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| Berlin Phil at Carnegie Hall |
As I wrote last summer:
The "Hughes awards" are totally arbitrary, based upon my own criteria which include possible thematic content, inclusion of both contemporary and American composers and overall creativity and originality. The latter would imply programs that step out of the Overture - Concerto - Symphony box. Also of important note is the presentation of works outside the standard repertory; i.e. why offer yet another performance of Dvorak 7 (or 8 or 9) or Shostakovich 5--regardless of my own love for those works--when there are hundreds of neglected works that may be favored by audiences (and surely the players). Do we need yet another performance of Beethoven 5 instead of say, the Bizet Symphonie? Or what about the Franck--long a staple of the repertoire that now seems to be rarely played? I could make a long list of neglected works and that's just the works of the "masters."
It is incumbent upon the modern day symphony to be a proponent of the music of our time BECAUSE that is the heritage of the medium. It was not until the mid to late nineteenth century that works of the past started to form any kind of "repertory." In the time of Mozart and Haydn, people were "discovering" the works of Bach and Handel as if they'd been composed in another millennium, rather than some one hundred years previous. In Mozart's time (and Beethoven's and many other's) the music presented on a concert program had to be new. There were no "interpreters" of the music of the past; most performers were led by the composers themselves. But, somewhere along the way (the early twentieth century and the rise of serialism?) the audience became disconnected from the music of its time. If we are to remain viable, we must espouse the changing milieu in which we live.
I was attempting to make this case with my daughter just yesterday, telling her that there was a time when all that a concert-going public would hear was "new" music (and using my own descriptions above). I had to convince her (try reasoning with an eleven-year-old!) that there is, in fact, new music being written for the same kinds of concerts as those from hundreds of years ago. The fact that I have personally conducted 15 premieres during the past 14 years is evidence of this. But there are certainly many other conductors championing the music of our time.
Two of our regional orchestras stand out for not offering particularly creative or progressive programing:
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| Really? |
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| The culture of times past... |
October
Wagner: Rienzi Overture
Violin concerto featuring new concertmaster (tba)
Dvorak: Symphony No. 8
November 3 & 4: Beethoven's Sixth Symphony & Mozart's
Clarinet Concerto
December 1 & 2: Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet & Verdi's
Falstaff
February 9 & 10: Valentine’s Day with Five by Design
March 9 & 10: Pictures at an Exhibition & Rite of
Spring
April 13 & 14: Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony & Beethoven's
"Emperor" Concerto
As I said, where are the living composers? Where are the Americans? The once progressive QC orchestra seems to be only concerned at putting bodies in the seats. Unfortunately, within the next ten to fifteen years, those bodies will be dead.
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| Coming home...making strides... |
Orchestra Iowa (I still have trouble not calling it the Cedar Rapids Symphony) returns to its "home court" of the Paramount Theater, four years after the catastrophic floods of 2008. The "homecoming" concert includes
music by a local composer, Jerry Owen's Glee, Gunther Schuller's Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee, Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier Suite and the ubiquitous Pictures at an Exhibition.
Other interesting items of note (pun intended) a "Star-Crossed Lover's" program that offers a beat poem by Frank Oden, Grinnell College composer Eric McIntyre's Drive By, as well as the "usual suspects" by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Bernstein. The orchestra has also teamed with Ballet Quad Cities (have to wonder how that is playing out in Davenport) to offer The Nutcracker and Prokofiev's Cinderella in venues in Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities. The orchestra is also offering a premiere, Michael Daugherty's American Gothic, on its season-closing concert.
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| Clearly the winner... |
So while Orchestra Iowa must be congratulated for expanding its repertoire, the true winner of the 2012-13 "Huey" Award for creative orchestral program (again remember it's the sum total) must be the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony. The orchestra established a new business model this spring, naming Music Director Jason Weinberger to a position as CEO. While this may seem a daring move (and a daunting one for the Music Director), Weinberger has already proven that he has the chops to take the reins of an orchestra that had experienced at least ten years of conducting crises and turn it into a fine instrument, performing in the finest concert hall in the state.
Starting with an all-Bach program in April, the WCFSO includes new or little-known works on nearly every program, including:
- September: Gabriel Kahane: Crane Palimpsest (2012) with Gabriel Kahane, vocalist along with selections from Purcell's Fairy Queen.
- October: works by Ingolf Dahl: Quodlibet on American Folk Tunes and Folk Dances and Zoltán Kodály: Variations on a Hungarian Folksong, ‘The Peacock’.
- November, in collaboration with the Cedar Valley Chamber Music Festival: works by Walter Piston, John Harbison, Morton Gould, Peter Schickele (not in his nom de plume PDQ Bach), and Samuel Barber.
- February: more works by Barber and Harbison, including the latter's 2006 Concerto for Bass Viol.
- March, along with the Northern Iowa Youth Orchestra, Iowa composer Jonathan Chenette's Rural Symphony (2000).
The musical choices have changed a great deal during the past year, at least within two of our area communities. But, to hear the gamut of the repertoire--from Bach (and before) to the present time--the place to be is the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center in Cedar Falls.
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