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
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