Venue: Avery Fisher Hall
Performance Dates: 20, 21, 22, 25 March 2014
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Weill’s Symphony no. 2, composed 1933-34 on a commission from the Princesse de Polignac, was first performed by the New York Philharmonic in December 1934, conducted by Bruno Walter, who had led the world premiere with the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam two months earlier. The initial reception was poor, but the symphony has recovered to become a familiar face in the twentieth-century symphonic line-up. In 2000, David Schiff remarked that it “sums up the musical revolution that Weill had begun as an enfant terrible in the mid-twenties,” and most critics now show a high regard for the work. The symphony is in three movements: Sostenuto – Allegro molto; Largo; Allegro vivace – Presto.

Pianist Jeffrey Kahane (photo at right) will conduct and appear as piano soloist in the other two works on the program, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G and Gershwin’s Concerto in F. Sought after both as a pianist and as a conductor, he has conducted Weill’s Symphony no. 2 previously in Los Angeles and Hamburg. The crowd-pleasing program will be given four times.

Reviews

New York Times (Zachary Woolfe)

Features

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