WHERE: Dayton Art Institute Renaissance Auditorium.
WHEN: Thursday, January 16, 2014 at 6:30 pm.
ABOUT: The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra DPO Concertmaster Jessica Hung has personally selected the pieces for this Concertmaster’s Choice performance. They are: Antonin Dvořák’s Romantic Pieces started life as his trio (two violins and viola) “Miniatures.” A violist himself, Dvořák composed “Miniatures” for two violinists, and one an amateur because he wanted to play music with them, but they weren’t of sufficient ability to handle anything too terribly complex. Not satisfied, Dvořák rearranged the trio for violin, viola and the piano. Of writing this arrangement, Dvořák wrote to his publisher, “I enjoy the work as much as if I was writing a large symphony—what do you say to that?”
Much of the compositional output in the last year of Franz Schubert’s short life was pervaded by hopelessness and denunciation. But he cast his Fantasy in C major against type; it is relaxed, rather casual and cheerfully optimistic. If you listen carefully you will hear the piano drop hints of Hungarian musical origins, while the violin dives and twirls like a gypsy in the midst of a frenetic dance with a freedom and ease that disguises what is, which in reality: a complex, brilliant piece of composition.
If you follow American cinema, you are familiar with the work of film composers such as Max Steiner, Alfred Newman, and Franz Waxman, all of whom took their cue from Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who in a sense founded the genre. Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing Suite bears the same compositional pedigree as his 1930s Oscar-winning scores for The Adventures of Robin Hood and Anthony Adverse.
Norwegian Edvard Grieg wrote three violin sonatas, all of the works of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius boast an inherent sense of nationalism. As with his first two, Grieg’s Sonata No. 3 contained the feeling of a Norwegian folk song. Audacious, epic, romantic, peaceful and spirited are just a few of the adjectives you might use to describe this work, which Grieg considered to be of a “broader horizon” than the others.
Hung will be joined by pianist Zsolt Bognár (www.zsolt-bognar.com) for this concert. This is the DPO’s third and final Special Events in the 2013-2014 Signature Season.
MORE DETAILS: Call 937.228.3630 or at www.daytonperformingarts.org.