WILMINGTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
  • Home
  • About
    • Conductor
    • Orchestra >
      • Hire Our Musicians
      • Musician Bios
    • Board and Staff
    • WSO Historical Timeline
    • Auditions & Employment
    • WSYO Alumni >
      • Alumni Bios
    • Press Room
  • Concerts & Tickets
    • 2022-2023 Season >
      • Gullah-Geechee Heritage
      • Classical Connections
      • Shostakovich Fifth Symphony
    • Education Concert
    • Wilmington POPS!
    • Youth Concerts
    • COVID-19
  • Education
    • Wilmington Symphony Youth Orchestras >
      • Youth Orchestra
      • Junior Strings
      • Rockestra
    • WSYO Chamber Ensemble Program
    • Concerto Competition
  • Contribute
    • Individual Giving >
      • Donor Advised Funds
    • Events
    • Corporate and Foundation Support
    • Music Underwriting
    • Legacy Gifts and Endowment
    • SUPPORT
  • FOR MUSICIANS

Russian Classics, May 4, 2019

3/28/2019

0 Comments

 
​Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla
Mikhail Glinka (1804 - 1857)
 
Glinka’s mid Nineteenth-century operas were the inspiration for succeeding generations of Russian composers in that the reach of his music challenged the dominance of western European composers. When I was at the University of Michigan in the mid-1970’s, Mstislav Rostropovich visited Ann Arbor as a guest conductor and cellist for a concert with the University Orchestra. He had left the Soviet Union only a few years prior, and not being in total command of English, employed a Russian-speaking student to help him find the right words during orchestra rehearsals. While working on the Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla, he stopped before the big cello/viola tune and huddled with the translator, after which he asked the players to make it “sound like sirloin steak.”
 
Lyric Concerto
Steven Errante (1953 - )
 
During those college years in the 1970’s, I was immersed in the rather insular world of avant-garde music, where there was an attitude that quality and audience-appeal were inversely related. When I graduated and entered the real world, I began to realize that this approach meant I wasn’t communicating with my audience, and so when violinist Steven Bjella asked me to write a sonata for violin and piano, I decided to write from the heart without worrying about being at the cutting edge of music history. Last year, Bjella asked me to orchestrate the piano part of the sonata and the result is what I’ve titled Lyric Concerto, since it has less of an emphasis on pyrotechnics than the typical concerto.
 
The first movement is a kind a slightly off-kilter waltz. The second begins with a somber saraband rhythm but gradually progresses toward a more peaceful resolution. The third is based on an insistent long-short-short rhythm (also coincidentally a feature of the Glinka overture), and with the distance of some years since its composition, I can hear myself finding my inner Brahms and Rachmaninoff. Tonight’s performance is the premiere of this version.
 
Firebird Suite - 1945
Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)
 
Igor Stravinsky rocked the musical world in the early 1900’s with his three big ballets- The Firebird, Petroushka, and The Rite of Spring. The first of these still shows the influence of Rimsky-Korsakov and sometimes even Tchaikovsky, but Stravinsky was nonetheless clearly taking music in a new direction. The original 1910 Firebird ran to 45 minutes and was written for a huge orchestra that included 3 harpists and 6 percussionists. Stravinsky’s 1945 suite (at least partly motivated by trying to regain copyright) is written for a smaller orchestra, and much of the shimmering effects of the original are replaced by a leaner, drier sound that reflected the changes in Stravinsky’s musical sensibility over the intervening 35 years. I like both versions, but since we performed the earlier one back in 2000 I thought it might be interesting to hear the composer’s later take on the material.
0 Comments
    Picture
    Steven Errante, conductor

    Program Notes

    Unless indicated, all program notes are researched and written by Dr. Steven Errante.

    Archives

    April 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    March 2020
    January 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    August 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    February 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    December 2011
    September 2011

    Quick Search

    All
    2014-15 Season Preview
    Aaron Copland
    Adagio For Strings
    Airs From Moravia
    A Musical Sleigh Ride 1755
    A New Day
    Anton Dvorak
    Barbara Gallagher
    Brahms’ Germany
    Christmas Carols
    Claude Debussy
    Concerto For Violin And Strings
    Cradle Songs
    Der Rosenkavalier Suite
    Dmitri Kabalevsky
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Dumka
    Edvard V. Grieg
    El Salon Mexico
    Errante Anniversary
    Four Last Songs
    Fruhlingsstimmen
    George Frideric Handel
    Gloria
    Gospel Music
    Hector Berlioz
    Holberg Suite
    Jean-Philippe Rameau
    Johannes Brahms
    Johann Strauss II
    John Rutter
    Leonard Bernstein
    Leopold Mozart
    Little Russian
    Ludwig Van Beethoven
    Ma Mere L’Oye
    Maurice Ravel
    Mother Goose Suite
    Mozart
    Mozart’s Austria
    Music From
    Ode To Joy
    Overture To The Marriage Of Figaro
    Pavane Of The Sleeping Princess
    Peteris Vasks
    Piano Concerto #23 In A Major
    Piano Concerto No. 1 In Bb Minor
    Praeludium And Allegro
    Ravel's Boléro
    Richard Strauss
    Rose Cavalier
    Samuel Barber
    Selections From Messiah
    Serenade No. 1 Opus 16
    Slavonic Dances
    Sleeping Beauty
    Songs Of The Civil Rights Movement
    Symphony No. 2
    Symphony No. 2 In D Minor
    Symphony No. 9 In D Minor 1824
    Symphony No. 9 In E Flat Majo
    Tchaikovsky
    The Corsair
    The Marriage Of Figaro
    Trumpet Concerto In A-flat Major
    Violin Concerto In C Major
    Waltz
    Wolfgang Mozart

    RSS Feed

Picture
5032 Randall Parkway
Wilmington, NC 28403
(910) 791-9262

EMAIL US
Picture
E-SUBSCRIBE
BOARD PORTAL
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
©2000-21 Wilmington Symphony Orchestra  |  www.WilmingtonSymphony.org    |    All Rights Reserved  
  • Home
  • About
    • Conductor
    • Orchestra >
      • Hire Our Musicians
      • Musician Bios
    • Board and Staff
    • WSO Historical Timeline
    • Auditions & Employment
    • WSYO Alumni >
      • Alumni Bios
    • Press Room
  • Concerts & Tickets
    • 2022-2023 Season >
      • Gullah-Geechee Heritage
      • Classical Connections
      • Shostakovich Fifth Symphony
    • Education Concert
    • Wilmington POPS!
    • Youth Concerts
    • COVID-19
  • Education
    • Wilmington Symphony Youth Orchestras >
      • Youth Orchestra
      • Junior Strings
      • Rockestra
    • WSYO Chamber Ensemble Program
    • Concerto Competition
  • Contribute
    • Individual Giving >
      • Donor Advised Funds
    • Events
    • Corporate and Foundation Support
    • Music Underwriting
    • Legacy Gifts and Endowment
    • SUPPORT
  • FOR MUSICIANS