Alan Silvestri (1950)
Theme from the movie 'The Avengers' (2012)
(by City Orchestra The Residents and Residentie Orkest) 

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) 

Piano Concerto in G (1929-1931) 

• Allegramente 

• Adagio assai 

• Presto 

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) 

Paintings from an exhibition (1874) 

(adaptation Maurice Ravel, 1922) 

• Promenade 

• Gnomus 

• Promenade 

• The old castle 

• Promenade 

• Tuileries 

• Bydło 

• Promenade 

• Ballet of budding chicks 

• Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle 

• The market square of Limoges 

• Catacombae (Sepulchrum Romanum) 

• Cum mortuis in lingua mortua 

• The hut on chicken legs (Baba-Yaga) 

• The great gate of Kiev 

End of concert approximately 9:15 p.m. 

This concert ends at approximately 21:15h. 

Anja Bihlmaier - conductor 

Studies Musikhochschule Freiburg, Mozarteum Salzburg. 

Current position Chief Conductor Residentie Orkest, regular guest conductor Lahti Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights Recently she has conducted the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Symfónica de Barcelona, Basque National Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid and MDR-Sinfonieorchester. In recent seasons she also conducted several opera productions in Vienna (Volksoper), Trondheim and Malmö. Was permanently associated with the opera houses of Kassel and Hannover. 

Yeol Eum Son - piano 

Education Hochschule für Musik Theater und Medien, Hanover. Also studied at the Korean National University of Arts. 

Highlights Concerts with orchestras such as New York Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Dresdner Philharmoniker, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with conductors such as Vasily Petrenko, Andrew Manze, Susanna Mälkki, Nicholas Collon, Pablo González, Jun Märkl and Anja Bihlmaier. Debuts this year with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, among others. 

Won prizes at Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition and Van Cliburn Inernational Piano Competition, among others. 

Other Is this season artist in residence of Residentie Orkest, Royal Conservatory of Music and Amare. 

Residentie Orkest The Hague 

Founded The Hague, 1904 

Current chief conductor Anja Bihlmaier 

Permanent guest conductors Richard Egarr and Jun Märkl 

Chief conductors Henri Viotta, Peter van Anrooy, Frits Schuurman, Willem van Otterloo, Jean Martinon, Ferdinand Leitner, Hans Vonk, Evgenii Svetlanov, Jaap van Zweden, Neeme Järvi, Nicholas Collon. 

To be seen at Amare, Paard, The National Opera, Royal Concertgebouw, De Doelen, TivoliVredenburg among others . 

Education Annual outreach to over 40,000 schoolchildren, adults and amateur musicians in educational projects. Part of this is The Residents, through which the orchestra brings hundreds of children from districts in The Hague into contact with classical music. 

Ravel and Mussorgsky 

 
Ravel was a brilliant composer, although the solo part of his masterful Piano Concerto in G was just too high for him himself. But he was also so unsurpassed as an arranger that his orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition has become more famous than the original. 

The composer Ravel 

'In my opinion, the music of a solo concerto should be lighthearted and brilliant and not want to strive for depth or dramatic effects.' That was Maurice Ravel's idea of how he saw the ideal solo concerto. He himself applied this very little with only two piano concertos in his total oeuvre. Airily he certainly kept his Piano Concerto in G in which he was influenced by a variety of musical styles. Already in 1914 he had worked on a composition for piano and orchestra in which, to emphasize his Basque roots, he had used Basque folk melodies. He reused parts of these in the Piano Concerto in G. In addition, jazz occupies a modest place. This, too, is not surprising. Since many black American soldiers had been on leave in Paris during World War I, it had become the jazz capital of Europe. Virtually all "classical" composers were to some extent carried away by jazz, and Ravel was no exception, especially since he had also sampled jazz during an American tour. He himself called the end result a nice crossover between Mozart and Saint-Saëns. Even he had originally intended to call the piece Divertissement to emphasize its lighthearted nature. 

Not only did Ravel believe that a solo concerto should be lighthearted, but also brilliant. And brilliant his Piano Concerto in G was without a doubt. In doing so, he cut his fingers pretty badly. He had set his sights on performing as a soloist himself, but that was no easy task. To brush up on his technical skills, he even used the difficult etudes by Czerny and Chopin as study material. In the end, however, it proved too much and he asked his friend Marguerite Long to take over the solo part. He did, however, conduct the orchestra at the premiere in Paris on Jan. 14, 1932. It turned out to be a golden combination. Because in the months that followed, they toured extensively throughout Europe with the Piano Concerto in G.  

The Arranger Ravel 

Probably the Russian painter Viktor Hartmann would have remained known to only a few if his friend Modest Mussorgsky had not composed his Pictures of an Exhibition . They were good friends and Hartmann's early death greatly shocked the composer. Naturally, he visited the extensive posthumous exhibition of Hartmann's work in St. Petersburg and wrote his famous piano work in response. He took fourteen works of art by Hartmann that he aptly transformed into sound. As a listener, he gives you the illusion that you are really visiting an exhibition by letting you walk from painting to painting with small interludes he calls "promenade. 

But the question is whether Mussorgsky's Pictures at the Exhibition would have been a great success if not for Maurice Ravel's world-famous orchestration of it. By the way, he was certainly neither the first nor Last, as there are more than a hundred known arrangements of the piece. Ravel wrote it at the request of conductor Sergei Koussevitsky intended for his series of Concerts Koussevitzky that he organized annually in Paris between 1921 and 1929. For Ravel, the commission came at an auspicious time. He was ailing somewhat with his health and as a result he was stalled in his work on his children's opera L'Enfant et les sortilèges. To clear his mind, this arrangement request was more than welcome. Although Koussevitsky had urged him to make it a truly Russian arrangement in the style of Rimsky-Korsakov, Ravel went completely his own way. In his orchestration, he let himself be guided much more by the orchestral richness of sound of Debussy and Stravinsky and, of course, his own inspiration, than by Russian romanticism. The result was to be welcomed. It was as if he transformed the black-and-white reproduction that Mussorgsky had made of Hartmann's work for piano into an overwhelming color picture for orchestra. Ravel's version thus eclipsed all other arrangements made of the Picturesque , even the original. It has thus become a unique composition with two faces in which both composers are inseparable. 

Kees Wisse 

Although the solo in his masterful Piano Concerto in G major proved too complex for him to play, Ravel was a brilliant composer and a great pianist in his own right. As an arranger, he was equally unparalleled. Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is a beautiful example of how the fruits of one's labor may one day surpass the mastery of its creator.  

Ravel the composer 

"The music of a concerto should be light-hearted and brilliant and not aim at profundity or dramatic effects." 

The above is one of Maurice Ravel's musings, imagining his ideal concerto. It was imagined but hardly ever put into practice. His extensive and wildly popular body of work contains a mere two piano concertos. When listening to Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major, the composer's professional light-heartedness is omnipresent and the piece is clearly influenced by a wide array of musical styles. As early as 1914, Ravel had worked on a composition for piano and orchestra that was meant to accentuate his Basque roots by using the northern Spanish folk melodies he knew so well. Parts of that work can be heard when listening to his Piano Concerto in G major.  

There is also the modest but unsurprising influence of jazz in Ravel's work. During the First World War, many black US soldiers were furloughed in Paris. The soulful music they brought with them caught on quick as the city grew to become the jazz capital of Europe. Almost every classical composer in some way allowed the spirit of jazz into their creations and Ravel was certainly no exception. In fact, he had discovered the swing and boogie of this relatively new and exciting musical style first-hand as he toured the United States. He called his work an adequate crossover between Mozart and Camille Saint-Saëns and had even planned to name his piece Divertissement to celebrate its light-hearted nature.  

For Ravel, however, light-heartedness was not enough - a concerto also required brilliance. His Piano Concerto in G major was just that. This work was so brilliant that it caused him serious problems. Ravel aimed to perform the complex solo, by no means an easy task. To practise and improve his technical skills, he used the finger-bending etudes written by Czerny and Chopin but ultimately realized that a different level of talent was required. He therefore invited his good friend Marguerite Long to perform the solo, while Ravel would take the stage as the conductor. This proved to be a match made in heaven. After a successful opening night at the Parisian Salle Pleyel on January 14, 1932, the Piano Concerto in G major was subsequently performed throughout Europe.   

Ravel the arranger  

The Russian painter Viktor Hartmann might have passed into the obscurity that haunts so many talented artists had his friend Modest Mussorgsky not composed Pictures at an Exhibition. The composer was shocked when, at the age of 39, Hartmann suddenly died. Mussorgsky naturally attended the painter's extensive posthumous exhibition in St. Petersburg, inspiring him to write his most famous piano piece. He successfully transformed 14 of Hartmann's paintings into music, inviting listeners on a journey of art appreciation as the subtle promenade intermezzos evoke the sense of wandering from one painting to the next.  

But we can only wonder whether Mussorgsky's piece would have had as much success if it had not been brilliantly adapted into a world-famous orchestration by Maurice Ravel. This is by no means the only adaptation - the piece has been transcribed more than 100 times over the years. Ravel began his work on Pictures at an Exhibition by request of the conductor Sergei Koussevitzky as part of the Concerts Koussevitzky, the annual show he organized in Paris between 1921 and 1929. For Ravel, the timing could not have been better. The composer had been struggling with his health, making it difficult for him to finish the children's opera L'enfant et les sortilèges. The requested arrangement was the perfect way to cleanse his palate.  

Although Koussevitzky had told Ravel how important it was to make this a genuine Russian arrangement styled after Rimski-Korsakov, Ravel would end up creating something entirely different. The rich orchestral sound of Debussy and Stravinsky accentuated the composer's original vision, straying far from the Russian romanticism he was commissioned to emulate. The resulting piece was perfection. It felt as if Ravel had transformed the black-and-white version of Mussorgsky's ode to his friend Hartmann into a rich and colorful tapestry of music. Ravel instantly left every other arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition in the dust, including the original. Ultimately, the piece has become a unique composition with two faces, connecting both composers to the fabric of musical history.  

Kees Wisse