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The Sierra Vista Symphony Orchestra embarks on the second length of its “Travel the Dazzling World of Music” tour at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 3. The performance at the Buena Performing Arts Center features both an exceptional guest conductor, Hungarian-born Lászkó Veres, and a star instrumentalist as well as a first-time “chamber orchestra” comprised of a downsized SVSO.
As sometimes happens on even well-programmed package tours, one destination is cancelled in favor of another, even more illustrious site. That’s what has happened to the Sierra Vista Symphony Association’s itinerary for the season’s second concert. There will continue to be noteworthy themes, but the “Central Europe” destination gets a magnificent side excursion ... the Austro-Hungarian empire instead of Saxony, is added to the Prague visit.
“When the program planning committee met in the fall of 2006, members chose to highlight an instrument that had not been featured in the past for its November 2007 concert,” said SVSA board member Dr. Lloyd DuVall. “The committee chose the oboe as the featured instrument, performing music of the late baroque period. However, due to scheduling difficulties, an oboist was not available. Wishing to highlight music from the same period, the committee chose to highlight a ‘cousin’ of the oboe, the bassoon, as the featured instrument. Bassoonist, Dr. William Dietz will perform a work from the late baroque by Antonio Vivaldi. Although Italian by birth, Vivaldi fits the program’s focus of ‘Noteworthy Themes of Central Europe’ by virtue of the fact that he was living and composing in Vienna at the time of his death in 1741. The A minor concerto included in our November concert is only one of 39 concertos that Vivaldi wrote for the bassoon.”
Add to that, Antonín Dvorák’s Symphony No. 8 in G major, and Franz Liszt’s symphonic poem, Les Preludes, which the SVSA has performed before to the delight of the audience. A tour of magnificent music is, therefore, a worthy destination for the audience. No ‘dead end,’ just a lovely turn in the road to sparkling new vistas.
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“The enthusiasm of Vivaldi, the intuition of Liszt, and the folklore of Dvorák,” exclaims SVSA general manager Dan Howdeshell expressively is “Truly a cornucopia of music befitting the season. Maestro Veres will certainly make these fall colors bedazzle us.”
Veres takes the podium usually occupied by conductor Roger Bayes. Born in Budapest, Veres fled Hungary during the Revolution 50 years ago, and came to the U.S. A clarinetist, he served in the U.S. Army as a member of military bands. Eventually he found his way to Fort Huachuca. Obtaining his bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona, he went on to Oregon to earn his master’s. Returning to the desert, he taught in Tombstone, and became principal clarinetist with the Tucson Symphony. Today, he conducts three ensembles: the Tucson Pops Orchestra, the Arizona Symphonic Winds, and the Foothills Philharmonic Orchestra. This is his second performance with the SVSO.
The other Hungarian featured in the concert, Franz Liszt, wrote Les Preludes. The work was intended as an introduction to a choral cantata written in 1844, but the title does not refer to the prelude for that cantata. Based on a poem by the French romantic Lamartine, the music expresses various states of emotion that are extreme yet passionate. They are illustrative of life being a “series of preludes” according to Liszt’s own statement.
Vivaldi, a Venice-born priest, worked largely in his hometown, but also in Mantua, Rome, Verona, Prague, Amsterdam and Vienna. Until 1950, Vivaldi’s huge output of music was little known. Its discovery, largely in Turin and Genoa, and publication in the second half of the last century is in itself a fascinating story, as is the life of the composer. Some of those scores were discovered in the last few years in the Saxon State Library in Dresden, so Saxony is not totally excluded from this concert. The Bassoon Concerto in a minor, opus 45 No. 6, demonstrates Vivaldi’s buoyant style and somewhat playful exuberance.
Dietz, guest bassoonist, is professor of bassoon and wind chamber music at the University of Arizona’s School of Music. A member of the Tucson Symphony, Dietz served as principal bassoonist with the Orquesta Sinfonica Nactional de Costa Rica and other notable groups. Dvorák’s Eighth Symphony comes between the vastly popular No. 9 (“The New World”) and No. 7 (preferred by the critics), but it is described as “sunny,” “songful,” “warm,” and “optimistic.” Scot Conductor Kenneth Woods says the work is the composer’s “most harmonically and structurally ambitious symphonic work, his most modern, and beneath its sunny exterior are moments of great pathos and even grotesquerie.”
The son of a butcher, Antonín grew up in the Czech area under the domain of Austria, yet he was steeped in its rich Bohemian folk music. Paul Cannon notes that during “his formative years” the composer “developed his own sound and his own technique. His style gradually shifted from very Wagnerian and Lizst-like concepts to a more nationalistic sound. His music became very Bohemian as he matured.” Which is another evidence that one’s roots may hold the key to eventual success.
For those who have visited the countryside of Central Europe, images of past vistas will come to mind as the orchestra performs these stunning works. For those who may, in the future, visit the locations of this musical sojourn, the inviting sounds of three memorable composers will beckon them to the lands that inspired their tuneful work.
Tickets are available at Dillard’s, FYE at the Mall at Sierra Vista, the Sierra Vista Chamber of Commerce, Safeway, Fry’s and the Oscar Yrun Center. Tickets are $20 per person with a child 14 and under admitted free with a paying adult. Tickets also are available at BPAC box office. For information, contact the SVSA office at 458-6940, Ext 27.
