Paavo Jarvi, 12th music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, has planned a dozen premieres in his second season with the orchestra.

        The idea, he says, “is to make life musically stimulating and interesting for Cincinnati audiences — and the orchestra.”

        It's part of his continuing theme of “adding spice” to each concert, while revisiting the traditional repertoire the CSO has played over 108 seasons.

        The 2002-03 season will open Sept. 13-14 with Brahms' Academic Festival Overture, Beethoven's Triple Concerto (with the Eroica Trio) and Dvorak's New World Symphony.

        The next week, Mr. Jarvi will mix things up with Estonian composer Lepo Sumera's Symphony No. 6 (an American premiere), Nielsen's Symphony No. 5 and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4.

        The Nordic thread that he began this season will continue in music by Erkki-Sven Tuur, Eduard Tubin, Sibelius and Jan Sandstrom, whose A Short Ride on a Motorbike (with trombonist Christian Lindberg) is one of Sweden's most performed compositions.

Personal connection

        “To me, these programs are especially meaningful,” the Estonian-born maestro says. “They not only introduce new music, but there is a personal reason for doing it.”

        Take the music of Mr. Sumera, all of whose symphonies Mr. Jarvi has recorded. The Sixth was the composer's last; he died the day after its world premiere.

        “He was a friend of mine,” he says. “It's a very interesting piece. When you hear it, it's almost as if he is sensing that it will be his last symphony. For me personally, it's a very important concert.”

        In October, CSO principal bass Owen Lee will premiere Tubin's Double Bass Concerto, considered to be the best 20th-century concerto of that genre. Eduard Tubin is another friend of the Jarvi family. (Mr. Jarvi's second Telarc recording with the CSO, which includes Tubin's Symphony No. 5 in B Minor, will be released in August.)

        As for Sibelius, a specialty, Mr. Jarvi will conduct the first Cincinnati performances of the Finnish composer's spellbinding Lemminkainen Legends (which includes ""The Swan of Tuonela”), a work he has recorded for Virgin Classics. (Mr. Jarvi's unusual Sibelius cycle includes Sibelius' only opera, The Maiden in the Tower, released last month in Europe.)
       

"A strange program'

        American music will surface in several programs. In October, composer John Adams will conduct his own Century Rolls for piano and orchestra (with pianist Jeffrey Kahane), and music by Aaron Copland, Verdi and Respighi — “admittedly, a very strange program,” Mr. Jarvi says, laughing.

        “Usually, if you see a program like this it means he's investigating something for his own purposes, you know?,” he says. “He's attracted to that Italian color. A year or two from now, I will be curious to hear what the new piece — whatever he's writing right now — will sound like.”

        The young American William Eddins will lead works by John Alden Carpenter, Barber and Copland in January. And Mr. Jarvi will premiere Carter Pann's Slalom (Jan. 31-Feb. 1), “a nine-minute scherzo for orchestra depicting the thrill and beauty of downhill skiing at Steamboat Springs, Colo., as if it were seen in an IMAX theater,” the composer's Web site says.

        Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands will be represented by his Tre canzoni senza parole (Three Songs Without Words), conducted by Jahja Ling, in a February program with piano sensation Lang Lang playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.

        And Los Romeros, the family guitar quartet, will give the U.S. premiere of Lorenzo Palomo's Concierto de Cienfuegos (Concerto of a Hundred Fires) under music director emeritus Jesus Lopez-Cobos in April.
       

Standard fare

        Of the standard symphonic fare, concertgoers can expect to hear Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, Pathetique; Richard Strauss' Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks and Ein Heldenleben; Brahms' Symphony No. 2, Mahler's Symphony No. 6, Tragic; Elgar's Enigma Variations; Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade; and an all-Beethoven program with Symphony No. 6, Pastoral.

        Noteworthy also is a November concert featuring Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, Magnificat and Poulenc's Gloria with Robert Porco and the May Festival Chorus.

        The chorus and a distinguished cast of soloists will join Mr. Jarvi for a concert version of Beethoven's opera, Fidelio (Jan. 24-25) — something he hopes to do “now and then.”

        “Beethoven is the most symphonic of all operas,” he says. “Audiences will hear it, I think, in a different light.”

        Other guest soloists in the strong lineup include pianist Peter Serkin, Alexander Toradze, Lars Vogt, Piotr Anderszewski and Denis Matsuev; violinists Leila Josefowicz, Anne Akiko Meyers, Gil Shaham, Christian Tetzlaff and Jennifer Koh; violist Tabea Zimmermann; and cellist Steven Isserlis.

        Conductor James DePreist, who had to cancel concerts this season because of a kidney transplant, will appear in December. Conductors who are new to the CSO podium include Estonian maestro Eri Klas; Russian-born Yakov Kreizberg; the Austrian Gustav Kuhn and British maestro Mark Wigglesworth.

        Mr. Lopez-Cobos will conduct the final two weekends of the season. (Mr. Jarvi is committed to conduct a new production of Fidelio at Maggio Musicale in Florence, Italy, during April and May, which he accepted before he was offered the CSO job.)
       

A new "Bolero'

        At a time when many major American orchestras have lost their recording contracts, the CSO continues its relationship with the Cleveland-based Telarc. Mr. Jarvi will record Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Suites 1, 2 and 3, and works by Ravel, including Bolero, which was also recorded by Mr. Lopez-Cobos.

        Why record Bolero again?

        Telarc is banking on its new Direct Stream Digital sound technology, Mr. Jarvi says, although, he admits, “I am the first person who will not look at the sound quality when I buy the CD — I would rather have a scratchy old interpretation.

        “The orchestra has recorded Bolero, but not with me. Sometimes a piece could be seen in a different light.”

        On his agenda, Mr. Jarvi, like every previous CSO music director, is holding discussions with the musicians about Music Hall's acoustical treatments. “It's a balancing act,” he says.

        And he has “an ongoing conversation” with Douglas Lowry, dean of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, to create a relationship between the two organizations, such as master classes, joint events or concerts.

        His guest-conducting plans next season will take him to the Munich Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, among others.

        Mr. Jarvi's discography, concert schedule and reviews are on his Web site, www.paavojarvi.com. and the fan site, www.paavoproject.com.

Tour includes Boston

        Besides visiting New York's prestigious Carnegie Hall, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's five-city East Coast tour includes the first performances in Boston's Symphony Hall since the Max Rudolf days in the '60s.

        The orchestra will also perform in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., which it has not visited since 1985.

        The CSO tour program will include Sibelius' Finlandia; Stravinsky's Suite from The Firebird and Ravel's Bolero, as well as the works by Sibelius, Shostakovich and Erkki-Sven Tuur that will be performed at Carnegie Hall. The tour schedule:

        March 30, 2003 — Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus, Greenvale, N.Y.

        March 31 — Carnegie Hall, New York

        April 2 — Symphony Hall, Boston

        April 3 — Mechanics Hall, Worcester, Mass. (built in 1857 and considered the country's finest pre-Civil War concert hall)

        April 5 — Kennedy Center, Washington

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