MAHLER symphonies Live

The CompLeTe

LORIN MAAZELNEw YoRk PhILhaRmONIc

symphony4

LoRiN MAAZEL conductorHEiDi GRANT MURPHY Soprano

MAHLER SymPhONy NO. 4 in D minor (1892 and 1899–1901, rev. 1901–11) 63:34

1 Deliberately. Do not hurry 18:022 In easy motion. Without haste 10:073 Serene (Poco adagio) 24:534 Very leisurely 10:32

REcoRDED LivE September 20–26, 2006, avery Fisher hall at Lincoln center for the Performing arts

New York PhilharmoNic aNd loriN maazel: The comPleTe mahler SYmPhoNieS, live is released in celebration of mr. maazel’s seven-year tenure as music Director of the New york Philharmonic, 2002–2009.

Visit nyphil.org/maazelmahler for bonus content including a score with mahler’s own notes, video interviews with Lorin maazel, and audio samples from the complete series.

cover photo: Chris Leeunless otherwise noted, additional imagery:new york phiLharmoniC arChives

vinCe Ford Executive ProducerLarry roCk Producer, Recording

and mastering Engineer

USED by aRRaNgEmENt WIth UNIVERSaL EDItION a.g., VIENNa

BoRN July 7, 1860, in Kalischt (Kaliste), bohemia, near the town of humpolec

DiEDmay 18, 1911, in Vienna, austria

woRk coMPosEDJune 1899–april 1901, drawing in the finale on the composer’s song “Das himmlische Leben,” penned in 1892; with revisions following through early 1911

woRLD PREMiERENovember 25, 1901, in munich, by the composer conducting the Kaim Orchestra and soprano margarete michalek; the song “Das himmlische Leben” had been premiered on October 27, 1893, in hamburg

NEw YoRk PHiLHARMoNic PREMiERENovember 6, 1904, Walter Damrosch conducting the New york Symphony (which would merge with the New york Philharmonic in 1928 to form today’s New york Philharmonic)

Throughout his career Gustav Mahler balanced the competing demands

of his dual vocation as a composer and conductor. Responsibilities on the

podium and in the administrative office completely occupied him during

concert season, forcing him to relegate his composing to the summer months,

NoTEs ON thE PROgRam: MAHLER SymPhONy NO. 4 3

which he would spend as a near hermit in the Austrian countryside. When Mahler came to write his Fourth Symphony, principally during the summers of 1899 and 1900, he was escaping a Vienna that was becoming a source of inordinate stress. On April 1, 1901, he would be ousted from his position as Director of the Vienna Philharmonic following a three-year tenure in which the normal roller coaster of Viennese musical politics was rendered more intense by the anti-Semitic sentiments that often dogged him. He was hanging on to his other principal position, as Director of the Vienna Court Opera; however, that job was stressful, too, and Mahler’s anxiety at work led to frequent medical problems.

He spent the summer of 1899 at Bad Aussee in the Salzkammergut, and during his last ten days there he began to map out his Fourth Symphony. In August he filed his sketches away and did not return to them until the following summer, this time at a new location. His getaway was now the villa he was building at Maiernigg, a bump on the map on the south shore of the Wörthersee (known sometimes as Lake Worth to English speakers, to the

LisTEN foR …Examining mahler’s symphonies often reveals connections between them. Knowing that for a time he had intended to employ the song “Das himmlische Leben” (“the heavenly Life”) as the finale for his third Symphony, we should not be astonished to hear that orchestral song reflected in that vast composition. the tune is carefully woven into the fabric of the Fourth Symphony, too, most obviously through the recurrence of the sleighbell motif that begins the symphony as punctuation between verses in the finale. (Of course, it had existed in the song-finale first, and mahler “lifted” what he had already written for the beginning of his eventual symphony.)

the Fourth Symphony also reaches out to mahler’s other symphonies in other ways. For example, in a passage two-thirds of the way through the first movement we find the trumpets engaging in some ominous sounding fanfares:

mahlerians will inevitably hear this as foreshadowing the opening bars of the Fifth Symphony, which the composer began before the Fourth had been premiered. In the Fifth a very similar fanfare is again assigned to the trumpet, in the same key, c-sharp minor:

as many devoted mahlerians have already realized, richness is gained by considering all of his symphonies as a whole: references emerge, recede, and are transformed even as one work cedes to the next. In this regard we might view mahler’s nine symphonies as a sort of musical predecessor to the similarly imposing literary cycle of the early 20th century, marcel Proust’s seven-novel sequence known as a la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of things Past), begun during mahler’s lifetime and published in stages between 1913 and 1927.

