Reno Chamber Orchestra Blog

Photos from April's RCO concerts

2009-04-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

We're once again pleased to share with you some recent photographs by Stuart Murtland. These are from our April rehearsals and concerts featuring Maestro Theodore Kuchar, the RCO, and violin soloist Christopher Lin-Brande, the winner of our 2009 College Concerto Competition.

Christopher Lin-Brande, Theodore Kuchar, and the RCO rehearsing.

Maestro Kuchar in rehearsal.

The RCO winds performing Mendelssohn's "Ruy Blas" Overture.

Christopher Lin-Brande performing Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 2.

The grand finale of the Wieniawski.

Acknowledging the standing ovation from the RCO audience.

Maestro Kuchar and the RCO performing Schumann's "Spring" Symphony.

The conclusion of the RCO's 2008-9 season.

Rave review of Ted Kuchar's Nielsen Symphonies

2009-04-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

In 2005, RCO music director Ted Kuchar recorded the complete symphonies of Carl Nielsen with his Czech orchestra on the Brilliant Classics label. We have known for a long time that these were stunning recordings, and as you will read in this review, other people think so as well.

While we don't have them in stock at the moment you can order them from arkivmusic.com. Just click on the "Buy Now at Arkivmusic" button on the right side of this page, and the RCO will receive a small percentage of the purchase. Keep this in mind for all of your CD purchases, as arkiv has about the most complete catalog of CDs around.

*************************

In response to my review of Bostock’s Nielsen symphonies and the search for ‘the best recorded cycle’, a MusicWeb International reader asked why I had not mentioned the one on Brilliant Classics. I must confess that I had overlooked it and apparently so did The Gramophone and the Penguin Guide. Your editor requested this review on his desk by Monday morning! The task: to audition six major symphonies in one weekend.
You have heard it said, do not judge a book by its cover. Well, do not judge a CD by its poor artwork, missing credits, nor its low price. The notes by David Doughty, however, are original and illuminating but what about the music? Can the Czechs cut the mustard? Does Nielsen have to be idiomatic and if so is it only Danes or Scandinavians who are fully centred?
Perhaps this cycle’s greatest achievement is to prove once and for all that Nielsen’s works are squarely in the European symphonic tradition although many of his songs are Danish. Theodore Kuchar, if I am correct, does not set out to ‘speak Nordic’. Carl Nielsen travelled extensively and was well-aware of central European music including the Brahms/Wagner debate long before he completed his first symphony in 1891. Arguably, CD heritage proves that Austro-German musicians do not feel the pulse of Nordic music. Here we have the Bohemians let loose - so how do the civilised Czechs compare to the earthy Liverpudlians?
It is a clash of cultures. In my Bostock review I refrained from comparing his brass to the northern English band in case it might be construed as derogatory. Not so, yet the mellow brass of the Czechs makes the point essential. Janáček - with proper emphasis on the acute á syllable, incidentally - may well be the composer with closest parallels to the Dane. His eponymous orchestra is absolutely world-class. The musicians have beautiful instruments which are played with enthusiasm and ensemble for Mr Kuchar, a conductor in great demand these days, and we can hear why.
We can hear it thanks to the conductor’s ear, a perfect acoustic, and most of all thanks to the balance and sound engineers. Again and again I caught many fine details for the first time. Complex passages revealed layers with greater ease than I have noticed. This adds significantly to the conclusion that this set is very special.
I plunged into Four and Five —which I opined that Bostock performed well but did not displace fierce competition. These monumental symphonies in a good live concert can engulf the listener. Only rarely on CD a Kubelik or a Kondrashin - and a Bernstein - pulls it off in the more sterile studio environment. Without a doubt we now place Kuchar on this pedestal, or rather podium. It is a combination of his spontaneity and control. In Four there is always reserve which builds to new peaks, the energy held back as it were, but power radiates from the precision. You sense that more is coming … the surprising tempi of the first movement … and then the famous timpani duel at the end remains musical rather than manic and gains in every way. Same with the side-drum in the Fifth. One might point to the composer’s instructions to allow the player to overwhelm the orchestra, but the restraint serves to drive the music even harder rather than halt it. It shows great musical judgement.
So, the Fourth and Fifth symphonies —the highest hurdles — are accomplished with apparent ease. Now I am intrigued. Start at the beginning of the set. Symphony No. 1 is simply glorious: the Andante gives me the wistful landscape I missed with the Liverpool recording. The Czechs’ energy makes their pace sound motivated but it is not fast, and their expansive timing at 8:08 compared to 6:55 makes my point.
After three masterly symphonies I am getting excited but exhausted. In the search for the ultimate Nielsen cycle I have the least expensive (3 CDs for the price of one) and three ultimate performances. I don’t believe in a six-planet alignment, such eclipses can’t happen … or can they?
On to Symphony No. 2, where my all-time favourite is a one-off Stokowski live event in 1967 recorded by Danish Radio and recently restored to the catalogue by IMG. Unbelievably, yet unarguably, Kuchar outwits and overtakes the great Stoki, creating the finest Four Temperaments I have ever experienced. Modern stereo sound closes the case for Kuchar. By now the perspiration is dripping and the prospect of six symphonies auditioned over a weekend is achievable: despite fatigue the adrenalin drives me on.
The Third Symphony Espansiva, someone told me, was performed on this set without the vocalists, thus uncredited; but fortunately my informant was confused. The first movement is so beautifully played that, unusually, I was not anticipating the glorious entry of human voices, but rather savouring each moment of the approach. There was, as ever, not a foot put wrong in the Third Symphony, but for me the Second had overshadowed it. I decided to postpone the enigmatic Sixth Symphony to the following morning.
We know that with Sinfonia semplice Nielsen challenged Danish musicians of the 1920s and lost some admirers. After many decades modern musicians show that the trap is to be phased by the originality; just straight musical skill unveils the meaning, both absolute and programmatic. Kuchar’s fine performance adds weight to the argument that it is Nielsen’s greatest symphonic statement but also distinguishes his own approach to the entire cycle. The dilemma of the controversial second movement: do you portray the intended ugliness by which the composer parodied modernism? Or, like Ormandy’s trail-blazing performance, do you express the refinement of the fabulous Philadelphians? Kuchar is squarely in the camp of the latter exquisite beauty and has me revert to Bostock’s rude, earthy, and biographical Nielsen.
I don’t believe the Czechs have fallen at the last hurdle. There is no single perspective on a complex symphony but I will risk reputation, friendships and credibility to state that Brilliant has the ultimate cycle by a convincing margin. All six works at the level of any rival performance and the Second in a new orbit. Engineering to match. It isn’t just the ideal set for beginners, it proves that we are all beginners. If this Brilliant set was marketed as a Limited Edition with wooden crate and gold-plated audiophile CDs at £110, I would advise everyone to buy or live in darkness. At £11 - at full UK price for all three discs - I hope you will not hesitate.
I am joyful at the discovery of this set, apologetic for overlooking it, curious for more information, and looking forward to extended listening. These discs are nothing less than a paradigm shift.
Jack Lawson

A Contemplation on Music

2009-03-31T11:10:00.000-07:00

This article has now been sent to me by three different people. It is a bit long, but does a wonderful job summing up why music is so important--especially at difficult times like these.

Scott

A Contemplation on Music
By Karl Paulnack, pianist and Director of the Music Division at Boston Conservatory

One of my parents' deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn't be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, "you're WASTING your SAT scores." On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the "arts and entertainment" section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, "I am alive, and my life has meaning."On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice, as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn't this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless? Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.At least in my neighborhood, we didn't shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn't play cards to pass the time, we didn't watch TV, we didn't shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang "We Shall Overcome." Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of "arts and entertainment" as the newspaper section would have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can't with our minds.Some of you may know Samuel Barber's heart-wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don't know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there's some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn't good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can't talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn't happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.I'll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads off state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, ND, about 4 years ago.I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation..Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70's, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn't the first time I've heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.What he told us was this: "During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team's planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn't understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?" Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. This concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year's freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:"If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives."

Program Notes for April 4 and 5 concerts

2009-03-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

Felix Mendelssohn

b. February 3, 1809, Hamburg, Germany

d. November 4, 1847, Leipzig, Germany

Felix Mendelssohn was among the most popular composers of his time, and his music remains some of the most often played from the nineteenth century. He was also one of the few musical prodigies whose youthful ability could rival Mozart’s. The grandson of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, young Felix grew up in a home that welcomed as guests many of the most learned people of his day. He took piano, violin, and singing lessons as a youth. By the age of eight he was studying composition, and he was producing remarkably assured works by his teens, including the Octet at age 16 and the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream at 17. Mendelssohn was a key figure in resurrecting the reputation of Johann Sebastian Bach, leading the St. Matthew Passion (the first performance the work had enjoyed since Bach’s death in 1750) in a now-famous 1829 concert. He subsequently held conducting posts in Düsseldorf and Berlin. But much of the later part of his life was spent in Leipzig, where he directed the Gewandhaus Orchestra and, in 1843, founded the Leipzig Conservatory. His extensive travels are reflected in compositions like the “Scottish” and “Italian” Symphonies and the “Hebrides” Overture.

“Ruy Blas” Overture, Op. 95
Composed: 1839
Duration: 8 minutes

In 1835, Mendelssohn was appointed as conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Over the next several years, while also composing new music at a steady rate, he led concerts dedicated to his own music and that of his contemporaries – including the world premiere of Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 1, also heard in this concert – as well as what he called “historical concerts” featuring music by neglected composers of the past. He worked tirelessly to improve Leipzig’s musical standing, in tandem with the city’s opera house, churches, schools, and other musical and arts institutions. One of the organizations with whom Mendelssohn worked was the Leipzig Theatrical Pension Fund. In 1839 the Fund decided to produce a benefit performance of Victor Hugo’s play Ruy Blas, written just months before, and Mendelssohn was asked to create an overture and song for the production. He read the play, decided privately that it was “quite ghastly,” and quickly produced a choral song but begged off of writing the overture, saying that he was too busy. Apparently, though, Mendelssohn re-thought the situation, and wrote the overture in a mere three days.

Hugo’s drama is set in the seventeenth century Spanish court of King Charles II. Ruy Blas, a servant and poet, has fallen in love with the Queen. His boss, Don Sallustio, disguises Blas as a nobleman in a plot to seek revenge on the royal family. Blas becomes popular at court, is appointed prime minister, and wins the Queen’s heart. But when Sallustio attempts to blackmail the Queen, Blas kills him and poisons himself, winning the Queen’s forgiveness as he dies. Esteemed by some and reviled by others, the play was burlesqued by W.S. Gilbert, turned into an opera by Filippo Marchetti, and has been filmed at least twice. First performed on March 11, 1839, Mendelssohn’s overture – which, given his attitude to the Hugo play, he preferred to call simply his “Theatrical Pension Fund Overture” – is an unusually powerful work for the composer, with more than a hint of violence. After an unsettled introduction, with portentous chords from the winds and brass, violins present the agitated main theme. This melody and other somewhat lighter ideas are worked out in highly dramatic fashion before the triumphant major key conclusion.

Henryk Wieniawski

b. July 10, 1835, Lublin, Poland
d. March 31, 1880, Moscow, Russia

One of the most famous violinists of the nineteenth century, Henryk Wieniawski was a prodigy who entered the Paris Conservatoire when he was nine and received its first prize for violin at age eleven. In his teens he embarked on his first tours of France and Russia. From 1860 to 1872 he lived in St. Petersburg as one of Russia’s pre-eminent musicians, teaching at the city’s new Conservatory, leading the orchestra and string quartet of the Russian Musical Society, and influencing – particularly with his stiff-wristed bowing technique – the playing of generations of Russian violinists. He subsequently resumed his international travels, including a two-year tour of the United States, while also holding a teaching post at the Brussels Conservatory. By the late 1870s Wieniawski’s health was such that he was often forced to stop playing in the middle of concerts, and he died from a heart attack in Moscow. Among his modest but significant catalog of compositions are two violin concertos that are among the most challenging in the repertoire, and a number of works (like the once-famous Polonaise in D major) that celebrate his Polish heritage.

Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22
Composed: 1862
Duration: 22 minutes

Wieniawski established himself as a composer and violin virtuoso in his late teens, at least in part based on the popularity throughout Europe of the first of his two violin concertos, the Concerto in F-sharp minor, Op. 14. Three years after completing that work, in 1856, he started on a second violin concerto, but with his constant traveling and performing he didn’t manage to complete it until six years later. The Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor was given its premiere on November 27, 1862, in St. Petersburg with Wieniawski as soloist and Anton Rubinstein conducting the Orchestra of the Russian Musical Society (of which Wieniawski served as leader). Over the next eight years the composer continued to revise the Concerto, only allowing its publication in 1870. It was dedicated to Wieniawski’s friend Pablo de Sarasate, who before long would be one of his main rivals as the pre-eminent violinist-composer of the day.

Wieniawski’s Concerto No. 2 manages gracefully to balance sound dramatic structure with lush, attractive melodies and the kind of virtuoso pyrotechnics that his audiences would have expected. Mention should also be made of the prominent role of the orchestra, which goes somewhat beyond a typical concerto accompaniment role, often taking the lead in the musical argument. The first movement, by far the most extensive of the work’s three, features two main themes: a restless opener, and a more lyrical second subject introduced by the horn. Both of these ideas, but particularly the second, are developed at length by the violin soloist, who employs the range of violin techniques, from double and triple stops to harmonics, glissandi, and a variety of bowing styles. Oddly, for a work so focused on the soloist, the movement has no solo cadenza. After the music builds to a powerful climax, a short orchestral coda leads without break into the second movement, a short and beautiful Romance based on a shapely melody in 12/8 time, with a short but fiery interlude, a brief reminiscence of the lyrical second theme from the first movement, and a solo cadenza.

The final movement, marked “à la Zingara,” is a gypsy-inspired whirlwind that was described by Wieniawski as “a small village scene: a summer evening and the villagers have gathered on the village square and want to dance; general merriment, joking and laughter.” Calling to mind other gypsy-influenced works of the time like Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, the perpetual motion of the main theme is offset by a more rustic dance in D major that appears twice, as well as brief reprises of themes from the first two movements.

Robert Schumann

b. June 8, 1810, Zwickau, Germany
d. July 29, 1856, Endenich, Germany

Robert Schumann was one of the quintessential artists of music’s Romantic era. Encouraged in a wide range of studies by his writer/publisher father, Schumann became a law student at the University of Leipzig. But music was his first love, and he studied piano with Friedrich Wieck – eventually, and famously, falling in love with and marrying Wieck’s daughter Clara, one of the finest pianists of her time. Schumann’s efforts to become a piano virtuoso were foiled when he developed partial paralysis of his right hand, so he focused on composing and writing. His music was often written in feverish bursts of activity – 1840, for instance, saw the creation of over 150 songs, and 1842 was a year of chamber music. While he composed in larger forms such as opera, symphony, and concerto, many feel that Schumann’s true genius truly came to the fore in his numerous songs and piano miniatures. As a critic he co-founded the influential Neue Zeitschrift für Musik and wrote articles praising composers like Chopin and Brahms. Having long suffered from mental problems, in February 1854 Schumann tried to drown himself in the Rhine, and he spent his final years in an asylum.

Symphony No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 38 “Spring”
Composed: 1841
Duration: 32 minutes

Writing for orchestra didn’t come naturally for Schumann. His first attempt at a large-scale orchestral work, a Symphony in G minor from 1832-33, was never completed. Other than that one piece, Schumann spent the entire decade of the 1830s writing nothing but piano music and songs. Part of that decade was also spent wooing Clara, the daughter of his piano teacher Friedrich Wieck. They had met when Schumann was twenty-four years old and Clara a fifteen-year-old piano prodigy. Friedrich Wieck was impressed with Schumann’s musical abilities, but put off by his drinking and worried by the signs of depression and instability he was already exhibiting – which, with hindsight, could well have been precursors of the even more serious nervous disorders Schumann experienced later. For years Wieck stood in the way of the marriage, but they ultimately ignored him and were married one day before Clara’s twenty-first birthday in September 1840.

Much as she loved Schumann’s lyrical piano pieces and songs, Clara had long encouraged him to take on something ambitious like a symphony. She wrote in her diary, “his imagination cannot find sufficient scope on the piano…his compositions are all orchestral in feeling.” Their marriage seemed to inspire him, and the Symphony No. 1 was composed over a mere four days, January 23 and 26, 1841. The orchestration occupied him for the next month, and was completed on February 20. Not surprisingly, Clara’s opinion of the new work was of great importance to him. Luckily, she was very pleased, writing “…I should never finish talking about the buds, the scent of violets, the fresh green leaves, the birds in the air – all of which, one hears living and stirring through it in youthful strength.” In the next months Schumann pursued his orchestral inspiration, also writing the first version of what became his Symphony No. 4 and a “symphonette” later revised as the Overture, Scherzo and Finale.

There have long been complaints about Schumann’s skills as an orchestral arranger. When Felix Mendelssohn was preparing the first performance of the Symphony No. 1 with his Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra – which took place on March 31, 1841 – he was forced to change the key of part of the Symphony’s opening because some of the notes were unplayable, or barely playable, by the valveless trumpets and French horns then in use. Since then conductors have felt fairly free to make small and large adjustments to Schumann’s orchestration – Gustav Mahler entirely rescored all four of Schumann’s symphonies, and one musicologist even wrote an 874-page book on possible revisions of Schumann’s orchestrations!

Schumann originally gave each movement of the Symphony an evocative title. But while there are a few pictorial details in the work – wind instruments seeming to imitate bird songs, for instance – Schumann didn’t intend his work to be descriptive, but rather more generally impressionistic. As he wrote in a letter to fellow composer Ludwig Spohr, the Symphony had been written “with a vernal passion…that always sways men even into old age and surprises them anew each year. Description and painting where not part of my intention, but I do believe that the season in which this symphony was born influenced its structure and helped make it what it is.” Note that last point – although the work is titled “Spring,” it was actually written in January and February, in the dead of winter. Schumann’s music looks forward longingly to the onset of the new season.

Schumann laid out his strategy for the first movement – originally titled “Beginning of Spring” – in a letter to conductor Wilhelm Taubert, who was about to lead the Symphony in Berlin: “I should like the very first trumpet entrance to sound as if it came from on high, like a summons to awakening. Further on in the introduction, I should like the music to suggest the world’s turning green, perhaps with a butterfly hovering in the air, and then, in the Allegro, to show how everything to do with spring is coming to life.” That first trumpet entrance, a fanfare-like figure, is quickly taken up by the strings. An air of expectancy hovers over the subsequent minor key music. The tempo then accelerates, and the main body of the movement is launched with a relative of the fanfare theme. A second, quieter theme is also announced by the woodwinds over scurrying strings. The development is largely devoted to a variety of rearrangements of the variant of the opening fanfare. The tempo speeds up even more as the movement comes to a close, the momentum halted briefly by the emergence of a lovely, hymn-like idea.

It has been said that the slow second movement, originally called “Evening,” was intended to be a portrait of Clara. The main melody, announced by the violins, then taken up by the cellos over woodwind chords, is a haunting song. Moments of anxiety arise, but are dispelled by a further statement of the main theme by the winds. In the quiet coda, trombones are heard for the first time, hinting at a new idea that emerges more fully in the purposeful stride of the third movement, which follows without a break. This movement, initially called “Merry Playmates,” is in rondo, or ABACA, form: in B the winds and strings trade phrases before a vigorous tune is propelled forward by the strings, and C is an ever more unfettered dance.

An upward-striving gesture opens the fourth movement. Schumann had called this movement “Spring’s Farewell,” and in the letter to conductor Wilhelm Taubert mentioned above, warned him that that music was “not to be taken too frivolously.” Two themes are contrasted here. The first has a playful air. The second, in the minor, has a more rustic flavor, the darker coloration of which carries into the central development, of a more nostalgic character. The themes are heard again in their original form, with a short song from the oboe, a call from the horn, and a short cadenza for the flute. Further horn calls sound forth in the symphony’s exhilarating closing moments.

Pictures from March RCO concerts

2009-03-23T10:16:00.001-07:00

We thought that you would enjoy seeing some of the photos that RCO photographer Stuart Murtland took at (and prior to) our March 14 and 15 concerts featuring the great Edgar Meyer. More information on Stuart and more examples of his work are available at his website.

Edgar Meyer performing at the Friday, March 13 rehearsal.

Theodore Kuchar and Edgar Meyer at that same rehearsal (with Chris Morrison lurking in the background, enjoying the music).

Scott Faulkner, Edgar Meyer, and Theodore Kuchar discussing musical matters.

Theodore Kuchar conducting at the March 14 performance.

Edgar Meyer and RCO musicians in performance.

Edgar Meyer performing his Double Bass Concerto No. 1 at the March 14 concert.

Edgar Meyer, Theodore Kuchar, and the RCO acknowledging the standing ovation that followed their performance.

The RCO performing Mozart's "Prague" Symphony.

To conclude, one of our favorite photos from these concerts: Edgar Meyer backstage, listening to the RCO playing Mozart.

Program notes for March 14 and 15 RCO concerts

2009-03-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

Igor Stravinsky

b. June 17, 1882, Orianenbaum, Russia
d. April 6, 1971, New York, New York

Igor Stravinsky was one of the most important and influential composers of the twentieth century. A stylistic chameleon, Stravinsky made important innovations in areas of music from form and rhythm to tone color and harmony. Early studies with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov had an important influence on Stravinsky’s first mature works. Those compositions got the attention of impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who commissioned Stravinsky to compose his still-popular trio of ballets, The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1911-1913) – the riot that broke out at the latter’s premiere remains one of the famous events in music history. Stravinsky subsequently embraced jazz idioms, found inspiration in Russian folklore, was one of the leaders in the return to past musical traditions known as neoclassicism, and even, late in his career, turned to twelve-tone composition. He toured frequently, and made many important recordings of his works. Among his collaborators were some of the most important artists of his time, including Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and W.H. Auden. A longtime exile from his native Russia, Stravinsky lived in Switzerland and France before emigrating to the United States in 1939; he lived in the Los Angeles area until his death at age 88.

Concerto in D major for String Orchestra
Composed: 1946
Duration: 12 minutes

Stravinsky’s Concerto in D major was commissioned for the twentieth anniversary of the Basel Chamber Orchestra by its founder Paul Sacher, a legendary conductor and patron of new music who also commissioned works from the likes of Richard Strauss, Bohuslav Martinu, and Béla Bartók. The first commission Stravinsky received from Europe after moving to the United States, the Concerto was begun in early 1946 and completed in August of that year. Sacher and his orchestra – to whom the Concerto is dedicated, hence its nickname "Basler" or "Basel" Concerto – gave the work its first performance on January 27, 1947 in Basel. Since then it has been choreographed on many occasions, perhaps most notably as The Cage (created by Jerome Robbins in 1951).

"Let me know how long you want the piece to be," Stravinsky replied to Sacher’s original request, saying that he could accept the commission "if it is from ten to twelve minutes, like Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos." The comparison is in some respects an apt one: the Concerto in D major is in the traditional three movements, the rhythms are lively, and throughout one can hear the contrast between solo instruments and the larger string body (the tutti) characteristic of concertos of Bach’s time. One of only two extended pieces for string orchestra by Stravinsky (the other being the 1927 ballet Apollon Musagète), the Concerto in D major was also one of the composer’s last tonal works before he turned to twelve-tone composition in the early 1950s.

