beethoven, so you have to take notice of them.

And here is the dilemma of the conductor: Should he do what is custom or should he do what Beethoven wants?

As a conductor, I think his first responsibility is to do what the composer wants.

It’s interesting because Richard Wagner, who was a very good conductor — he was one of my predecessors at Dresden — loved slow tempos. In his very interesting, very clever book about

Beethoven, he says that a Beethoven adagio cannot be played too slow. And that’s exactly what Wagner did. It’s wonderful, but it’s not what Beethoven wanted.

At the same time, 150 miles away in Leipzig, Felix Mendelssohn [was doing] completely the opposite of Wagner. Mendelssohn was a researcher, and he knew Beethoven’s tempos from a letter he wrote to Schott, his publisher, later in life. And Mendelssohn played Beethoven’s faster tempos.

And those conventions remain to this very day. Both are wonderful orchestras — I’ve been the music director of both of them — and in Dresden they still prefer slower tempos, and in Leipzig they have no problem doing a fast tempo; they love it!

—Herbert Blomstedt

PHOTO BY ROGER MASTROIANNI

Herbert Blomstedt

SWEDISH-AMERICAN CONDUCTOR

Herbert Blomstedt has been leading orchestras for nearly 70 years. His leadership and artistry are especially associated with the San Francisco Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and Dresden Staatskapelle. Mr. Blomstedt first conducted The Cleveland Orchestra in April 2006, and most recently led the Orchestra in February 2022 at Severance Music Center.

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1927 to Swedish parents, Mr. Blomstedt began his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm and at the University of Uppsala. He later studied conducting at The Juilliard School, contemporary music in Darmstadt, and Renaissance and Baroque music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He also worked with Igor Markevitch in Salzburg and Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood.

In 1954, Mr. Blomstedt made his conducting debut with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. He subsequently served as music director of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He is conductor laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, which he served as music director from 1985–95. He was subsequently music director of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra and of Leipzig’s Gewandhaus.

In recent years, Herbert Blomstedt has been named honorary conductor

of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra, and the Danish and Swedish radio symphony orchestras. In addition to these, he regularly guest conducts with many of the world’s greatest orchestras.

Mr. Blomstedt’s extensive discography includes more than 130 works with the Dresden Staatskapelle and the complete works of Carl Nielsen with the Danish Radio Symphony. His award-winning recordings with the San Francisco Symphony are on Decca/London. His collaborations with other ensembles, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, can be heard on Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, and RCA Red Seal. He has recorded the complete Bruckner symphonies for the German label Querstand.

Among Mr. Blomstedt’s honors are several doctoral degrees and membership in the Royal Swedish Music Academy. In 2003, he received the German Federal Cross of Merit.

PHOTO BY ROGER MASTROIANNI

Emanuel Ax, piano

PIANIST EMANUEL AX was born in Lviv, Ukraine, and moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family as a young boy. He was a student of Mieczyslaw Munz at The Juilliard School and completed his graduate work at Columbia University. Mr. Ax captured public attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv, followed by the coveted Avery Fisher Prize in 1979.

Mr. Ax performs in recital and with major symphony orchestras around the world. He has appeared regularly at the

BBC Proms, Blossom Music Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Hollywood Bowl, Mostly Mozart Festival, Ravinia Festival, and Tanglewood, among others.

As a frequent and committed partner for chamber music, he has worked regularly with artists such as Young-Uck Kim, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Peter Serkin, and Isaac Stern. He is a proponent of contemporary composers and has had works written for him by John Adams, Samuel Adams, HK Gruber, Krzysztof Penderecki, Christopher Rouse, and Melinda Wagner, among others.

He recorded more than 20 albums for RCA Records and has been an exclusive Sony Classical recording artist since 1987. Mr. Ax has won seven Grammys, including awards for his second and third volumes of Haydn piano sonatas, as well as a series of recordings of Beethoven and Brahms cello sonatas with Yo-Yo Ma. Other recordings include an album of tangos by Astor Piazzolla, Liszt and Schoenberg concertos, solo works by Brahms, and the world premiere of John Adams’s Century Rolls with The Cleveland Orchestra.

Mr. Ax resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki. They have two children together, Joseph and Sarah. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary music doctorates from Columbia University, Skidmore College, and Yale University.

PHOTO BY LISA MARIE MAZZUCCO

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NOW IN ITS SECOND CENTURY , The Cleveland Orchestra, under the leadership of music director Franz WelserMöst since 2002, is one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world. Year after year, the ensemble exemplifies extraordinary artistic excellence, creative programming, and community engagement. The New York Times has called Cleveland “the best in America” for its virtuosity, elegance of sound, variety of color, and chamberlike musical cohesion.

Founded by Adella Prentiss Hughes, the Orchestra performed its inaugural concert in December 1918. By the middle of the century, decades of growth and sustained support had turned it into one of the most admired globally.

