Gp 3.qxt - Lincoln Center

July 29–August 23, 2008 

Friday and Saturday Evenings, August 8 and 9, 2008, at 7:00 

Pre-concert Recital 

Andrew Armstrong, Piano 

MUSORGSKY Pictures from an Exhibition (1874) 

Promenade 

The Gnome 

Promenade 

The Old Castle 

Promenade 

Tuileries—Children Quarreling at Play 

Bydlo 

Promenade 

Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks 

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle 

Promenade 

The Market Place at Limoges 

The Catacombs (Cum mortuis in lingua mortua) 

The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba-Yaga) 

The Great Gate of Kiev 

Steinway Piano Please make certain your cellular phone, 

pager, or watch alarm is switched off. 

Avery Fisher Hall

Mostly Mozart Festival 

Notes on the Pre-concert Recital 

by David Wright 

Pictures from an Exhibition (1874) 

MODEST MUSORGSKY 

Born March 1839 in Karevo, Pskoy district 

Died March 1881 in St. Petersburg 

Approximate length: 27 minutes 

Modest Musorgsky made his presence felt 

in the 20th century much more than he did 

in the 19th. Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky, 

among many others, acknowledged their debt 

to him. Perhaps the most important work, 

in their mind, was Pictures from an Exhibition, 

a suite of piano pieces that grew out a show 

of art works by Musorgsky’s late friend Victor 

Hartmann, who created fanciful, often 

grotesque drawings and domestic objects, 

and who died unexpectedly at age 37. 

The recurring Promenade is Musorgsky’s 

self portrait, strolling in leisurely 11/4 meter 

from item to item in the exhibition, a seemingly 

objective observer—but then The Gnome 

grips his attention, a grotesque nutcracker 

in the shape of a gnome, and the composer 

conjures up the image of a limping, leering 

little man. 

The other artworks behind the music are as 

follows: The Old Castle: A Hartmann watercolor 

of an Italian castle. Musorgsky adds a 

troubadour singing a dolorous serenade. 

Tuileries—Children Quarreling at Play: Hartmann’s 

drawing of a garden, populated by 

the composer with children taunting each 

other, capriccioso. Bydlo: A Polish oxcart 

lumbers down a muddy road. This picture 

seems to linger in Musorgsky’s mind during 

the next Promenade, only to be dispelled by 

its opposite, Ballet of the Unhatched 

Chicks: In Hartmann’s costume design for 

the children’s company of the Russian 

Imperial Ballet School, the young dancers 

are chicks, with only their heads, arms, and 

legs protruding from their egg-shaped costumes. 

Musorgsky writes a chirpy scherzino 

for them. Samuel Goldberg and Schmuÿle: 

One of Hartmann’s many sketches from the 

Polish town of Sandomir depicts two Jews, 

one rich and self important, the other a 

wheedling beggar. Here the composer 

translates the sketch, and its two characters, 

literally into music. The Market Place at 

Limoges: Hartmann’s drawing of a French 

market is a beehive of activity. Musorgsky 

hears a chaotic babble of gossip and haggling, 

which comes to an abrupt end in a 

place that mocks all human business: Catacombs. 

Hartmann drew himself, a friend, and 

a guide exploring the skull filled catacombs 

of Paris. Musorgsky is all but struck dumb 

with awe, but finally his Promenade theme 

finds eerie voice in a section subtitled Cum 

mortuis in lingua mortua (“with the dead in a 

dead language”). 

The Hut on Hens Legs: In Russian folklore, 

the witch Baba-Yaga lives in a house on 

stilts shaped like bird’s claws. Musorgsky 

conjures up a scary picture of Baba-Yaga, 

astride the pestle on which she flies 

through the air. Her flight leads to The Great 

Gate of Kiev. The memorial gateway Hartmann 

designed for the city of Kiev was a 

fanciful confection (never built) of ornamental 

brickwork, wrought iron and stained 

glass, topped with the Imperial double eagle 

and an onion dome. Musorgsky, however, 

turns it into a cathedral of sound, filled with 

the sound of liturgical chant and pealing 

bells, invested with all the grandeur, faith, 

and indomitable spirit of mother Russia. 

—Copyright © 2008 by David Wright

July 29–August 23, 2008 

Sponsored by 

Jerome L. Greene Foundation 

The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation 

Friday and Saturday Evenings, August 8 and 9, 2008, at 8:00 

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra 

Louis Langrée, Conductor 

Benedetto Lupo, Piano (New York orchestral debut) 

RAVEL Le tombeau de Couperin (1919) 

Prélude 

Forlane 

Menuet 

Rigaudon 

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat major, K.456 (1784) 

Allegro vivace 

Andante un poco sostenuto 

Allegro vivace 

Mr. Lupo will perform Mozart’s cadenzas. 

Intermission 

FAURÉ Pelléas et Mélisande, Suite, Op. 80 (1900) 

Prélude 

Fileuse (“Spinner”) 

Sicilienne 

La mort de Mélisande (“Mélisande’s Death”) 

MOZART Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K.183 (1773) 

Allegro con brio 

Andante 

Menuetto and Trio 

Allegro 

Steinway Piano 

This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. 

