200th Birthday of Franz Liszt

Liszt, Louis Lortie, and Beethoven

2011 is the 200th birthday of Franz Liszt. Last year belonged to Chopin and Schumann and I felt I must give Mr. Liszt his due. As extensive as his compositions are, we felt that it was the piano that gave him his opportunity for greatness; therefore, we have invited Louis Lortie to perform the composer’s most monumental work—Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage). This giant task takes two recitals and a massive brain and heart to remember it all and perform it brilliantly. Louis Lortie is the man for the job. You will recall when he substituted last season for the ailing Yuja Wang, he dazzled us with the complete Chopin Etudes. I love to tell this story. Chairman of the Board Sabra Bordas, my wife Kaly and I were having a quite a good lunch at Il Barone Ristorante, when my cell phone rang. Jeff Mistri, our artistic administrator, was on the other end telling me that Yuja was cancelling the next night and asked what did I think of having Louis Lortie take her place. What was astounding is how he managed to have Louis tracked down at the Newark Airport awaiting a flight home to Berlin (a flight that was not going to happen because of that volcano problem, you remember). Things have a way of working out, often during a very pleasant lunch.

I have already told you about our project of late Beethoven works to be scheduled over the next two seasons, inspired by the play “33 Variations” which opens at the Ahmanson Theatre at the end of this month. We are providing a bus to the 2pm performance on February 5th. More about that on my next blog. There is a very interesting Liszt connection. As a ten-year-old, the young composer was able to have his first work published in Anton Diabelli’s Vaterländischer Künstlerverein (Fatherland Artist Society), a collection of 83 variations on a “waltz” composed by the publisher himself—50 variations by a variety of composers, including Liszt, and 33 by Beethoven (who was asked only to write a single variation), which are of course known as his Diabelli Variations. The little composer was probably not on Diabelli’s original invite list. Franz’s teacher Carl Czerny was and probably got him added to it. Czerny, being a student of Beethoven, was the first composer Diabelli approached and he decided to write the last variation, sort of an epigram.

As we all know, the 19th century was an extraordinary period for music. Then as now, it seemed that all the musicians and composers knew one another. Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage was written while he was having an affair with Marie d’Agoult while they were travelling through Switzerland and Italy. They produced three illegitimate children. The middle one, Cosima, married Hans von Bülow and later Richard Wagner, which is another can of worms. Their story must have inspired the creation of Desperate Housewives.

A Happy New Year! Please enjoy!

Giveaways & 33 Variations

Back in the spring of 2009 I saw a wonderful play in New York about Beethoven starring Jane Fonda. It was called 33 Variations, written and directed by Moisés Kaufman. It was the story of a terminally ill musicologist racing against her own mortality trying to solve the riddle why Beethoven wrote 33 variations of Anton Diabelli’s insipid little waltz when he was only commissioned to write a single one. I was inspired by the play to curate a number of Beethoven performances from his late period for the Philharmonic Society that we could explore together as an audience this question and others that arise about this curious time in his life. We are fortunate that this same production of 33 Variations will open at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles on January 30. Everyone gets a chance to see it. The Philharmonic Society will organize some special nights there. For information, call Heather in our office at 949.553.2422. Other late Beethoven attractions coming over the next couple of seasons will be a performance of the Diabelli Variations with pianist Marino Formenti; the Ninth Symphony and the Missa Solemnis with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique; special exhibits, films and talks; and, of course the last five string quartets.

Two of those quartets are happening this season – the op. 132 with the Tokyo String Quartet at the Samueli on April 19, 2011, and the op. 131 arranged for string orchestra performed in our current concerts by Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica in their Orange County debut on Monday, November 1, at the Segerstrom Concert Hall.. Try to hear all of our Beethoven presentations including 33 Variations at the Ahmanson. This is another one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that we continually try to bring you.

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Were you at the Dresden Staatskapelle concert? Do you know the answer that will get you free tickets to the Monday, November 1, performance of the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra? To jog your memory, the answer to Dean's question can be found in this blog post. Here are the directions to claim your free tickets.

What you need to do:
1) E-mail the answer to Dean's question and your contact information (name, address, e-mail, and phone number) to contactus@philharmonicsociety.org. Use subject line: Kremerata Blog Contest.
2) Bring printed confirmation letter to will-call to pick up your tickets.
3) Most importantly, ENJOY THE CONCERT!!

We will send you an e-mail confirming your tickets. One pair of tickets per household, seats chosen by best availability. Promotion runs until 3pm on Monday, November 1.