NoTEs ON thE PROgRam 4

extent that English speakers know it at all), a bucolic spot in the region of Carinthia in southern Austria.

At Maiernigg Mahler had constructed a tiny, sparsely furnished composing cottage on the hill behind his villa; every morning he would meander up along a forest path to work there in splendid seclusion. When he returned to his composing that summer he discovered, as he reported to his amanuen-sis, Natalie Bauer-Lechner, that his work had progressed to

a much more advanced stage than it had reached in Aussee without my having given it a moment’s real attention in the meantime.… That my second self should have worked on the symphony throughout the ten months of winter sleep (with all the frightful nightmares of the theater business) is unbelievable!

By August 5 the Fourth Symphony was effectively completed, although Mahler continued to revise it through the following April — and, indeed, to tweak it further following performances that he conducted, through to his last one, with this New YorkPhilharmonic, four months before he died. Mahler had a head start with this symphony.

NoTEs ON thE PROgRam 5

fRoM A fRiEND AND coLLEAGUEbruno Walter, who would follow in mahler’s footsteps as the New york Philharmonic’s music director from 1947 to 1949, had been mahler’s assistant in both hamburg (1894–96) and Vienna (beginning in 1901). given his connection to mahler, his observations on the Fourth Symphony take on special resonance:

Dream-like and unreal, indeed, is the atmosphere of the work — a mysterious smile and a strange humor cover the solemnity which so clearly had been mani-fested in the third. In the fairy tale of the Fourth everything is floating and unbur-dened which, in his former works, had been mighty and pathetic — the mellow voice of an angel confirms what, in the Second and third, a prophet had foreseen and pronounced in loud accents. the blissful feeling of exaltation and freedom from the world communicates itself to the character of the music — but, in contrast to the third, from afar, as it were. …

the first movement and “the heavenly Life” are dominated by a droll humor which is in strange contrast to the beatific mood forming the keynote of the work. the scherzo is a sort of uncanny fairy-tale episode. Its demoniac violin solo and the graceful trio form aninteresting counter-part to the other sections of the symphony without abandoning the character of lightness and mystery. Referring to the profound quiet and clear beauty of the andante [sic], mahler said to me that they were caused by his vision of one of the church sepulchers showing the recumbent stone image of the deceased with the arms crossed in eternal sleep. the poem whose setting to music forms the last movement depicts in words the atmosphere out of which the music of the Fourth grew. the childlike joys which it portrays are symbolic of heavenly bliss, and only when, at the very end, music is proclaimed the sublimest of joys is the humorous character gently changed into one of exalted solemnity.

GusTav mahLer (LeFT) and Bruno waLTer in 1908 in Prague, at the premiere of mahler’s Seventh Symphony

In 1892 he had written a song — first to a piano accompaniment, a few weeks later in an orchestral version — titled “Das himmlis-che Leben” (“The Heavenly Life”) on a text drawn from the purported folk anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn. That collection furnished texts for quite a few of his inde-pendent songs as well as for movements of his Second and Third Symphonies.

Mahler contemplated using his setting of “Das himmlische Leben” to conclude his Third Symphony but he discarded the idea — a wise choice since that work was already quite long and probably too massive for such a pared-down ending. Instead, the song became the point of departure for his new symphony. In his Fourth Symphony, Mahler

worked backwards to some degree; knowing how it would conclude, he crafted the first three movements to prepare for that song-finale, which he once referred to as “the top of the Symphony’s pyramidal structure.”

