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philharmonia baroque by jeff hudSon
Over the past three decades, Philharmonia Baroque has
issued quite a few albums under conductor Nicholas
McGegan—and pianist Emanuel Ax has released even more
recordings, featuring both orchestral and chamber works,
going back into the 1970s. Here are a few highlights from
recent years and decades past:
—Philharmonia Baroque launched its own label a few years
ago, and earlier this year it issued a two-disc album featuring
the rarely encountered Handel opera Atalanta, written in
1736 (to celebrate the marriage of Prince of Wales) and
premiered in Covent Garden.
—Last year, Philharmonia’s label also issued one of the
most popular and frequently recorded works in the
Baroque repertoire: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The soloist was
Philharmonia’s concertmaster Elizabeth Blumenstock (who’s
appeared in Davis many times with the American Bach
Soloists). There are three other Vivaldi concertos on the
album as well.
—Last year, Philharmonia Baroque also issued (for the first
time) some historic recordings with the late mezzo Lorraine
Hunt Lieberson, dating from the 1990s. She sings arias
by Handel, as well as Nuits d’Ete by Hector Berlioz. Davis
audiences will recall that Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sang in
Jackson Hall during the opening week of concerts at the
Mondavi Center in October 2002. She died, age 52, in 2006.
—Emanuel Ax has released multiple albums over the decades
with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, covering sonatas by Beethoven, Brahms,
Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and others—well worth looking up.
Then in 2010, Ax and Ma partnered for the first time with
Itzhak Perlman for an album featuring the two Mendelssohn
piano trios.
PPt
pre-performance Talk moderator: don roth, ph.d.
Don Roth is the executive director of the Robert and Margrit
Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis. A native
of New York City, Roth joined the Mondavi Center in June
2006, arriving from the Aspen Music Festival and School,
where he served as president from 2001–06. His tenure at the
Mondavi Center has seen the initiation of new artistic and
educational partnerships with the San Francisco Symphony
and the Curtis Institute; the development of residencies by
world-renowned companies such as Shakespeare’s Globe
and the St. Louis Symphony; the launching of a program to
increase interest in Classical Music funded by a major Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation grant; and the beginnings of the popular
“Just Added” events. Previously Roth served as president
of the St. Louis Symphony and of the Oregon Symphony and
as general manager of the San Francisco Symphony.
22 | Mondavi Center Presents Program issue 3: nov 2012
fUrther lIstenIng
—Tonight’s concert features Ax on a historic fortepiano—the
sort of keyboard that existed when Beethoven wrote the
Concerto No. 4 in 1805–6. In the 1990s, Ax also recorded the
two Chopin piano concertos on an 1851 Erard keyboard—the
kind of instrument that Chopin played—under the baton
of Sir Charles Mackerras with the Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment. And if you’re looking for Ax performing
these works on a modern piano, he recorded the Beethoven
concertos with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under
Andre Previn and Chopin concertos with the Philadelphia
Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.
—Ax also has an interest in newer music, and in March of this
year he performed Morton Feldman’s Piano and Orchestra—
an unconventional 1975 piece that the composer described
as one of his “still-life titles”—at Carnegie Hall with the San
Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas. No word
thus far whether a recording of that performance will be
issued.
—Ax has a new recital album scheduled for release sometime
around the time of this concert. It will feature music by Josef
Haydn, Robert Schumann (whose music Ax played when
he visited Mondavi in 2010) and Aaron Copland, organized
around the concept of theme-and-variations.
Jeff Hudson contributes coverage of the
performing arts to Capital Public Radio, the
Davis Enterprise and Sacramento News and Review.
Currently, Roth serves as the co-chair of Sacramento Mayor
Kevin Johnson’s regional arts initiative, “For Arts’ Sake.” Roth
is also an overseer of the Curtis Institute of Music and a member
of the Directors Council (emeritus Board) of the League of
American Orchestras. He has chaired numerous panels for the
National Endowment for the Arts and chaired the Orchestra
League’s Management Fellowship Program. Roth has served
as a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of
Directors of the Sacramento Philharmonic. Roth holds a doctorate
from the University of Texas with a specialty in African-
American History. He has written about popular music for
Rolling Stone and Texas Monthly.