The Don's Deeds, Part 3: Meet Don Quixote!

Fiona Thompson

This month’s Masterworks Concert is called “The Don’s Deeds” and the Don in question is one of the most beloved literary characters ever created, Don Quixote. The musical setting is by Richard Strauss, a work that is often considered a cello concerto – well, it has a prominent and demanding solo part for the cello – and a tone poem, which means “music inspired by a story” or “telling a story in music.”

The Harrisburg Symphony’s principal cellist, Fiona Thompson, is the soloist in performances you can hear at the Forum on Saturday, April 14th at 8pm and Sunday, April 15th at 3pm.

The other day, conductor Stuart Malina and I had a chance to sit down and talk about this amazing – and challenging – work. 

You can hear our podcast about Don Quixote here.

You can hear our podcasts about the other two works on the program on earlier posts: for Khachaturian's Spartacus and for Copland's Billy the Kid.

Picasso's Don Quixote & Sancho Panza

Strauss completed it in 1898 and called it neither tone poem nor concerto but “Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character – for Large Orchestra.” He doesn’t even mention “For Cello and Large Orchestra” because the idea, as Stuart points out in our conversation, is that the cello part was intended for the orchestra’s principal cellist, not a guest soloist as you’d usually have for a standard concerto. There are also prominent solo parts for the principal violist and the concertmaster.

This performance of the complete work – with guest soloist Yo-Yo Ma in a “standard concerto location” rather than the principal cellist sitting with the cello section; the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, performing at Carnegie Hall – is part of a PBS “Great Performance” presentation recorded live-in-concert and includes a prefatory interview with Yo-Yo Ma plus the backstage host Peter Jennings. The principal violist is Roberto Diáz. The music begins at 5:00 into the first clip.

Throughout the piece, the composer indicated certain “plot-elements” which are used here as “subtitles” for the broadcast. In our performance at the Forum, these will be projected as “supertitles” on a screen over the orchestra.

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Clip #1:

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In telling the story of Miguel de Cervantes’ knight, Strauss presents various musical ideas that help set the scene: “Don Quixote loses his sanity after reading novels about knights, and decides to become a knight-errant."

How do you describe this in music? Though the composer doesn’t specify what every musical phrase means – if it means anything at all – the opening phrase is so much like an invitation to listen to this musical tale, how can one resist?

Or, as it occurred to me at other times, the equivalent of “once upon a time” or even the gentleman Don Alonso Quijano settling down in his library to read some of his beloved books?”

Actually, considering the opening few notes becomes the Don’s Theme later on, I’m tempted to view this as the Don’s normal state: by the time we hear the solo cello playing a more aggressive version of this simple rhythmic motive, it is the mind of our gentleman, now unhinged!

Certainly, different musical ideas present themselves like some of the quotes from his favorite novels which Don Alonso likes to throw around.

These are novels about the great knights of chivalry, a golden age long past but which lives in these popular chivalric novels he loves to read. Is the long viola section’s melody at 6:10 one of those knight’s he’s reading about and the following oboe solo at 6:30 an image of that knight’s lady? And what about the sudden interruption of the brass at 7:09? Some danger? The knight prepares to rescue the damsel-in-distress and, judging from a courtly fanfare in the brass at 7:46, succeeding. This is interspersed with a violin solo – a character? the narrator? the idea of chivalry itself? Or is it the Don’s imagination taking fire as he sits back and lets all these thoughts take hold of him?

It doesn’t really matter – and is that only my interpretation, what the music “says” to me? – but you’ll notice, starting around 8:37, how these musical ideas (not really yet themes) start to tumble over one another, just as the Don’s mind switches freely from memories of this favorite novel to that one, as Cervantes describes the scene in the opening pages of his tale.

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Clip #2:

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It isn’t until the second clip that we actually get to hear the solo cello. But first, there’s a very important version of Quixote’s motive – at 0:34 in the brass – which will figure very prominently throughout the piece – already changing at 1:19 to a new major-chord resolution at 1:30; then, after another wild and complex tumult, once more at 1:45 increasing into a long tense dissonance that – at 2:17 – is left hanging, opening the way for the solo cello’s entrance. Perhaps this use of the Don’s Theme might be specifically attached to his idea of chivalry? Certainly, when it appears this way, it always seems to be a significant “idea.”

Don Quixote has arrived, playing his “theme of knightly character.”

Notice that it sounds militant and determined. Yet this is the same motive that so graciously opened the first measure of the music (clip #1, 5:00)

Cervantes (1547-1616)

In Cervantes’ story, the gentleman (whose real identity is only hinted at) loses his mind from reading all these fanciful tales of knights-in-shining-armor rescuing damsels-in-distress while fighting against evil (usually in the form of enchanters) that he determines this is the life for him: he will become a knight-errant (that is, a wandering knight) with its complete code of ethics and conduct. He will become, in fact, Don Quixote of La Mancha. For lack of a better steed, he will take his old nag Rocinante and ride forth with a largely improvised suit of armor (the first helmet is so flimsy it breaks; the second one was “taped” together in such a way, he couldn’t take it off, even to eat). And every knight has a lady, one he dedicates himself and all his quests to. He remembers a beautiful girl in neighboring Toboso and he will call her Dulcinea (from the word “dulce” or sweet).

Incidentally, we think of Don Quixote as a crazy old man – tall, skinny (scrawny, even), a long thin beard as Cervantes describes him – but I hesitate to point out Cervantes also says on page 1, “our gentleman is approaching 50 years of age.” (Uhm, well… okay, then…)

So, does that mean this whole story is what we’d call a Mid-Life Crisis?

Now, there’s a problem because he hasn’t been officially knighted. In his first foray into the world, he finds a castle (actually, a decrepit country inn) where the lord of the castle (actually, the inn-keeper) and two beauteous ladies of the court (more like “of ill repute”) whom he asks to hold the ceremony that will make him officially a knight. The inn-keeper/lord dubs him “Don Quixote, the Knight of the Woeful Countenance.”

by Gustav Doré

 Officially, he didn’t meet Sancho Panza until his second outing. Sancho is a neighbor of his, a poor man as squat and round as Quixote is tall and gaunt (in fact, Panza means ‘paunch’). He is portrayed by the principal violist and there’s a rather jaunty, comical (even cartoon-like) melody associated with him that is usually heard in the tenor-tuba and/or bass clarinet (at 3:29) which serves to introduce the Sancho himself (perhaps the tuba tune epresents his equally faithful but unlikely donkey? Certainly, Don Quixote had misgiving about accepting Sancho as a squire because he could recall no knight in the literature who had a squire who rode a donkey). Anyway, one thing about Sancho, asides from his unending faith in his master, he loves to chatter away.

At 4:37, the first variation begins: Don Quixote and Sancho ride off in search of adventure. At 5:00, we hear a theme in the violins that could be his image of the beautiful and mysterious lady to whom he dedicates his quest, Dulcinea.

Their first encounter with evil involves giants (by 5:00, the cello has been whipping that militant-sounding motive into an increasing frenzy) though Sancho, ever the realist, sees only a bunch of windmills on the hillside.

by Gustav Doré

Just then, a gust of wind set the windmill’s arms in motion and Quixote, “commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, asking that she come to his aid at this critical moment, and well protected by his shield, with his lance in its socket, charged at Rocinante’s full gallop and attacked the first mill he came to; and as he thrust his lance into the sail, the win moved it with so much force that it broke the lance into pieces and picked up the horse and the knight, who then dropped to the ground and were very badly battered.”

