BEETHOVEN EROICA SYMPHONY
orchestra makes its own powerful commentary about the meaning of King’ s words and life. Schwantner is a brilliant orchestrator with a special love for percussion instruments; he has also written a superb and often performed Percussion Concerto. In this score, he creates wonderful, glistening mixtures of bell-like percussion— such as the celesta, glockenspiel, vibraphone and harp— with woodwinds.
The first section of New Morning is built from an upward-rocketing fanfare motive, which refracts the colorful prisms of different instrumental combinations and can be both viscerally dramatic and delicately ethereal. The central section, surrounding the words“ Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,” features beautiful, elegiac music for the strings alone, singing a vision of“ the sunlit path of racial justice.”
This is succeeded by King’ s famous“ How long, not long” sequence and an exhilarating struggle powered by
drums and the brass section. The music then becomes calm and quiet for the words from King’ s great“ I Have a Dream” speech, and the visionary hope of these words is echoed in the radiant closing music, with its shimmering percussion bells and wordless humming by the musicians.
Instrumentation: Four flutes including two piccolos, two oboes, three clarinets including bass clarinet, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, four trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, celesta and strings.
RHAPSODY ON A THEME OF PAGANINI
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Born in Oneg, Novgorod, Russia, April 1, 1873; died in Beverly Hills, CA, March 28, 1943
One of the proudest moments in Baltimore’ s musical history came on November 7, 1934 when Sergei Rachmaninoff played the world premiere of his newly composed Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Lyric Opera House. Rachmaninoff was in America because the Russian Revolution had forced him to flee his native land at age 44 and begin his career again in the West. Once primarily a composer and conductor, he now became a touring piano virtuoso— one of the 20 th century’ s greatest— in order to support his family. America, with its insatiable demand for his concert appearances, made him richer than he’ d ever been in Russia. But he never got over his homesickness.
His music, too, remained rooted in Russia. And while audiences loved his lushly Romantic melodies, many critics scorned him as out of date. Ruefully, he wrote:“ Perhaps I feel that the kind of music I care to write is not acceptable today. … For when I left Russia, I left behind me the desire to compose: losing my country I lost myself also. To the exile whose musical roots, traditions, and
Join Us!
Keswick’ s Wise & Well Center for Healthy Living is NOW OPEN!
Membership Features and Benefits
Members-only access to 14,000 square feet of spaces nurturing growth and infinite potential with a mile marker check to ensure you’ re on course:
• Active / fitness
• Classroom and group learning
• Visual arts
• Culinary arts
• Gardening
Interested? Contact us at: CommunityHealth @ ChooseKeswick. org or call us at 410.662.4363
Located across from the Rotunda on the Keswick Campus 700 W 40th St. Baltimore, MD 21211
SEP – OCT 2018 / OVERTURE 13