THE soNG’s sYMBoLisM “Das himmlische Leben” from Des Knaben Wunderhorn — which mahler set first as an independent song and then in his Fourth Symphony — evokes a series of christian symbols. Some are commonly recognized even today: there are few who do not remem-ber that Peter was a fisherman, for example, and some know that cecilia is the patron saint of music. however, there are references that may well elude today’s audience: it helps to know that St. Luke’s symbol is a winged ox, and that St. martha, the sister of Lazarus, is the patron saint of those serving the needy. the following passage from Donald attwater’s Penguin Dictionary of Saints helps explain the reference to St. Ursula and her legend of the 11,000 virgins:

iNsTRUMENTATioN four flutes (two doubling piccolo), three oboes (one doubling English horn), three clarinets (one doubling E-flat clarinet, another doubling bass clarinet), three bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, timpani, bass drum, triangle, sleigh bells, orchestra bells, cymbals, tam-tam, harp, and strings; also, in the finale, a solo soprano singer

Niccolò di Pietro’s SaiNT UrSUla aNd her maideNS (c.1410)

NoTEs ON thE PROgRam 6

Ursula, to avoid an unwanted marriage, departed with her company from the island of britain, where her father was a king; on their way back from a visit to Rome, they were slaughtered by huns at cologne on account of their christian faith. During the twelfth century this pious romance was preposterously elaborated through the mistakes of imaginative visionaries; a public burial-ground uncovered at cologne was taken to be the grave of the martyrs, false relics came into circulation and forged epitaphs of non-existent persons were produced. the earliest reference [to] St. Ursula … speaks of her ten companions: how these eleven came to be multiplied by a thousand is a matter of speculation.

Surely this ending succeeds far better here than it would have in the Third Symphony, capping as it does an extensive, incident- laden first movement, a wry scherzo (Mahler indicated that he intended it as a sort of danse macabre), and a supernal Adagio (which Mahler ranked as his finest slow movement, although his oeuvre offers

trac

e m

urp

hy

several worthy competitors). Everything reaches its destination in one of Mahler’s simplest songs. Moreover, that song is intoned by a soprano who, Mahler insisted (in a note he inserted in the first edition of the score), should render her four verses

“with childlike, cheerful expression; entirely without parody!”

—JAMEs M. kELLER PROgRam aNNOtatOR

DAs HiMMLiscHE LEBEN

Wir genießen die himmlischen Freuden,Drum thun wir das Irdische meiden.Kein weltlich GetümmelHört man nicht im Himmel!Lebt Alles in sanftester Ruh’!Wir führen ein englisches Leben!Sind dennoch ganz lustig daneben!Wir tanzen und springen,Wir hüpfen und singen!Sankt Peter im Himmel sieht zu!

Johannes das Lämmlein auslasset,Der Metzger Herodes drauf passet!Wir führen ein geduldig’s,Unschuldig’s, geduldig’s,Ein liebliches Lämmlein zu Tod!Sanct Lucas den Ochsen thät schlachtenOhn’ einig’s Bedenken und Achten,Der Wein kost kein HellerIm himmlischen Keller,Die Englein, die backen das Brot.(continued)

TExTs aND TRANsLATioNs 7

THE HEAvENLY LifE

We enjoy the pleasures of HeavenAnd therefore avoid earthly ones.No worldly tumultIs to be heard in Heaven!All live in gentlest peace!We lead angelic lives!Thus we have a merry time of it.We dance and we leap,We skip and we sing!St. Peter in Heaven looks on.

John lets his little lamb out,And Herod the Butcher lies in wait for it.We lead a patient,Innocent, patient,Dear little lamb to its death!St. Luke slaughters the oxWithout a thought or concern.Wine doesn’t cost a pennyIn Heaven’s cellar;The angels bake the bread.(continued)

Gut’ Kräuter von allerhand Arten,Die wachsen im himmlischen Garten!Gut’ Spargel, Fisolen,Und was wir nur wollen!Ganze Schüsseln voll sind uns bereit!Gut Äpfel, gut’ Birn’ und gut’ Trauben!Die Gärtner, die Alles erlauben!Willst Rehbock, willst Hasen,Auf offener StraßenSie laufen herbei!

Sollt’ ein Fasttag etwa kommen,Alle Fische gleich mit Freuden angeschwommen!Dort läuft schon Sanct PeterMit Netz und mit KöderZum himmlischen Weiher hinein.Sanct Martha die Köchin muß sein.

Kein Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden,Die uns’rer verglichen kann werden.Elftausend JungfrauenZu tanzen sich trauen!Sanct Ursula selbst dazu lacht!Cäcilia mit ihren VerwandtenSind treffliche Hofmusikanten!Die englischen StimmenErmuntern die Sinnen,Daß alles für Freuden erwacht.