Strauss depicts this (5:54-6:02) in an upward rush in the cello, a quick downward glissando in the harps and a thud in the bass drum, all the while slow moving woodwinds reflect the slow, stately inevitability of the windmills’ turning arms. Notice how, in the subsequent moments, the solo cello slowly pulls himself back together.

After dusting himself off, Quixote continues his adventures as (beginning with the 2nd variation at 7:20) he sees an army approaching. But, Sancho points out, it’s merely a herd of sheep. Nonsense, the Don is convinced: “do you not hear the neighing of horses, the sound of the drums?” The only thing Sancho Panza hears is the bleating of sheep.

“It is your fear,” Quixote tells him, “that keeps you from seeing or hearing properly, because one of the effects of fear is to cloud the senses and make things appear other than they are.”

Then he fixes his lance and rides off down the hill like a flash of lightening. Sancho calls after him, “Your grace, come back – I swear to God you’re charging sheep!”

What do you hear at 7:41? Neighing of horses and the beat of drums? Or… sheep?

In one of the works most cinematographic sequences, Strauss incorporates various “new” techniques for the brass players to represent the bleating of the sheep.

Strauss in 1904

Though many of Strauss’ first listeners found this passage “offensive,” how could they not see the humor in it, especially as the sheep scattered once Don Quixote and his horse (c.8:23) were charging amongst them?

This is like a film score without the film – you can enjoy the music purely as music (though what the heck is all that noise in the brass all about?) or you can imagine the scene Strauss suggests. Is it carrying “realism” too far?

At 9:00, the third variation begins which is one of those conversations between the Don and his squire in which Sancho questions his master about various things and the knight lectures him about the chivalric life and its code of honor. Notice how Sancho’s blustering viola outbursts (9:25, 9:37, 9:49) are answered by the solo violin (not a character, here: perhaps the narrator? Or maybe just a nice violin solo?) and gradually calm down – is he accepting the chivalric argument? Keep in mind, to a poor peasant, chivalry is more than a long dead life-style – even as a romantic concept, it has no relevance to his own experience.

In the 3rd Video Clip, this discussion continues

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Clip #3

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with an eloquent rebuttal by the solo cello and an on-going conversation with all three solo strings – concertmaster, principal violist and the cellist. Sancho certainly becomes more eloquent than we’ve heard him before (c.1:03 through 2:39). Again, notice that chivalric setting of the motive in the brass beginning dramatically at 2:46 before resolving beautifully into the major tonality at 3:04: Quixote rhapsodizing over the ideals of chivalry? And the appearance of the oboe theme (6:37) could be a reminder of his idealized lady, Dulcinea, followed (at 6:50) by the tenor tuba’s version of Sancho Panza’s donkey, a bit of every-day reality. It again ends with that chivalric version of the Don’s Motive.

Obviously, mid-life crisis or not, he’s quite passionate about it, even if we think he’s a bit off his rocker.

In the next variation (No. 4) – preceded by a Sanchian outburst (8:00) started by the bass clarinet – we are back on the road where Don Quixote and Sancho meet a band of penitents (pilgrims) singing a plaintive chant (8:40 – oh, nice pun, Strawser) who are carrying an icon which the Don mistakes for an abducted maiden. Don Quixote de la Mancha to the rescue!

The next variation (at the start of Video Clip #4) is one of the many vigils in Cervantes’ story. Knights are always holding night-time vigils over their armor. In this one, while Sancho the squire sleeps near-by, Don Quixote dreams of his distant Dulcinea, a long meditation for solo cello.

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Clip #4

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At 2:16 & 2:50, the harp glissandos probably represent his vision of Dulcinea (remember those wavy shots used in old movies to initiate flash-backs?). Certainly, it’s one of the most sublime and most human moments in the entire story, so far.

Something happens in Cervantes’ novel around this point in Strauss' music. Aside from the fact that Cervantes published Part One in 1605 and Part Two ten years later, after the first volume had proven such a success (also to avoid losing out to other writers producing their own sequels). While the first is primarily comical – even farcical – the second part is more mature and wiser, in a sense (Cervantes was 57 when he completed the first part; when he published Part Two, he is now 68), dealing more philosophically with, for instance, the importance of deception and an awareness of reality.

In Part Two, Sancho is pressured into finding Dulcinea and (at 4:43) brings back three dirty peasant girls, telling his master they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting transformed by some odious enchanter. (It was, after all, the most common explanation Quixote used for his own misconceptions about windmills, sheep and otherwise harmless monks. But this time, the Don sees only peasant girls. Notice the collision at 5:23 of Sancho’s solos with the dance-music and tambourines of the peasant girls (along with other motives).

This leads into the next variation at 6:06, the “Hoax of the Flying Horse.” The Don and Sancho are placed on wooden horses and blindfolded, made to believe they are riding through the air. The music, even including a “wind machine” (usually a cylindrical drum with slats rubbing against a fabric covering when turned by a handle) – it’s that green thing on the right at 6:32 – which gives a realistic description of something so unrealistic, complete with whooshing woodwinds and a soaring version of the theme.

But speaking of deceptions (this is one of many pranks played on the hapless pair), listen to the rumbling basses and long sustained trombone chords which represents the ground they never leave.

At 7:15, the imaginary mode of transportation changes from flying horses to a magic boat. As it gets more tempestuous, they eventually capsize (c.8:05). Are the plucked strings starting at 8:22 drops of water dripping off them as they clamber onto shore? Well, maybe…

But at 8:38, that passage in the flutes and clarinets is a transformation of the chivalric version of the Don’s theme, no?

The next variation (starting c.9:00) is Don Quixote’s encounter with two monks whom he sees as sorcerers. At 9:16, we meet two bassoonists sounding very monk-like but who are rudely interrupted by a bad edit and continued in Video Clip #5,

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Clip #5

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where they are then attacked by the Don. In this case, rather than being a soloist, the cellist is the principal of the cello section (as often happens). /// The last variation begins immediately (0:10). Poor Don Quixote, bruised but never beaten, has now been challenged by the mysterious Knight of the White Moon (who in reality is his neighbor) and in the military fanfares (0:20) that intrude on the Chivalric Motive, Quixote who after one last stand, alone on one note (0:42), is quickly defeated.

In all of these encounters, Quixote always loses – more errant knight than knight-errant, he is constantly knocked off his horse by windmills, by shepherds, even by monks. This time, there are terms to the contest: if he loses, Quixote must return to his home and give up his knightly career.

At 1:00, over the pounding of drums and an intense climax, the dejected Quixote is led away by Sancho Panza (2:12) and returns home.

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Clip #6

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In a miraculous moment – the ending of Clip #5 and the start of the last clip – Don Quixote regains his sanity and (at 3:22) would appear to be back to normal with the return of the very opening’s original “once-upon-a-time” music. However, he is losing his strength and after a beatific passage (beginning at 4:40) quietly loses his last battle (at 6:12).

It is this ending – both in Cervantes’ original and in Strauss musical condensation of it – that raises the character from being a comic figure (in fact, the epitome of "the loser") to being, perhaps, Everyman, anybody who has ever fought against the status quo, fought for a deeply held ideal, wished to create a better world but was always met (and overpowered) by reality. We laugh at the situations he ends up in, shake our heads in disbelief (I mean, he really is a menace to society) not only at each outcome but at the fact he picks himself and keeps on going. But it is this ending where most of us will probably nod in recognition, if not for ourselves for others we might know.

