Recorded female voice: Carnegie Hall, please. Okay, here are your tickets. Enjoy the show. Your tickets, please. Follow me.

Jeff Spurgeon: Those are the sounds of a journey that a couple of thousand people are taking to Carnegie Hall tonight. But you didn't have to take that journey. All you had to do was join this broadcast of Opening Night. The gala concert beginning the 2024-2025 season of Carnegie Hall, and the first broadcast in our Carnegie Hall Live Radio Series.

We're glad you're here. I'm Jeff Spurgeon, backstage at Carnegie Hall, and alongside, of course, John Schaefer.

John Schaefer: And as usual, it is a star-studded event tonight, the season opening gala concert here at Carnegie Hall. Superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel, leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 2026, of course, he'll take over at the New York Philharmonic.

The superstar pianist Lang Lang will be joining us as well. And the baritone Gustavo Castillo.

The program does not have an intermission. It has just two pieces. Rachmaninoff's great hit, the Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring Lang Lang, and the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera's ballet called Estancia.

Jeff Spurgeon: Tonight's concert also marks the beginning of a season long festival at Carnegie Hall called Nuestros Sonidos, Our Sounds, celebrating the importance of Latin American culture. The festivities include two more concerts with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and several premieres throughout the year by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz.

And it's not just classical music that will be presented at Carnegie in this festival. It will be salsa, and bachata, and reggaeton, really a little bit of everything.

John Schaefer: But for tonight, it's classical music. Gustavo Dudamel, the conducting phenom from Venezuela, taking to the podium, leading the LA Phil. He has been their musical and artistic director since 2009, that's a run of 15 years. And he'll be joined by another Venezuelan musician, the baritone Gustavo Castillo, singing the solo voice part on the second half of the program, the Alberto Ginastera ballet. And before, Jeff, people start writing or calling in about Ginastera. Yes, in Spanish, you would say "HEE-nastera", but his mother was Italian, and he preferred the Italian pronunciation of “JEE-nastera”, so there you go.

Jeff Spurgeon: Alright, so now we've gotten that controversy out of the way, good to settle those things quickly.

Both Dudamel and Castillo have performed Estancia together before, and when we spoke with Gustavo Castillo, he told us that it was in fact Dudamel who gave him his first big role.

Gustavo Castillo: I did my first opera with him. I did my first audition in my life for La Bohème. He was the first person to give me the big opportunity.

John Schaefer: You'll hear Gustavo Castillo, baritone, in the second piece on the program, Estancia. In addition to sharing a first name, Castillo and Dudamel were also born in the same city, Barquisimeto, and they were both involved in El Sistema, the remarkable program that provides music education to kids throughout Venezuela.

And Jeff, this, this summer we were lucky enough to see one of the ensembles from that program right here at Carnegie Hall for WOW, the World Orchestra Week.

Jeff Spurgeon: And wow it was. The National Children's Symphony of Venezuela performed in that week-long celebration. Youth orchestras from five continents at Carnegie Hall. And it was a really spectacular concert with the Venezuelan group. One of the highlights of that particular evening was a moment when the musicians, these teenage musicians, some not even teenagers, yet put down their instruments and began just to sing.

MUSIC - JOSE ANTONIO ABREU Sol que das vida a los trigos

John Schaefer: The National Children's Symphony of Venezuela recorded live here at Carnegie Hall in August as part of the World Orchestra Week, actually singing a work by Jose Antonio Abreu, who founded El Sistema, this musical system of music education in Venezuela, a song called Sol que das vida a los trigos/ The Sun That Raises the Wheat.

Jeff Spurgeon: Another of the musicians featured tonight, superstar pianist Lang Lang, who's helped to open Carnegie's season twice before, most recently in 2017 when he and two other pianists collaborated in a performance of the Rhapsody in Blue. Chick Corea and Maxim Lando were part of that performance along with the Philadelphia Orchestra and we brought you that concert here from Carnegie Hall live.

John Schaefer: It was a memorable night as these opening nights generally are. Tonight Lang Lang will be playing one of Rachmaninoff's best loved pieces, the Piano Concerto No. 2. It is the first piece you'll hear. Such a familiar and well-loved work in the repertoire that it has actually kind of popped up in in popular music. Not once, but several times. It's been featured in movies like The Seven Year Itch with Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell. If you're a Frank Sinatra fan, you may know his recording of Full Moon and Empty Arms, which is based on the third movement of this concerto. And there's another pop song that you might recognize that came a little bit later.