Avery Fisher Hall Please make certain your cellular phone, 

pager, or watch alarm is switched off.


The Mostly Mozart Festival is sponsored by the 

Jerome L. Greene Foundation 

and The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation. 

The Mostly Mozart Festival is also made 

possible by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, the 

Hess Foundation, Inc., The Shubert Foundation, 

The Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust, 

Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, The Geoffrey C. 

Hughes Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Michael E. Gellert, 

Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, S.H. and Helen R. 

Scheuer Family Foundation, and Friends of Mostly 

Mozart. Public support is provided by the New York 

State Council on the Arts. 

Movado is an Official Sponsor of Lincoln Center, Inc. 

WNBC/WNJU are Official Broadcast Partners of 

Lincoln Center, Inc. 

Continental Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln 

Center, Inc. 

Nokia is the Official Mobile Equipment Provider of 

Lincoln Center, Inc. 

MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center, Inc. 

“Summer at Lincoln Center” is sponsored by Diet 

Pepsi and RR Donnelley. 

The intermission bells have been created by Harry 

Eagle. 

The Mostly Mozart stage installation was designed 

by Fisher Dachs Associates. 

Upcoming Mostly Mozart Festival Events: 

A Little Night Music 

Saturday Night, August 9, at 10:30, in the 

Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse 

Benedetto Lupo, Piano 

DEBUSSY: Estampes 

RAVEL: Pavane pour une infante défunte; 

Alborada del gracioso 

GRANADOS: Los requiebros and Quejas, o La 

maja y el ruiseñor, from Goyescas, o Los majos 

enamorados; El pelele, goyesca 

Sunday Afternoon, August 10, at 2:00, in the 

Walter Reade Theater 

The Joy of Music: Leonard Bernstein on Film* 

ALL-MOZART PROGRAM 

Piano Concerto No.17 in G major, K.453: Vienna 

Philharmonic Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein, 

Conductor and Piano; Prod.: Unitel (1981) 

Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K.543: Vienna 

Philharmonic Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein, 

Conductor; Musikverein; Prod.: Unitel (1981) 

Sunday Afternoon, August 10, at 4:00, in the 

Walter Reade Theater 

The Joy of Music: Leonard Bernstein on Film* 

ALL-MOZART PROGRAM 

Mass in C minor, K.427 (“Great”); Ave verum 

corpus, K.618, Exsultate, jubilate, K.165: 

Leonard Bernstein, Conductor; Arleen Augér, 

Soprano; Frederica von Stade, Mezzo-soprano; 

Frank Lopardo, Tenor, Cornelius Hauptmann, 

Bass; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (1990) 

*Presented in association with Classifilms and the 

Film Society of Lincoln Center 

For tickets, call CENTERCHARGE at (212) 721- 

6500 or visit LincolnCenter.org. Call the Lincoln 

Center Info Request Line at (212) 875-5766 to 

learn about program cancellations or request a 

Mostly Mozart brochure. 

Visit the Performing Arts Shop for recordings 

and merchandise related to today’s program. 

Discounts available for Friends and subscribers; 

all proceeds benefit Lincoln Center for the 

Performing Arts, Inc. Shop located on the 

Concourse Level. 

We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the 

performers and your fellow audience members. 

In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave 

before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces, not during the performance. 

The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building.


From Mahler to Mozart 

Louis Langrée and I welcome you to this summer’s 

Mostly Mozart Festival—one of the 

very special joys of summer life in New York. 

In addition to focusing on our namesake 

composer, this summer’s Festival explores 

the theme of loss and transformation—a 

theme which so frequently lies at the heart 

of extraordinary works of music and art. 

The pain and inevitability of mortality is 

transformed into the exaltation of nature’s 

eternity in Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der 

Erde, presented on our opening-night program. 

In Kaija Saariaho’s oratorio, La Passion 

de Simone, the darkest side of the human 

condition is converted into religious faith. 

The devastating anguish of betrayal is transformed 

into beneficent forgiveness in 

Mozart’s opera La clemenza di Tito, presented 

in concert this summer. The symbolic 

metamorphosis of love and death is 

explored in Fauré’s and Sibelius’ musical 

treatments of the story of Pelléas and 

Mélisande. And on the Festival’s closing 

night, Richard Strauss’ lament for a culture 

destroyed by war, Metamorphosen, is 

paired with Mozart’s Mass in C minor, which 

offers a transcendent intersection of music 

and faith. 

This summer’s Mostly Mozart Festival, however, 

offers much more than a theme. 

Inspiring concerts in Avery Fisher Hall with 

the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, led by 

our esteemed Renée and Robert Belfer 

Music Director Louis Langrée, will include 

favorite symphonies and concertos by 

Mozart and his Classical contemporaries. 