An important characteristic of the Concerto is its constant movement between D major and D minor. This contrast is made clear even from the beginning of the opening Vivace, where within moments the violas and basses play an F natural (creating a D minor chord) as the violins play an F-sharp (making a D major chord). This rhythmically intricate movement is in something like sonata form, with the faster outer sections framing a central, slower Moderato that proceeds by fits and starts. By contrast, the second movement Arioso is all lyricism, as the violins spin out a long and graceful melody. The exciting closing Rondo is propelled by the energetic, scurrying figure that opens the movement.

Giovanni Bottesini

b. December 22, 1821, Crema, Italy
d. July 7, 1889, Parma, Italy

Giovanni Bottesini was one of the greatest double bass players in history. His first instruments were the timpani and violin, but he switched to the bass to earn a scholarship at the Milan Conservatory. Using a small, three-stringed Testore bass – which, according to legend, he rescued from the trash at a marionette theater – he played in orchestras in Venice and Havana, Cuba before turning to solo performance. Years of very successful tours throughout Europe, the United States, and Latin America, including performances before Queen Victoria, Czar Alexander of Russia, and Emperor Napoleon III of France, cemented his reputation as the "Paganini of the double bass." Bottesini also conducted regularly – he led the 1871 Cairo premiere of his friend Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida, and later served as Music Director at London’s Covent Garden and the Italian Opera in Paris. He composed throughout his life, and while he wrote about a dozen operas and considerable chamber music, it is largely his virtuoso double bass works that are remembered today.

Double Bass Concerto No. 2 in B minor
Composed: 1845
Duration: 17 minutes

There are many accounts of the effect Bottesini’s bass playing had on his audiences. "Under his bow," wrote Giovanni Depanis, "the double bass groaned, sighed, cooed, sang, quivered, roared – an orchestra in itself with irresistible force and the sweetest expression." In The Land of Melodrama, author and composer Bruno Barilli evokes the scene at a Bottesini concert: "Applause and calls for encores exploded down the disorderly rows at every bar. The magnificent ladies, finely clad, in the theatre boxes of the aristocracy were caught up in the applause without warning, trying to retain their modesty, laughing behind their fans. Supported by his great wooden sound-box, Bottesini leant over his instrument like a conquering hero."

One of the main influences on Bottesini’s composing style is the lyricism of Italian opera – supplemented, of course, in his works for double bass by the arsenal of virtuoso techniques he employed. He exploits the entire range of the instrument, employing harmonics (high-pitched notes produced by touching, rather than pressing down, the string at certain points), as well as occasional double stops, and plenty of fast-paced passagework.

Some additional pyrotechnics were added to the Concerto No. 2 in B minor by Edgar Meyer in his edition of the work – which he calls, in the liner notes for his Sony Classical recording, "my favorite piece in the bass concerto repertoire." Among the most obvious changes are the replacements of Bottesini’s cadenzas in the first and third movements by Meyer’s own, which are showstoppers in their own right.

The nimble first movement features some fast playing from the soloist – particularly in Meyer’s cadenza – but by and large the lyrical impulse wins out over the virtuosic. The second movement, with its almost operatic solo line and spare accompaniment, is followed by a propulsive Allegro finale that, rhythmically, is reminiscent of dance forms like the polonaise of Poland and the Cuban bolero, both of which Bottesini was familiar with through his travels.

Edgar Meyer

b. November 24, 1960, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

(Photo by Jimmy Ienner Jr.)

Follow this link to Edgar Meyer's website to read his biography and find out more about his recordings and concerts.

Double Bass Concerto No. 1 in D major
Composed: 1993
Duration: 17 minutes

Edgar Meyer’s Double Bass Concerto No. 1 is the first of two solo concertos he has written so far for his instrument; he has also written concertos in which the bass is joined as soloist by cello, violin, and banjo and tabla. Written at the behest of Peter Lloyd, the Minnesota Orchestra’s principal bass player, the Concerto No. 1 was premiered on March 31, 1993, with Meyer, conductor Edo de Waart, and the Minnesota Orchestra.

Edgar Meyer’s biography testifies to his versatility, outlining in brief the variety of styles and genres in which he has performed. While a number of those styles – bluegrass and jazz among others – are hinted at in the Double Bass Concerto No. 1, the setting is otherwise quite a traditional classical one. The solo bass is backed here by a typical chamber orchestra: strings along with pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns.

The first movement opens with the insouciant entry of the bass. Emerging seemingly from the depths, with strings punctuating the ongoing bass line, the accompaniment gradually gains power as descending woodwind figures flutter above. The bluesy solo part turns even more elaborate as the orchestral texture, initially just flecks of color, begins to fill. The music builds to a climax, then returns to the opening mood.

Pizzicato strings – inspired, says Meyer, by their similar use in Franz Josef Haydn’s Violin Concerto No. 1 – accompany the long notes of the bass as the second movement begins. The music remains quiet, even tentative, as the bass line unfurls. The clarinet adds its voice. Suddenly the music bursts forth, faster and bolder – but just as quickly returns to where it was, the bass line now a bit more elaborate. As before, the winds, this time led by the oboe, lend their color.

Folksy double stops mark the main theme, what Meyer has called "a fiddle tune with blues overtones," of the third movement – music inspired by the playing of Sam Bush, a violin and mandolin player and frequent Meyer collaborator. The bass part gradually becomes a moto perpetuo, calming only briefly for a more spacious interlude accompanied by spare string chords. But then the orchestra takes over the theme as the bass churns away underneath, leading to the swirling virtuoso line of the soloist in the Concerto’s exciting conclusion.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

b. January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria
d. December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria

No reminder is really needed of the unique stature of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the history of Western music. His vast catalog of compositions – over 600 of them, including some 15 operas, 17 masses, 50 symphonies, 20 piano concertos, 23 string quartets, and so on (the list can go on for quite some time) – epitomizes the German-Austrian Classical style. His music is recognized and loved all over the world for its melodic, harmonic, and textural richness and beauty. The son of a well-known violinist and pedagogue, Mozart was one of the greatest prodigies ever, playing his first public concert at age five and composing his first music at seven. Before reaching the age of ten he had already played recitals in front of the likes of Marie Antoinette and King George III of England. He traveled throughout Europe through his teens. After failing to find a secure post elsewhere, and having grown dissatisfied with his career in Salzburg, Mozart moved to Vienna, where he spent the last decade of his life. While he enjoyed some successes with his new operas and piano concertos, life there grew more and more precarious, leading to his early death at age thirty-five.

Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504 "Prague"
Composed: 1786
Duration: 30 minutes

As mentioned above, Mozart did enjoy some considerable triumphs during his Vienna years. But as time went on, he increasingly had to compete with other musicians and institutions for concert and commission opportunities. The premiere at Vienna’s Burgtheater of the opera Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) on May 1, 1786 didn’t help matters – critics and fellow musicians were enthusiastic, but audiences didn’t embrace the new work, and only seven further performances ensued. However, a few months later, Figaro was performed at the National Theater (now the Theater of the Estates or Tyl Theater) in Prague and received an overwhelming response, so much so that Mozart, spurred on by his friends and by an invitation from music patron Count Johann Joseph Thun, decided to visit Prague for himself. He and his wife Constanze arrived on January 11, 1787.

What they found was something like Mozart- and Figaro-mania: Mozart wrote to his friend Gottfried von Jacquin that "people here talk about nothing but Figaro. Nothing is played, sung, or whistled but Figaro. Nothing, nothing but Figaro. Certainly a great honor for me!" Within a few days of his arrival Mozart presented a concert featuring his Piano Concerto No. 25. Then, at a Grand Musical Academy performance on January 19, he conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 38, now nicknamed the "Prague." The symphony – his first since No. 36, the "Linz," of three years before – had been completed back in December in Vienna, and Mozart brought the score with him to Prague. Contrary to some accounts, the work was not written specifically for that city, as it had been completed before Mozart was invited to visit. In any event, those Prague concerts, which also included Mozart-led performances of Figaro, were thoroughgoing successes and led to an important commission for an opera – Don Giovanni, which was premiered in Prague in October 1787.

The Symphony No. 38 is unusual in that it only features three movements – it is possibly the only major symphony of the time that dispenses with the minuet that had become a standard part of the form. Perhaps Mozart felt that the three movements of the "Prague" Symphony were substantial and dramatic enough on their own.

In common with only two other Mozart symphonies (the aforementioned "Linz" and No. 39), the first movement opens with a slow introduction. It explores a range of moods and textures, including some poignant dissonances and a dramatic turn into the minor key with trumpets and timpani blazing. The Allegro main body of the movement begins almost unobtrusively, with a quiet rising sequence and syncopations over a single repeated note in the violins, leading into another trumpet and drum outburst, this time a festive one. This and the lyrical second theme are only two of the six motives that Mozart introduces. Although it sounds effortless, the counterpoint of the development section – called by Alfred Einstein "one of the greatest, most serious, most aggressive in all Mozart’s works" – was complex enough that Mozart actually had to sketch it out in advance, one of the rare times in his life that he did so.

The graceful theme that opens the central Andante has some darker undercurrents: a purposeful bass line, passing dissonances, and a brief turn into the minor. In fact, as songful as the movement is, it also plumbs some surprising depths. The colors of the orchestra here, and throughout the work, are radiant – Prague was known for the quality of its wind players, and its audiences would have been pleased with how Mozart shows off the colors of the winds in this symphony.

The third movement is propulsive and impetuous, opening with a little hint of the duet "Aprite presto" from Figaro that must have caught the ears of the Prague audiences. The movement is one of contrasts – winds and strings, loud and soft, grace and drama. One writer remarks on how this music “must have been highly demanding of the players of the time, for Mozart assigns the orchestra parts requiring great agility, a refinement of phrasing, an attack and ensemble work that would push them to the limit.”

A note from Scott Faulkner about Edgar Meyer…

2009-02-06T14:42:00.000-08:00

Ever since I became executive director of the RCO in 2001, I have dreamed of having Edgar Meyer come to perform with our orchestra. Well, this year the stars aligned, and as you know he will be performing on our March 14-15, 2009 concerts. I’m writing to tell you in as strong a language as I can, DO NOT MISS THESE CONCERTS and TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO ATTEND THESE CONCERTS! This is not the concert to go out of town, or be too tired, or not to have enough money for, or forget to attend.

Simply put, Edgar Meyer is the greatest bass player who ever picked up the instrument. He makes it sound like a bass AND a cello AND a violin. He is the Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali and Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and Yo Yo Ma and Jascha Heifetz of the string bass. If you have not heard his jaw-dropping technique, his beautiful sound, and his mind-blowing musicianship, I envy you that you can still hear his playing for the first time.

They say that when promoting a concert, one is not supposed to use too much hyperbole, in case the experience is a let down. Well, I’m not worried about that. THIS CONCERT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE! YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO HEAR ONE OF THE GREATEST INSTRUMENTALISTS IN HISTORY IN THE INTIMACY OF NIGHTINGALE CONCERT HALL AND IT WILL BLOW YOU AWAY!