The past decade has seen an increasing number of young people attending concerts, bringing fresh attention to The Cleveland Orchestra’s legendary sound and committed programming. More recently, the Orchestra launched several bold digital projects, including the streaming broadcast series In Focus, the podcast On a Personal Note, and its own recording label, a new chapter in the Orchestra’s long and distinguished recording and broadcast history. Together, they have captured the Orchestra’s unique artistry and the musical achievements of the Welser-Möst and Cleveland Orchestra partnership.

The 2022/23 season marks Franz Welser-Möst’s 21st year as music director, a period in which The Cleveland Orchestra earned unprecedented acclaim around the world, including a series of residencies at the Musikverein in Vienna, the first of its kind by an American orchestra, and a number of acclaimed opera presentations.

Since 1918, seven music directors —  Nikolai Sokoloff, Artur Rodziński, Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell, Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Franz Welser-Möst — have guided and shaped the ensemble’s growth and sound. Through concerts at home and on tour, broadcasts, and a catalog of acclaimed recordings, The Cleveland Orchestra is heard today by a growing group of fans around the world.

PHOTO BY ROGER MASTROIANNI

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Now Available

The Seeker, Herbert Blomstedt

This weekend’s guest conductor leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony (“The Inextinguishable”), and offers a glimpse into his incredible career.

Mahler’s Resurrection

Pegged to the transformative gift of Mahler’s autograph score of the Second Symphony to The Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst leads a riveting performance of this powerful work.

THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA

Franz Welser-Möst, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Kelvin Smith Family Chair

FIRST VIOLINS

David Radzynski

CONCERTMASTER

Blossom-Lee Chair

Peter Otto

FIRST ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER

Virginia M. Lindseth, PhD, Chair

Jung-Min Amy Lee

ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER

Gretchen D. and Ward Smith Chair

Jessica Lee

ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Clara G. and George P.

Bickford Chair

Stephen Tavani

ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Wei-Fang Gu

Drs. Paul M. and Renate H.

Duchesneau Chair

Kim Gomez

Elizabeth and Leslie

Kondorossy Chair

Chul-In Park

Harriet T. and David L.

Simon Chair

Miho Hashizume

Theodore Rautenberg

Chair

Jeanne Preucil Rose

Larry J.B. and Barbara S.

Robinson Chair

Alicia Koelz

Oswald and Phyllis Lerner

Gilroy Chair

Yu Yuan

Patty and John Collinson

Chair

Isabel Trautwein

Trevor and Jennie Jones

Chair

Katherine Bormann

Analisé Denise Kukelhan

Gladys B. Goetz Chair

Zhan Shu

SECOND VIOLINS

Stephen Rose*

Alfred M. and Clara T.

Rankin Chair

Eli Matthews1

Patricia M. Kozerefski and Richard J. Bogomolny

Chair

Sonja Braaten Molloy

Carolyn Gadiel Warner

Elayna Duitman

Ioana Missits

Jeffrey Zehngut

Sae Shiragami

Kathleen Collins

Beth Woodside

Emma Shook

Dr. Jeanette Grasselli

Brown and Dr. Glenn R. Brown Chair

Yun-Ting Lee

Jiah Chung Chapdelaine

VIOLAS

Wesley Collins*

Chaillé H. and Richard B.

Tullis Chair

Lynne Ramsey1

Charles M. and Janet G.

Kimball Chair

Stanley Konopka2

Mark Jackobs

Jean Wall Bennett Chair

Lisa Boyko

Richard and Nancy

Sneed Chair

Richard Waugh

Lembi Veskimets

The Morgan Sisters Chair

Eliesha Nelson

Joanna Patterson Zakany

William Bender

Gareth Zehngut

CELLOS

Mark Kosower*

Louis D. Beaumont Chair

Richard Weiss1

The GAR Foundation Chair

Charles Bernard2

Helen Weil Ross Chair

Bryan Dumm

Muriel and Noah Butkin

Chair

Tanya Ell

Thomas J. and Judith Fay

Gruber Chair

Ralph Curry

Brian Thornton

William P. Blair III Chair

David Alan Harrell

Martha Baldwin

Dane Johansen

Paul Kushious

BASSES

Maximilian Dimoff*

Clarence T. Reinberger Chair

Derek Zadinsky2

Mark Atherton

Thomas Sperl

Henry Peyrebrune

Charles Barr Memorial Chair

Charles Carleton

Scott Dixon

Charles Paul

HARP

Trina Struble*

Alice Chalifoux Chair

FLUTES

Joshua Smith*

Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Chair

Saeran St. Christopher

Jessica Sindell2

Austin B. and Ellen W.