In the story, one last bit of realistic awareness: Don Quixote, now restored to being Don Alonso Quijano, left everything in his will to his niece on one condition: that she never marry a man who reads chivalric romances…

Dick Strawser

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Aside from the illustrations by Gustav Doré (Don Quixote & Sancho Panza; Attacking the Windmill) from 1863, the iconic portrait by Pablo Picasso dates from 1955. The strange and rather evil-looking photograph of composer Richard Strauss was taken in 1904 (seven years after Don Quixote and a year before he shocked everybody with his opera Salome) by Edward Steichen.

It is also interesting to note that Miguel de Cervantes died a day before William Shakespeare.

The Don's Deeds, Part 2: Billy the Kid

Aaron Copland

This month’s Masterworks Concerts may be called “The Don’s Deeds,” focusing on Richard Strauss’ tone poem inspired by Cervantes’ novel, Don Quixote but two other works were inspired by real people: the slave Spartacus and the legendary Wild West outlaw, Billy the Kid.

The concerts are April 14th at 8pm and April 15th at 3pm at the Forum with Stuart Malina conducting the Harrisburg Symphony. Principal cellist Fiona Thompson is the soloist in Strauss’s Don Quixote. I’ll be doing a pre-concert talk an hour before each performance. 

Stuart and I sat down to talk about the music on this program the other day. Here’s our podcast for our conversation about the Suite from Aaron Copland’s ballet, Billy the Kid, one of three ballets by Copland that helped define the American Sound.

(You can read more about Spartacus here – and about Don Quixote here.)

Photograph of Billy the Kid

The music one usually hears in the concert hall is the orchestral suite that Copland arranged from the complete ballet, compromising several scenes that serves as a kind of condensed version of the ballet’s scenario. It opens with the image of pioneers crossing the broad prairies (much as Billy did as a child, his mother leaving the slums of New York City behind to find a new life, eventually, in New Mexico), then, during a street scene, Billy’s mother is accidentally shot (Billy kills the murderer and runs off: his life of crime has begun and with it, his legend).

In the next scene, “The Prairie at Night” (the desert might be more appropriate), Billy, now older and already well-known as an outlaw, is playing cards with Pat Garrett (he would become the local sheriff but there was never any proof that Garrett and The Kid were actually ever friends). In another scene, Billy is arrested by a posse which includes the famous “shoot-out” scene, depicted in rhythmic gun-fire in the percussion and brass. Billy is captured – the townspeople celebrate – but he later escapes, only to be killed by Pat Garrett. The final scene takes us back to the stark opening music of the prairie.

Here’s a “video” of the complete orchestral suite in three clips with Erich Kunzel conducting the Cincinnati Pops.

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Orchestral Suite: Part 1 – the Open Prairie – Street in a Frontier Town
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Part 2 – Prairie Night & Gunfight
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Part 3 – Celebration of Billy’s capture – Billy’s Death – The Open Prairie
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Aaron Copland was approached by Lincoln Kirstein to write a ballet on an American story, something not too complicated that his travelling dance company, the Ballet Caravan, could take on the road. He gave Copland a scenario based on the life of the legendary outlaw, Billy the Kid, and a volume of Old West folk songs. Copland was not enthusiastic and probably would have declined the project except some of the tunes began to grow on him.

In the early-1930s, Copland – born in 1900 and after studying in Paris during the ‘20s with Nadia Boulanger – was writing works that had difficulty finding both performers and audience. After his “Short Symphony,” completed in 1933, he decided – perhaps naturally headed toward what most musicologists refer to as a more mature composer’s “middle period” – his style needed reconsidering. The problem was finding how to do this without just pandering to popular taste.

His music was becoming perhaps too complex (in both rhythm and texture) and he started examining the music he liked, beginning with the classics. He thought “an ideal music” could combine Mozart’s “spontaneity and refinement” with Palestrina’s “purity” (particularly in its textures) and Bach’s “profundity.” Among his contemporaries, Stravinsky was his hero but he also found energy in jazz even though his 1926 Piano Concerto wasn’t as successful as its most obvious influence, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” written two years earlier.

After a trip to Mexico, he created a “musical post card” of his visit to a famous saloon (where, he said, signs warned patrons not to through cigarette butts on the floor as many of the woman walked barefoot), employing several popular songs of the region that would give the music “authentic local color.” This was his El Salon Mexico which he wrote in 1936.

The following year, he wrote a piece he called “Music for Radio,” about as generic and abstract a title as one could imagine. The good radio people decided it needed a spicier title (always about ratings) so they held a contest to find a better name. The winner heard the music of the wide-open prairies in it and suggested calling it “Saga of the Prairies.” Eventually, Copland chose to call it “Prairie Journal,” even though that was not his original intent.

Yet that sonority of open chords, often lacking the thirds that define major- or minor-ness and often moving in parallel or block harmonies, came to imply the “American Sound.”

In Billy the Kid, written the year after that, one could argue the inclusion of Old West songs like “The Ol’ Chisolm Trail,” “Get Along, Li’l Dogies,” and “Good-Bye, Ol’ Paint” (Copland said he almost used “Home on the Range” but “I had to draw the line somewhere…”) would be enough to give it an American sound, marking this ballet as American as Stravinsky’s Petrushka was Russian because of its use of several Russian folk songs (mostly unknown to American audiences, anyway).

Copland at MacDowell

At any rate, reluctant initially or not, Copland ended up creating one of his most enduring works and one of the first that would label him as a “truly American composer,” whatever that means. Ironically, the son of Russian immigrants (his father, a Lithuanian Jew, changed the family name from Kaplan to Copland while awaiting trans-Atlantic transportation to their new home) who grew up in Brooklyn is considered an “American” because of three “Western” ballets – in addition to Rodeo, the ballet originally called “Ballet for Martha” [Graham] and later rechristened Appalachian Spring might be the wilds of Pennsylvania in the early 19th Century (little did he know there were no Shakers in Pennsylvania to warrant including the tune “Simple Gifts,” one of the highlights of the score). It’s interesting to see the last page of the score of Billy the Kid, and realize, for all its western-isms, it was composed not while vacationing in Arizona but in Paris and New York and completed in December, 1938, at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough NH.

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For history buffs interested in the story of Billy the Kid – born William McCarty and later calling himself William Bonney – here is Pat Garrett’s own account of the death of an outlaw who captured the American imagination:

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I then concluded to go and have a talk with Peter Maxwell, Esq., in whom I felt sure I could rely. We had ridden to within a short distance of Maxwell's grounds when we found a man in camp and stopped. To Poe's great surprise, he recognized in the camper an old friend and former partner, in Texas, named Jacobs. We unsaddled here, got some coffee, and, on foot, entered an orchard which runs from this point down to a row of old buildings, some of them occupied by Mexicans, not more than sixty yards from Maxwell's house. We approached these houses cautiously, and when within earshot, heard the sound of voices conversing in Spanish. We concealed ourselves quickly and listened; but the distance was too great to hear words, or even distinguish voices. Soon a man arose from the ground, in full view, but too far away to recognize. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, a dark vest and pants, and was in his shirtsleeves. With a few words, which fell like a murmur on our ears, he went to the fence, jumped it, and walked down towards Maxwell's house.

