Hopman
11-06-2009, 11:14
Just to remind everyone that the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing this Saturday at St Mark's Church Broomhill.
The programme will be:
Shostakovich - Festive Overture
Karlowicz - Eternal Songs
Lutoslawski - Dance Preludes
Rachmaninoff - Symphonic Dances
NOWADAYS a concert featuring the music of Shostakovich has become almost commonplace. A pity. He wrote some great stuff. Take, for example, his Festive Overture, written in 1954 for the 37th Anniversary of the October Revolution (and written in a great hurry with messengers taking the manuscript to the copyists as each page was completed).
The brief was for a celebratory overture to open an important concert at the Bolshoi. Lasting just under six minutes, the work opens with a fanfare to test the brass before the woodwinds are put through their paces. There is some feverish playing to test even the most experienced of players before the opening fanfare is heard again and just when it seems the music is going to close at a medium tempo, there is a sudden acceleration to the end.
Karlowicz - Eternal Songs
Mieczyslaw Karlowicz composed six symphonic poems between the years 1904 to 1909 and it is on these works that his reputation lies. Prior to these works he had composed a Violin Concerto in A major as well as a Symphony in E minor.
His output was not extensive, but this can be explained by his premature death in an avalanche. He lived from 11th December 1876 in Wiszniewo, and died on the 8th February 1909 in the Tatra Mountains. (Had the career of Rachmaninov been cut short at the same stage we would have had nothing from the Second Symphony onwards!)
His career began as a violinist and he studied under Stanislaw Barcewicz before starting composition in Berlin with Heinrich Urban. Berlin at that time was a city divided into two camps betwen those adherents of Brahms and those of Wagner. Karlowicz found himself in the latter camp and his scores show the influence of Wagner, Richard Strauss and (particularly in the case of the violin concerto) Tchaikovsky.
SO, what can we expect in the
Eternal Songs to be performed in June? One thing we will not hear is voices. This set of three pieces are written for orchestra alone and are examples of late-Romantic writing in the idiom of Rachmaninov, Strauss or Szymanowski. The pieces owe their existence to the experiences of the composer in the Tatra Mountains of Southern Poland.
He wrote: "And when I find myself on the steep mountain peak, alone, with only the azure dome above my head and the frozen waves of mountain tops sunk in the ocean of the plains around me, I no longer feel an alienated person, for I am totally encompassed by the powerful breath of eternal being. This breath runs through all the fibres of my soul, fills it with a delicate light and reaches down to the depths where memories of experienced troubles and pains lie buried... healing, soothing and redeeming them. The hours lived in the subconscious are like a momentary return to non-existence they offer peace against life and death and tell me about the everlasting serenity of dissolving completely into the eternal being"The first piece, Song of Everlasting Longing is an abstract piece which creates atmosphere rather than big tunes. The cor anglais is very prominent in this piece. For the second, Song of love and death, the composer is in more lyrical vein. Some might well imagine this to be a newly discovered work by Richard Strauss. The final piece, Song of Eternal Being is the shortest of the three, but evokes the spirit of the mountains (I hesitate to refer to it as something aweful) as something magnificent to behold.To my mind, this should be one of the highlights of the season.
LutoslawskiI must admit to being ignorant until fairly recently of this piece for clarinet and orchestra. I have heard music by this composer (in a concert in Edinburgh) but the Dance Preludes were not on the programme. The music played on this evening gave the orchestra a chance to shine for a guest conductor (none other than the composer himself).
(This was the concert where during the interval I spoke to a Scottish couple who informed me that they went to orchestral concerts rather than chamber music concerts because you got more musicians for your money.)
Anyway, having heard the pieces (originally written for clarinet and piano), there is nothing about them to be worried by (unless you are the clarinet soloist). Certainly there is other music in the composer's output which makes greater demands on the listener.
Rachmaninov - Symphonic DancesThe work is remarkable for its use of the alto saxophone as a solo instrument for the only time in a Rachmaninoff composition. The composition includes several quotations from Rachmaninoff's other works and the Dies Irae, and can be regarded as a summing-up of his entire career as a composer. The first dance ends with a quotation from his unfortunate First Symphony (1897).
The ghostly second dance (called "dusk" in some sketches) symbolises the years from the turn of the century up to the Russian Revolution.
The final dance is a kind of struggle between the Dies Irae theme, representing Death, and a quotation from his All-night Vigil (1915), representing Resurrection. The Resurrection theme proves victorious in the end (he wrote the word Hallelujah at this place in the score).
The orchestra is conducted by the Assistant Conductor to the Hallé, Ewa Strusinska who has worked wonders with the SPO over the past two seasons.