World-acclaimed visiting ensembles such as 

the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, 

the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, 

the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Concerto 

Italiano, and the Emerson String 

Quartet will offer engaging programs spanning 

four centuries, from Vivaldi to the 

music of our Finnish Composer-in- 

Residence, Kaija Saariaho. 

Ms. Saariaho’s residency gives us the occasion 

to highlight the musical virtuosity of her 

fellow Finns, such as rising star conductor 

Susanna Mälkki in her New York debut and 

returning conductor Osmo Vänskä, as well 

as cellist Anssi Karttunen, clarinetist Kari 

Kriikku, and pianist Tuija Hakkila. 

Dance and staged presentations continue 

to be an important artistic component of the 

Festival. Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone is 

staged by Peter Sellars, and the Samoan 

choreographer Lemi Ponifaso’s full-length 

dance/theater work, Requiem, will receive 

its American premiere. Visual art will also 

be represented with Australian artist’s 

Lynette Wallworth’s participatory video 

installation Invisible by Night in the theater 

complex at Jazz at Lincoln Center. 

At the Festival’s epicenter, providing its 

inspiration, vision, and heart, is the genius 

of Mozart. Always, we stand in awe of his 

timeless musical achievements and feel 

profound gratitude for his timeless presence 

in our lives. It is our great hope that 

you will join us this summer for the many 

days and nights of our celebration of his 

music, his influence, and his illumination of 

the human heart. 

Jane Moss 

Artistic Director, Mostly Mozart Festival


Program Summary 


Whose Century Is It, Anyway? 

A program of classical music can be like a ping-pong game. Where’s the ball? Is it in the 

18th century or 20th century? In a work like Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin, it’s in both 

places at once, as a later master pays tribute to an earlier one. Similarly for Fauré’s Pelléas 

et Mélisande, music by a late-Romantic composer to accompany a contemporary play 

inspired by Greek tragedy. 

But there’s always Mozart, right? The Piano Concerto No. 18, K. 456, is tailored to 

aristocratic tastes because of the high-born lady it was written for. It helps itself to the style 

galant of Mozart’s childhood mentor, Johann Christian Bach. The Symphony No. 25 in 

G minor, K. 183, on the other hand, is much more raw and aggressive—a 17-year-old 

composer lets it rip. That’s more modern, isn’t it? Except that the model for it is an old, old 

Baroque composer, Antonio Vivaldi. Where’s the ball? 



Notes on the Program 


Le tombeau de Couperin (1919) 

MAURICE RAVEL 

Born March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées 

Died December 28, 1937, in Paris 


For years before the outbreak of World War I, 

French composers had been attempting to 

assert their own musical identity in the face 

of the German tradition that culminated in 

Wagner, which by 1900 ruled concert halls 

and conservatories from Madrid to St. 

Petersburg—Paris included. Although the 

gentle eccentric Erik Satie went his own 

way, untroubled by political events, both 

Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel 

responded to the war with a mixture of defiant 

nationalism and escape to the simpler 

truths of early French music. Ravel went so 

far as to attempt to enlist in the air force, 

but his age and small size limited him to 

driving transport vehicles, which he did until 

sidelined by dysentery in 1916. Of the 

many ideas for compositions he had been 

entertaining when war broke out, that of 

a “French suite” for piano now took 

center stage, transformed into a tombeau, 

or musical memorial. 

The tombeau originated as a 16th-century 

French literary form, a collection of works 

by many poets eulogizing a departed 

colleague. Composers in the next century 

translated the idea into music, including the 

master harpsichordist François Couperin, 

who composed suites in memory of Lully 

and Corelli. Although composers have never 

stopped writing memorial works, the term 

tombeau gradually disappeared during the 

18th century, and hence was an antique ripe 

for revival in 1914, when Ravel began composing 

this tribute ostensibly to Couperin 

but really to the entire flowering of French 

music in the Baroque era. War, illness, and 

the shock of his mother’s death prevented 

Ravel from completing Le tombeau de 

Couperin until 1917. By then it had become 

more than a memorial to a long-dead composer; 

each of the piano suite’s six 

movements is dedicated to a friend who fell 

in the war. 

This last of Ravel’s solo piano works, true to 

its old-fashioned title, avoids both the Lisztian 

pyrotechnics of Gaspard de la nuit and the 

impressionism of Jeux d’eau in favor of the 

lean, clear, neoclassical style Ravel continued 

to cultivate after the war. (The work’s oftenmodal 

harmonies have little to do with the 

Baroque period but everything to do, in 

Ravel’s mind, with the antique and the 

exotic in music.) His 1919 orchestration of 

the piano suite is classically restrained, 

clearly separating winds from strings and 

using color only in light, sparing strokes. 

Ravel wisely refrained from transcribing two 

of the suite’s most pianistic movements, a 

fleet toccata and a formal fugue, but the 

four remaining movements contain plenty 

of challenging keyboard figurations, many of 

them assigned to the solo oboe in the 

Prélude and the Rigaudon. 