Little as we then suspected it, this man was the Kid. We learned, subsequently, that, when he left his companions that night, he went to the house of a Mexican friend, pulled off his hat and boots, threw himself on a bed, and commenced reading a newspaper. He soon, however, hailed his friend, who was sleeping in the room, told him to get up and make some coffee, adding: 'Give me a butcher knife and I will go over to Pete's and get some beef; I'm hungry.' The Mexican arose, handed him the knife, and the Kid, hatless and in his stocking-feet, started to Maxwell's, which was but a few steps distant.

When the Kid, by me unrecognized, left the orchard, I motioned to my companions, and we cautiously retreated a short distance, and, to avoid the persons whom we had heard at the houses, took another route, approaching Maxwell's house from the opposite direction. When we reached the porch in front of the building, I left Poe and McKinney at the end of the porch, about twenty feet from the door of Pete's room, and went in. It was near midnight and Pete was in bed. I walked to the head of the bed and sat down on it, beside him, near the pillow. I asked him as to the whereabouts of the Kid. He said that the Kid had certainly been about, but he did not know whether he had left or not. At that moment a man sprang quickly into the door, looking back, and called twice in Spanish, 'Who comes there?' No one replied and he came on in. He was bareheaded. From his step I could perceive he was either barefooted or in his stocking-feet, and held a revolver in his right hand and a butcher knife in his left.

He came directly towards me. Before he reached the bed, I whispered: 'Who is it, Pete?' but received no reply for a moment. It struck me that it might be Pete's brother-in-law, Manuel Abreu, who had seen Poe and McKinney, and wanted to know their business. The intruder came close to me, leaned both hands on the bed, his right hand almost touching my knee, and asked, in a low tone: -'Who are they Pete?' -at the same instant Maxwell whispered to me. 'That's him!' Simultaneously the Kid must have seen, or felt, the presence of a third person at the head of the bed. He raised quickly his pistol, a self-cocker, within a foot of my breast. Retreating rapidly across the room he cried: 'Quien es? Quien es?' 'Who's that? Who's that?')

All this occurred in a moment. Quickly as possible I drew my revolver and fired, threw my body aside, and fired again. The second shot was useless; the Kid fell dead. He never spoke. A struggle or two, a little strangling sound as he gasped for breath, and the Kid was with his many victims.
--- (Pat Garrett: The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid (1882, republished 1954)
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- Dick Strawser

The Don's Deeds, Part 1: I'M Spartacus!

Aram Khachaturian

This month’s Masterworks Concert features “musical portraits” of three famous characters – two were actual “real” people and the other is one of the great literary creations of Western literature.

The concerts are Saturday, April 14th at 8pm and Sunday, April 15th at 3pm at the Forum.

Stuart Malina and I recently had a chance to chat about each of these pieces.

The program is called “The Don’s Deeds” for Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote, but the two “living legends” are Billy the Kid, the famous American bad guy of the Wild West, and our first pod-cast topic, the leader of a slave revolt in ancient Rome, Spartacus.

You can listen to the "Spartacus" podcast here. (The other works will be covered in additional posts.)

As we talk about the role of “musical depiction” and whether one needs to understand the story or not, no – you don’t have to know Spartacus’ history to appreciate the music and you don’t even have to know the plot to enjoy the music Aram Khachaturian wrote for his ballet about him.

(For those of you looking at that name and wondering – it’s pronounced Ah-rahm’ catch-uh-TOOR-yun in the standard American mispronunciation: officially in Russian, the accent would be on the last syllable, catch-uh-toor-YAHN.)

Khachaturian was a leading composer of the Soviet Union, largely overshadowed by Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev. Born of Armenian descent in the Caucasus region of what was then the Russian Empire, he was seventeen when the area became a Soviet republic. He went to Moscow the following year and though he had no musical training – just exhibiting what could be an innate musical talent – he entered the Gnessin Academy, essentially Moscow’s answer to, say, the Curtis School of Music, first taking cello lessons and then, at 22, composition lessons.

Incidentally, a more recent student at the Gnessin was Igor Zubkovsky who started his studies as a cellist, there, and played the Haydn C Major Cello Concerto with the Minsk Symphony when he was 12. He’s currently the Harrisburg Symphony’s assistant principal cellist. His stand partner, Fiona Thompson, will be the featured soloist for Strauss’ Don Quixote on this program.

So, anyway, by the 1930s Khachaturian had become a recognized composer both at home and abroad. His ballet Gayane became an international success largely because of one short excerpt, the “Sabre Dance.”

In 1950, Khachaturian toured Italy as a guest-conductor and came back with the idea of writing a ballet about Spartacus. He completed it in 1954 and it was premiered the following year.

While Gayane’s “Sabre Dance” is his most familiar work, the beautiful Adagio from Spartacus is perhaps his “second-most famous” piece – as Stuart calls it in the pod-cast, “one of those guilty pleasures.” Once you get beyond the usual suspects – Pachelbel's Canon, the 1812 Overture, Ravel's Bolero – it was one of the most frequently requested pieces on my "Requests Nights" when I worked as a public radio announcer.

Inspired by the story of the slave who led a revolt against the Roman Republic around 70 BC, the ballet follows the “gist” of the conflict with lots of opportunities for Khachaturian’s lyrical voice as well as his exotic colorings, mostly from his Armenian heritage. There are dances for Greek and Egyptian slaves, scenes set in a market-place with merchants from around the Mediterranean, and even a dance for a bunch of pirates, including another Saber Dance for some Thracian soldiers (the lezginka, a common dance from the Caucasus Mountains, performed with swords – hence the more generic idea of “Sabre Dance,” not just the one from Gayaneh). In the midst of the political turmoil and all these rowdy and colorful scenes to expand on the story’s setting, there is this gorgeous love-duet between Spartacus and his wife, Phrygia. (In ballet, the term “adagio” refers less to tempo than to an extended sequence of “slow,” lyrical dancing.) Here is the scene from the Bolshoi Ballet’s production: 
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As is typical with many composers who want to salvage some of their best efforts for a work that can only be appreciated in a more limited setting – an opera house or a ballet theater – Khachaturian crafted three different suites of excerpts from the complete ballet so they can be enjoyed in the concert hall. The second of these suites opens with the famous Adagio: it forms about half the entire suite, followed by a market-place scene with a dance for the merchants, a Roman courtesan, a “general” dance for people in the market, which then is interrupted by Spartacus’ entrance, a quarrel, something labeled the “treachery of Harmodius” before concluding with a “Dance of the Pirates.”

To be honest, I’ve just read a three-page plot synopsis of the complete ballet and nowhere did it mention Harmodius or anything that would even resemble a market-place scene! Since there was a drastic revision of the original 1950s production involving a revised scenario and some new music presented in 1968, perhaps these scenes were removed from the ballet in the new version.

At my pre-concert talk (an hour before each concert), I’ll be getting more into the historical background of the ballet in Khachaturian’s life. I’ll be posting that information at a later date.

Incidentally, most people in the United States would be more familiar with Spartacus from a variety of “gladiator flicks” which may (or may not) use the original Spartacus’s story as a starting point. To many Americans “of a certain age,” Spartacus means Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 film starring Kirk Douglas as the leader of the slave rebellion, Laurence Olivier as the Roman Crassus, and Tony Curtis as a fellow slave.

The most famous scene, however, is this one when the Roman general offers to give the just-captured slaves their lives (rather than crucifying them as was the standard punishment for many criminal offenses in those days) on the condition they identify their leader, Spartacus.

As Kirk Douglas goes to stand up, Tony Curtis, seated beside him, stands up first and shouts out, “I’M Spartacus!” He’s quickly joined by other slaves until the entire valley is ringing with shouts of "I'M Spartacus!" This selfless solidarity has become one of the great iconic scenes in Hollywood history.