In case I didn't make it clear how I feel, here is what some others have said about Edgar Meyer:

“The most remarkable virtuoso in the history of his instrument.” -The New Yorker

“One of the greatest virtuosos on the double bass…he’s also a fabulous composer…I love him as a human being and as a musician.” -Yo Yo Ma

“Quite simply the best bassist alive.” -San Diego Magazine

“Meyer is a chameleon-like virtuoso…no bassist has combined his range of talents in different genres at such a high level.” –Washington Post

"I don't consider that Edgar and I play the same instrument. He is a soul that has decided to locate itself in a bass." -Susan Ranney, principal bassist, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

"Anyone with Edgar's intensity is going to be somewhat unusual. He's a genius, and that's not a word I toss around lightly. He's also the sweetest, nicest, most interesting guy to hang around with. He has incredible patience. But he also expects everybody to be great, and he really won't accept anything less. He expects you to be in tune and in time, and he expects you to have perfect intonation and to phrase things beautifully. He expects that because that's the way he does it." -Fred Sherry, cellist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

"I sat through an hour and a half of the most awesome bass playing I had ever heard. It was totally overwhelming. Both his technique and creativity were amazing. The musical expressiveness he demonstrated, coupled with his personality, which he wraps around his instrument, was spectacular." -Karen Deal, assistant conductor, Nashville Symphony

Get your tickets by going to: www.renochamberorchestra.org or calling 775.348.9413

You can see and hear Edgar play by going to the RCO's You Tube page: www.youtube.com/renochamberorch

Program Notes for January 24 and 25

2009-01-20T14:18:00.000-08:00

Jean Sibelius

b. December 8, 1865, Hämeenlinna, Finland
d. September 20, 1957, Järvenpää, Finland

Jean Sibelius was the first Finnish composer to attract international attention, and became a major figure in the establishment of his country’s artistic identity. He showed early talent on the violin – in fact, he once auditioned for the Vienna Philharmonic and for a time thought of pursuing a career as a violin soloist. But composition always attracted him, and he created a sensation in Finland with the premiere of his “Kullervo” Symphony in 1893. Supported by a lifetime pension from the Finnish government, by the first years of the twentieth century Sibelius’s works – many of which were inspired by the literature and landscape of his homeland – were being performed across the globe. After completing his Symphony No. 7 and a handful of other works in the mid 1920s, Sibelius retired into what has been dubbed the “silence from Järvenpää.” For the remaining three decades of his life he composed practically nothing, although reports of an Eighth Symphony (apparently destroyed) became legendary. In 1955 his ninetieth birthday was celebrated by performances and recordings worldwide.

Pelléas et Mélisande Incidental Music, Op. 46
Composed: 1905
Duration: 30 minutes

Sibelius wrote music for theatrical productions throughout his life, including incidental music for thirteen plays. Possibly the best known of these, written towards the end of his composing career, was for Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1925-27). Another of his best incidental scores was composed for Pelléas et Mélisande, an 1893 play by the Belgian playwright and poet Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) dealing with the forbidden and doomed love of the title characters. Maeterlinck is usually associated with Symbolism – a late nineteenth century artistic movement, also identified with poets like Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, that embraced symbolic language, mysticism, and dream-logic, as one writer has it, “to evoke, rather than to describe.” Maeterlinck’s play attracted a host of other musicians – along with Sibelius’s music, there is an incidental score by Gabriel Fauré, a symphonic poem by Arnold Schoenberg, and the famous opera by Claude Debussy.

The story, set in the medieval fantasy world of Allemonde, is psychologically complex, but its essentials are simple. The beautiful Mélisande, married to Golaud, falls in love with Golaud’s much younger stepbrother Pelléas. Golaud learns of their relationship and forbids them to meet again, enlisting his son Yniold to keep an eye on them. But meet they do, and often – in her room, at the Fountain of the Blind (where she loses her wedding ring), and elsewhere. When Golaud hears them declare their love for one another, he kills Pelléas and wounds Mélisande. She dies as she gives birth to a baby girl.

The music Sibelius created for a 1905 production of Maeterlinck’s play at the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki is vivid yet restrained, scored for a much smaller orchestra than that employed by Schoenberg and Debussy in their works on the same subject. The suite begins with the powerful “At the Castle Gate,” then the English horn’s poignant tune introduces a wistful portrait of Mélisande. “By the Seashore” is a moody seascape, perhaps suggesting Mélisande’s loneliness, and “A Spring in the Park” is a dark-colored waltz. The English horn reappears for the somber “The Three Blind Sisters.” Pizzicato strings accompany a characteristically Sibelian theme in the winds in the “Pastorale,” leading to the flute’s folksong-like tune. “Mélisande at the Spinning Wheel” introduces a sense of foreboding, lightened somewhat in the sprightly “Entr’acte.” The grandiose coda of the “Entr’acte” could be mistaken for a forceful conclusion to Sibelius’s suite, but the actual final section is the beautiful, heartfelt “The Death of Mélisande,” with its poignant main theme and ominous rumblings from the timpani.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

b. January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria
d. December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria

No reminder is really needed of the unique stature of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the history of Western music. His vast catalog of compositions – over 600 of them, including some 15 operas, 17 masses, 50 symphonies, 20 piano concertos, 23 string quartets, and so on (the list can go on for quite some time) – epitomizes the German-Austrian Classical style. His music is recognized and loved all over the world for its melodic, harmonic, and textural richness and beauty. The son of a well-known violinist and pedagogue, Mozart was one of the greatest prodigies ever, playing his first public concert at age five and composing his first music at seven. Before reaching the age of ten he had already played recitals in front of the likes of King George III of England. He traveled throughout Europe through his teens. After failing to find a secure post elsewhere, and having grown dissatisfied with his career in Salzburg, Mozart moved to Vienna, where he spent the last decade of his life. While he enjoyed some successes with his new operas and piano concertos, life there grew more and more precarious, leading to his early death at age thirty-five.

Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491
Composed: 1786
Duration: 30 minutes

From 1784 to 1786, Mozart enjoyed the peak of his Viennese popularity. His subscription concerts, presented annually during the Lenten season and often featuring the premiere of a new piano concerto that he would also perform, had become major attractions. Between February 1784 and December 1786 he wrote twelve piano concertos, Nos. 14-25, for these concerts. Few would argue that these works are among Mozart’s finest.

Of the 27 canonical piano concertos, only two are in minor keys. One is the dramatic Concerto No. 20 in D minor from 1785. The other is the Piano Concerto No. 24, completed on March 24, 1786, and given its premiere by Mozart on April 3 of that year at the Burgtheater in Vienna. During those early months of 1786 Mozart was hard at work completing his opera Le nozze di Figaro. By contrast with the infectious cheerfulness of most of Figaro, the Concerto No. 24 is serious and dark in color. As Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein has written, Mozart “evidently needed to indulge in an explosion of dark, tragic, passionate emotion.”

An air of mystery pervades the quiet string octaves that open the first movement. The music quickly turns dramatically propulsive, however, as the movement’s main theme is elaborated on – it is an unusual theme, employing all twelve notes of the chromatic scale (in fact, according to Michael Steinberg’s invaluable The Concerto, this theme was later used as the basis of a twelve-tone composition, a Symphony written in 1953 by the German composer Giselher Klebe). Woodwinds lighten the texture, but not the mood, with a new theme. The piano then gently enters, maintaining the minor key for a time. But then arpeggios lead into an airy, charming, and extended major key interlude. The minor key reasserts itself in the remainder of the development, and after a solo cadenza for the piano, the orchestra and piano combine to restate the chromatic main theme before a quiet, almost ambivalent conclusion.

The slow second movement opens with an unadorned, major key theme; its simplicity and the spare texture are quite a contrast to the opening movement. Separating repetitions of this idea are two interludes highlighting the woodwinds, the first making a brief return to the minor mode. The C minor key returns decisively in the third movement, a set of six variations with coda based on a martial sounding, almost march-like theme. The first two variations (and the fifth) feature embellishments of the theme by the piano soloist. The fourth and sixth variations are in a playful, delightful major key. But it’s back into the minor for a final varied restatement of the original theme, followed by a solo piano cadenza and coda.

Johann Sebastian Bach

b. March 21, 1685, Eisenach, Germany
d. July 28, 1750, Leipzig, Germany

Acknowledged along with Beethoven and Brahms as one of the “three Bs” of classical music, Johann Sebastian Bach was the culminating figure of music’s Baroque era. His over one thousand works – ranging from religious cantatas and masses to orchestral, chamber, and solo compositions – are loved and respected for their depth, contrapuntal invention, and their combination of intellectual rigor and great beauty. Born into a family of musicians, Bach was taught the rudiments of music by his father. He held several posts in his teens and early twenties as a singer, violinist and organist, during which time he also started to compose his first organ works and cantatas. The main body of his musical life is usually divided up into three periods. From 1708 to 1717 he served as court organist and composer for the Duke of Sachsen-Weimar. He then assumed the position of Kapellmeister in the city of Cöthen, where he worked until 1723 and where he wrote the famous Brandenburg Concertos and many other instrumental works. In 1723 Bach became the Kantor of the Thomas School in Leipzig, holding that post until his death. In Leipzig he taught, directed the city’s Collegium musicum orchestra, and composed hundreds of cantatas for the city’s churches.

Concerto in C major for 2 Keyboards, BWV 1061
Composed: c. 1730
Duration: 18 minutes

The concerto for harpsichord (the keyboard instrument of choice until it was supplanted by the piano in the 1760s and 1770s) with orchestra was an unexplored genre when Bach came to it around 1730. Most of his extant concertos – seven for solo harpsichord, three for two harpsichords, two for three harpsichords, and one for four – started life as concertos for other instruments. They were likely written for the Collegium musicum, a group of professional and amateur musicians that Bach led in weekly concerts. Bach himself was probably the soloist in the solo concertos, and in the concertos for multiple keyboards he may well have been joined by his sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann, who were also living in Leipzig at the time.

The Concerto in C major, possibly his first concerto originally written for keyboard, apparently started life as a concerto for two solo harpsichords without orchestra, and only later was a string orchestra added (possibly not by Bach himself). The keyboards – pianos, in the case of the present performance – are constantly interacting and trading phrases, with the strings largely supporting them. The two soloists and the strings are fully integrated throughout the lively opening Allegro. The strings are entirely silent in the central Adagio, a gentle and intimate Siciliano in the minor mode. The contrapuntal third movement opens with a cheerful theme played initially by the first keyboard, then joined by the second. The theme is developed at some length before the violins, then the rest of the strings, join in.

Franz Schubert

b. January 31, 1797, Vienna, Austria
d. November 19, 1828, Vienna, Austria

Franz Schubert is one of the best-loved and most important composers of the nineteenth century, his music consistently marked by a remarkable melodic gift, rich harmonies, and an expansive treatment of traditional forms. During his short but extremely prolific career, he composed nine symphonies, dozens of chamber and solo piano works, and a host of operas and liturgical works. His songs, numbering over 600, virtually created the genre of the art song. He started composing in his teens, and some early works came to the notice of Antonio Salieri, who worked with the young composer on composition and music theory. After a couple of unhappy years spent as a schoolteacher by day and composer by night, Schubert decided to pursue a career as a full-time composer, leading a somewhat bohemian life while creating a vast number of compositions that, at the time, attracted little attention. Only gradually did his music win acclaim, inspiring a remarkable burst of creativity in the mid 1820s. By that time, however, he was suffering badly from the syphilis and (possibly) typhoid fever that would take his life at age 31.

Symphony No. 1 in D major, D. 82
Composed: 1813
Duration: 28 minutes

In 1808, the eleven-year-old Franz Schubert entered the choir of the Imperial Kapelle, attending the attached Stadkonvikt school for the next several years. The school’s pupils had an orchestra – Schubert played violin – that performed most nights, reading through the popular symphonies of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. According to his friends, Schubert wrote a couple of symphonies and some overtures for this group. But he destroyed them, and only a fragment of a symphony written in 1811 survives. The Symphony No. 1 dates from October 1813, and was probably also performed by the Stadkonvikt orchestra at some point. After that performance, and in common with Schubert’s other early symphonies, the Symphony No. 1 went unheard and unpublished until the end of the nineteenth century. Generally regarded as one of Schubert’s finest early works, the Symphony betrays the influence of his ongoing private lessons with Antonio Salieri, with whom Schubert continued to study until 1817.