The old tombeau often began with a 

prélude non mesuré, in which the player 

rambled over the keys as if trying to recover 

from the disorientation of grief; Ravel’s 

Prélude may be neatly mesuré in 6/8 time, 

but its whirling figuration and harmonic 

shifts up and down the scale suggest some 

of that old wayward character. Of all the 

Baroque court dances, the vigorous, leaping 

forlana was closest to its folk roots (northern 

Italian, in this case), and the Forlane of this 

suite bounds happily into all sorts of roughhewn 

dissonances. The Menuet is as 

elegant and charming as a minuet should


be, but with a tender, elegiac character that 

recalls Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante 

défunte. The Rigaudon, which preceded the 

Menuet in the piano suite, serves as the 

finale of the orchestral version; in deference 

to the tombeau, even this jolly dance slows 

its characteristic rhythm in a sad, retrospective 

middle section before ending in a 

flourish of trumpets. 

Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat major, 

K.456 (1784) 

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART 

Born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg 

Died December 5, 1791, in Vienna 


The brilliantly successful year of 1784 

brought a reconciliation between Mozart 

and his father. The young composer had 

acted against Leopold’s wishes by leaving 

Salzburg and marrying Constanze. Now, 

however, as the Lenten concert season of 

February 1785 approached, Wolfgang could 

point to a happy home life, a bulging bank 

account, and a string of triumphs in the concert 

halls and opera houses of the Imperial 

capital. Leopold Mozart was pleased to 

travel to Vienna and witness his son’s 

success first hand. 

In his famous letter from Vienna to Wolfgang’s 

sister Nannerl on February 16, the 

notoriously hard-to-please Leopold is plainly 

on cloud nine. Just hours after arriving in 

Vienna, Leopold says, he attended a “magnificent” 

concert, including “a new and very 

fine concerto by Wolfgang,” the dramatic 

and progressive K.466 in D minor. The next 

evening, he sat next to Joseph Haydn at an 

performance of Wolfgang’s quartets, during 

which the great man turned to him and said, 

“Before God and as an honest man I 

tell you that your son is the greatest composer 

known to me either in person or by 

name....” The following night, he returned 

to the Mehlgrube Theater for another 

concert, at which, he writes to Nannerl, 

“your brother played a glorious concerto, 

which he composed for Mlle. Paradis for 

Paris. I...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 

[back] on to play, there was a great deal 

of clapping.” 

The concerto that so moved both the 

Emperor and Leopold Mozart is thought to 

have been K.456 in B-flat. This work would 

certainly have suited audiences in Paris, 

where they use the same word to mean 

“spiritual” and “witty.” Looking back as it 

does to the concertos of Mozart’s childhood 

mentor J.C. Bach, it isn’t burdened with the 

“too many notes” of which the Emperor 

once complained in a famous remark to 

Mozart. And it is elegant enough for a goddaughter 

of the Empress, which is what the 

remarkable blind pianist Maria Theresia von 

Paradis, the concerto’s first exponent, was. 

It’s possible that both Mlle. Paradis’ social 

standing and her personality shaped the 

intriguing opening of this concerto: Mozart 

seems to be trying to salute the Emperor 

with the pomp of his “state” rhythm and 

to establish an intimate, chamber-music 

atmosphere at the same time. The latter 

element dominates the rest of the movement; 

although the pianist has plenty to do, 

one is less aware of bravura display than of 

“all the interplay of the instruments,” as 

the many distinctive ideas touched on in 

the orchestra’s exposition blossom and


develop. Following the solo cadenza—like 

the others in this performance, composed 

by Mozart—the movement closes amid 

more martial rhythms, of the chocolatesoldier 

variety. 

The fine theme of the G-minor Andante has 

the dignity of a Baroque opera seria aria, 

and is only gently colored with the anxious 

emotions associated with Mozart’s music in 

this key (the Symphony No. 40, for example, 

or the String Quintet, K.516). The five variations 

and coda, on the other hand, are 

extremely volatile in mood; composing variations 

on his variations, Mozart flips from 

anger to depression to lament, and eventually 

to forlorn hope amid the pastel-colored high 

winds of the G-major variation. The return to 

G minor smoothes out the music at last into 

a dark ripple of resignation. 

The tapping repeated notes of the rondo 

theme invite a Haydn-like intellectual treatment 

that will turn their nursery rhyme 

silliness into high wit. More characteristically 

for him, Mozart submerges those notes, 

letting them tap away in various accompaniments 

while fitting his “hunting”-style 6/8 

meter with a wealth of new melodies. In an 

unexpectedly turbulent episode in the 

remote key of B minor, Mozart scrambles 

the meters, hurling piano and winds in 

2/4 against the tapping strings in 6/8— 

but it’s all in fun, and the music soon 

resumes its merry dance toward a poised 

and graceful finish. 

Pelléas et Mélisande, Suite, Op. 80 (1900) 

GABRIEL FAURÉ 

Born May 12, 1845, in Pamiers, Ariège 

Died November 4, 1924, in Paris 


A distinguished composer of piano pieces, 

chamber music, and especially songs, Gabriel 

Fauré produced very little orchestral music, 

and that usually in collaboration with one 

of his students. And did he ever have 

students! Many of the biggest names in 

French music passed through his composition 

class at the Paris Conservatoire—Charles 

Koechlin, Jean Roger-Ducasse, George 

Enescu, Florent Schmitt, Nadia Boulanger, 

and Maurice Ravel, to name a few. 