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 - Dick Strawser

Beethoven's 5th: The Podcast

This weekend, the Harrisburg Symphony performs one of the greatest and most popular symphonies of all times – Beethoven’s 5th, as most people call it (rather than the more formal “Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op.67” by Ludwig van Beethoven). Because he described the opening of the symphony as “Fate Knocks at the Door,” this weekend’s concert is entitled “The Fateful Fifth.” It also includes Robert Schumann’s “Concert Piece for Four Horns” and Béla Bartók’s Divertimento for Strings – this Saturday evening at 8pm and Sunday afternoon at 3pm.

Stuart Malina and I had a chance to chat about the program earlier today, and you can listen to it at Stuart’s website, here (click on the link that says “PODCAST”). For reasons known only to my computer, I can’t get a link to work for the sound file or to have the file just automatically open and start playing, so hopefully you won’t have any problems with it.

While there are many performances of Beethoven's 5th available on YouTube (some good, some not so much), here's a performance of the complete symphony in one clip in a performance by the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by Heinrich Schiff:
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There are not many performances of the Schumann Concert Piece for 4 Horns available, but this one is one of the best from a live concert performance. James Judd conducts the Galicia Symphony Orchestra with guest hornist Radovan Vlatkovic joining three members of the orchestra, José Vicente Castelló, Miguel Angel Garza and Manuel Moya. - - - - - - - -
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Bartok's Divertimento for Strings was written for the full string section of an orchestra. Here is a performance by I Solisti di Zagreb, a chamber ensemble. Keep in mind the idea of a light-hearted "diversion" combined with the spicy harmony of Bartok's love of Hungarian folk-dances and -rhythms and the fact it was written in the grim months before the start of World War II. - - - - - - - -
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- Dick Strawser

Brahms: The Podcast

It’s an all-Brahms program with the Harrisburg Symphony this weekend – you could call it 'Brahms Cubed' – or as Stuart Malina referred to it in our podcast chat, “Brahms, Brahms and Quasi-Brahms.” He’ll conduct the orchestra in the Symphony No. 1 in C Minor and, joined by concertmaster Odin Rathnam, celebrating his 20th season with the orchestra, the Violin Concerto in D Major.

The program opens with the world premiere of… not a newly discovered work by Brahms but a “fan-fare” composed by Brahms fan Stuart Malina, a concert-opener that is based on themes from another one of Brahms’ symphonies, the 4th, one Stuart says might be his favorite if he had to choose (the standard response, justifiably, to the question “which is your favorite Brahms Symphony?” is to say “the one I’m conducting at the moment”).

Listen to the podcast here.

And also check out the posts I’ve written about the Violin Concerto (check back later, it's still TBA at the moment), the Symphony (historical background to the question “Why did it take Brahms so long to compose his 1st Symphony?”) and a bit of a conversation Brahms had about his compositional ideas with a protégé of his during the summer he (finally) completed the Symphony No. 1.

The performances are this Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm at the Forum in downtown Harrisburg – and the pre-concert talks will be given an hour before each performance by Stuart Malina (as if he didn’t have enough to deal with before a concert).

- Dick Strawser

It's Mahler Time: The PodCast

This weekend, the Harrisburg Symphony performs Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 3, certainly one of the longest symphonies in the standard repertoire and one that doesn't get performed all that often. It's safe to say that any performance of it is “an event.”

Stuart Malina took some time out of his schedule to chat with me about why this symphony is something you shouldn't miss.

You can hear our PODCAST here.

You can also read my account of the world premiere of Mahler's symphony back in 1902, how the audience responded to what you have the chance to hear this weekend.

The performances are this Saturday (April 16th) at 8pm and Sunday (April 17th) at 3pm at the Forum in downtown Harrisburg. Come an hour early to take in the pre-concert talk which I'll be offering (free to any ticket-holder) an hour before each performance.

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You can catch MAHLER MADNESS and receive a 50% discount if you haven't already bought a ticket for these concerts by calling the Harrisburg Symphony Box Office - (717) 545-5527 - just ask for the Mahler Madness Discount! Tell them you saw it on the blog!
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Okay, it's true, a symphony that is just long doesn't make it great. Just because there's over 100 musicians on the stage (plus a vocal soloist and women's and children's choruses) doesn't necessarily make it an event.

Mahler was 26 when he completed the Third Symphony. A year later, three movements (the all-orchestral ones other than the first) were performed in Berlin (to not very positive responses) but it took another five years until Mahler could get a complete performance for its official world premiere. By then, he was almost 32 (see illustration, left, a drawing made that year). Though a respected (if controversial) conductor, this performance was the one that helped make his career as a composer.

His original intent, as Stuart and I discuss in the podcast, was to give a specific program to each of the movements, creating a kind of cosmological ladder from beginning to end. In the first movement, he describes the arrival of summer, the awakening of Pan, a festive march to honor him (or Bacchus) including a thunderstorm and a rousing celebration. The last to be composed, this movement is also as long as a typical symphony in its entirety written a hundred years earlier.

(By the way, the symphony is usually performed without intermission, so you may want to be aware of this and visit the restrooms before the concert begins...)

The next series of movements were originally given titles: "What the flowers of the field tell me." "What the animals of the forest tell me." "What mankind tells me." "What the Angels tell me." And "What Love tells me."

The 4th movement is a song for the alto (or mezzo) soloist, settings words of Friedrich Nietzsche, a poem taken from "Also sprach Zarathustra," one of the major works of German literature at the time, and written only ten years earlier. Part of the irony, here, is that while Nietzsche adopted a biblical style to promote ideas that were fundamentally opposed to Christian and Jewish morality - the idea that "God is Dead" actually came from a different work - and believed himself "godless and antimetaphysical," Mahler believed strongly in metaphysics, the transcendental and in the existence of God.

The 5th Movement with its pealing of bells and exuberant folk song is tied in with a song Mahler composed a few years earlier - "The Heavenly Life," a child's vision of heaven - and which originally was going to be the symphony's last movement (before he had decided to place the great Adagio there). But a seventh movement seemed unrealistic - entitled "What the Child Tells Me," this became the finale of his next symphony.

Though not originally at the end of the symphony, Mahler's eventual decision to conclude with a slow movement was unusual if not unprecedented (Beethoven had done it in his last piano sonata but a symphony is another matter.) Entitled "What Love Tells Me," his sense of "love," here, is more spiritual, God-like love rather than human emotional and physical passion, especially in light of the Nietzschean connections listeners might make from his use of the text in the 4th movement. Despite the tempo, it is a powerful, uplifting conclusion, if not a boisterously happy ending then a transfigured one.

When Stuart and I were recording our chat, he mentioned that Richard Strauss had also used Nietzsche's "Also sprach Zarathustra" as the basis of one of his most famous tone-poems. Thinking about this as I was driving home, I wondered when these two works were composed: Mahler wrote his song-setting for the symphony in the summer of 1895. Richard Strauss wrote his tone-poem on "Zarathustra" in 1896 and premiered it later that year. By the time Mahler's symphony was premiered in 1902, Strauss' tone poem would have already been quite familiar to the audience.

It's also interesting that, while Mahler sketched numerous plans for his symphony - this program with the  movements' titles - by the time he came to premiere the work, he had changed his mind and forbid the publication of the programmatic details and its titles.

However he felt about it while writing the piece and whatever prompted him to suppress these ideas later, he did relent in 1907, the last time he conducted the third symphony himself, allowing the titles back into the printed program.