The grand, ceremonial Adagio introduction to the first movement leads into a brilliant, scurrying first theme. Another upward-striving idea then takes over and is worked with for a time, gaining momentum as it goes. That theme takes a more dramatic turn in the formal development section. Then, surprisingly and unusually, the slow introduction to the movement makes a reappearance before the restatement of the main themes and a decisive coda. The Andante second movement is lilting and graceful at first. Its second theme is more stately and dramatic, in the manner of a march. But delicate woodwind colors soon take over as the first melody returns. The rollicking third movement has some of the folksy humor of the Minuet movements of Franz Josef Haydn’s symphonies; its central section is more laid-back, evoking the Austrian ländler. A lively, heavily ornamented theme is the focus of the energetic final movement – its momentum, only slowed slightly by the playful humor of the light-hearted second theme, carries right through to its vigorous coda.

The RCO Online

2008-12-23T10:22:00.000-08:00

We’ve made a rather significant improvement to our website recently that you may not have noticed – we are now offering online ticket sales! Tickets are now easily ordered for all the Nevada Chamber Music Festival and 2008-2009 season concerts. Just follow this link, or click on the “Buy Tickets” tab at our website.

For those of you who are plugged in to such things, the RCO now also has pages on MySpace and Facebook where you can find out more about the RCO and get special notices on our upcoming concerts and events.

Lastly, we have also set up a page at YouTube where you can take a look at various RCO-related videos. We’ve put our television commercials up, and you can view videos of pieces featured in our upcoming Festival and regular season concerts performed by the likes of David and Igor Oistrakh, Martha Argerich, Claudio Abbado, the Beaux Arts Trio, and others.

2008-12-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

Over the last few weeks, we have been spending pretty much all our time in the RCO office preparing for December’s Nevada Chamber Music Festival. Information on the Festival concerts and performers is available at our website, and several hundred season ticket holders and Festival ticket buyers have gotten this information in the mail. We also recently sent Festival details to everyone on our email list; if you’d like to receive regular updates on the RCO’s activities, send us your email address and we’ll get you on the list. A brochure on the Festival will be arriving at thousands of homes in the next week or so, and advertising and announcements will soon be hitting the airwaves on radio and television.

One of our valued RCO regulars made the very good suggestion that Scott Faulkner and I recommend some recordings of the works that will be played in the Festival, as we have occasionally done in the past. This way you can do a little pre-Festival exploring. Or, if you hear something at the Festival that blows you away (which happens pretty frequently!), you can seek out a recording for further future listening.

The CDs that we are recommending are available through many online services. We regularly recommend ArkivMusic as being particularly comprehensive and easy to use. Plus, if you use the links you’ll find below, the RCO will receive a portion of your purchase! So buy early and often.

Some of the works on our Festival are available in a large number of renditions (for instance, ArkivMusic lists over 120 CDs of the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3!) The disks that we are recommending meet one or more of the following criteria: they are ones that Scott or I already have heard and love, and/or they have received considerable critical acclaim, and/or they feature famous performers of the past or present, and/or they include other interesting repertoire, and/or they are reasonably priced.

Hummel – Piano Quintet in E-flat major/minor, Op. 87
One of the few available recordings of this work features the Wanderer Trio and guests, including a great bonus in the form of Schubert’s famous “Trout” Quintet

Ravel – Piano Trio in A minor
Jascha Heifetz, Artur Rubinstein and Gregor Piatigorsky perform both the Ravel Trio and the Respighi Violin Sonata also featured in this year’s Festival.

Brahms – Piano Quartet in A major, Op. 26
We recommend a lovely two-disk set featuring the acclaimed Beaux Arts Trio and violist Walter Trampler.

Bach – Sonata for Solo Violin in G minor
The classic recording of all six of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for violin performed by Nathan Milstein.

Chopin – Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 65
One of our two recommendations for this sonata features the legendary Jacqueline duPre, accompanied by her husband Daniel Barenboim. The other recommendation can be found below.

Respighi – Violin Sonata in B minor
As was mentioned with the Ravel Trio above, we highlight a budget-priced RCA disk with Jascha Heifetz and Artur Rubinstein.

Mendelssohn – Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 49
The Gould Piano Trio performs both of Mendelssohn’s trios on the budget-priced Naxos label.

Janacek – String Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata”
A very inexpensive Arte Nova disc by the Alexander Quartet also features quartets by Smetana and Schubert.

Mozart – String Quartet in C major, K. 465 “Dissonance”
A terrific CD that also includes Mozart’s “Hunt” Quartet and Haydn’s “Emperor” Quartet features the Emerson Quartet, one of the finest quartets in the world today.

Dohnanyi – Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 1
One of the few recordings of this work currently available is a fine one on the London label, with pianist Andras Schiff and the Takacz Quartet.

Mozart – Violin Sonata in E-flat major, K. 481
Violinist Henryk Szeryng and pianist Ingrid Haebler are featured in what has long been one of the most esteemed recordings of Mozart’s violin sonatas.

Ligeti – Solo Cello Sonata
We highlight a performance by Matt Haimovitz from his fascinating collection “Goulash” (be sure to check out the version of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” on this CD!)

Debussy – Cello Sonata
Cellist Janos Starker performs a very attractive collection of sonatas and other works, including the Chopin Cello Sonata heard elsewhere in our Festival.

Walton – Violin Sonata
Violinist Daniel Hope and pianist Simon Mulligan take on this seldom heard, dramatic sonata in a much-praised CD.

Dvorak – Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 5
Very dramatic readings of both of Dvorák’s piano quintets, including the famous Op. 81, with pianist Sviatoslav Richter and the Borodin Quartet.

Enescu – String Octet
An ensemble of musicians from the famous Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields performs both the Enescu Octet and the Two Pieces by Shostakovich featured in the Festival’s New Year’s Eve Celebration.

Saint-Saens – Piano Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 41
A somewhat expensive, but enormously attractive, collection of Saint-Saëns chamber works on the Hyperion label performed by England’s Nash Ensemble.

Shostakovich – Prelude and Scherzo for String Octet, Op. 11
Members of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields perform (see the Enescu Octet above).

Vaughan Williams – Piano Quintet in C minor
Once again Hyperion comes through with a very appealing collection of lesser-known, but beautiful, chamber compositions by Vaughan Williams.

Godowsky/Strauss – Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes from Die Fledermaus
Rian de Waal performs a number of Godowsky’s virtuoso transcriptions, including the remarkable Passacaglia on a theme from Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony.

Sarasate – Navarra
Father and son team David and Igor Oistrakh performs a number of showpieces for two violins.

Gliere – Pieces for Violin and Cello, Op. 39
From the CD “Conversations,” the husband-and-wife team of Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson perform a number of works for violin and cello.

Brahms – Hungarian Dances Nos. 17-21
Sisters Katia and Marielle Labeque perform all twenty-one of the Hungarian Dances.

Smetana – The Moldau
While the chamber ensemble arrangement of “The Moldau” isn’t readily available on recordings, we are certainly pleased to recommend our own Theodore Kuchar’s recent recording of the orchestral version, from his much-praised set of Smetana’s complete orchestral works.

Dvorak – Slavonic Dances
Once again, the chamber ensemble arrangement of Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances is a rarity and currently unavailable on CD. But the orchestral arrangements have been recorded numerous times, and Christoph von Dohnanyi’s exciting recording with the Cleveland Orchestra features Robert Vernon, our Festival violist.

Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major
With over 100 recordings currently available, there are Brandenburg Concertos to meet every taste. We recommend Neville Marriner’s modern (as opposed to period) instrument recording of the first three concertos with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

Various RCO items

2008-10-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

We hope that you were able to make it to one of our season-opening concerts on September 20 and 21. It was a special weekend of music. The World Premiere of Joseph Schwantner’s Chasing Light… was exceptionally exciting. Mr. Schwantner, who was present for the performances (and rehearsals) and took part in a number of classes and other events during his stay in Reno, was great to work with, and was very complimentary of our great Orchestra. He has been keeping a blog at the Ford Made in America website. The last entry I saw was from right before the concerts, and included some pictures of RCO members taken at our rehearsals.

We also heard from several audience members who were deeply moved by the other work by Mr. Schwantner that we presented, New Morning for the World (Daybreak of Freedom). Our narrator, Andrew Green (the Finance Director for the City of Reno), was very impressive, and the combination of Martin Luther King’s words and Mr. Schwantner’s music made quite an impact. For those of you who were interested in purchasing the only currently available recording of this piece – with narrator Vernon Jordan and the National Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin – we had a number of copies of this CD at the concerts, but they sold out quickly. We have managed to obtain a few more copies of this CD, and they’re available for $20 through the RCO office at (775) 348-9413. This CD is borderline out-of-print and hard to obtain, so if you’re interested, be sure to contact us soon.

We’re just putting the finishing touches to the program for our next concerts, on November 1 and 2. Daniel Gilbert, who wowed us with his clarinet playing at last year’s Nevada Chamber Music Festival, will be returning to Reno to perform Aaron Copland’s wonderful Clarinet Concerto with Maestro Theodore Kuchar and the Orchestra. Also on the program are Haydn’s Symphony No. 96, the “Miracle,” and the Symphony No. 1 by Felix Mendelssohn. The latter is, to my mind, the finest symphony ever written by a fifteen year old (not that there’s a whole lot of competition!) The program notes for this concert should be available at our website in the next few days.

At the RCO’s YouTube page you can check out a video of clarinetist Richard Stoltzman playing the beautiful first movement of the Copland.

The Fifth's Trombones

2008-08-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

Returning to the subject of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for a moment, another of the noteworthy aspects of the piece is the fact that in the fourth movement, Beethoven adds several instruments to the orchestral mix that don’t play in the first three movements: a piccolo, a contrabassoon, and three trombones. Many reference books say that Beethoven’s Fifth was the first symphony to feature trombones. It certainly is the first symphonic work still in the standard repertoire to include trombones, and it may have been the first such work performed publicly. But there was one slightly earlier symphony with trombones that likely beat Beethoven to the punch by several months: the Symphony in E-flat major by Swedish composer Joachim Nikolas Eggert (1779-1813). Eggert’s active composing career lasted barely a decade before his death of tuberculosis at age 34. But his catalog of works – including two operas, nine string quartets, a number of ceremonial cantatas, and four completed symphonies – had a fairly significant effect on the development of Swedish music.

The third of those four symphonies, which features a trio of trombones, was completed sometime in April or May 1807, as Beethoven was hard at work on the Fifth. On May 4, 1807 Eggert presented the score of the E-flat major Symphony to the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, a token of appreciation for having elected him as a new member. Ten days after that the Swedish Royal Court Orchestra presented an all-Eggert concert, led by the composer himself – Eggert’s public debut as a conductor – at which two of his symphonies was performed. There is some debate as to which of his symphonies were heard, but chances are good that the E-flat Symphony was one of them. Therefore his work was heard by an audience fully eighteen months before Beethoven’s Fifth.

Some of the above information came from this page, which provides much more information on Eggert and the trombone question.

Why I do what I do

2008-08-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about why I do what I do with my life. Maybe it’s because I’m turning 40 in October or maybe it’s because I’m wired to analyze every choice and decision I make or maybe it’s because life is moving by at what feels like a ridiculously high speed. Whatever the reason, it’s been on my mind.

For me, this starts with the question of why do I play music. The answer ranges from: because I can, to because I don’t know what would fill my life if I didn’t, to because it’s something I do fairly well, to because it makes people’s lives better and more complete.