— FROm DES KNabEN WUNDERhORN

TExTs aND TRANsLATioNs 8

Good greens of all sortsGrow in Heaven’s garden!Good asparagus, string beans,And whatever we want!Full bowls are set out for us!Good apples, good pears, and good grapes!The gardeners allow everything!If you want venison or hare,You’ll find them runningOn the public streets!

Should a fast-day arrive,All the fish come swimming with joy!There goes St. Peter, runningWith his net and his baitTo the heavenly pond.St. Martha shall be the cook!

There is no music on earthThat can compare to ours.Eleven thousand virginsDare to dance!Even St. Ursula herself has to laugh!Cecilia and her kinMake excellent court musicians!The angelic voicesGladden our sensesSo that everything awakens for joy.

chris Lee

LoRiN MAAZELmusic Director

xian Zhangassociate conductor

Leonard Bernstein Laureate conductor, 1943–1990

kurt Masurmusic Director Emeritus

vioLiNsglenn Dicterowconcertmasterthe charles E. culpeper chair

Sheryl StaplesPrincipal associateconcertmasterthe Elizabeth g. beinecke chair

michelle Kimassistant concertmasterthe William Petschek Family chair

Enrico Di ceccocarol Webbyoko takebe

Kenneth gordon+hae-young hamLisa gihae KimNewton mansfieldKerry mcDermottanna Rabinovacharles RexFiona SimonSharon yamadaElizabeth Zeltseryulia Ziskel

marc ginsbergPrincipal

Lisa Kim*In memory of Laura mitchell

Soohyun KwonDuoming ba

marilyn Dubowmartin EshelmanJudith ginsbergmei ching huangmyung-hi Kimhanna LachertKuan-cheng LuSarah O’boyleDaniel Reedmark SchmoocklerNa SunVladimir tsypin

vioLAscynthia PhelpsPrincipalthe mr. and mrs. Frederick P. Rose chair

Rebecca young*Irene breslaw**the Norma and Lloydchazen chair

Dorian Rence

Katherine greeneDawn hannayVivek KamathPeter Kenotebarry LehrKenneth mirkinJudith NelsonRobert Rinehart

cELLoscarter breyPrincipalthe Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels chair

hai-ye Ni*+Qiang tuacting associate Principalthe Shirley and Jon brodsky Foundation chair

Evangeline benedetti

Eric bartlettNancy DonarumaElizabeth DysonValentin hirsumaria KitsopoulosSumire KudoEileen moonRu-Pei yehFrederick Zlotkin++

BAssEsEugene LevinsonPrincipalthe Redfield D. beckwith chair

Jon Deak*Orin O’brien

William blossomRandall butlerDavid J. grossmanLew NortonSatoshi Okamotomichele Saxon

fLUTEsRobert LangevinPrincipalthe Lila acheson Wallace chair

Sandra church*Renée Siebertmindy Kaufman

PiccoLomindy Kaufman

oBoEsLiang WangPrincipalthe alice tully chair

Sherry Sylar*Robert botti

ENGLisH HoRNthomas Stacythe Joan and Joel Smilow chair

cLARiNETsStanley DruckerPrincipalthe Edna and W. Van alan clark chair

mark Nuccio*Pascual martinez Forteza

Stephen Freeman

E-fLAT cLARiNETmark Nuccio

BAss cLARiNETStephen Freeman

BAssooNsJudith Leclair

Principalthe Pels Family chairKim Laskowski*Roger Nyearlen Fast

coNTRABAssooNarlen Fast

HoRNsPhilip myersPrincipalthe Ruth F. and alan J. broder chair

Jerome ashby*L. William Kuyper**R. allen SpanjerErik Ralskehoward WallPatrick milando++

TRUMPETsPhilip SmithPrincipalthe Paula Levin chairmatthew muckey*James Rossthomas V. Smith

TRoMBoNEsJoseph alessi

Principalthe gurnee F. and marjorie L. hart chair

James markey*David Finlayson

BAss TRoMBoNEDonald harwood

TUBAalan baerPrincipal

TiMPANimarkus RhotenPrincipalthe carlos moseley chair

Joseph Pereira**

PERcUssioNchristopher S. LambPrincipalthe constance R. hoguetFriends of the Philharmonic chair

