raised in California; he came to Southwest Virginia after retiring
from the Navy following a 21-year career (not in music). He is
presently Music Director for WVTF Public Radio and Main
Classical Host, Choir Director for Our Saviour Lutheran Church
in Christiansburg, and an Associate Conductor of the Blacksburg
Community Band, which has premiered many of his works. He
has appeared onstage as Tevye in
Fiddler
, Henry Higgins in
My
Fair Lady
, and most recently as Captain Hook in
Peter Pan
. He
loves music, old movies, and his wife, six kids, and three
granddaughters.
June 8, 6:00 pm Festival Orchestra Concert
W.A. Mozart
Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro”
It’s
fast, it’s bubbly, it’s short, and Herr Mozart never really uses
these great themes again after the Overture.
Jean Sibelius
Finlandia, Op. 26
Surely the composer’s
ecstatic fellow Finnish citizens heard this as a patriotic call of
solidarity against cruel Russian domination. The chorale, first
uttered fervently in the winds and later taken up by the strings,
became the patriotic hymn “God of all the Nations”. Through
this music, Finland Awakes!
Gabriel Faure
Pavane, Op. 50
Faure’s 1887 Pavane, a
slow and stately dance dating back at least to the 16
th
century
Renaissance, ushered in a rebirth of French musical culture in
its era. We follow the perfect balance of the flute line under
plucked strings as it weaves its way throughout the orchestra.
We hear the link back to the era of Lully, Rameau, and the
Couperins.
June 9, 3:00 pm Festival Orchestra Concert
Beethoven
Symphony No. 5
A simple musical motif – three eighth notes
followed by a long quarter note – changed
the classical symphony forever. Hundreds of
books have been written on “The Fifth.” Its
greatness survives and even thrives 200
years later with the Walter Murphy Band’s
disco version. With supreme mastery of
classical form, Beethoven unifies the four
movement symphony using this rhythmic
motif – from the opening Allegro con brio (with life, liveliness) to the
elegant second movement variations, to the driving third movment
scherzo. Beethoven defies convention and gives us a “window”
backwards in time in the symphony. The Fifth remains revolutionary,
shocking, noble, gritty, frantic, and even at times terrifying. Witness
the hushed build from PPP (inaudible whisper) to FF (thunder) in the
timpani and strings leading without pause into the exhuberant finale.
There is much to discover anew each time we perform and witness
this landmark symphony. It is so worth the wait for the finale contra
bassoon, three trombones, and the piccolo, who await their respective
moments of glory.
Elgar
Variations on an Original
Theme “Enigma” Op 36
This great work by Sir Edward Elgar
propelled the formerly provincial composer
from the west of England to international
fame. This tour de force for symphony
orchestra is a masterful blending of the
theme and variations form (see Beethoven
5, 2nd movement) with a set of charming musical portraits of family
and friends. The initials Elgar gave to the movements in the score are
easily decoded to reveal his wife and friends’ identities, and I have
listed the cast of characters on the program page above. The
“Enigma” theme has many possible origins, including (most
compellingly) a modified “Auld Lang Syne” and the composer, a
famous prankster, never fully revealed its origin even as he went to his
grave. But, gentle reader, I give you a hint...happy wife, happy
life. The famous Nimrod variation, one of the most beautiful pieces
composed in Western music, was inspired by a conversation with
Jaeger about the slow movements of Beethoven. It has the poignancy
of a farewell smiling under tears, as we say goodbye after a meeting of
great friends and new colleagues after 10 days in our beloved
Virginia’s Blue Ridge. It is not an accident that I paired the Elgar work
with the great Beethoven Fifth Symphony, with the most famous
musical motif of all time.
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