Chinn Chair

Mary Kay Fink

PICCOLO

Mary Kay Fink

Anne M. and M. Roger Clapp Chair

OBOES

Frank Rosenwein*

Edith S. Taplin Chair

Corbin Stair

Sharon and Yoash Wiener Chair

Jeffrey Rathbun2

Everett D. and Eugenia S. McCurdy Chair

Robert Walters

ENGLISH HORN

Robert Walters

Samuel C. and Bernette K. Jaffe Chair

CLARINETS

Afendi Yusuf*

Robert Marcellus Chair

Robert Woolfrey

Victoire G. and Alfred M. Rankin, Jr. Chair

Daniel McKelway2

Robert R. and Vilma L. Kohn Chair

Amy Zoloto

E-FLAT CLARINET

Daniel McKelway

Stanley L. and Eloise M. Morgan Chair

BASS CLARINET

Amy Zoloto

Myrna and James Spira Chair

BASSOONS

John Clouser*

Louise Harkness Ingalls Chair

Gareth Thomas

Barrick Stees2

Sandra L. Haslinger Chair

Jonathan Sherwin

CONTRABASSOON

Jonathan Sherwin

HORNS

Nathaniel Silberschlag*

George Szell Memorial Chair

Michael Mayhew§ Knight Foundation Chair

Jesse McCormick

Robert B. Benyo Chair

Hans Clebsch

Richard King

TRUMPETS

Michael Sachs* Robert and Eunice Podis

Weiskopf Chair

Jack Sutte

Lyle Steelman2

James P. and Dolores D. Storer Chair

Michael Miller

CORNETS

Michael Sachs*

Mary Elizabeth and G. Robert Klein Chair

Michael Miller

TROMBONES

Brian Wendel*

Gilbert W. and Louise I. Humphrey Chair

Richard Stout Alexander and Marianna C. McAfee Chair

Shachar Israel2

EUPHONIUM & BASS TRUMPET

Richard Stout

TUBA

Yasuhito Sugiyama*

Nathalie C. Spence and Nathalie S. Boswell Chair

TIMPANI

Paul Yancich*

Otto G. and Corinne T. Voss Chair

PERCUSSION

Marc Damoulakis*

Margaret Allen Ireland Chair

Donald Miller

Thomas Sherwood

KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS

Carolyn Gadiel Warner

Marjory and Marc L. Swartzbaugh Chair

LIBRARIANS

Michael Ferraguto

Joe and Marlene Toot Chair

Donald Miller

ENDOWED CHAIRS CURRENTLY UNOCCUPIED

Elizabeth Ring and William

Gwinn Mather Chair

Paul and Lucille Jones Chair

James and Donna Reid

Chair

Mary E. and F. Joseph Callahan Chair

Sunshine Chair

Mr. and Mrs. Richard K. Smucker Chair

Rudolf Serkin Chair

CONDUCTORS

Christoph von Dohnányi MUSIC DIRECTOR

LAUREATE

Daniel Reith

ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

Sidney and Doris Dworkin Chair

Lisa Wong

DIRECTOR OF CHORUSES

Frances P. and Chester C. Bolton Chair

* Principal

§ Associate Principal

1 First Assistant Principal

2 Assistant Principal

This roster lists full-time members of The Cleveland Orchestra. The number and seating of musicians onstage varies depending on the piece being performed. Seating within the string sections rotates on a periodic basis.

clevelandorchestra.com

WINTER SPRING

FEB 16, 17, 18

BEETHOVEN’S SEVENTH

Herbert Blomstedt, conductor

Emanuel Ax, piano

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 18 (“Paradis”)

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7

FEB 23, 24, 25

MOZART AND STRAUSS

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

MOZART Divertimento No. 2*

SCHOENBERG Variations for Orchestra

STRAUSS Ein Heldenleben

* not part of Friday Matinee concert

MAR 2, 3, 4, 5

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Víkingur Ólafsson, piano

FARRENC Symphony No. 3

RAVEL Piano Concerto in G major MUSSORGSKY/RAVEL Pictures at an Exhibition

MAR 9, 10, 11, 12

MOZART’S REQUIEM

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Christoph Sietzen, percussion

Siobhan Stagg, soprano

Avery Amereau, alto

Ben Bliss, tenor

Anthony Schneider, bass

Cleveland Orchestra Chorus

STAUD Concerto for Percussion

MOZART Requiem

MAR 30, 31, & APR 1

INSPIRATION: THE TEMPEST

Thomas Adès, conductor

Pekka Kuusisto, violin

ADÈS The Tempest Symphony

ADÈS Märchentänze

SIBELIUS Six Humoresques*

SIBELIUS Prelude and Suite No. 1 from The Tempest*

* Certain selections will not be part of the Friday Matinee concert

APR 6, 7, 8

SHOSTAKOVICH’S FIFTH SYMPHONY

Rafael Payare, conductor

Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 2 (“The Age of Anxiety”)