Daniel Druckman*the mr. and mrs. Ronald J. Ulrich chair

Joseph Pereira

HARPNancy allenPrincipalthe mr. and mrs. William t. Knight III chair

kEYBoARDIn memory of Paul Jacobs

HARPsicHoRDLionel Party

PiANothe Karen and Richard S. LeFrak chair

harriet WingreenJonathan Feldman

oRGANKent tritle

LiBRARiANsLawrence tarlowPrincipal

Sandra Pearson**thad marciniak

oRcHEsTRA PERsoNNEL MANAGERcarl R. Schiebler

sTAGE REPREsENTATivELouis J. Patalano

AUDio DiREcToRLawrence Rock

* associate Principal ** assistant Principal + On Leave ++ Replacement/Extra

the New york Philharmonic uses the revolving seating method for section string players who are listed alphabetically in the roster.

NEw YoRk PHiLHARMoNic 2006–2007 SEaSON 10

abOUt thE ARTisTs 11a

ndrew

garn

LoRiN MAAZEL, who has led more than 150 orchestras in more than 5,000 opera and concert performances, became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2002. His appointment came 60 years after his debut with the Orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium, then the Orchestra’s summer venue. As Music Director he has conducted nine World Premiere–New York Philharmonic Commissions, including the Pulitzer Prize– and Grammy Award–winning On the Transmigration of Souls by John Adams; Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 3; Melinda Wagner’s Trombone Concerto; and Steven Stucky’s Rhapsodies for Orchestra. He has led cycles of works by Brahms, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky; and he conducted the Orchestra’s inaugural performances in the DG Concerts series — a groundbreaking initiative to offer downloadable New York Philharmonic concerts exclusively on iTunes.

Mr. Maazel has taken the Orchestra on numerous international tours, including the historic visit to Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in February 2008 — the first performance there by an American orchestra. Other recent tours have included Europe 2008 in August–September; Asia 2008 — to Taipei, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing in February; the May 2007 Tour of Europe; the November 2006 visit to Japan and Korea; the Philharmonic Tour

of Italy in June 2006, sponsored by Generali; the two-part 75th Anniversary European Tour to thirteen cities in five countries in the fall of 2005; and residencies in Cagliari, Sardinia, and at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Colorado.

In addition to the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Maazel is music director of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain. A frequent conductor on the world’s operatic stages, he returned to The Metropolitan Opera in January 2008 for the first time in 45 years to conduct Wagner’s Die Walküre.

Prior to his tenure as New York Philharmonic Music Director, Mr. Maazel led more than 100 performances of the Orchestra as a guest conductor. He served as music director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (1993–2002), and has held positions as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1988–96); general manager and chief conductor of the Vienna Staatsoper (1982–84); music director of The Cleveland Orchestra (1972–82); and artistic director and chief conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (1965–71). He is an honorary member of the Israel and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, and a Commander of the Legion of Honor of France.

A second-generation American, born in Paris, Mr. Maazel was raised and educated in the United States. He took his first violin

lesson at age five, and first conducting lesson at seven. Between ages 9 and 15 he conducted most of the major American orchestras. In 1953 he made his European conducting debut in Catania, Italy.

Mr. Maazel is also an accomplished composer. His opera, 1984, received its world premiere on May 3, 2005, at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. It was revived in the 2007–08 season at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and has been released on DVD by Decca.

abOUt thE ARTisTs 12

Soprano HEiDi GRANT MURPHY has ap-peared with many of the world’s finest opera companies — notably The Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival, Opéra National de Paris, Bavarian State Opera, and Netherlands Opera — and symphony orchestras, includ-ing the Vienna, New York, and Los Angeles philharmonic orchestras, Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, and Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, St. Louis, and National symphony orchestras. She enjoys an active chamber music and recital career and has performed throughout the U.S. and in London and Salzburg, as well as at the Ravinia, Tanglewood, Verbier, and Edinburgh festivals. Ms. Murphy has worked with such esteemed conductors as Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Reinbert de Leeuw, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Leonard Slatkin, Robert Spano, Michael Tilson Thomas, Edo

de Waart, Christoph Von Dohnányi, David Zinman, Pinchas Zukerman, and the late Robert Shaw.

