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An engaging evening spinning harmonious yarns will be stuff of the Sierra Vista Symphony Orchestra’s 2008-2009 inaugural concert beginning Sept. 13 at the Buena Performing Arts Center. The 7:30 p.m. program will trumpet sagas from the Hebrides’ rocky shores to a swift sail through Norway’s narrow fjords into Spain’s idyllic Iberian peninsula, while briefly diverting into Orpheus’ underworld and then emerging in an Oriental myth before soaring again at breathtaking speed in a World War II Spitfire as it fights the Battle of Britain.
Conductor Roger Bayes said, “People are always interested in a good story, and great music about good stories is a dynamite combination.”
It is one of the symphony’s most energetic escapes into the vivid storytelling of such notable composers as Felix Mendelssohn, Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Jacques Offenbach, Edvard Grieg, William Walton and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that no one will want to shrug off.
Coincidentally, this year marks the centennial of the death of Rimsky-Korsakov, and the 25th commemoration of William Walton’s passing. Last year was the 100th anniversary of Grieg’s demise in his beloved Bergen. The bicentennial of Mendelssohn’s birth comes next year along with the 190th anniversary of Offenbach’s natal day. Additionally, Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” was first produced in New York City 165 years ago. In addition to imaginative stories, these are major milestones worthy of tribute.
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Following the summer lull, the orchestra ... numbering some 60 performers ... is eagerly refreshed for the “Great Music ... Great Fun!” season to begin and ready to narrate the galvanic legends to be told.
On a tour of the Hebrides Islands off the northwestern Scottish shore, Mendelssohn took in Fingal’s Cave on the island of Staffa in 1829, where he invented the tune that describes what he saw ... albeit the tune came before the tour. Still, it’s exciting stuff.
Take a Russian sailor with his spyglass fastened on Spain, mix both French and Italian in the title of Capriccio espagnol and you have Rimsky-Korsakov guiding the audience on an international adventure that’s pure pleasure.
Then playwright Henrik Ibsen’s errant Peer Gynt will take listeners on a whirlwind excursion. Composer Grieg paints rich panoramas of Peer’s tumultuous adventures that make the not-so-nice rapscallion musically pleasing, if not a thorough-going rogue.
As for that dip into the underworld, well, it’s more Offenbach’s “irreverent parody and scathing satire on Gluck and his Orfeo ed Euridice,” suggests a commentator, than a serious confrontation with the Hadean realm. The rousing galop in this work is better known as the music for the French “Can-can,” a dance that scandalized the French until they fell in love with it.
“The Magic Flute” is one of Mozart’s most beloved works. The opera is based on an “Oriental” fairytale, more Middle Eastern (meaning Egyptian) than Far Eastern, however. The overture captures the stately chords of the trombones in the priest’s march and Sarastro’s prayer, “O Isis and Osiris.” The overture’s main body “is wonderfully developed in fugal form,” states a musicologist. As is the case of many operas, the fanciful tale entwines myth with illogical fantasy to find its fortune in the miracle of the music itself.
William Walton, the notable composer of many of Lawrence Olivier’s Shakespearean film scores, wrote the background music for “The First of the Few,” a movie focused on R.J. Mitchell, the designer of the “Spitfire” aircraft. Leslie Howard and David Niven starred in the film. The “Spitfire,” with 22,351 built, was one of the most heralded fighter planes of World War II. It had a sleek, classic design akin to the first Ford Thunderbird automobile ... a clean, uncluttered silhouette. The Prelude provides the musical backdrop for the film’s opening sequence in which the construction of the plane is portrayed, and then it’s followed by the Fugue. Ironically, after attending the June 1, 1943, Lisbon premiere of the film, Leslie Howard’s plane was shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay. The audience is taken on a musical flight as the fighter plane pummels its ways through the Battle of Britain.
“This is a wonderful concert for people to try the Sierra Vista Symphony for the first time,” said Board President Terry Bowmaster. “It features fun, exciting music that will conjure images of mythical figures, heroes and faraway places.”
Tickets for the concert are available at Dillard’s, Fry’s, Safeway, Oscar Yrun Center, Periwinkel’s, Spur Western Wear, and the Sierra Vista Chamber of Commerce. Concert tickets are $25 each. Special reserved section seats are $30 each, but they are only available at the BPAC box office. Children 14 and under, accompanied by a paying adult, are admitted free. Further information is available at 458-5189.
alexandra hermest wrote on Sep 1, 2008 5:17 PM: