Nov. 3, Hamburg: Clarinetist Socrates Villegas (left) and Principal Oboe Philippe Tondre check in at Hamburg Airport for the short flight to Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Hamburg: The tour party and the Patron Tour were all on the same flight. Principal Viola Choong-Jin Chang shares a row with A. Morris Williams, Jr., and Elaine Woo Camarda. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Over Germany: Musicians often write postcards back to donors while on tour, and a flight is the perfect time. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: The Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany’s largest opera and concert house, originally built in 1904 as the town’s central railway station. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Associate Principal Clarinet Samuel Caviezel gets ready for the evening’s concert. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Yannick greets musicians on stage prior to the sound check. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Cellist Ohad Bar-David warms up. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Associate Principal Trumpet Jeffrey Curnow finds a hidden-away spot among the tour trunks to warm up. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: (L to r): Flutist Olivia Staton, Socrates Villegas, Associate Principal Oboe Peter Smith, and Samuel Caviezel during the concert. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Daniil Trifonov joined Yannick and the Orchestra for the first half, playing Rachmaninoff’s Fourth Piano Concerto. While the Fourth is not as long as the Second or the Third, the composer wrote the following after its completion in 1926: “Perhaps it will have to be given like Wagner’s Ring cycle, over the course of several consecutive evenings.” He also acknowledged that “the orchestra is almost never silent,” which made the work “less like a concerto for piano and more like a concerto for piano and orchestra.” Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: For an encore, Daniil performed Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Violinist Boris Balter backstage during intermission. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Yannick jokes with Assistant Personnel Manager Brooke Bartolome before the concert’s second half. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Yannick enters the auditorium for Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: “A composer’s music should express the country of his birth, his love affairs, his religion,” Rachmaninoff once remarked; all three of these things are found in ample measure in the Symphony No. 2. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: The entire ensemble during the Symphony. The building served as a railway station until 1977. The hall’s new construction was architecturally integrated into the station by Wilhelm Holzbauer and opened in 1998. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Yannick during one of the more dramatic moments in the Symphony. Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Nov. 3, Baden-Baden: Yannick is a frequent conductor in Baden-Baden, having led numerous concerts and begun a cycle of Mozart’s mature operas in 2011. Photo by Todd Rosenberg