Philharmonic Season to Feature Premieres, Haydn

The 1997-1998 season of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, announced Tuesday, will include two world premieres of works commissioned by the orchestra, the debut of a new project called Filmharmonic and, in April and May, the beginning of a multiyear exploration of the symphonies of Haydn. At the same time as the Haydn symphonies, the orchestra will present a Gyorgy Ligeti festival celebrating the Hungarian composer’s 75th birthday.

During this 79th season, which runs from Oct. 9 to May 2, 1998, music director Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct 12 of the 30 subscription programs, two Pension Fund benefit concerts and tour appearances at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. His programs will include the inauguration of the Haydn symphonies series--with four of that composer’s “Sturm und Drang” symphonies--plus symphonies by Mahler, Beethoven, Nielsen and Schumann; Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde,” and the Philharmonic’s first complete performances of Debussy’s “Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien.”

Salonen will also lead the premieres of L.A. Philharmonic commissions from Italian composer Franco Donatoni and the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg, as well as the first installment of the Filmharmonic series--orchestra-commissioned short films and scores that Salonen calls the creation of a “new art form, no less.” The debut event, based on “Tales from 1001 Nights” showcases computer-generated imagery from designer Yoshitaka Amano and director Chris Young combined with the music of composer David Newman.

The Philharmonic notes Ligeti’s 75th birthday with programs featuring his works over a three-week period in April and May, including the West Coast premiere of his Requiem, and performances on the Green Umbrella series and the Philharmonic Chamber Music concerts. The Ligeti Piano Concerto will receive its first Philharmonic performances, with pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard the soloist, and Pierre Boulez the conductor.

Besides Boulez, other scheduled guest conductors will include Roger Norrington--with a mini-Brahms festival in the fall that will include all four symphonies, lectures and other activities--Lawrence Foster, Mark Elder, Franz Welser-Most, Mark Wigglesworth, and Oliver Knussen, and with Paavo Jarvi and Yakov Kreizberg making their Music Center debuts.

Guest ensembles on the program include the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with Simon Rattle conducting on his final tour as its music director; the Moscow Virtuosi, led by Vladimir Spivakov, and the Russian National Orchestra under Mikhail Pletnev.

Soloists making debut appearances include pianists Aimard and Ignat Solzhenitsyn, mezzo-soprano Markella Hatziano and tenor Ben Heppner. Among the returning soloists will be pianists Alfred Brendel, Yefim Bronfman, Stephen Hough (playing the Scharwenka Piano Concerto No. 4, the Gramophone Record of the Year for 1996), Stephen Kovacevich, Louis Lortie and Peter Serkin; violinists Gil Shaham, Christian Tetzlaff and Thomas Zehetmair, and singers Dawn Upshaw, Sylvia McNair and Kathleen Battle.