Whether they help you "understand" the symphony or not, the music can exist on its own level without them. For some, it's helpful on the journey, like following sign-posts. For others, it doesn't matter or may even prove distracting. That is, after all, one aspect of Art - that it can survive on several levels simultaneously.

- Dick Strawser

A Video-Chat with Stuart Malina about the November Concert

The season seems like it just got started and yet here it is, November already, and 2010's almost over! Where does the time go?

It's time for the second Masterworks concert – Saturday Nov. 13th at 8pm and Sunday Nov. 14th at 3pm at the Forum in downtown Harrisburg – which will feature internationally renowned guitarist Sharon Isbin playing the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez on a program that includes two 5th Symphonies - one by Schubert, the other by Sibelius.

There's a pre-concert talk with Truman Bullard an hour before each concert and then after each performance, conductor Stuart Malina will host a "talk-back session" with the soloist during which the audience can ask any questions they want about the music or the performers.

The other day, Stuart and I had a chance to sit down and chat about the concert.

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The Rodrigo Concerto is usually considered THE Guitar Concerto, in addition to being one of the most popular concertos (for any instrument) from the 20th Century. The music is undeniably delightful, from the scintillating opening to the joyous dance-like finale, not to forget one of the most soulfully gorgeous slow movements in between.

Yet it was written at one of the most anxiety-filled times in 20th Century history: the horrors of the Spanish Civil War (in which it is estimated 500,000 people died) were just ending, even though they would haunt the nation for decades to come, and the clouds of the 2nd World War were already gathering on the horizon, with Hitler's invasion of Poland happening only a couple of months after Rodrigo completed his sunny, pastoral concerto.

Here is "an audio" of Sharon Isbin playing the opening movement of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez that was posted on YouTube (there's a live performance but the sound quality is not very good): though uncredited, I'm assuming this is her Teldec recording with José Serebrier conducting the New York Philharmonic (the photo image is cover-art from a different recording).
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(This link will take you to raw video footage of a live performance recorded in the Church of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, with the opening section of the concerto's slow movement. The sound's not too bad even if the filming is a bit amateurish – it'll give you an idea of what you'll hear, though.)

Rodrigo's title, by the way, refers to a famous royal palace that had been built by Philip II, the great Spanish king during the 16th Century, on a site originally chosen by Ferdinand and Isabella. From the late 19th Century, it had served as the "spring residence" of the Spanish royal family.

Rodrigo composed the work while living in Paris in 1939, far from the fighting in Spain physically, but never far away from his mind. During this horrible time in Spain's modern history, then, it might be easy to understand why Rodrigo would want to remind people of their nation's glorious past. There would also be a not very subtle reminder of Spain's royal heritage, following the Civil War and the establishment of Franco's dictatorship.

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In that sense, the Sibelius 5th Symphony also comes from an anxious time. Finland was still part of the Russian Empire, longing for independence, and the 1st World War had already begun to tear across Europe, called by some "The Great War" (more for its sense of almost universal involvement) and by others "The War to End All Wars" (which, alas, proved not to be true).

Again, like the Rodrigo, this is nothing you'd guess from hearing the music.

As I mention in the video-chat, Sibelius (seen right, in 1918) wrote this for his own 50th Birthday celebrations originally in 1915 but he revised it a couple of times over the next three years. So basically it occupied him for the duration of the war.

While the war may not have made any imprint on this symphony, there is one thing we know about that did inspire something in it: the great sweeping bell-like theme in the horns near the beginning of the last movement (about 1:25 into the video clip below). Sibelius described how one afternoon, his work was disturbed by the sound of swans nearby. When he went outside to see what was happening, he saw sixteen great swans take off and fly across the sky past him. This was such a striking moment and it ended up being turned into a striking musical moment as well.

Here is the Swedish Radio Symphony conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in the final movement of Sibelius' Symphony No. 5:
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(Listen especially to the build-up of tension beginning around 8:00, as this "swan-call" motive is stretched all over the place before resolving into one of the most dramatic silences in symphonic music at 9:39.)

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Schubert's 5th Symphony would hardly seem tied to any such historical significance, yet it was written during the heady times following a generation of Napoleonic warfare. (Perhaps he still remembered being a student in 1809 when a French bomb narrowly missed the school where he was attending classes.) Between 1814-1815, Europe's crowned heads and diplomats gathered in Vienna to redivide the continent following Napoleon's defeat. The following summer, a 19-year-old Franz Schubert wrote his Symphony No. 5.

Usually, when we think of "Fifth Symphonies," we think of Beethoven's Fifth with its famous "Fate-Knocks-at-the-Door" motive and its depiction of triumph over adversity. Beethoven completed his 5th around 1806 and it was premiered two years later, when Schubert was 11.

So what did Schubert (left) think of his famous contemporary?

Keep in mind, around that time, he was studying with Antonio Salieri who had been one of the most important composers in Vienna during the earlier part of his career (the rivalry with Mozart aside: good theater, not the most accurate history – but yes, they were on opposite sides of the musical fence).

On June 16th, 1816, Schubert attended a celebration for his former teacher, honoring the 50th Anniversary of Salieri's arrival in Vienna. That night, Schubert made one of his rare journal entries, thinking how "fine and enlivening it must be" for an artist of Salieri's stature to be surrounded by so many of his students and hear music they had composed in his honor:

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"...to hear in all these compositions the expression of pure nature, free from all the eccentricity that is common among most composers nowadays, and is due almost wholly to one of our greatest German artists [i.e., Beethoven]; that eccentricity which combines and confuses the tragic with the comic, the agreeable with the repulsive, heroism with howlings and that which is most holy with harlequinades, without distinction, so as to goad people to madness instead of soothing them with love, to incite them to laughter instead of lifting them up to God."
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That was Schubert at 19 on Beethoven – who had recently completed his 7th and 8th Symphonies.

That statement was written in mid-June. Schubert began his 5th Symphony sometime during September of that year and completed it on October 3rd. (Incidentally, though it was played once by one of those amateur "reading-orchestras" Schubert played in, it was not heard publicly until 57 years later, 45 years after the composer died.)

Now, Schubert's attitude toward Beethoven certainly changed later – and not much later. The imprint of Beethoven's influence is all over Schubert's search for the grand symphonic form we hear in his Unfinished and Great C Major Symphonies, in the final string quartets, the String Quintet and the last several piano sonatas. But at the age of 19, not so much.

Here's the first movement of Schubert's "anti-Beethoven" Symphony No. 5 with Gunther Wand (who was around 80 when he recorded this) conducting a North German music festival orchestra:
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As Stuart mentioned in our conversation, this music may have been created in trying times but the composers managed to transcend them. We're certainly living in trying times ourselves when many people are concerned about national and international politics, our economic or physical well-being and certainly the state of the arts, not just in our country. Whether this music gives you the opportunity to put aside these concerns for a moment and 'escape' from reality or whether it refreshes your soul and inspires you to realize that we have managed to survive in the past, it still gives us an opportunity to see beauty in things around us when sometimes we wonder if it will ever exist again.

- Dick Strawser

The First Podcast of the New Season! Pulling Out All the Stops!

Ta-daaah! The first pod-cast of the new season -- now with VIDEO -- as Stuart and I talk about the Harrisburg Symphony concert he'll be conducting this weekend - you can read more about the music on the program, here.