Fauré was loved and revered on both sides 

of the English Channel. He traveled to London 

about once a year for festivals of music 

by himself and other composers. In 1898, 

he was commissioned to compose incidental 

music for a production, in English, of Maurice 

Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande, 

starring the grande dame of the English 

stage, Mrs. Patrick Campbell. For music 

fans, the title of that play evokes the revolutionary, 

vaporous opera that Debussy 

worked on from 1893 to 1902. That opera 

was hard to get produced, and hard for 

some operagoers to understand. The English 

production, with Fauré’s music, had no 

such problem. The combination of Mrs. 

Campbell’s star power and Fauré’s rich, 

evocative score had the London theater 

public all abuzz. The initial, limited run at the 

Prince of Wales Theater, which began on 

June 21, 1898, sold out immediately. 

As fans of Broadway musicals know, 

there’s the composer, and then there’s the 

arranger. The “arranger” in this case was 

Fauré’s pupil Charles Koechlin, who orchestrated 

Fauré’s score for Pelléas. In 1900, 

Fauré extracted three movements from his 

score—the preludes to Acts I, III, and V—as 

a suite, revising Koechlin’s orchestration. 

Later, in 1909, the Sicilienne from Act II was 

added, in Koechlin’s version, to make a fourmovement 

suite, which made its debut in 

Paris on December 1, 1912, conducted by 

André Messager. 

Fauré knew his Wagner, and the passion 

and restlessness of his prelude to Act I,


dominated by tormented strings, are Tristan-like 

in their sense of doom and yearning. 

The delicate scherzo Fileuse (“Spinner”) 

evokes Mélisande at her spinning wheel, 

with passionate thoughts amid whirling 

string figures—just as Schubert did in his 

song “Gretchen am Spinnrade.” The Sicilienne 

is one of Fauré’s most famous 

melodies, originally conceived in 1893 as a 

piece for cello and piano; the skipping 

rhythm is what makes it a “siciliano,” a 

musical genre passed down from the 

Baroque era. La mort de Mélisande 

(“Mélisande’s Death”) begins with a forceful 

funeral march, but tapers off into a tender 

remembrance of the tragic heroine. 

Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K.183 (1773) 

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART 


The custom of calling Mozart’s Symphony 

No. 25 the “Little G minor”—to distinguish 

it from No. 40 in the same key, part of the 

great final symphonic trilogy of 1788—is 

regrettable, since this turbulent music can 

hardly have seemed “little” to its first hearers 

in Salzburg in 1773. In fact, musicologists, 

confronted with Mozart’s first minor-key 

symphony and an intensity of expression 

without precedent in the previous 24, have 

attached great significance to the work, 

although they don’t necessarily agree on 

what that significance is. Some see it as a 

sign of a profound personal crisis in the 

composer’s life at that time—for which, 

they admit, no other evidence exists. 

Others point out that Mozart had visited 

Vienna earlier that year and heard Haydn’s 

latest symphonies in the then-current 

Sturm und Drang style and was simply 

cutting his cloth to fit the fashion. This 

annotator wonders: What red-blooded 

17-year-old wouldn’t want to write something 

full of passion and angst? 

It’s hard for latter-day Mozart fans to 

hear that unison opening, throbbing with 

syncopated notes and groping ominously 

downward, without seeing the statue stride 

into the banquet room and hearing the trap 

door creak under Don Giovanni’s feet. But 

the Don was still 14 years in the future 

when Mozart wrote this music, while the 

fiery (and not at all gloomy) minor-key 

concertos of Vivaldi were very much alive 

in the music rooms of Mozart’s favorite 

country, Italy. This unremittingly crisp, even 

abrupt first movement—no concessions to 

lyrical solace or comic relief here—is worlds 

away from the veiled ambiguities of the 

“big” G-minor Symphony (No. 40), but very 

much in the spirit of the Italian master’s 

wonderfully vigorous, hard-edged music. 

Later on, Mozart would learn to mix major 

and minor to touch us with sweet sadness. 

This movement, however, forges ahead 

with a power that can sound either fatalistic 

or exuberantly athletic, depending on the 

performance and the listener’s own mood. 

Mozart saves true pathos for the Andante, 

with its warm E-flat-major tonality contradicted 

by the deeply sighing appoggiaturas 

of its falling phrases. The tonal contrast of 

muted strings versus winds—most notably 

the bassoons echoing the violins—assures 

that the movement will be monothematic 

but not monotonous. Terseness plays a


part even here, as the music simply 

says its piece and stops, without coda 

or afterthoughts. 

