NARRATOR: The idea was ambitious... [ Horns honking ] ...the best musicians in the United States, one momentous week in New York City, performing in this all-star orchestra exclusively for our cameras, to explore the most exciting music ever written to produce a television series of masterpieces from music director Gerard Schwarz and for an audience of just you.

♪♪ SCHWARZ: Welcome to "The All-Star Orchestra."

We're so happy you've joined us.

Today's program begins with the romantic tone poem "Les Préludes" by Franz Liszt, then the remarkable "Symphonic Metamorphosis" by Paul Hindemith and concluding with a beautiful slow movement by Anton Webern.

♪♪ Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, philanthropist.

He was remarkable.

I always find it interesting he was born in 1811.

Between 1809, '10 and '11, Schumann was born, Mendelssohn was born, Liszt was born.

I mean, it was an incredible time.

And if you think about it, Beethoven died in 1827, so they were all there.

Liszt was, I guess, first known as one of the great virtuoso pianists.

He, in fact, invented the piano recital, as we know it today.

He was handsome.

He was flamboyant.

And he toured and did exceptionally well.

He was also among the most generous musicians of all time.

When they were trying to build a memorial to Beethoven and they didn't have enough money, he gave recitals and helped pay for that.

He paid for students.

He was a great philanthropist.

This work, "Les Préludes," is a tone poem or a symphonic poem.

"Les Préludes," like every other symphonic poem or tone poem, has a story.

It has the introduction or the birth, then it has the love music.

And then what happens next is a storm.

Now, what kind of storm?

Is it a storm in their relationship?

Is it a storm in politics?

Is it a storm in the weather?

But then there's a calm after the storm.

Finally, a war, a march of some kind that leads to victory.

And so it has this trajectory.

Again, to you, it can be different.

But basically, it's those five sections that make this remarkable piece.

♪♪ JULIAN: This was one of the prototypical tone poems of the 19th century.

It's actually one of the most beautifully and thoughtfully crafted pieces I think I know.

KNOX: It changes the way you approach music, I think, when you have a setting in mind.

HUGHES: Liszt's music tells a very vivid story.

It feels sort of operatic to me.

LI: It's incredibly lyrical and singing.

FRIDKIS: Big themes, big melodies, lots of beautiful lines.

JULIAN: This was one of the greatest most epic tone poems I had ever heard.

LI: At some point, it also gets incredibly powerful and like a big wave of sound just coming throughout different sections of the orchestra.

PATTERSON: I love listening to it.

It's a wonderful piece to listen to.

JULIAN: I think this is the medium in which Liszt worked the best, which is to have all of the colors and all of the great sonorities of a symphony orchestra.

And this, I think, is the crown jewel of them all.

LI: It's a very magical piece.

♪♪ [ Orchestra playing "Les Préludes" ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ SCHWARZ: Hindemith is a German-American composer, and we're playing his "Symphonic Metamorphosis" on the theme of Carl Maria von Webern.

Hindemith came to the United States in 1940, the same year Stravinsky came, and he immediately began teaching at Yale.

This work was commissioned by Rodzinski, great conductor at the time of the New York Philharmonic.

And it was completed in 1943 and then premiered in 1944.

The music that Hindemith used as an inspiration for this work was by Carl Maria von Webern and his music for piano.

But not piano with two hands, piano with four hands.

And Hindemith does an extraordinary job in making it his own and making it special.

♪♪ OLKA: Hindemith is kind of near and dear in my heart.

In the "Symphonic Metamorphosis," probably one of my early pieces that I heard as a young brass player in the orchestral genre that I couldn't wait to play it.

CHEN: Big showpiece with the orchestra.

PATTERSON: That's a great piece.

It's so hard, but it's really good.

This piece, it's almost impossible not to like.

CHEN: Big brass writing, big string writing, big wind writing, and big percussion writing.

I really like it.

PATTERSON ZAKANY: Hindemith is just very unique to him.

There's no one that sounds like him.

I think that's also kind of fun, right?

It's like this sense of getting to explore someone's very personal language, which I enjoy.

RALSKE: You get to the last moment, hence that tremendous march.

♪♪ MULTER: I particularly love the last movement.

I really love that part.

I think it's really charming music.

MARTIN: It's just one of the most exciting endings, I think, Hindemith ever composed.

WILLIAMS: One of the things I think is gonna be great about this performance is I know with all the people who are on stage here, that this is gonna be a really singing experience with the Hindemith.

It's gonna be great.

♪♪ [ Orchestra playing "Symphonic Metamorphosis" by Hindemith ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ SCHWARZ: Anton Webern was a remarkable Austrian composer.

He wrote this work, which I call "Adagio," in 1905.

He was on a trip with his cousin, Wilhelmine, and he was in heaven, in ecstasy.

It was among the most extraordinary experiences of this young man's life.

In honor of this, he wrote a string quartet called "Langsamer Satz," Slow Movement.

Beautiful.

1905, but it was lost.

No one even knew it existed until 1962, when the great Webern scholar Moldenhauer, who lived in Seattle, Washington, found it, and they premiered it with the University of Washington String Quartet in 1962.

I heard the piece and fell in love with it.

It is so beautiful.

When I heard it, I felt that it couldn't be played slowly enough by four string players.

You know, When you have a bow that's that long, you can play it for a while, then you got to change it.

And if you do it really slowly, it can be very treacherous.

If you have 14 first violins playing it, not so treacherous.

It actually can work very well.

So I thought, "Hmm.

I'm gonna take this and make a string-orchestra version of it."

Then I thought, "Wow.

This is so Muelleresque.

I'd love to actually take it one step further and make a full orchestra version of it."

And that's what we're playing.

And I just love conducting this piece.

♪♪ [ Orchestra playing "Langsamer Satz" by Anton Webern ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Thank you so much for joining us.

Our next program will feature the "Concerto for Orchestra" by Béla Bartók and the "Prelude and Fugue in D Major" by Johann Sebastian Bach.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ This program has been made possible with major support from... Additional funding has been generously provided by... Other support by... ♪♪