The programme will be:
Shostakovich - Festive Overture
Karlowicz - Eternal Songs
Lutoslawski - Dance Preludes
Rachmaninoff - Symphonic Dances
NOWADAYS a concert featuring the music of Shostakovich has become almost commonplace. A pity. He wrote some great stuff. Take, for example, his Festive Overture, written in 1954 for the 37th Anniversary of the October Revolution (and written in a great hurry with messengers taking the manuscript to the copyists as each page was completed).
The brief was for a celebratory overture to open an important concert at the Bolshoi. Lasting just under six minutes, the work opens with a fanfare to test the brass before the woodwinds are put through their paces. There is some feverish playing to test even the most experienced of players before the opening fanfare is heard again and just when it seems the music is going to close at a medium tempo, there is a sudden acceleration to the end.
Karlowicz - Eternal Songs
Mieczyslaw Karlowicz composed six symphonic poems between the years 1904 to 1909 and it is on these works that his reputation lies. Prior to these works he had composed a Violin Concerto in A major as well as a Symphony in E minor.
His output was not extensive, but this can be explained by his premature death in an avalanche. He lived from 11th December 1876 in Wiszniewo, and died on the 8th February 1909 in the Tatra Mountains. (Had the career of Rachmaninov been cut short at the same stage we would have had nothing from the Second Symphony onwards!)
His career began as a violinist and he studied under Stanislaw Barcewicz before starting composition in Berlin with Heinrich Urban. Berlin at that time was a city divided into two camps betwen those adherents of Brahms and those of Wagner. Karlowicz found himself in the latter camp and his scores show the influence of Wagner, Richard Strauss and (particularly in the case of the violin concerto) Tchaikovsky.
SO, what can we expect in the
Eternal Songs to be performed in June? One thing we will not hear is voices. This set of three pieces are written for orchestra alone and are examples of late-Romantic writing in the idiom of Rachmaninov, Strauss or Szymanowski. The pieces owe their existence to the experiences of the composer in the Tatra Mountains of Southern Poland.
He wrote: "And when I find myself on the steep mountain peak, alone, with only the azure dome above my head and the frozen waves of mountain tops sunk in the ocean of the plains around me, I no longer feel an alienated person, for I am totally encompassed by the powerful breath of eternal being. This breath runs through all the fibres of my soul, fills it with a delicate light and reaches down to the depths where memories of experienced troubles and pains lie buried... healing, soothing and redeeming them. The hours lived in the subconscious are like a momentary return to non-existence they offer peace against life and death and tell me about the everlasting serenity of dissolving completely into the eternal being"The first piece, Song of Everlasting Longing is an abstract piece which creates atmosphere rather than big tunes. The cor anglais is very prominent in this piece. For the second, Song of love and death, the composer is in more lyrical vein. Some might well imagine this to be a newly discovered work by Richard Strauss. The final piece, Song of Eternal Being is the shortest of the three, but evokes the spirit of the mountains (I hesitate to refer to it as something aweful) as something magnificent to behold.To my mind, this should be one of the highlights of the season.
LutoslawskiI must admit to being ignorant until fairly recently of this piece for clarinet and orchestra. I have heard music by this composer (in a concert in Edinburgh) but the Dance Preludes were not on the programme. The music played on this evening gave the orchestra a chance to shine for a guest conductor (none other than the composer himself).
(This was the concert where during the interval I spoke to a Scottish couple who informed me that they went to orchestral concerts rather than chamber music concerts because you got more musicians for your money.)
Anyway, having heard the pieces (originally written for clarinet and piano), there is nothing about them to be worried by (unless you are the clarinet soloist). Certainly there is other music in the composer's output which makes greater demands on the listener.
Rachmaninov - Symphonic DancesThe work is remarkable for its use of the alto saxophone as a solo instrument for the only time in a Rachmaninoff composition. The composition includes several quotations from Rachmaninoff's other works and the Dies Irae, and can be regarded as a summing-up of his entire career as a composer. The first dance ends with a quotation from his unfortunate First Symphony (1897).
The ghostly second dance (called "dusk" in some sketches) symbolises the years from the turn of the century up to the Russian Revolution.
The final dance is a kind of struggle between the Dies Irae theme, representing Death, and a quotation from his All-night Vigil (1915), representing Resurrection. The Resurrection theme proves victorious in the end (he wrote the word Hallelujah at this place in the score).
The orchestra is conducted by the Assistant Conductor to the Hallé, Ewa Strusinska who has worked wonders with the SPO over the past two seasons.