Ms. Murphy’s recordings include projects for Deutsche Grammophon, Delos, PS classics, Arabesque, and six discs for KOCH International. Other releases include Augusta Read Thomas’s Gathering Paradise with Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic on New World, an XM Satellite Radio compilation of Sondheim classics, and the Grammy-nominated Sweeney Todd (as Johanna) on New York Philharmonic Special Editions. She has been a featured guest on NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered, A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts, and BBC Radio 3. In October 2005, Ms. Murphy received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Western Washington University, where she pursued a bachelor’s degree in music performance. Ms. Murphy resides in New York City with her husband and four children.

Jennifer gasp

arian

The NEw YoRk PHiLHARMoNic, founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians led by American-born Ureli Corelli Hill, is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world. It currently plays some 180 concerts a year, and on December 18, 2004, gave its 14,000th concert — a milestone unmatched by any other symphony orchestra in the world.

Lorin Maazel began his tenure as Music Director in September 2002, the latest in a distinguished line of 20th-century musical giants that has included Kurt Masur (Music Director from 1991 to the summer of 2002; named Music Director Emeritus in 2002); Zubin Mehta (1978–91); Pierre Boulez (1971–77); and Leonard Bernstein, who was ap-pointed Music Director in 1958 and given the lifetime title of Laureate Conductor in 1969. In September 2009 Alan Gilbert will become the Orchestra’s next Music Director.

Since its inception the Orchestra has championed the new music of its time, commissioning or premiering many impor-tant works such as Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World; Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3; Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F; and Copland’s Connotations. The Philharmonic has also given the U.S. premieres of works such as Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 and Brahms’s Symphony No. 4. This pioneering tradition has continued to the present day, with works

of major contemporary composers regularly scheduled each season, including John Adams’s Pulitzer Prize– and Grammy Award winning On the Transmigration of Souls; Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 3; Augusta Read Thomas’s Gathering Paradise, Emily Dickinson Settings for Soprano and Orchestra; and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto.

The roster of composers and conductors who have led the Philharmonic includes such historic figures as Theodore Thomas, Antonín Dvorák, Gustav Mahler (Music Director, 1909–11), Otto Klemperer, Richard Strauss, Willem Mengelberg (Music Director, 1922–30), Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini (Music Director, 1928–36), Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Bruno Walter (Music Advisor, 1947–49), Dimitri Mitropoulos (Music Director, 1949–58), Klaus Tennstedt, George Szell (Music Advisor, 1969–70), and Erich Leinsdorf.

Long a leader in American musical life, the Philharmonic has over the last century become renowned around the globe, appear-ing in 425 cities in 59 countries on five conti-nents. In February 2008 the Orchestra, led by Music Director Lorin Maazel, gave a historic performance in Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — the first visit there by an American orchestra, and an event watched around the world and for which the Philharmonic received the 2008 Common

Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy. Other historic tours have included the 1930 Tour to Europe, with Toscanini; the first Tour to the USSR, in 1959; the 1998 Asia Tour, the first performances in mainland China; and the 75th Anniversary European Tour, in 2005, with Lorin Maazel.

A longtime media pioneer, the Philharmonic began radio broadcasts in 1922 and is currently represented by The New York Philharmonic This Week — syndicated nationally 52 weeks per year, and available on nyphil.org and Sirius XM Radio. On television, in the 1950s and 1960s, the Philharmonic inspired a generation through Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts on CBS. Its television presence has continued with annual appear-ances on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS, and in 2003 it made history as the first Orchestra ever to perform live on the Grammy Awards, one of the most-watched television events worldwide. The Philharmonic became the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live, and released by DG Concerts exclusively on iTunes. Since 1917 the Philharmonic has made nearly 2,000 recordings, with more than 500 cur-rently available. On June 4, 2007, the New York Philharmonic proudly announced a new partnership with Credit Suisse, its first-ever and exclusive Global Sponsor.

abOUt thE oRcHEsTRA 13

NyP 200904

PERFORmED, PRODUcED, aND DIStRIbUtED by thE NEW yORK PhILhaRmONIc© 2009 NEW yORK PhILhaRmONIc