MUSIC – Eric Carmen’s All By Myself excerpt

Jeff Spurgeon: I love the track set part in the Rachmaninoff that we'll hear tonight. Oh wait, that's not included in the orchestral version. Those of you enjoying karaoke, indeed, that was Eric Carmen's classic from 1975, absolutely based on the Rachmaninoff, on the second movement of the concerto. In fact, Rachmaninoff even has a songwriting credit on that hit. And that melancholy mood you'll hear in All By Myself very much reflects what Rachmaninoff himself was feeling when he started writing the second piano concerto.

John Schaefer: Yeah, he was coming out of a pretty deep depression after the premiere of his first symphony, which had just gone south very, very quickly. Rachmaninoff was only 23 at the time. It was his first symphony, and he was, one would imagine, quite excited about it. But the orchestra was reportedly under rehearsed, the conductor was allegedly drunk, that was Alexander Glazunov, composer himself, and the piece was publicly panned by everybody, including other composers like Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov and César Cui, and the young Rachmaninoff, after that, was really unable to get the creative juices flowing again for several years.

Jeff Spurgeon: Yeah, finally it was his mother who said, Why don't you just try something? Hypnotherapy. So Rachmaninoff did, and it worked so well that he dedicated his next composition to that therapist, that hypnotherapist, Dr. Nikolai Dahl. And that is the work we're going to hear tonight, Piano Concerto No. 2. Roaring success. Really helped to establish Rachmaninoff's reputation in Russia as a premier composer. The concerto continues, of course, to be one of Rachmaninoff's most loved works, programmed a lot, and when we talked with Lang Lang about it, we asked him how the piece he's played did a great deal, how it's changed for him over the years.

Lang Lang: For me, long time ago, I always felt this was an extremely beautiful piece, of course with a bit of pain, yeah. But now, somehow, I don't know what happened, but after you know, many years of knowing the piece with more live experience, I really found this is a real passionate, but can be quite struggling some of the, even, you can even feel a little bit of depression on this piece that he's trying to kind of get rid of this depression. Hopefully tonight we'll bring something. more emotional, deeper to kind of get to another human level of expressing emotions.

John Schaefer: That is Lang Lang, tonight's featured pianist, who will play the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in just a few moments.

His dates with the LA Phil this time around are the first time he has played Rach 2, as it's known, in nine years. And we asked him, on a scale of one to ten, how does Rach 2 rate in terms of difficulty?

Lang Lang: I think emotionally this piece is 10 out of 10 because you get everything. Technically I would say 9.5 out of 10. Yeah, it's one of the most difficult, but probably not THE most difficult piece.

John Schaefer: Yeah, and if you're wondering, as I was, what might reach 10 out of 10 on his difficulty scale, Lang Lang said Rach 3, Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3, and the Bach Goldberg Variations.

This opening night concert, launching Lang Lang's two-year Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall. He'll return in March for two more performances. One is a recital with the soprano Angel Blue. And the other will be a solo piano recital here at Carnegie Hall.

Jeff Spurgeon: And I'm sure you've been enjoying the background we've been offering and you're wondering, do they actually play on this concert? And the answer is yes, in just a couple of minutes. But you see, this is opening night. So there's a shortened program, just two works on it because there's a dinner for the Carnegie Hall patrons after the concert and beforehand, there's a cocktail party, and you know people get chatty, and they have to be herded into the hall so the performance can begin.

But we are just about ready. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is out on stage. They've been tuning up and getting settled in as patrons of the evening are arriving, and I think we're just awaiting the arrival of our conductor. And in fact the stage door has opened and out steps the Los Angeles Philharmonic principal concertmaster Martin Chalifour, beginning, I believe, his 29th season with the Los Angeles Philharmonic tonight. So he'll tune up the orchestra, and then we'll be ready to welcome our conductor and our soloist, Gustavo Dudamel and Lang Lang, to open this Carnegie Hall 2024 2025 season with Rachmaninoff to begin and Ginastera to follow.