My wife Andrea (Andrea Lenz—RCO principal oboist) and I often hear from people that we are “so lucky to get to do what we love.” Some days I do indeed love what I do, and some days “a job is a job” and I would rather stay at home with a glass of wine and a good book than go to the 10 millionth rehearsal of my life. When I’m feeling my very best about what I do (both playing music and managing an orchestra), it is because the results cause other people to be happy.

I read today that the polar ice cap may well be gone in 5 years. Some say the economy is in such a bad state the stock market might crash by this autumn. Author Jerrod Diamond says that if we on this globe don’t change our rate of growth and consumption, first-world conditions on the planet will be gone in 30 to 50 years. This cloud of depressing possibility makes what I do all the more important. If even for only a couple of hours at a concert, music (or at least the emotional residue) is entirely good. It is a miracle that an orchestra of 40 people can play music by a person who has been dead for a century and through a blend of various sounds have a relevant and life-touching product to offer.

When Joan Tower came to Reno to conduct her piece “Made in America,” in October of 2005 one of the things she really appreciated about the RCO was that the players weren’t just phoning it in. We sat on the edges of our seats and engaged with the music and played at a respectably high level. She talked about some “big city” giggers who might play the notes perfectly, but who spend the whole rehearsal looking at their watches and not really caring about the music. This really bothered her and it is something I know I need to continually guard against. It is so easy for all of us to become jaded and lose that idealistic Pollyanna mindset that we used to have. It is a daily challenge to do the things we do for the right reasons. I know for me that when I get frustrated with others and the pettiest parts of my humanity rear their ugly heads, I am the least happy and I am also the least productive and accomplish the least. When I do the right things for the right reasons, that’s when everything clicks, and I make the most of the fleeting days.

So what’s better—a perfect performance or one that has technical flaws but touches people in a profound way? When I play for myself, the honest answer is usually the former. But the truth is that it’s the latter. That’s not a cop out or a license for people to accept out of tune, sloppy, or unprepared playing. (Goodness knows that an orchestra manager or conductor who is satisfied with a mediocre product shouldn’t be in the position) But in a world with troubles galore and disconnected people and broken relationships and litigiousness and anger and sadness and isolation and loneliness and selfish/tit-for-tat meanness, we music makers have an opportunity and an almost sacred responsibility to bring beauty and joy and happiness and thought provocation to the audience and each other, and in the live concert setting create an incubator of goodness that might transcend the concert hall and move out the doors and into a world that desperately needs it. When I fail to remember this and to be as noble as I can, it not only eats me up, but it does nothing for the world.

The premiere of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

2008-08-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve been spending much of this week working on the program for the RCO’s season-opening concerts on September 20 and 21. As usual, I wrote much too much for the program notes, and had to prune those carefully crafted thoughts, those veritable pearls of wisdom and insight (!)

By the way, we’ll be posting the program notes at the RCO website in the next week or two. Not everyone has a chance to read them at the concert, in the dark. So this way you can take a look at them at your leisure, should you desire to, and prepare yourself for what should be a fabulous concert.

A good portion of what ended up disappearing from the notes in the editing process concerned the concert at which Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was premiered. It was a remarkable event in music history. A bit of background: Beethoven wrote the Fifth Symphony over the years 1804 to 1808. This was the heart of what is generally looked on as the most productive period of his composing career. In fact, he interrupted work on the Fifth several times to write other great masterworks – the first version of the opera Fidelio, the Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6, the Violin Concerto, the Piano Concerto No. 4, the three “Razumovsky” string quartets, and the “Appassionata” Piano Sonata, among others.

But concert life was not then what it is today. There were comparatively few full-time orchestras, and even a celebrity like Beethoven couldn’t count on performances of every new work he produced. Quite often, composers had to arrange for concerts themselves, hiring the hall and orchestra, and hoping that they could make some money off the ticket sales. Mozart, for instance, famously created his great final piano concertos for subscription concerts he put on himself.

So by 1808, Beethoven had quite a backlog of new music, and he decided to put on a concert at which several of his newest large-scale works would get their premiere performances. On December 22, 1808, the Theater an der Wien in Vienna played host to a concert at which Beethoven conducted the following program:

Symphony No. 6
Concert aria "Ah! perfido"
The “Gloria” from the Mass in C Major
Piano Concerto No. 4 (with Beethoven as soloist)
Intermission
Symphony No. 5
The “Sanctus” and “Benedictus” from the Mass in C Major
A solo piano improvisation played by Beethoven
Choral Fantasy

Either half of this program would make for a decent-sized concert today. But the fact that all this music – all of it receiving world premiere performances! – was heard in one marathon concert of over four hours rather boggles the mind.

There are quite a few other little details about this performance that add to its reputation. For one, only one rehearsal preceded the concert. And Beethoven, who was to conduct the concert, wasn’t allowed into the rehearsal! It seems that a month or two before, Beethoven had been involved in some performance at a church at which he threw a little tantrum and accidentally knocked over an altar boy holding a candle. The orchestra members, outraged at his behavior, insisted that he not lead the rehearsal. So Beethoven had to sit in a separate room to listen, and the concertmaster would occasionally leave the stage and run over to this other room to get Beethoven’s comments from him.

The Theater an der Wien that was the site of the big concert had opened only seven years before, and had already been the site of other Beethoven premieres, including Fidelio and the Second and Third Symphonies. But remember that we are talking about just three days before Christmas here and it was just a little, well, freezing out. So we have a very cold audience, sitting for four and a half hours or so listening to entirely new, and rather substantial and complex, music played by a community orchestra on just one rehearsal.

Then a soprano soloist pulled out at the last minute and needed to be replaced. To top it all off, the Choral Fantasy that concluded this marathon hadn’t received any rehearsal at all, and a few minutes into their performance the musicians became confused about the repeats. Chaos ensued, and the performance ground to a halt and had to be restarted.

It is no surprise that Beethoven’s assistant Anton Schindler, who attended and left one of the few accounts of that evening that has come down to us, wrote that “the public was not endowed with the necessary degree of comprehension for such extraordinary music, and the performance left a great deal to be desired.”

I don’t think it’s too great of an exaggeration to say that the RCO’s performances of the Fifth on September 20 and 21 will be more fully prepared, and sound rather better, than the performance at that 1808 premiere.

Now Playing...

2008-08-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, just for the fun of it we’ll be letting you know what compact discs have been getting a lot of playing time with RCO staff. Here’s my recent list, in no particular order:

-- Terry Riley: The Cusp of Magic (Kronos Quartet; Wu Man, pipa) – Nonesuch
-- Bedrich Smetana: Orchestral Music (Janacek Philharmonic conducted by Theodore Kuchar) – Brilliant Classics
-- Big Blue Ball (Various artists) – Real World
-- Geirr Tveitt: Piano Concerto No. 4 “Aurora Borealis” (Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Bjarte Engeset; Havard Gimse, piano) – Naxos
-- Piotr Tchaikovsky: Symphonies (Philadelphia and Philharmonia Orchestras conducted by Riccardo Muti) – Brilliant Classics
-- The Rough Guide to Bollywood (Various artists) – World Music Network
-- Sigur Ros: Takk… (Geffen Records)
-- Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 (Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Carlos Kleiber) – Deutsche Grammophon
-- Trio Mediaeval: Folk Songs (ECM)
-- Heitor Villa-Lobos: Rudepoema and other piano works (Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano) – Hyperion

And for the sake of completeness, here are a couple of recently released music-related DVDs that have impressed me greatly:

-- “O Thou Transcendent”: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Tony Palmer Films)
-- Leos Janacek: From The House Of The Dead (Olaf Bär, John Mark Ainsley, Erik Stoklossa et al; Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez – Deutsche Grammophon)

Late July update

2008-07-31T13:15:00.000-07:00

It may seem as though July and August would be quiet times at the RCO. Not so much, I’m afraid, from the perspective of someone in the office everyday. Obviously the RCO is currently between regular seasons, and we’re months away from the Nevada Chamber Music Festival. But as many of you know, July – Artown month – has become one of the busiest months of the year, especially for musicians and other artists.

On July 13 the RCO presented the “Nevada Chamber Music Festival in July” concert, the first of what we hope will become annual summer concerts featuring our great Festival musicians. Scott Faulkner and I also presented our first two “Experience Music” talks on musical subjects. We’ve been talking about doing these talks for a long time, and now that we’ve done a couple for very receptive audiences, we hope they’ll become a regular thing. By the way, Scott and/or I are always glad to make presentations about the RCO, and music in general, at senior residences or schools or whatever. If you’re interested in having one or both of us speak, give the RCO office a call at (775) 348-9413.

My big project in the coming weeks – and it’s always a major focus for the RCO – is raising money. A number of grant applications will be sent out in the next couple of weeks. Happily, over one-third of the RCO’s 2008-9 fiscal year budget of about $600,000 has already been raised. But, if my memories of math class are accurate, that means that we still need to raise about two-thirds of the budget. So if you haven’t yet purchased your season tickets, why not take care of it right now with a phone call to (775) 348-9413.

We’re also getting geared up for our season opening concerts on September 20 and 21. In fact, a planning meeting for those very important concerts took place just yesterday, and another of my projects in the next week or two is putting together the concert program, including program notes, biographical information, advertising, and so on. The score and the individual musician parts of Joseph Schwantner’s Chasing Light… have arrived at our office, and we’re all ecstatic about this World Premiere, the second work commissioned through the nationwide Ford Made in America project. In fact, we’ve had the opportunity to hear a computer realization of the music prepared by Mr. Schwantner, and the music is very cool, believe me. You won’t want to miss this! A number of special events, dinners, lectures, master classes, and so on are in the works, about which you’ll be able to read soon.

We also are working on making our website more informative and organized, with the opportunity to purchase tickets online as part of the mix. These changes should be making their appearance in August. If you have suggestions as to what you’d like to see at our website, please feel free to email me at info@renochamberorchestra.org and we’ll see what we can do.

Gosh, there’s a lot to get done. I better get back to work…

Three points…

2008-01-30T11:47:00.000-08:00

(1) On Thursday, January 31 at 9:06 a.m., KUNR will be broadcasting the recording of this past Saturday’s RCO concert, featuring guest conductor Carl Topilow, violinist James Reinarz (the winner of our annual College Concerto Competition), the Orchestra, and music by Arensky, Bruch, Danzi, and Tchaikovsky. It was a wonderful concert, so don’t miss it!

(2) Below you’ll find a selection of photos by our friend, and official RCO photographer, Stuart Murtland, from our November 2007 concerts featuring pianist Meng-Chieh Liu, and from the 2007 Nevada Chamber Music Festival.

(3) Following up on a post from a couple of months ago, we’re soon going to be spending some time on this blog examining the question – one which we, unsurprisingly, talk about often at the RCO office – of why we enjoy music. Why, and how, does it engage us the way that it does? Many of the discussion points will be taken from Oliver Sacks’ recent book Musicophilia, which I’ve just finished and which is predictably wonderful and thought provoking. I doubt if we’ll come up with any new or unusual answers, but the discussion should be interesting.

Nevada Chamber Music Festival photos

2008-01-30T11:33:00.001-08:00

More photos by Stuart Murtland, this time from the Nevada Chamber Music Festival.

Rehearsing at First United Methodist Church.

Ellen dePasquale and Ruth Lenz.

Stephanie Sant'Ambrogio, Petronel Malan, and Carol Ou performing Beethoven's Trio, Op. 1/1 at the Church.

The members of the Nightingale String Quartet were among the performers at the Festival's special Children's Concert. From left to right: Vanessa Porter, Tianna Heppner-Harjo, Scott Faulkner, Rose Sciaroni, Johnny Lenz, and Stephanie Sant'Ambrogio.

James Buswell, James Winn and Carol Ou performing Turina's Trio No. 2.

Rehearsing Dohnanyi's Septet at the University of Nevada, Reno: Martin Chalifour, Theodore Kuchar, Petronel Malan, Ronald Leonard, John Lenz, and Daniel Gilbert.

