Sneak peek: Handel's Messiah

Composed in a three-week burst of inspiration, Handel’s Messiah endures as the composer’s most popular and well-known work. Controversial in its infancy for its theatric portrayal of the life of Jesus Christ, Handel’s oratorio is a fusion of religious reverence and secular drama that has established itself as an iconic part of holiday tradition. Despite its ubiquity, this music evades cliché through compelling musical force and manages to captivate listeners anew each year.

Excerpt from Handel's Messiah, ("Hallelujah!")

Related events: December 11, 2009 Les Violons du Roy

John Adams on El Niño

John Adams grew up in the 1960s, surrounded by music from disparate corners of the spectrum—Stockhausen to John Cage, Jimi Hendrix to The Rolling Stones. He explains that drawing his subject matter from contemporary life for his Christmas oratorio, El Niño, shouldn’t be cause for alarm.

Footage from The Making of El Niño, available at arthaus-musik.com.
Used courtesy of Arthaus Musik.

Related events: December 13, 2009 Orchestra of St. Luke's / John Adams, Conductor

Soundbyte: Dorothea Röschmann

Schumann’s song cycle Frauenliebe und -leben (Woman’s Love and Life) is sometimes viewed as a famously sexist work—a poem about a woman’s life and love, written and set to music by men. Jeremy Geffen, Carnegie Hall’s Director of Artistic Planning, describes how the subtlety and depth of a performer like Dorothea Röschmann, combined with Schumann’s talent for writing for both the human voice and the voice of the piano, can create something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Related events: December 5, 2009 Dorothea Röschmann / Malcolm Martineau

From where I sat

Steven Reineke, who began his tenure as music director of the New York Pops at the start of this season, recalls his first time on the stage at Carnegie Hall:

I will never forget the first time I set foot on the stage of Carnegie Hall. I was a 17-year-old trumpet player, performing in a music festival with the Dayton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. It was Mother’s Day 1988 and my first time in New York City. The energy and electricity I felt on the stage were palpable. That moment—preserved in the Playbill and on the ticket stub I still have, and in my memories of playing Smetana’s Die Moldau—helped shape the rest of my life.

New music at Carnegie Hall

New and innovative music has long been a part of Carnegie Hall's artistic fabric—the world premieres of such now-standard works as Dvořák’s "New World" Symphony and Gershwin’s An American in Paris, for example, took place right here. Julia Wolfe’s Steel Hammer, an exciting new composition based on the legendary tale of John Henry, will receive its New York premiere this month in Zankel Hall, and December will bring the U.S. premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s ET LUX, a piece that joins the growing list of new works commissioned by Carnegie Hall.

View a behind-the-scenes video of Bang on a Can and Trio Mediaeval rehearsing Julia Wolfe’s Steel Hammer on Carnegie Hall's official Facebook page »

Related events: November 21, 2009 Bang on a Can All-Stars / Trio Mediaeval; December 2, 2009 The Hilliard Ensemble / Arditti Quartet

Soundbyte: Beethoven's song of thanksgiving

Beethoven’s 16 string quartets are each a Mount Everest of the string quartet genre, the pinnacle to which other composers aspired. (Both Mendelssohn and Bartók composed in Beethoven’s shadow and were keenly aware of his influence.) The Mendelssohn String Quartet ends its 30–year career with a final performance at Carnegie Hall on December 3, including a pivotal quartet from Beethoven’s late period, Op. 132. Jeremy Geffen, Carnegie Hall’s Director of Artistic Planning, explains why a chance to hear Op. 132 should never be missed.

Related events: December 3, 2009 Mendelssohn String Quartet

For Unto Us a Child is Born: An American Composer Reinvents the Nativity

Every holiday season, New York concertgoers can take their pick of Messiahs, Christmas Oratorios, and other Baroque yuletide staples. Though perennial favorites, this music is also over 250 years old, written for European audiences accustomed to mixing music and their Christian faith.

While there are some fine American carols and truly classic novelty Christmas songs, the US has no homegrown oratorio tradition to draw on during the holidays. One American composer has started to change this with a poignant reworking of the musical form that adapts Christian themes to address the cultural attitudes of the last decade.

For millions of people around the world, the arrival of the year 2000 marked the beginning of a wondrous new time defined by both the promise of redemption and the possibility of catastrophe. When John Adams accepted the commission from the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris to write a work for the new millennium, he turned to the Christmas story to capture this sense of awe in the face of a fresh start, and wrote El Niño.

Bernard Labadie on Bach's Christmas Oratorio

Bernard Labadie, Music Director and Conductor of Les Violons du Roy, is a self-described "Bach man." He explains that in the Christmas Oratorio, Bach pulls all the stops and becomes the greatest musical evangelist the world has ever known.