And join us either Saturday, Oct. 2nd at 8pm or Sunday, Oct. 3rd at 3pm at the Forum at 5th & Market Streets in Harrisburg!

Thanks to Marketing Director Kim Isenhour for filming and editing our conversation!

-- Dr. Dick

2010-2011 - The Season Preview

Stuart and I had a chance to sit down in his living room and look ahead to the Harrisburg Symphony's new season, "Music in Real Time" for 2010-2011.

You can hear the PodCast here.

We talked about which concerts he's most looking forward to (all of them, of course, but two especially stand out) and the different programs, the repertoire and soloists throughout the year. Not to mention one new role for this conductor, pianist, chamber musician, arranger and raconteur (as well, on occasion, chanteur) -- composer!

The first concert - October 2nd & 3rd - indeed "Pulls Out All the Stops," featuring the Forum Pipe Organ in a performance of Camille Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3, the "Organ Symphony" with organist Eric Riley joining the orchestra. Jeffrey Biegel, who last played the Billy Joel Piano Concerto a few seasons ago, returns with a performance of Keith Emerson's Piano Concerto No. 1 -- and that's Emerson of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, though this is an original work, not an arrangement of "greatest hits." Biegel will also play Chopin's "Andante spianato & Grande Polonaise." The concert opens with a great organ warhorse - even though there's some scholarly argument that the work was originally for violin and maybe not even by Bach, initially: Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, transcribed for orchestra by Leopold Stokowski and familiar through its use in the original Walt Disney film, Fantasia.

The November concert - Nov. 13th & 14th - features one of the leading guitarists on the international scene, Grammy-winning Sharon Isbin who'll perform what is generally considered the most popular concerto for the instrument, if not of the entire 20th Century, the Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo. The program also features two 5th Symphonies but not by the usual suspects, when you think of "Fifths" - one, by the teen-aged Franz Schubert and the other, the one Jean Sibelius composed to celebrate his own 50th Birthday.

In January - Jan. 15th & 16th - you'll get a chance to "Catch a Rising Star" with the winner of the symphony's latest "Rising Stars" competition, pianist Yen Yu Chen, who'll play the Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major. The program opens with the little known "Theme, variations & Finale" by Miklos Rosza, a Hungarian composer whose concert works were overshadowed by his great film scores. The concert concludes with the well-known 6th Symphony by Tchaikovsky, the "Pathetique."

Following the recent success of the concert performance of the complete opera, Tosca, by Giacomo Puccini, Stuart Malina will be bringing two of those same singers back along with a few more for another Puccini favorite, La Boheme, complete with "supertitles" to provide the translation.This is an opera that has long been one of the staples of opera houses around the world and both Stuart and I fell in love with its music when we were high school (though I have quite a few years' drop on him, there). Those performances will be on February 26th & 27th.

The March concert - March 26th & 27th - features the orchestra's principal violist, Julius Wirth, as the soloist. You can hear the podcast where Stuart describes how they decided to program the Viola Concerto by Hungarian composer Zdenek Lukás - if it's a work I've never heard of before, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a discovery for 99% of our audience! ;-)

But the other works may be discoveries (or "revelations" as the concert is called) because, even though everyone will probably recognize Bach's famous "Air on the G String" (as it's unfortunately often called), you don't hear the whole Suite it's taken from that often. While Beethoven Symphonies are staples of any orchestra's repertoire, his 8th is perhaps one of those less frequently heard. Actually, Beethoven himself considered it a favorite and preferred it as a better work than the wildly popular 7th! Don't look for Charles Ives to "explain it all for you" - his enigmatic "The Unanswered Question" is like many philosophical discussions: more questions than answers but you always grow from thinking about them.

If you've heard recent performances of Mahler Symphonies here in Harrisburg - the 9th most recently as well as the 1st and 2nd ( the Resurrection) - you'll want to make sure either April 16th or 17th is on your calendar when Stuart Malina conducts Mahler's 3rd Symphony, a work that is not that frequently programmed even in places like New York City. It is, to put it mildly, an epic symphony. Mahler originally gave picturesque titles to its six different movements, including "Pan Awakens: Summer Marches In," "What the Flowers of the Field Tell Me," "What the Angels Tell Me," and the great finale, itself as long as many classical symphonies, "What Love Tells Me."

From Mahler to Brahms for the final concert of the Masterworks Season on May 14th & 15th. Concertmaster Odin Rathnam will be the soloist for the Violin Concerto, usually regarded as one of the two greatest violin concertos ever, and another epic symphony - shorter than Mahler's, perhaps, but almost 25 years in the making: Brahms' Symphony No. 1 in C Minor. But the program opens with a "Brahms Fan-Fare" by a big fan of Brahms, conductor Stuart Malina, himself. Listen to the podcast to hear him talk about the whole process of how this work will come about! (No pressure, there...)

Check the website for more details about the season - and about ordering subscription tickets. Or call 717-545-5527.

- Dick Strawser

April's Concerts: A Musical Tapestry with Life & Friends

Stuart Malina and I had a chance to sit down and chat about two programs with the Harrisburg Symphony - what to expect as well as what's going on behind the music and behind the scenes.

You can hear our latest podcast here.

This month's Masterworks Concert with the Harrisburg Symphony features a new symphony, an old symphony, and a member of the orchestra in the soloist's spotlight. Those concerts will be at the Forum on Saturday, April 17th, at 8pm and Sunday, April 18th, at 3pm.

That program includes Kevin Puts' Symphony No. 2 "Island of Innocence," (hear a sound-clip of it, here) Camille Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 with principal cellist Fiona Thompson, and Johannes Brahms' 2nd Symphony.
 
Then two days later, it's time for "Stuart and Friends" which will feature four members of the orchestra playing chamber music with conductor Stuart Malina at the piano - and that will be at Whitaker Center, Tuesday evening, April 20th, at 7:30pm.


This performance opens with several works featuring principal trumpeter Phil Snedecor (including two of his original compositions and arrangements) and principal trombonist Brent Phillips. On the second half of the program, Stuart will be joined by concertmaster Odin Rathnam and cellist Jennifer DeVore for Brahms' B Major Piano Trio.

Huh! And with everything else he has to do - conduct the concert, play a chamber music program a couple of days later - Stuart didn't tell me he's also doing the pre-concert talks before the Saturday and Sunday concerts, an hour before each performance!

Wait till you hear about the New Piece he's going to be composing for the last concert of the 2010-2011 Season! But we'll save that podcast for a little later.

- Dr. Dick

January's Concert: The Podcast

Stuart Malina and I had a chance to sit down and chat about the Harrisburg Symphony's concert he'll be conducting at the end of the month – Saturday, January 30th at 8pm and Sunday, January 31st at 3pm at the Forum.

Called “Winterscapes,” it will feature violinist Augustin Hadelich performing the Beethoven Violin Concerto, the program opening with “SkyLine” from Jennifer Higdon's “CityScape” and concluding with the Symphonic Dances by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Hopefully, it'll be a snow-free winterscape that weekend: the long-range forecast is for mild temperatures.

- Dr. Dick

Start the Season: October's PodCast

May I have a drum roll, please?

The first concert of the new season - Old & New Worlds - is coming up on the first weekend of October. Alexander Kerr will be the soloist for The Four Seasons in Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla. The concert opens with Rossini's Overture to Semiramide and concludes with one of the most-loved symphonies in the repertoire, Antonin Dvořák's "New World."

Stuart Malina and I got together for a conversation about the new season (you can hear that season preview podcast, here) as well as the first concert.