As if to confound future commentators 

(who tend to stereotype G minor as 

Mozart’s “anguished” key) the composer 

keeps his cool in the stately minuet, offering 

finely polished orchestral dialogue for the 

listener’s delectation. The major-key trio 

for winds alone sounds like a village band 

playing Ländler, with the warmth and quirky 

humor for which Salzburgers were and 

are famous. 

The finale resembles the first movement in 

theme and treatment: the strings mutter 

ominously in unison, introducing the single 

theme that will dominate the movement. 

The throb of repeated notes in the development 

echoes the symphony’s opening bars, 

and after a recapitulation that is once again 

in unrelieved G minor, the coda speaks in 

strong, terse, Baroque unisons. 


B. Ealovega 


Meet the Artists 

Louis Langrée 

The French musician Louis Langrée has 

been music director of the Mostly Mozart 

Festival since December 2002 and was 

named Renée and Robert Belfer Music 

Director in August 2006. His first five festivals 

have been marked with extensive critical 

acclaim. During the 2008–09 season he 

conducts the Camerata Salzburg in 

Salzburg and Vienna, the London 

Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal 

Festival Hall, and the Dallas Symphony 

Orchestra. He will also make his debut 

with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra 

and the Netherlands Philharmonic 

Orchestra (Amsterdam Concertgebouw). 

During this season he returns to the 

Metropolitan Opera in New York with Don 

Giovanni and to the Aix-en-Provence 

Festival for a special project with 

Magdalena Kozˇená. 

Mr. Langrée has worked with many other 

orchestras both in Europe and further 

afield, including the Detroit and Dallas 

Symphony Orchestras, Orchestre de Paris, 

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, 

Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Tokyo 

Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, 

and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. 

He also regularly conducts period-instrument 

orchestras such as the Orchestra of the 

Age of Enlightenment, Concerto Köln, 

Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, and Le 

Concert d’Astrée. Festival appearances have 

included Spoleto, les Chorégies d’Orange, 

Wiener Festwochen, and the BBC Proms. 

He has held positions as music director of 

Steven Sherman 

the Orchestre de Picardie (1993–98) and 

Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège 

(2001–06). 

Mr. Langrée was music director of Opéra 

National de Lyon (1998–2000) and 

Glyndebourne Touring Opera (1998–2003) 

and has worked regularly at Glyndebourne 

Festival Opera. He has also conducted at 

the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 

Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dresden Staatsoper, 

Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Opéra- 

Bastille, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and 

the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam. For 

his performance of Fidelio at Glyndebourne 

Opera in 2001 he was the joint recipient, 

with Sir Simon Rattle, of the Royal Philharmonic 

Society’s award for Best Musical 

Achievement for Opera. 

Mr. Langrée has an extensive discography, 

including recordings for Virgin Classics, 

Universal, and Naïve. Many of these have 

won awards, including Victoire de la 

Musique, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone. 

His most recent release is Mozart’s 

Mass in C minor with Le Concert d’Astrée 

on Virgin Classics. 

Benedetto Lupo 

After winning the bronze medal in the 1989 

Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, 

Benedetto Lupo made acclaimed debuts 

with several major American orchestras, as 

well as chamber appearances with the 

Tokyo String Quartet. His New York City 

recital debut at Alice Tully Hall followed in 

1992, the same year he won the Terence 

Judd International Award, which in turn led 

to his debut at London’s Wigmore Hall.


The 2008–09 season brings two more 

milestones in his career: his New York 

orchestral debut with these performances in 

the Mostly Mozart Festival, and a subscription 

debut with the Chicago Symphony 

Orchestra. He can also be heard with the 

Eugene Symphony and in Europe with 

the Liège Philharmonic, the Rotterdam 

Philharmonic, and several Italian orchestras, 

as well as in a recital tour across Italy. 

Mr. Lupo has been heard extensively 

throughout both American continents and 

Europe, returning to North America each 

season. He has appeared as soloist with 

the St. Louis, Seattle, Montreal, Vancouver, 

Oregon, Utah, and New World symphony 

orchestras, and overseas with the London 

Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchestra in 

Leipzig, Hallé Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic 

(Norway), and the Monte Carlo Philarmonic, 

among others. He has performed at 

numerous music festivals worldwide, 

including the Tivoli in Copenhagen, the Villa 

Medici in Rome, the Chopin Festival in 

Poland, the Schubert Festivals in Rio de 

Janeiro and São Paulo, and Chicago’s Grant 

Park Festival. 

His recordings include a recent and 

acclaimed version of Nino Rota’s Concerto 

Soirée with the Orchestra Sinfonica 

Siciliana on the Nuova Era label, and a new 

recording of the same work on Harmonia 

Mundi, which received the prestigious 

Diapason d’Or. With Peter Maag and the 

RSI Symphony Orchestra, he has recorded 

Schumann’s complete works for piano and 

orchestra, including the first CD recording 

of the piano version of Concertstück, Op. 86, 

for the Arts label. 