Performing the Brahms Clarinet Quintet at Nightingale Concert Hall: Ellen dePasquale, Stephanie Sant'Ambrogio, Daniel Gilbert, Richard Weiss, and Robert Vernon.

Ronald Leonard and Derek Han performing Tortelier's Sonata Breve.

The 2007 Nevada Chamber Music Festival musicians.

November concert photos

2008-01-30T11:17:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos by RCO photographer Stuart Murtland from our November concerts.

Theodore Kuchar and the Orchestra rehearsing at Nightingale Concert Hall

Theodore Kuchar and guest pianist Meng-Chieh Liu in discussion.

Liu, Kuchar and the RCO performing Gabriel Faure's Ballade.

Liu and trumpeter Paul Lenz acknowledging the audiences' applause after the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1.

The RCO Experience

2007-10-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

I’d considered starting this entry with a sentence that might well open any entry on this blog: “There’s a lot happening at the Reno Chamber Orchestra these days.” Planning is well underway for our upcoming concerts on November 10 and 11 featuring pianist Meng-Chieh Liu. Also, the schedule is about 98% complete for the Nevada Chamber Music Festival – we’ll be releasing all the details on performers and repertoire soon, so keep an eye on this blog and our website. Design of the Festival brochure has also begun, and that will be hitting the mail in just a few weeks.

Some of you may be familiar with the name Henry Fogel. For the last four years he has been President of the American Symphony Orchestra League – he recently retired from the position, but will be continuing to provide valuable services to the League – after serving on its Board of Trustees for over a decade. He has also been the very successful Director of the Chicago Symphony, the National Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic. His resume goes well beyond that, and you can read more here. I got to know of him not through any of these activities, but through his writing about music and recordings for Fanfare Magazine, one of my most trusted music information sources for the last twenty-plus years. Fogel’s own record collection is voluminous, and his writings on music always insightful.

In the most recent entry in his blog, Mr. Fogel takes on a subject that is near to our hearts here in the RCO office, the impact, the relevance – the “meaning,” if you prefer to use that term – of great music. Here’s a link to this provocative blog entry, at the end of which he provides some suggestions for further reading. I’m going to be checking these books out myself – along with the most recent effort by that most wonderful author/neurologist, Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain – and perhaps will have further to report in the future.

We at the RCO consider issues like these every day. We know that, as a chamber orchestra, we are not going to be playing a lot of the big, exciting repertoire that’s out there for the large symphony orchestra. Nor are we going to be presenting a lot of “pops” concerts and music, although we will dabble on occasion. This isn’t meant as any sort of a criticism or judgment of one kind of music versus another. The RCO simply offers a particular sort of experience – an “intimate” one, involving a smaller orchestra and the repertoire appropriate to it, a relatively small venue, and a closeness between the audience and the musicians. But it’s an experience that we well know from the testimonials of RCO concertgoers is engaging, moving, and exhilarating. The remarkable talents of Maestro Kuchar and our incredible musicians have created musical experiences that RCO fans have no qualms about comparing to ones they’ve had in major musical centers like New York and London.

This is why we talk so much about the “RCO Experience” – it’s exactly the kind of experience described above that we want more and more people to have for themselves. The “RCO Experience,” too, can extend well beyond the music itself: to our special events, our website, our personal and written communications with our patrons, and so on. We’re always looking for ways to enhance this experience, and are always glad to hear from you with constructive suggestions as to how we can do what we do better.

Some Concert Photos

2007-09-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from the opening concert of the Chamber Orchestra's 2007-2008 season on Saturday, September 8. They were taken, as always, by the RCO's official photographer, Stuart Murtland. You can see more of Stuart's work at his website. The concerts featured guest violinist Martin Chalifour, Maestro Theodore Kuchar, and the RCO in music by Rautavaara, Vivaldi, Sarasate, and Beethoven.

A couple of shots from Saturday morning's rehearsal are followed by photos taken at the concert.

Program Notes for September concerts

2007-09-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid that we at the RCO have fallen prey to the most common problem with blogs -- keeping them active and up-to-date! It's been an active last few months at the RCO as we have been preparing for the 2007-2008 season, which gets started this coming weekend with concerts Saturday night at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. at Nightingale Concert Hall. Tickets are still available for these performances, which will feature Theodore Kuchar, the RCO, and guest violinist Martin Chalifour, already a great local favorite through his appearances at the Nevada Chamber Music Festival. Call (775) 348-9413 if you need tickets or more information.

We'd be remiss if we didn't mention our special pricing programs. Like last year, brand new RCO subscribers can receive 50% off the regular price of their season tickets. And, in a new initiative, we are offering free tickets to our concerts for anyone 18 years old or younger! We're serious about doing what we can to instill a love for classical music in our young people, and we're very much hoping to see more youth at our concerts.

Since it has been a while since our last posting here, we thought it might be worthwhile to give you plenty to read! We've received several requests to make our program notes available prior to the performances (for a variety of reasons they can be difficult to read at the concerts themselves). So here they are! I hope they'll enhance your experience at the concerts, and get you even more excited about hearing this great music.

Einojuhani Rautavaara (photo by Maarit Kytöharju/Fimic)

b. October 9, 1928, Helsinki, Finland

While younger Finnish composers like Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho have achieved international fame in recent years, the nearly eighty-year-old Einojuhani Rautavaara remains the most significant Finnish composer since Sibelius. After beginning his studies in Helsinki, Rautavaara traveled to the United States to work with Aaron Copland, Vincent Persichetti and Roger Sessions. He later served as composition professor at the Sibelius Academy for fifteen years before dedicating himself entirely to composing. Some of Rautavaara’s early works employed modernist techniques, such as the twelve-tone elements of his Third and Fourth Symphonies. But he became famous with more Romantic-sounding, accessible works – which he characterized as “a new homage to beauty” – like his international breakthrough, the Symphony No. 7, “Angel of Light” (1994). Rautavaara has written in all the major genres, including a series of operas based on historical themes, such as Vincent (1987, inspired by the life of van Gogh) and Rasputin (2003).

Cantus Arcticus, Op. 61

Composed: 1972
Duration: 18 minutes

In 1972, Rautavaara was commissioned by Finland’s University of Oulu to write a piece for its first doctoral degree ceremony. Tradition would have him create a ceremonial festive cantata, but Rautavaara responded instead with the Cantus Arcticus, often referred to as a Concerto for Birds and Orchestra, in which taped bird songs interact with the orchestra. Some of the bird songs were recorded in the vicinity of Oulu, which is nearly 400 miles north of Helsinki on the eastern edge of the Gulf of Bothnia, while others originated around the Arctic Circle and the marshlands of Liminka.

The first movement, "Suo" ("The Marsh" or “The Bog”), opens with an impressionistic swirl of a melody for two solo flutes, later joined by other woodwinds and a recording of bog birds. “Think of autumn and Tchaikovsky,” Rautavaara wrote of this passage. A slow, rich melody in the strings is superimposed over the winds and bird songs as the mood mellows, and the movement dies out with a reminiscence of the opening flute melody. The shore lark’s song, lowered by two octaves to turn it into what Rautavaara called a "ghost bird," opens the second movement, "Melankolia" ("Melancholy"). A quiet and haunting melody in the strings enters tentatively, gaining in intensity as it evolves. The movement ends as it began, with the shore lark. The final movement, "Joutsenet muuttavat" ("Swans Migrating"), opens with the chaotic sound of a large group of swans, combined with string tremolos and bird imitations in the woodwinds. Rautavaara described this complex texture: "I imagined they [the swans] fly straight to the burning sun." As in the first movement, a slow, chorale-like melody in the strings emerges. The swan sounds increase in volume, and after a climactic cymbal crash and brass calls, the music and the swans' songs fade into the distance amid the gentle sounds of harp and percussion.

Antonio Vivaldi

b. March 4, 1678, Venice, Italy
d. July 28, 1741, Vienna, Austria

Antonio Vivaldi is remembered as one of the fathers of instrumental music and the master of the concerto for soloist(s) and orchestra – of which he wrote over 550, including some 240 for the violin. Colorful and tuneful works like “The Four Seasons” are among the most popular in all of classical music. His operas and religious works also brought him fame during his lifetime. Ordained as a priest in 1703, the redheaded Vivaldi came to be known as “il prete rosso” (“the red priest”). He decided to pursue musical rather than ecclesiastical duties, and became a teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage and school for girls famous for its excellent choir and orchestra, where he worked in several capacities over the ensuing three-plus decades. Meanwhile his concertos and other instrumental works were being published to great acclaim, attracting the admiring attention of famous musicians such as Johann Sebastian Bach. In his later years Vivaldi fell on hard times, and on his death he was buried (as was Mozart five decades later) in a pauper’s grave in Vienna.

Violin Concerto in C major, RV 190

Composed: circa 1735
Duration: 12 minutes

Violin Concerto in D major, RV 222

Composed: circa 1737
Duration: 11 minutes

Vivaldi, a great musician and a canny businessman, attained his fame and fortune to a large extent through the publications of his concertos, trio sonatas, and other works. These printings, often with fanciful titles like “Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (“The contest between harmony and invention,” 1725), were bestsellers all over Europe. Later in his life, though, Vivaldi turned away from such large-scale publications, preferring to offer his manuscripts to individual patrons. Because these works of the 1730s didn’t receive the wide distribution his earlier compositions did, they remain relatively unknown to the music-loving public.

Such is the case with the two concertos featured in this concert, which will seem both familiar and surprising to those who have heard “The Four Seasons” and other Vivaldi works. Many of the qualities of Vivaldi’s better-known compositions are still in evidence: memorable tunes, lively dance rhythms, colorful textures, virtuoso display from the soloist, warm and heartfelt slow movements. But there is a newfound complexity and introversion in these later concertos. Transitions are abrupt, harmonies are more wide-ranging, and the moods more mercurial and harder to characterize.

The C major Concerto, RV 190, seems to be related to the opera Griselda, and is therefore tentatively dated to the year that opera was first produced, 1735. The diversity of Vivaldi’s late style can be heard in the first movement: opening with the pomp and dotted rhythms of the French overture, the music quickly moves to a hint of sentiment before the fiery entrance of the violin soloist. In the second movement, the orchestra and continuo outline the basic harmonies before the soloist enters with its lovely song. Once again the soloist is at the forefront in the restless, impulsive third movement. The D major Concerto, RV 222, is dated to around 1737. A playful first movement, with some surprising detours into the minor mode, is followed by a flowing, melancholy slow movement with lovely decorative lines from the violin soloist. The final movement contrasts a sprightly opening idea with a more laid-back second theme.

Pablo de Sarasate

b. March 10, 1844, Pamplona, Spain
d. September 20, 1908, Biarritz, France

Pablo Martín Melitón Sarasate y Navascuez, or Pablo de Sarasate, was one of the greatest violinists of the second half of the nineteenth century. His three decades of concertizing brought him acclaim from Europe to North and South America, and his virtuosity inspired compositions written for him by the likes of Max Bruch, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Eduoard Lalo. Beginning his violin studies at age five, Sarasate made his debut at eight and created a sensation at the court of Queen Isabella II (who gave Sarasate the Stradivarius he played throughout his career). He subsequently attended the Paris Conservatoire, winning its annual first prize, and soon thereafter began his concert career. Praised by George Bernard Shaw as having “left criticism gasping miles behind him,” Sarasate was known as much for his own compositions as for his mastery of the standard repertoire. Though he had largely retired from performing by 1890, he made a handful of recordings in 1904 that attest to his still-formidable technique.

Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20

Composed: 1878
Duration: 9 minutes

The legendary violinist and teacher Leopold Auer wrote of Sarasate’s “ease and tonal charm which were peculiar to him, standing like a marble statue, his entire vitality seemingly concentrated in his eyes, often lowered to his fingers, which moved with astonishing dexterity.” While he was known for his brilliant technique and sensuous tone, Sarasate had relatively small hands that made long stretches difficult for him and limited his repertoire (he never played the Brahms Concerto or anything by Paganini, for instance). The many works he wrote for himself, however, took advantage of his particular talents.

Perhaps the best known of Sarasate’s sixty or so compositions is Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs), a short fantasy based on gypsy melodies. The opening slow music, which comprises more than two-thirds of the length of the composition, would have been a perfect vehicle for Sarasate’s renowned silvery tone. Beginning with a grand gesture, this music blends sentiment and passion, with a decorative, almost improvisational line from the soloist employing double stops, fast scales, and other virtuoso techniques. The soloist really takes flight, however – with further double stops, harmonics, left hand pizzicati, and more – in the flashy Allegro molto vivace that closes the work.

Ludwig van Beethoven

b. December 16, 1770, Bonn
d. March 26, 1827, Vienna

One short biographical sketch on Beethoven begins “The events of Beethoven’s life are the stuff of Romantic legend, evoking images of the solitary creator shaking his fist at Fate and finally overcoming it through a supreme effort of creative will.” Those biographical details, however, such as the deafness that plagued his last three decades of life, his stormy love affairs and his famous ill temper, are dwarfed by his artistic output, which is one of the monuments of music history. He literally mastered and transformed all the musical forms of his day, and extended the range and depth of expression available to composers. Beethoven was no Mozart-like prodigy, although even in his teens he was composing and playing in orchestras. But by his twenties – after studies with the likes of Franz Josef Haydn and Mozart’s legendary nemesis Antonio Salieri – both his compositions and piano playing had garnered considerable attention. It was around the age of 30 that Beethoven first noticed his encroaching deafness, but soon thereafter began the second, or “middle,” of his creative periods, which included groundbreaking works like the “Eroica” Symphony, the “Appassionata” and “Waldstein” piano sonatas, and the opera “Fidelio.” After a period of relative musical inactivity in the late 1810s, he entered his so-called “late” period, highlighted by the Ninth Symphony and the late string quartets and piano sonatas, in which his music gained a new, very personal depth and freedom.

Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92
Composed: 1812
Duration: 40 minutes

The concert at which Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was first heard, on December 8, 1813 at the auditorium of the University of Vienna, was perhaps the composer’s greatest public success – but not because of the symphony. That concert, a benefit for wounded Austrian and Bavarian soldiers conducted by Beethoven himself, also featured the premiere of his “Wellington’s Victory,” or “Battle Symphony.” Originally written for a mechanical instrument called the panharmonicon (invented by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, later the inventor of the metronome, the panharmonicon used a complex series of bellows and cylinders to imitate the sound of a brass band), Beethoven’s musico-patriotic spectacle – with its fanfares and battle music – depicted the triumph of Wellington’s troops over the French in the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. As performed by an ensemble featuring some of the most renowned musicians in Vienna – including Antonio Salieri, Louis Spohr, Mauro Giuliani, Giacomo Meyerbeer, and Johann Nepomuk Hummel – “Wellington’s Victory” was a rousing success, and by popular demand that concert was repeated three times in the next two months.

“Wellington’s Victory” is held in little esteem nowadays, but the Symphony No. 7 is one of Beethoven’s best-loved works. It too was very well received back in those 1813-14 performances; in fact, according to Spohr, the famous second movement had to be repeated every time. In the nearly two centuries since then, it is remarkable to note how often commentators on the Symphony No. 7 have found some sort of extra-musical meaning in it. Writers have claimed to recognize political revolutions, knights and warriors, drunks and libertines, peasants, weddings, reverent processions, forests, orgies, churches, and so on. A fairly consistent underlying theme is the notion of a festival or carnival – one thinks of Richard Wagner’s famous summation of this symphony as “the apotheosis of the dance.”

Beethoven starts the first movement with the longest slow introduction yet heard in a symphony. Through its flute and oboe solos and seeming meandering, one senses that momentum and tension are building. When the fast Vivace music finally emerges from a series of repeated notes, the subtlety of the transition almost surprises the listener. But the exuberant dance rhythms are already there, and the main theme of the movement quickly bursts forth in all its glory. The energy seldom flags as the movement works its way to a lengthy coda and concluding crescendo.

Beethoven had toyed with the idea of using the tempo designation Andante for the second movement, but ultimately opted for the faster Allegretto; in fact, neither his Seventh nor Eighth Symphonies has a proper slow movement. Opening with an off-kilter A minor chord with an E in the bass, the lower strings introduce a bare-bones version of what becomes the main theme. In a set of variations, this memorable theme becomes more elaborate and builds in strength. A new idea in the major is introduced, followed by a contrapuntal version of the opening idea. The major mode theme returns, followed by a last variation on the main theme. This movement was such a sensation in its early performances that numerous arrangements of it quickly appeared, scored for everything from solo piano to string quintet to wind band.

The third movement is a lively and witty Scherzo, full of life and rhythm and abrupt contrasts. The movement’s two slower contrasting interludes are colorfully scored, with winds predominating. As energetic as this music is, Beethoven does it one better with the whirlwind that is the Finale, one of his most exciting creations. Its “wild and swirling motion,” as one commentator described it, seldom flags and brings the symphony to a celebratory conclusion.

Notes by Chris Morrison

2007-05-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks go out to all of you who made the RCO’s 2006-2007 season such a success. We had a record number of people attend our concerts this season, and the responses we’ve been getting from everyone have truly been gratifying. If you haven’t yet purchased your tickets for the 2007-2008 season, give us a call at (775) 348-9413 and we’ll set you up. For more information on the season, you can visit our website.

Over the last several weeks we have received many requests for information on recordings by William Barton, the wonderful didgeridoo soloist in our March concerts. The most readily available recording is on the Naxos label; we had a few copies on sale at the concerts, but they sold out very quickly. Here is a link to the ArkivMusic site where you can purchase this disc, which is devoted entirely to music by Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe. Mr. Barton there performs Sculthorpe’s “Earth Cry,” a somewhat rewritten version for full orchestral accompaniment of “From Ubirr,” the piece he played with the RCO. Although I haven’t heard it, there is also a new recording of Sculthorpe’s very highly regarded Requiem on which Mr. Barton plays. It is available from ArkivMusic as well.

Don’t forget that if you use any of the ArkivMusic links on this page to make a purchase, the RCO receives a percentage of the total sale.

Tribute to Phillip Ruder

2007-05-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

We’ve received several requests from RCO patrons to reprint the tributes to Phillip Ruder that appeared in our April concert program. We’re proud to do that, while at the same time sharing with you some of the photographs that our photographer Stuart Murtland took at the performances and at the post-Sunday concert reception.

Thank you, Phillip

I think the thing I like best about Phillip, and will miss most on his retirement, is his easy-going temperament. As a man of enormous talents and reputation, he would have been entitled to a primadonna ego of gargantuan proportions. Instead, he's always been the most generous of colleagues, patient, slow to take offense, and rapier quick with a good-humored joke to defuse even the tensest situation.
-- James Winn (RCO member; Professor, University of Nevada, Reno)

Phillip Ruder is not only an exceptionally talented musician, he is also one of the wisest people I know. His contribution to discussions is always thoughtful and his participation as a member of the Reno Chamber Orchestra Board of Directors brings an important perspective to our proceedings. He can be counted on to comment quietly and to the point, clarifying the conversation and simplifying decisions. This organization is far better because of his contributions to it.
-- Jill Winter (President, RCO Board of Directors)

Phillip Ruder is an enormous asset to our community. His influence has brought about a tremendous increase in the quality of musical performance here. He has been a valuable teacher to hundreds of students, and is a valued friend to all of us who have come to know him.
-- Vahe Khochayan (RCO Conductor Emeritus)

Phillip Ruder’s contributions to the Northern Nevada arts community and to the Department of Music and Dance at the University of Nevada cannot be overstated. In my opinion, he is largely responsible for the dramatic upturn in quality we’ve seen over the past decade or so in regard to our area’s classical music scene. On campus, Phillip has been just as powerful an influence. His students unanimously revere him as the ultimate mentor: caring, insightful, and extremely knowledgeable. He has also been the best colleague one could hope for: considerate, helpful, and so often a voice of reason amidst the fray. I know I speak for the entire music faculty when I say that we will certainly miss his unfailingly pleasant demeanor and his great sense of humor.
-- Larry Engstrom (Director, School of the Arts, University of Nevada, Reno)

It would not be an overstatement to say that Phillip Ruder is one of the most important American violinists of the last 40 years. As a musician he has very few peers, but as a person he has even fewer. He and I both moved to Reno in 1994, and since then he has become a friend, mentor, colleague, and role model. Phillip Ruder is one of the most important people in my life.
-- Scott Faulkner (RCO Executive Director and musician)

The most precious gift one can share with another is the very best of themselves. Thank you Phillip for all you've given to me and all of us. You have helped me become a better human being, musician, and violinist. With much love and gratitude,
-- Carol Laube (RCO Librarian and musician)

I owe my musical existence to Phillip Ruder. My career would be nothing without him.
-- Bruno Cavellino (concert violinist)

Since Phillip Ruder arrived in Reno, I have been lucky enough to know him in many different capacities. As an accompanist, I worked with both him and his students many times, and he was always gracious, inspirational, and supportive. As principal oboist of the RCO, I greatly appreciated his musical suggestions – even the time he took me aside to tell me that my tuning note was a bit flat (it was – but never again!) As department chair, I have relied on Phillip’s wisdom and compassion many, many times. He is always willing to help in any situation, and that has been invaluable to me. As a friend, I love Phillip’s sense of humor and the wicked little gleam in his eye, when he’s about to play a trick on someone. I will miss him immensely in the orchestras and the university, and can only take comfort that he will always be my friend.
-- Andrea Lenz (Chair, Dept. of Music and Dance, University of Nevada, Reno; RCO musician)

April update

2007-04-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

We’re just days away from the final concerts of our 2006-2007 season, which will also be the last solo performances in Reno by our beloved concertmaster Phillip Ruder. They’re this Saturday, April 14 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 15 at 2:00 p.m. at Nightingale Concert Hall. If you don’t yet have your tickets, you should get them soon as they’re selling quickly (particularly Saturday night). Call the RCO office at (775) 348-9413.

While we’re still focused on the current season, we’re also pleased to be able to announce the RCO’s 2007-2008 season. If you’re an RCO season ticket holder, you’ve already received renewal information in the mail. If you’re not a subscriber but have an interest in becoming one, give us a call and we’ll send you more details. Our webmaster, Christina Nellemann of Feline Design, has been hard at work getting this information up on our site. While there are still some details to add, most of the season’s information is there now, so take a look.

We’re again offering brand new season subscribers 50% off the normal general admission price. – that’s $100 for five concerts! Also, in an effort to bring more young people to RCO concerts, we’ve decided to admit everyone 18 years of age and younger free of charge.

After the April concerts, we’ll be back to make some compact disc recommendations on works the RCO has performed or will soon be performing – so hang onto that IRS refund check! For now, though, we’ll close with some great photographs by RCO photographer Stuart Murtland from our March concerts.

Didgeridoo soloist William Barton in rehearsal

Detail of one of Mr. Barton's instruments

Composer George Warren and Maestro Theodore Kuchar

Mr. Barton, Maestro Kuchar and the RCO perform the World Premiere of Mr. Warren's Didgeridoo Concerto

Jiyang Chen, the winner of the 2007 College Concerto Competition, performs the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Brahms

Jiyang Chen, Theodore Kuchar, and Principal Cellist Peter Lenz take their bows after the Brahms

William Barton performs an encore