© 2009 Carnegie Hall Corporation

Related events: December 12, 2009 Les Violons du Roy

Milton Nascimento celebrates the 25th anniversary of his Carnegie Hall debut

Milton Nascimento made his US debut in as grand a fashion as any artist could ever hope for: a midnight concert at Carnegie Hall in the hot summer of 1984.

“Outside, there were two posters up advertising upcoming shows,” Nascimento remembers. “There was one of me, and one of Frank Sinatra! I was floored that I had earned a place next to him—I must have taken a thousand pictures of those posters side by side,” he sheepishly admits.

China in your neighborhood

The Zhang Family Band performs traditional Chinese music that is deeply rooted in the daily life of Chinese villagers. During the Ancient Paths, Modern Voices festival, NY audiences had a chance to see the group perform at the Abrons Arts Center at Henry Street Settlement, located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The event was part of Carnegie Hall’s Neighborhood Concert Series, presented by The Weill Music Institute. Learn more about free Neighborhood Concerts »

The Zhang Family Band performing at the Abrons Art Center at Henry Street Settlement. Video produced by Kornhaber Brown
© 2009 Carnegie Hall Corporation

Sneak peek: Mahler's Song of the Night

With its tenebrous opening and its two “night music” movements, Mahler’s Seventh Symphony often explores dark corners of the soul; perhaps not surprisingly, it was premiered during a period of grief and upheaval in Mahler’s life that included the death of his four-year-old daughter and his resignation from the Vienna Opera, as well as the diagnosis of a heart ailment that would eventually cause his death. Yet the darkness is counterbalanced by light—most strikingly in the finale, which radiates light and triumph. Read more »

Excerpt from Mahler Symphony No. 7 (V. Rondo-Finale)

Related events: November 19, 2009 The Philadelphia Orchestra

Bernard Labadie on Handel's Messiah

Bernard Labadie, Music Director and Conductor of period performance group Les Violons du Roy, describes his own personal history with Handel's most beloved oratorio, and explains why his group is still excited to play it after all these years.

© 2009 Carnegie Hall Corporation

Related events: December 11, 2009 Les Violons du Roy

Christoph Eschenbach's international life in music

Christoph Eschenbach recalls some humourous memories about his early mentor, the notorious Cleveland Orchestra Music Director George Szell—a relationship which in turn inspired Eschenbach to shepherd up-and-coming artists.

Related events: November 19, 2009 The Philadelphia Orchestra

Bernard Labadie: King of Baroque

In preparation for the upcoming performances of Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec at Carnegie Hall, Music Director and Conductor Bernard Labadie sat down for a one-on-one interview with Jeremy Geffen, Carnegie Hall’s Director of Artistic Planning. In the following excerpts, Mr. Labadie offers his insights into two of Baroque music’s masterpieces: Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio:

This might seem surprising since I’ve been a Baroque man for as long as I can remember, but Messiah was not part of my musical upbringing. The Christmas Oratorio was what I grew up with. I remember when I was young, and I asked for the recording and the score of Handel’s work, one of my aunts said, “Oh, no—it’s way too serious for a young man.”

Sneak peek: Esperanza Spalding

Since taking office earlier this year, President Obama has hosted several live music events at the White House. But only one artist has been invited to perform twice: Esperanza Spalding, the bassist and singer from Portland, Oregon, who has taken the jazz world by storm. Read more »


From Esperenza Spalding, Montuno Producciones

Related events: November 11, 2009 Esperanza Spalding

Intersecting lines: Schoenberg and Kandinsky

After the concert, he began to paint. Vasily Kandinsky returned from a recital of Arnold Schoenberg’s music on January 2, 1911, dashed off two charcoal sketches, and the next day finished the full-color oil canvas Impressions III (Concert). Two weeks later he wrote to the composer, starting one of the most remarkable exchanges in the whole of 20th-century cultural history:

Please excuse me for simply writing to you without having the pleasure of knowing you personally. I have just heard your concert here [in Munich] and it has given me real pleasure … What we are striving for in our whole manner of thought and feeling have so much in common that I feel completely justified in expressing my empathy. In your works, you have realized what I, albeit in uncertain form, have so greatly longed for in music. The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my paintings.

Brahms und Berliner

The innocence, joy, and romance of the Brahms Second Symphony still resonate with us in the 21st century. As part of the Berliner Philharmoniker's joint Brahms-Schoenberg exploration, it's joined on their November 12 program by two electrifying works that could only have been written in the modern era. Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony resembles a miniature Mahler symphony, and in Erwartung, an opera for a single singer, Schoenberg said he tried “to represent in slow motion everything that occurs in a single second of maximum spiritual excitement.” Read more »

The Berliner Philharmoniker perform an excerpt from Brahms's Second Symphony. Watch the complete video at the Berliner Philharmoniker's Digital Concert Hall. Used courtesy of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Related events: November 12, 2009 Berliner Philarmoniker