Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season March-April 2016 | Page 20

{ program notes The Requiem’s peaceful, lyrical oasis, the fourth movement, “How lovely are Thy dwelling places,” is a vision of untroubled faith. The key is a warm E-flat Major, the meter a gently swaying 3/4, and the orchestra a chamber ensemble of great beauty and delicacy. Movement five, “You now have sorrow,” is a radiant expression of mother love enduring beyond the grave. It was the last movement Brahms composed, added only in 1868 at the suggestion of the composer’s old teacher Eduard Marxsen. But perhaps this was the soonest after his mother’s death he could bear to write music expressing his own loss so openly. Muted strings and woodwinds, with occasional soft interjections from the chorus, accompany the soprano soloist’s beautiful, arching lines, an idealized representation of the voice of Christiane Brahms. In the sixth movement, “For we have here no continuing city,” the chorus wanders like homeless refugees through a forest of harmonically unstable lines; this bewildered search is intensified by the entrance of the baritone soloist intoning the famous words from First Corinthians. Here we have the Requiem’s only reference to the Day of Judgment, but the chorus and orchestra greet this prospect with confidence and jubilation: “Death is swallowed up in victory!” Movement seven, “Blessed are the Dead”: Having found hope for the living, the Requiem now turns its attention for the first time to the dead. This music — which begins with the sopranos singing a reversal of the Bach chorale tune — relates back to movement one, but is now bigger and more confident. And the dramatic change of mood is brought home clearly when the altos lead a reprise of the Requiem’s opening music. At the work’s end, a harp — an instrument Brahms rarely used — wafts sweetly upward. Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, two harps, organ, and strings. Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2016 18 O v ertur e | www. bsomusic .org All-Beethoven Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Friday, March 11, 2016 — 8 p.m. Sunday, March 13, 2016 — 3 p.m. Music Center At Strathmore Saturday, March 12, 2016 — 8 p.m. Markus Stenz, Conductor Lars Vogt, Piano Kwame Kwei-Armah, Narrator Lauren Snouffer, Soprano Ludwig van Beethoven Leonore Overture No.2, opus 72a Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, opus 15 Allegro con brio Largo Rondo: Allegro LARS VOGT INTERMISSION Ludwig van Beethoven Overture and Incidental Music to Egmont, opus 84 Overture Lied: Vivace Entr’acte I: Andante – Allegro con brio Entr’acte II: Larghetto Lied: Andante con moto – Allegro assai vivace Entr’acte III: Allegro – Allegretto – Marcia vivace Entr’acte IV: Poco sostenuto e risoluto – Larghetto – Andante Larghetto Melodrama: Poco sostenuto Siegessymphonie: Allegro con brio KWAME KWEI-ARMAH LAUREN SNOUFFER Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall The concert will end at approximately 9:55 p.m. on Friday, and 4:55 p.m. on Sunday. Music Center At Strathmore The concert will end at approximately 10 p.m.