Mr. Lupo teaches at the Nino Rota 

Conservatory in Italy, gives master classes 

around the world, and serves on the jury of 

both the Cleveland International Competition 

and the Gina Bachauer Competition in Salt 

Lake City, having taken the second and 

third prizes, respectively, in the past. He is 

featured on the Emmy Award–winning 

documentary Here to Make Music: The 

Eighth Van Cliburn International Piano 

Competition and the seven-part series 

Encore! The Final Round of Performances 

of the Eighth Van Cliburn International 

Piano Competition, both for PBS. 

Andrew Armstrong 

Praised by critics for his passionate expression 

and dazzling technique, pianist Andrew 

Armstrong has given solo recitals and 

appeared with orchestras in Asia, Europe, 

Latin America, and the U.S., including performances 

at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, 

the Kennedy Center, the Grand Hall of the 

Moscow Conservatory, and Warsaw’s 

National Philharmonic. He has performed 

with such conductors as Peter Oundjian, 

Itzhak Perlman, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, 

and in chamber music with the Alexander, 

American, and Manhattan string quartets, 

as a member of the Caramoor Virtuosi at 

the Caramoor International Music Festival, 

and as a member of the Jupiter Symphony 

Chamber Players in New York City. 

During the 2008–09 season, Mr. Armstrong 

will perform under the direction of Stefan 

Sanderling at the Chautauqua Music Festival 

with the Toledo Symphony, before 

embracing Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 

with both the Fairfax Symphony under Gregory 

Vajda and the Nashville Symphony 

under Günther Herbig. He is also to appear 

with the Toledo, Fairfax, Augusta, Waukesha, 

and Missoula symphonies. 

A winner of 25 national and international 

First Prizes, Mr. Armstrong was named 

Gilmore Young Artist in 1996. At the 1993 

Van Cliburn Competition, where he was the 

youngest pianist entered, he received the 

Jury Discretionary Award.


Mr. Armstrong’s debut CD, featuring 

Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Sonata and 

Musorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition, 

was released in 2004 to critical acclaim. His 

follow-up CD was issued in November 

2007 on Cordelia Records and includes 

works by Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, and the 

world premiere recording of Lisa Bielawa’s 

Wait for piano with drone. 


Now in its 42nd year, the Mostly Mozart 

Festival was launched as an experiment in 

1966 as “Midsummer Serenades: A Mozart 

Festival.” This country’s first indoor music 

festival devoted its first two seasons exclusively 

to the music of Mozart. Now a New 

York institution, the Festival has broadened 

its focus to include works by Bach, Handel, 

Schubert, Haydn, and Beethoven. In recent 

seasons, the Mostly Mozart Festival has 

expanded into several venues (Avery Fisher 

Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Walter Reade Theater, 

New York State Theater, Gerald W. Lynch 

Theater at John Jay College, and most 

recently The Allen Room and Rose Theater), 

and now includes significant Baroque 

and early music presentations featuring 

some of the world’s outstanding periodinstrument 

ensembles. Multidisciplinary 

presentations related to the Classical and 

Baroque periods are also an important 

focus of the festival. 


The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra is the 

resident orchestra of the Mostly Mozart 

Festival. In addition to the New York 

season, the Orchestra has toured to 

notable festivals and venues such as 

Ravinia, Great Woods, Tanglewood, the 

Tilles Center, and the Kennedy Center. The 

Orchestra also toured to Japan, where it 

was in residence at Tokyo’s Bunkamura 

Arts Center from 1991–1999. 

Conductors who made their New York 

debuts with the Mostly Mozart Festival 

Orchestra include Charles Dutoit, Leonard 

Slatkin, David Zinman, and Edo de Waart. 

Soloists such as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas 

Zukerman, Alicia de Larrocha, Richard 

Stoltzman, Emanuel Ax, and André Watts 

have had long associations with the Festival. 

Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, flutist James 

Galway, soprano Elly Ameling, and pianist 

Mitsuko Uchida all made their New York 

debuts at the Mostly Mozart Festival. 

Lincoln Center 

for the Performing Arts, Inc. 

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts 

(LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter 

of superb artistic programming, national 

leader in arts and education, and manager 

of the Lincoln Center campus. As a presenter 

of more than 400 events annually, LCPA’s 

programs include American Songbook, 

Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, 

Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer 

Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival, 

and Live From Lincoln Center. In addition, 

LCPA is leading a series of major capital 

projects on behalf of the resident organizations 

across the campus.



