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The Sierra Vista Symphony Orchestra continues to wander Europe’s lyrical highways on its 2007-2008 “Travel the Dazzling World of Music” itinerary Friday, Jan. 18. The 7:30 p.m. performance at Buena Performing Arts Center, promises a “Germanic holiday with Bavarian Vistas & Viennese Waltzes,” under the baton of Maestro Roger Bayes.
In a sure-to-please program of works by the Waltz King, Johann Strauss, a Beethoven symphony and a Wagner opera prelude, this evening is bound to please discriminating ears as well as those who simply want to hear recognizable tunes. Here is a program for the masses, which may mean the return of the standing ovation.
Two works by “The Waltz King,” Johann Strauss (1820-1907), are scheduled. “The Emperor Waltz,” and “Wiener Blut” are among his more than 150 waltzes, with the world-beloved “Blue Danube,” the most famous. Tourists clamor Vienna’s City Park each summer for the waltz concerts performed very near to the composer’s golden statue. Starting out as a bank clerk, because his father, the orchestra conductor Johann Strauss the Elder, did not want his son to enter music, the younger man took violin lessons unbeknownst to the elder.
Eventually, he organized a rival orchestra to his father’s, and the waltz craze swept Europe. It’s a phenomenon undergoing a renaissance with the Belgian violinist Andre Rieu’s revival both in Europe and America. Young Strauss is renowned for his operettas. Die Fledermaus and The Gypsy Baron are still performed today. The former was the most recent offering of the Arizona Opera Company.
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“Always with Johann Strauss, people will feel like dancing,” reasons the conductor. It would surprise few if some waltzed spontaneously in the aisles to the enchanting 3/4 time dance music.
Another Viennese resident, Ludwig van Beethoven 1770-1827), who was born in Bonn, Germany, knew both Mozart and Haydn. His works “show Beethoven’s desire to push at the boundaries of conventional compositional technique,” writes a musicologist, “to expand sonata form, and to infuse his work with unheardof drama and passion.” Robert Schumann states, “Nature would burst should she attempt to produce nothing save Beethoven.”
His Symphony No. 3, the well-received Eroica, gains the spotlight at this concert. Originally to be dedicated to Napoleon, Beethoven withdrew the honor upon hearing the Frenchman had taken the title emperor. He substituted the words, “for the memory of a great man.” A republican, Beethoven thought of Napoleon as one of his heroes, but assuming the throne, the composer changed his mind. Nevertheless, the work is considered a milestone in Beethoven’s evolution as a composer.
“With Beethoven’s 3rd, it is our most ambitious program yet,” says Bayes. “It’s a prime example of the epic, depicting the constant movement between the highs and lows of life, perhaps, but ultimately victorious.”
While Strauss was Austrian from the start, and Beethoven adopted Austria as his homeland in 1792, Richard Wagner lived in Leipzig, Riga, Latvia, London and Paris, Dresden, Munich, near Lucern and Bayreuth, but never Vienna. The distance from Bavaria to Austria is not a long one, so there is a tie-in with the free air unstoppable at the border.
The king of Bavaria, often called “Mad King Ludwig,” paid off Beethoven’s debts and encouraged his work in that Germanic land. Although Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was premiered in Munich, it was in Bayreuth that Wagner sought fo complete his Ring cycle.
In that city, King Ludwig II financed the building of a festival hall for the performance of Wagner’s works, which happens every summer. In 1882 after conducting the last scene of Parsifal in Bayreuth, he took his family to Venice. Two weeks later he died there from a heart condition. It is the prelude to Die Meistersinger that the SVSO is to perform...the first time for the orchestra to perform a work by Wagner, admits an excited Bayes.
A cogent Lloyd DuVall observes, “From opera, to symphony hall, to the ballroom, this concert is a sampling of the works that made Austria and Bavaria the musical center of the western world in the early part of the 19th century. From the rich panoply of fine music, the orchestra will perform works that represent real highlights of a glittering age.”
The pre-concert seminar, led by Jean and Dave Perry, is to focus on the three composers and the literature being performed by the SVSO. Held in one of the pods at 6:30 p.m., the free discussion starts on time. Attendees must be in their seats prior to 6:30 p.m. when the doors are closed. The Perrys provide an intriguing background for hearing music with a greater appreciation.
Tickets are on sale at Fry’s, Safeway, Dillard’s, FYE at the Mall at Sierra Vista, Oscar Yrun Center and the Sierra Vista Chamber of Commerce. All seats are $20 each. Children 14 and under are admitted free with a paying adult. It is the most eagerly anticipated concert of the season, so it should not be missed.