John Schaefer: Right, and who knows? We might actually get a few short little amuse bouche type pieces in between and at the end, we'll, we'll see what happens. But it is Opening Night Gala event here at Carnegie Hall and always something that we look forward to Jeff, because it is also the start of a new season of these Carnegie Hall Live broadcasts.

And out on stage now strides Lang Lang towards the piano and right behind him, the conductor Gustavo Dudamel to take his place at the podium. Predictably and inevitably to thunderous applause from the sold-out crowd here at Carnegie Hall, the orchestra, the LA Phil, rising to their feet, everybody turning to face the audience, and in a moment they'll sit back down and get down to business, business being the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 from Carnegie Hall Live.

MUSIC – RACHMANINOFF: PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2

Jeff Spurgeon: From Carnegie Hall Live, you've just heard a performance of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. The soloist, Lang Lang; the orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the conductor, Gustavo Dudamel. The first work in the 2024-2025 season of performances at Carnegie Hall. This is the Gala Opening Concert.

Backstage at Carnegie Hall, I'm Jeff Spurgeon alongside John Schaefer.

John Schaefer: And that is the sound of a gala crowd. Yes, it is. Really enjoying themselves and a piece that they all know and love, the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2. Now the work of a Russian composer and pop songwriter, although he knew nothing about it. It all happened after his death in 1943, but third movement, you heard the familiar "full moon and empty arms" theme that Frank Sinatra famously sang. Second movement, as we mentioned earlier in the broadcast, spawned the hit song All By Myself by Eric Carmen. For which Rachmaninoff later got songwriting credit, not originally. Eric Carmen thought, classical composer, long dead, probably out of, you know, out of copyright, was not out of copyright, and after what I can only assume was a very friendly letter from the estate's lawyer, Rachmaninoff was duly credited as a co-writer of that song.

Lang Lang back out on stage with Gustavo Dudamel. And a bouquet of flowers presented to the soloist, who in turn presents one to the conductor.

Jeff Spurgeon: A great display of affection between Dudamel and Lang Lang, and you hear the adulation for the soloist as well. And that's echoed by members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who are once again called to their feet.

So, I have to say that because this is a slightly shorter concert than usual, I just imagine we're going to get an encore from Lang Lang.

John Schaefer: Well, he has also passed off his bouquet of flowers to someone in the orchestra, so his hands are free.

Jeff Spurgeon: But we'll have to see. The orchestra's still on its feet, as is most of the audience here at this sold-out gala opening evening at Carnegie Hall.

John Schaefer: And it occurs to me, Jeff, if you wanted, you know, some, if you needed further evidence of the universality of music. Here you have a Chinese pianist, Venezuelan conductor, American orchestra playing Russian and Argentine music on this opening night of the new season here at Carnegie Hall.

That Chinese pianist is Lang Lang, he's back at the piano. Let's hear what he's got for us in the way of an encore.

MUSIC - SOHY "Romance sans paroles" from 4 Pièces romantiques, Op. 30, No. 4

John Schaefer: The pianist Lang Lang on stage with an encore here at Carnegie Hall, and having just played one of the warhorses of the Romantic repertoire, Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, he follows it up with a very small and fairly obscure piece from the Romantic repertoire, Romance Sans Paroles, Romance Without Words, by the early 20th century French composer Charlotte Sohy, S O H Y. Composer of some obscurity, Jeff, in part because, apparently, she published a lot of her works under the masculine version of her name, Charles Sohy.

Jeff Spurgeon: And a few other names as well. She was also a playwright and hung around in France in that time when the Boulanger sisters were just getting started, so she's part of that early 20th century musical scene in Paris. So Charlotte, so her work featured on Lang Lang's latest recording, which is a Saint-Saëns recording with some other French works on it.

And so one more curtain call for Lang Lang here on this Gala opening concert of the 2024-2025 season at Carnegie Hall.

John Schaefer: Now, normally, there would be an intermission, but this is the Gala, and so there are Gala parties and dinners to be attended afterwards, and so we'll have a brief stage change. The piano will be wheeled off, and so will the big hulking bouquet of flowers that was left at center stage by Lang Lang.