Louis Langrée, Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director 

Violin I 

Krista Bennion Feeney, 

Concertmaster 

Eva Burmeister 

Robert Chausow 

Conrad Harris 

Amy Kauffman 

Sophia Kessinger 

Barbara Long 

Michael Roth 

Deborah Wong 

Violin II 

Mineko Yajima, Principal 

Katsuko Esaki 

Lilit Gampel 

Michael Gillette 

Suzanne Gilman 

Katherine Livolsi-Landau 

Lisa Matricardi 

Dorthy Strahl 

Viola 

Daniel Panner, Principal 

Stephanie Baer 

Shmuel Katz 

Linda Moss 

Jack Rosenberg 

Cello 

Ilya Finkelshteyn, 

Principal 

Ted Ackerman 

Ann Kim 

Alvin McCall 

Bass 

Timothy Cobb, Principal 

Joseph Bongiorno 

Judith Sugarman 

Flute 

Judy Mendenhall, 

Principal 

Melanie Bradford, 

Piccolo 

Lincoln Center Programming Department 

Oboe 

Randall Ellis, Principal 

James Roe, English horn 

Clarinet 

Jon Manasse, Principal 

Paul Gallo 

Bassoon 

Marc Goldberg, 

Principal 

Tom Sefcovic 

Horn 

Lawrence DiBello, 

Principal 

Russ Rizner 

Michelle Baker 

David Culpepper 

Trumpet 

Neil Balm, Principal 

Lee Soper 

Jane Moss, Vice President, Programming 

Hanako Yamaguchi, Director, Music Programming 

Jon Nakagawa, Producer, Contemporary Programming 

Lisa Takemoto, Production Manager 

Bill Bragin, Director, Public Programming 

Kate Monaghan, Associate Director, Programming 

Charles Cermele, Associate Producer, Contemporary Programming 

Melanie Armer, Associate Producer, Contemporary Programming 

Andrea Murray, Production Coordinator 

Sheya Meierdierks-Lehman, House Program Coordinator 

Kimberly Zerpa, Assistant to the Vice President 

Amrita Vijayaraghavan, Interim Programming Associate 

David Kincaide, Assistant, Public Programming 

Derek Balcom, Production Intern; Jessica Barker, Production Intern; 

Lindsey Eckenroth, House Program Intern; Jordana Kier, Ticketing Intern 

Program Annotators: 

Kenneth LaFave, Kathryn L. Libin, Risto Nieminen, Paul Schiavo, David Wright 

Timpani 

Randy Hicks 

Harp 

Anna Reinersman 

Librarian 

Paul Beck, Principal 

Justin Vibbard 

Personnel Managers 

Neil Balm 

Jonathan Haas 

Gemini Music 

Productions, Ltd.


Pre-concert Recitals and Lectures 

All pre-concert events are FREE to ticket-holders of that evening’s performance. 

Wednesday, July 30, at 6:45 

Pre-concert lecture about Mahler’s Das Lied von 

der Erde by Marilyn L. McCoy 

Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse 

Thursday, July 31, at 6:30 

Kristian Bezuidenhout, Fortepiano 

All-Mozart program: Fantasia in C minor, K.475; 

Variations on “Unser dummer Pöbel meint” in 

G major, K.455 

Rose Theater 

Friday, August 1, at 7:00 

Conrad Tao, Piano 

Beethoven: Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53 

(“Waldstein”) 

Avery Fisher Hall 

Saturday, August 2, at 7:00 

Paul Galbraith, Guitar 

Webern: Variations, Op. 27 

Mozart: Sonata in F major, K.280 


Sunday, August 3, at 3:45 

Pre-concert lecture about La clemenza di Tito by 

Elaine Sisman 

Irene Diamond Education Center 

Monday, August 4, at 6:15 

Pre-concert lecture about Italian Baroque sacred 

music by Raymond Erickson 


Tuesday and Wednesday, August 5–6, at 7:00 

Garrick Ohlsson, Piano 

Mozart: Sonata in B-flat major, K.333 



Pre-performance discussion about Requiem 

with Lemi Ponifasio and Peter Sellars 


Friday and Saturday, August 8–9, at 7:00 

Andrew Armstrong, Piano 

Musorgsky: Pictures from an Exhibition 


Tuesday, August 12, at 7:00 

Moscow String Quartet 

Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 in C minor 


Wednesday, August 13, at 7:00 

Moscow String Quartet 

Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 4 in D major 



Pre-performance discussion about La Passion 

de Simone with Kaija Saariaho and 

Ara Guzelimian 


Thursday, August 14, at 6:15 

Pre-concert discussion about Notes on Light 

with Kaija Saariaho, Anssi Karttunen, and 



Friday, August 15 

Post-performance discussion about La Passion 

de Simone with Susanna Mälkki, Kaija 

Saariaho, Peter Sellars, Dawn Upshaw, and 


Rose Theater 


Joshua Roman, Cello 

Britten: Cello Suite No. 3, Op. 87 


Saturday, August 16, at 7:00 

Richard O’Neill, Viola 

Dong-Hyek Lim, Piano 

Schubert: Sonata in A minor, D.821 (“Arpeggione”) 


Tuesday, August 19, at 7:00 

Mihaela Ursuleasa, Piano 

Schumann: Selections from Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 



Inon Barnatan, Piano 

Mozart: Sonata in A minor, K.310 

Chopin: Barcarolle in F-sharp major, Op. 60 


Thursday, August 21, at 7:00 

Emerson String Quartet 

Jonathan Biss, Piano 

All-Mozart program: Five Fugues for String 

Quartet, from Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, 

Book II, K.405; Violin Sonata in E minor, K.304 



Pre-concert lecture about Strauss’ 

Metamorphosen by Bryan Gilliam 

Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

Gp 3.qxt - Lincoln Center

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