You can hear the OCTOBER PODCAST, here.

Performances are Saturday, October 3rd at 8pm and Sunday, October 4th at 3pm at the Forum in downtown Harrisburg.

You can read one of my up-close & personal posts about the Dvořák symphony here and watch a performance of the entire New World Symphony in this video montage with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Vienna Philharmonic (from a 1985 Telemondial recording) where I've pointed out musical highlights timed to the video clips.

- Dr. Dick

A Season Preview: Podcast & Survey

It's time to get ready for the new season with the Harrisburg Symphony, another year of great Masterworks concerts at the Forum.

Well, it's the end of summer, according to the calendar, though it was a chilly fall-like day when I arrived on Stuart Malina's door-step a few minutes early and caught him practicing the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto.

Not surprising: he'll be playing it with the orchestra at the February concert, just one of the many things he has to prepare - and look forward to - as the new season begins in just a couple of weeks.

So we settled down to chat about the up-coming 2009-2010 Season with the Harrisburg Symphony and what we might expect during his 10th Anniversary Year with the orchestra.

You can listen to the SEASON PREVIEW PODCAST here.

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The Season begins in a little over two weeks with "Old & New Worlds" during the first weekend of October. The "New World" part refers to the Dvořák Symphony on the program known as the "New World Symphony" (more formally, "Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, From the New World") but it also refers to a work by Astor Piazzolla from Buenos Aires, Argentina (founded in 1536, it's one of the oldest European settlements in the New World). His violin concerto, "The Four Seasons in Buenos Aires," pays homage to the Old World view of the Four Seasons, a collection of four violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Old World Europe also implies the overture Gioacchino Rossini wrote for his opera Semiramide, a typical operatic tangle of love, passion, murder and revenge set in an even older world, ancient Babylon.

Alexander Kerr (above, right) returns to the Forum to perform the concerto by Piazzolla. You can hear more about him in this podcast as well as the next one, previewing the opening concert.

In November, it's one of the great choral works in the repertoire. Haydn's monumental oratorio, The Creation (sung in English) will be performed with the Susquehanna Chorale, the Wheatland Chorale and the Messiah College Concert Choir joining the orchestra and soloists. After Haydn had completed his 104 symphonies and some 80 string quartets, he wrote mostly settings of the mass for the newest generation of the Esterhazy princes who had employed him since 1761. Following his visits to London, he became intrigued by the English oratorio. In 1798, the world first heard what many regard as his masterpiece, The Creation. It became one of the most frequently performed large-scale choral works across Europe during the remaining decade of his life. He was regarded as the greatest living composer when he died in 1809, two hundred years ago.

At the end of January, Augustin Hadelich returns to play the Beethoven Violin Concerto. In the podcast, Stuart talks about how the orchestra was so taken by his playing of Mozart's "Turkish" Concerto a few seasons back - and he thought Hadelich's nobility of style would suit Beethoven's concerto perfectly: a larger, more epic kind of concerto, it follows in the tradition of Mozart rather than the more virtuosically focused concertos that became the standard in the 19th Century.

Also on the program will be "SkyLine," the opening section of Jennifer Higdon's multiple-movement orchestral tribute to Atlanta called "City Scape." If you remember the enthusiasm Harrisburg audiences had for her Percussion Concerto and "Blue Cathedral" from past seasons, you'll enjoy this lively concert opener. For lovers of lush Romanticism, there's Rachmaninoff's valedictory Symphonic Dances, a belated farewell to the great 19th Century dances, even though it was written in 1940.

Then in February, it's "Spotlight on the Maestro." What better way to celebrate Stuart Malina's 10th Anniversary?

Usually, when concerto soloists come to town, they do the concerto and that's it, sitting around backstage during the first piece, waiting and trying not to feel nervous, and maybe afterward, sitting around backstage waiting for the rest of the concert to be over. Stuart won't have that chance: he'll start by conducting Jacques Ibert's delightful send-up, the Divertissement (originally composed for an Italian wedding farce called "The Italian Straw Hat"), then come out and play Mendelssohn's 1st Piano Concerto, conducting the orchestra from the piano (speaking of multi-tasking), then after intermission come out to conduct one of the great (and long) symphonies in the repertoire, the "Great C Major" Symphony by Franz Schubert (that's not why it's called 'Great' but the name has stuck: if the shoe fits, &c &c). He may be exhausted by the end of the weekend, but it was his idea...

Myth & Magic are the subject for the February concert which starts with two film-scores. The suite Prokofiev wrote for a film called "Lt. Kije," is about a man who exists only because people were too afraid to correct the Russian Emperor when he mispronounced a name (they create a fictional person to go along with the mispronunciation but when the tsar announces he'd like to meet this hero, they have to concoct his untimely demise). Then, the classic film score Leonard Bernstein wrote for "On the Waterfront," one you don't hear very often in concert. It's Bernstein's only true film-score, written for Elia Kazan's 1954 film starring Marlon Brando, best remembered for its famous line, "I coulda been a contender."

The second half of the concert features two "tone-poems," one usually relegated to children's concerts though it's really a very fine score on the adult level. Paul Dukas' musical telling of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice” may be better known for its use in Walt Disney's original film, Fantasia, with Mickey Mouse as the hapless apprentice battling the brooms in a spell gone very very wrong. The last piece, then, quite different, is Richard Strauss' “Death & Transfiguration” with its transcendent conclusion.

Another great symphony is on the program for the April concert – Brahms 2nd – which will feature another member of the orchestra as the soloist. This year, it will be principal cellist Fiona Thompson (see left) playing the Cello Concerto No. 1 by Camille Saint-Saëns. A special feature of this performance will be the instrument she'll be playing: new to her, it's played in the orchestra for decades, having belonged to former principal cellist John Zurfluh who died just a couple of years ago.

Kevin Puts' Symphony No. 2 “Island of Innocence” opens that program. Stuart describes the work as a musical response to the events of September 11th and how things changed in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in 2001. Harrisburg had a chance to hear the world premiere of a new work by Kevin Puts (see right) this past season with Concertante.

The final masterworks concert includes two very well-known 19th Century favorites, with Berlioz' “Roman Carnival Overture” and the Piano Concerto by Robert Schumann, performed by a recent prize winner, Daria Rabotkina, winner of the 2007 Concert Artists Guild International Competition (you can hear her play in this Concert Artists Guild video-clip).

The concert concludes with a gorgeous symphony by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams whose music you might remember from past performances of his “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” or the choral work, “Dona nobis pacem” that had been paired with Beethoven's 9th a few seasons ago. Vaughan Williams' 2nd Symphony, known as “A London Symphony” takes the season full-circle: after opening with a Czech composer's evocation of the excitement he felt being in New York City in 1893, Vaughan Williams brings us back to Old World London with a loving tribute in his symphony, written only twenty years later in the innocent days before the First World War.

For more information about tickets for the new season, check out the website or call 717-545-5527.

- Dr. Dick

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photo credits: The Harrisburg Symphony from the Forum Stage by Carl Socolow, and Stuart Malina at the piano by Alan Weycheck, both from Stuart Malina's website; Alexander Kerr, from the Indianapolis Symphony; Augustin Hadelich, playing the Beethoven concerto with the Santa Barbara Symphony, by David Bazemore of the Santa Barbara Independent; Fiona Thompson's photo, courtesy of the Harrisburg Symphony; Kevin Puts' photo by Andrew Shapter; Daria Rabotkina's publicity photo by Christian Steiner, from the artist's website