Jeff Spurgeon: It all sounds wonderfully tranquil the way you describe it, John, but there is a frenzy of activity just a few feet away from us as we sit backstage at Carnegie Hall. The orchestra is clearing out. There will be a few instruments exchanged between the orchestra for the Rachmaninoff and that for the next work on our program. And, as you said, we do get to enjoy the always fun spectacle of the Carnegie Hall stagehands moving that wooden and steel behemoth of a piano offstage to park it backstage.

John Schaefer: Right next to us as it happens. The next and last piece on the program tonight is Estancia by the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. It's a ballet about the life of a gaucho, an Argentine cattle rancher or cowboy. Ginastera was inspired by an epic poem called "Martín Fierro." And the baritone Gustavo Castillo will be the vocalist tonight. And the text you'll hear him singing. and sometimes speaking, is taken from that poem.

Jeff Spurgeon: The ballet doesn't follow the entire story arc from “Martin Fierro.” Instead, Ginastera is more trying to paint a picture of a day in the life of a gaucho. So you have these scenes Ginastera creates, and that's one of the reasons why this piece is often performed as a shortened suite, rather than the full ballet, which we'll be hearing tonight.

John Schaefer: For the first time at Carnegie Hall, as it happens.

Estancia was actually commissioned for the American Ballet caravan, which was touring Argentina with a production of Copland's Billy the Kid, and they asked Ginastera to compose a ballet for them. But the U. S. entered World War II in 1941 before it could be performed, and the caravan was disbanded.

Jeff Spurgeon: And so, instead of the ballet, the first thing that was presented was this suite, which is more familiar, honestly, than the entire ballet. One of the major differences between the two works is this vocal part. As you said, John, some spoken, some sung. The baritone Gustavo Castillo, making his debut with that part of the work tonight here at Carnegie Hall.

Gustavo Castillo: This is my first time in ever in Carnegie Hall. I'm very happy, very excited. All my life I saw this concert, these famous concerts on the, on video from the greatest musicians in the world performing here, and for me it's a dream. Maybe tomorrow I will be in my home in Milan and I am discovering maybe this is not real.

Jeff Spurgeon: Gustavo Castillo, the featured soloist in Estancia, he and Gustavo Dudamel come from the same city and promoting Latin American music is a mission they both have in common. And Castillo talked to us about Dudamel's role as an ambassador for this music.

Gustavo Castillo: He's giving the light to this South American tradition/colors because, and this is very important because to give a voice to these people. Gustavo is a great communicator. I'm very fortunate to know him and, and to get this opportunity to work with him and perform with these beautiful people. Wow. A dream.

Jeff Spurgeon: Well, it's not a dream. Maybe one come true for Gustavo Castillo, but it's very much happening here tonight at Carnegie Hall.

And once again, the stage door is closed, and you hear the orchestra tuning up as we get ready to bring you a very special work. We do hear the music of Estancia fairly often, but the entire ballet to hear performed is a very special thing. And as you said, John, from Carnegie Hall's own records, this is the first time the entire ballet music has been performed here. So it is a very special, slightly historic treat, therefore, that you are experiencing as you listen to this concert from Carnegie Hall Live.

John Schaefer: And the piece dates from around the time that Aaron Copland was trying to bring North American sounds into classical music. Ginastera was doing the same with Argentine sounds, and you'll hear some of that in the use of percussion especially in this piece called Estancia.

We'll hear the complete ballet score performed on stage here at Carnegie Hall by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel ascending the podium and Gustavo Castillo, the vocal soloist.

MUSIC – Ginastera: Estancia

John Schaefer: That is music from the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. His ballet score Estancia, the full ballet score, played for the first time live on stage here at Carnegie Hall in the long history of this hall. A first for that piece and for the vocal soloist that you heard in it, the Venezuelan singer Gustavo Castillo.

Meanwhile, the rest of the musicians on stage have been regulars here at Carnegie Hall over the years. Conductor Gustavo Dudamel, leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Opening night of the new season of Carnegie Hall and, of course, the new season of these Carnegie Hall Live broadcasts. I'm John Schaefer, alongside Jeff Spurgeon. And that was pretty colorful.

Jeff Spurgeon: The music is so exciting. Ginastera was just 25 when he wrote this, just a couple of years out of conservatory. And he had met Aaron Copland, and they had understood each other a little bit and wanted to bring these folk elements into their music. And, wow, what a piece did Ginastera produce.