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5

APR 13, 15, 16

MAHLER’S TITAN

Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

DEBUSSY Jeux, poème dansé

DEBUSSY Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra

MAHLER Symphony No. 1 (“Titan”)

APR 20, 21, 22, 23

ALL MOZART

Bernard Labadie, conductor

Lucy Crowe, soprano

MOZART Overture to La clemenza di Tito

MOZART “Giunse al fin il momento... Al desio di chi t’adora”

MOZART Ruhe Zanft from Zaide

MOZART Masonic Funeral Music

MOZART “Venga la morte... Non temer, amato bene”

MOZART Symphony No. 41 (“Jupiter”)

APR 27, 28, 29

MARSALIS AND NEW WORLD

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Michael Sachs, trumpet

MARTINŮ Symphony No. 2

MARSALIS Trumpet Concerto DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”)

MAY 4, 6

WEILERSTEIN PLAYS BARBER

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Alisa Weilerstein, cello

LOGGINS-HULL Can You See?

BARBER Cello Concerto

PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 4

MAY 14, 17, 20

THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Tamara Wilson, soprano (Minnie)

Eric Owens, bass (Jack Rance)

Limmie Pulliam, tenor (Dick Johnson)

Cleveland Orchestra Chorus

PUCCINI La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West)

* Opera presentation, sung in Italian with projected supertitles

MAR 9 | THU 7:30 PM

MAR 10 | FRI 7:30 PM

MAR 11 | SAT 8:00 PM

MAR 12 | SUN 3:00 PM

Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Siobhan Stagg, soprano

Avery Amereau, alto

Ben Bliss, tenor

Anthony Schneider, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus

YOUR VISIT

HEALTH & SAFETY

The Cleveland Orchestra is committed to creating a comfortable, enjoyable, and safe environment for all guests at Severance Music Center. While mask and COVID-19 vaccination are recommended they are not required. Protocols are reviewed regularly with the assistance of our Cleveland Clinic partners; for up-to-date information, visit: clevelandorchestra. com/attend/health-safety

LATE SEATING

As a courtesy to the audience members and musicians in the hall, late-arriving patrons are asked to wait quietly until the first convenient break in the program. These seating breaks are at the discretion of the House Manager in consultation with the performing artists.

PAGERS, CELL PHONES & WRISTWATCH ALARMS

As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices prior to the start of the concert.

PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEOGRAPHY & RECORDING

Audio recording, photography, and videography are prohibited during performances at Severance. Photographs can only be taken when the performance is not in progress.

HEARING AIDS & OTHER HEALTH-ASSISTIVE DEVICES

For the comfort of those around you, please reduce the volume on hearing aids and other devices that may produce a noise that would detract from the program. For Infrared Assistive-Listening Devices, please see the House Manager or Head Usher for more details.

FREE MOBILE APP TICKET WALLET

IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY

Contact an usher or a member of house staff if you require medical assistance. Emergency exits are clearly marked throughout the building. Ushers and house staff will provide instructions in the event of an emergency.

AGE RESTRICTIONS

Regardless of age, each person must have a ticket and be able to sit quietly in a seat throughout the performance. Classical season subscription concerts are not recommended for children under the age of 8. However, there are several age-appropriate series designed specifically for children and youth, including Music Explorers (for 3 to 6 years old) and Family Concerts (for ages 7 and older).

The Cleveland Orchestra is grateful to the following organizations for their ongoing generous support of The Cleveland Orchestra: the State of Ohio and Ohio Arts Council and to the residents of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

For more information and direct links to download, visit clevelandorchestra.com/ticketwallet or scan the code with your smartphone camera to download the app for iPhone or Android.

Available for iOS and Android on Google Play and at the Apple App Store.

The Cleveland Orchestra is proud of its long-term partnership with Kent State University, made possible in part through generous funding from the State of Ohio. The Cleveland Orchestra is proud to have its home, Severance Music Center, located on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, with whom it has a long history of collaboration and partnership.

© 2023 The Cleveland Orchestra and the Musical Arts Association

Program books for Cleveland Orchestra concerts are produced by The Cleveland Orchestra and are distributed free to attending audience members.

EDITOR

Amanda Angel

Managing Editor of Content

aangel@clevelandorchestra.com

DESIGN Elizabeth Eddins, eddinsdesign.com

ADVERTISING Live Publishing Company, 216-721-1800

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A SYMPHONY OFSuccess

We believe that all Cleveland youth should have access to high-quality arts education. Through the generosity of our donors, we are investing to scale up neighborhoodbased programs that now serve 3,000 youth year-round in music, dance, theater, photography, literary arts and curatorial mastery. That’s a symphony of success. Find your passion, and partner with the Cleveland Foundation to make your greatest charitable impact.

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www.ClevelandFoundation.org