Program

Maurice Ravel, Ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose)

I. Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant – Lent

II. Petit Poucet – Très modéré

III. Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes – Mouvement de marche

IV. Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête – Mouvement de valse très modéré

V. Le Jardin féerique – Lent et grave

Dmitri Shostakovich, Concerto No. 1 for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra, Op. 35

1. Allegretto

2. Lento

3. Moderato

4. Allegro con brio

Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Ravel, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky — With Seong-Jin Cho

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Subscribers

Cast

Seong-Jin Cho — Pianist

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Yannick Nézet-Séguin — Conductor

Program notes

Now approaching the fifteenth year of their celebrated collaboration, the Philadelphia Orchestra and their music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin welcome piano sensation Seong-Jin Cho, a pianist of "sensitivity, nuance, tremendous fluidity, and elegance of style" (Bachtrack), to join them in a program of 20th-century favorites with historical significance for the prestigious orchestra. Following the storybook wonder of Ravel's suite Ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose), Cho offers a note-perfect rendition of Shostakovich's raucous Concerto for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra. This singular work, unusual in many respects, had its U.S. premiere in the hands of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934, and nearly a century later they show off the composer's signature wit in musical parody, clever allusion, and bold instrumentation. They close out the evening with another piece that U.S. audiences first heard with the same orchestra following its infamous premiere on the other side of the Atlantic: Stravinsky's audacious, irrepressible Rite of Spring, which has lost not an ounce of its power to shock and delight.