John Schaefer: And that's Gustavo Castillo, the singer, out at center stage. accepting the plaudits of the sold-out hall here at Carnegie and you know, the, the, the piece unfolds in one of the estancias, the cattle ranches in the Pampa region of Argentina, where Ginastera occasionally visited and even, I think, lived for a brief time. He also lived for a short time here in the States, spent most of his later years in Switzerland. But, Argentina, never far from the sound of his music.

Jeff Spurgeon: And and it is a wonderful evocation and the poem that this work was inspired, that inspired this work " Martín Fierro," 1870s creation of an Argentinian José Hernández, is an important part of the Argentinian identity, a celebration of the life of the poor gaucho, the poor cowboy out in the plains trying to get by. The poem itself is an epic piece of literature. There are just a few segments of it that are used in the ballet, as you heard it tonight in his first complete performance at Carnegie Hall in the words that were spoken and sung by Gustavo Castillo. So you're getting a taste of, of Argentine literature, as well as the astounding color in the orchestration of this work. And the amazing rhythms in these dances. Just thrilling stuff.

John Schaefer: And you expect that a Gustavo Dudamel conducted orchestra would be well rehearsed, and by the end of Estancia, Dudamel was no longer conducting. It was just kind of swaying to the music.

Jeff Spurgeon: It was really wonderful to see. He just participated a little bit once in a while to to keep the rhythms going. But yes, he was just out there letting the music wash over him as it was doing the same with all of the audience here at Carnegie Hall.

Well, if you've ever seen that dance done, that Malambo dance, it is such an exciting dance to to see this folk dance and it's captured so beautifully in this music of Ginastera.

And Dudamel also wasn't distracted during his conducting either, because he was doing that without a score. Right. And now we're going to get an encore.

MUSIC – Sousa: The Liberty Bell

Jeff Spurgeon: Well, just like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects John Philip Sousa's Liberty Bell march to follow a performance of Ginastera's Estancia, but that is exactly what you got to hear tonight from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. What a concert capper that was. Who would have thought?

John Schaefer: And now for something completely different, as Monty Python's Flying Circus used to say, The Liberty Bell march by John Philip Sousa, of course repurposed for that groundbreaking British comedy team back in the 70s. And yeah, what a, what a fun performance that was. And our conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, the smile never left his face.

Jeff Spurgeon: That is right.

John Schaefer: From the moment the brass reinforcements arrived on stage, to the moment he conducted that last note. Big grin on his face.

Jeff Spurgeon: Wonderful. It's not a trick that he, that he pulled, but it was, it's such a surprising work to conclude a concert like this. And yet just a wonderful touch. Wonderful touch.

John Schaefer: And it is, after all, a gala, you know?

Jeff Spurgeon: That's right.

John Schaefer: People are supposed to be having fun, and you could hear a couple of, kind of, laughs of recognition and surprise when they began, when they launched into The Liberty Bell march.

Jeff Spurgeon: Well, I wondered what that big bell was doing in the percussion section back there, because there is a one single bell mounted on a big frame back there, and that's, they brought it all the way from Los Angeles to use to play a couple of times in that John Philip Sousa march.

And that is going to bring us to the conclusion of this Gala opening night concert at Carnegie Hall. A performance by pianist Lang Lang, the soloist in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, and then the complete performance of the ballet Estancia by Alberto Ginastera in the second part of the concert. And a little John Philip Sousa to wrap things up.

John Schaefer: And that does wrap up this first broadcast in our new season of Carnegie Hall Live, our thanks to Clive Gillinson and the staff of Carnegie Hall.

\WQXR's team includes engineers Edward Haber, George Wellington, Irene Trudel, Bill Siegmund, and Noriko Okabe. Our production team includes Eileen Delahunty, Lauren Purcell-Joiner, Laura Boyman, and Aimée Buchanan.

I'm John Schaefer.

Jeff Spurgeon: And I'm Jeff Spurgeon. Carnegie Hall Live is a co-production of Carnegie Hall and WQXR in New York.

This is Classical New York, WQXR 105. 9 FM at HD Newark, 90. 3 FM WQXW Ossining, and WNYC FM HD 2 New York.