Holiday Pops: Fun and Games is our festive three-concert tour to Barre, Burlington, and Rutland, December 9-11. The program -- in addition to pieces showcasing the youthful side of the season -- features a composition by a Vermont student. Her name is Eileen Kocherlakota (pictured) and her piece is a musical fractured fairy tale, Jill and the Beanstalk. Keep reading for a full description of the piece, Eileen's bio, and the complete tour schedule.
Eileen Kocherlakota is 14 years old, and a freshman at Burlington High School. Music has been a big part of her life ever since she started playing violin when she was 5 years old. Currently she studies violin with Evelyn Read and plays in the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association (VYOA). She started composing with the Vermont MIDI Project (VMP) when she was in fourth grade. She recently took music theory lessons with Erik Nielson and completed the theory courses offered by VYOA. She would like to thank Ms. Greene and Ms. Nolan, her music teachers in elementary and middle school, who fostered her interest in composition. She thanks Erik Nielsen, Matt Podd, and Zach Sheets, all composer mentors with the Vermont MIDI Project and Sandi MacLeod, Executive Director of VMP. She especially thanks her family for supporting her all the way.
The Vermont MIDI Project is a non-profit organization supporting young composers through a variety of technology tools. VMP enlists professional composers to provide feedback to students in an online mentoring website and supports teachers in music composition. Live performance opportunities of student compositions are offered through the Opus concerts and with organizations such as the VSO. Visit the website for more information.
Jill and the Beanstalk is a fractured fairy tale based on “Jack and the Beanstalk.” This updated rendition is told through music with narration throughout the piece. It is like another piece Eileen Kocherlakota wrote, based on the fairytale, ”Cinderella,” which was for a small ensemble of brass, piano and percussion. In Jill and the Beanstalk, similar to Peter and the Wolf, different instruments representing different characters. Jill’s theme is played by clarinets, the witch trading beans is represented by violins 1 and 2, the giantess’ dancing is numbly highlighted with flutes and a piccolo, and the giant comes to life with timpani and low brass. Please enjoy!
2011 Holiday Pops I: "Fun & Games"
The National Life Group Holiday Pops Concert
Friday, December 9, 2011, 7:30 p.m.
Barre Opera House, Barre
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
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2011 Holiday Pops II: "Fun & Games"
Saturday, December 10, 2011, 7:30 p.m.
Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
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2011/2012 Sunday Matinee Series I/2011 Holiday Pops III
Sunday, December 11, 2011, 3:00 p.m.
Paramount Theatre, Rutland
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
Holiday Pops: Fun and Games
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Keep reading!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Jill and the Beanstalk
Friday, December 2, 2011
Carnival of the Animals a huge success!
Our orchestral youth concert this week at the Flynn Center in Burlington was a huge hit! Carnival of the Animals surprised and delighted over 1200 schoolchildren from around the state, some coming from as far as Windsor! Student Charles Wu wowed the audience with both his piano AND saxophone skills, the artist mural backdrop was stunning, and Champlain Elementary took home the Symphony Bear. The purpose of the VSO's SymphonyKids Educational Outreach Programs is to explore the delights of classical music with Vermont school children, and to inspire them with a lifelong enthusiasm for music through a variety of high-quality, educational, and FUN programs. In 2010/2011 SymphonyKids reached 30,223 students or 53% of the statewide K-8 population. This impressive statistic is made up of 248 presentations serving 199 schools in 166 towns (66% of the 251 towns in Vermont, not all of which have schools). Keep reading for upcoming SymphonyKids programs around the state.
DrumShtick Percussion Trio
December 8, 2011
Bennington Elementary 9:15 AM
Monument Elementary (Bennington) 11 AM
North Bennington Graded School 1:30 PM
Fanfare Brass Trio
December 16, 2011
Weybrigde Elementary 9 AM
Ripton Central School 10:45 AM
Beeman Elementary (New Haven) 12:45 PM
Symphony Reel String Trio
January 6, 2012
Thatcher Brook Elementary (Waterbury) 9 & 10 AM
Moretown Elementary 1 PM
Musical Petting Zoo
January 9, 2012
Waterville Elementary Time TBA
Eden Elementary Time TBA
Ah! Cappella Vocal Quartet
January 20, 2012
Sheldon Elementary 9 AM
Highgate Elementary 10:15 AM
Fairfield Elementary 1 PM
Keep reading!
We're giving away free tickets on Facebook today!
Get a friend to like our page and you BOTH win free tickets. Or, if you are a new fan, you get free tickets. Visit our Facebook page for details. If you miss out on the contest, do not despair, $25 rush tickets are still available through FlynnTix. Simply use the following discount code during checkout: prokofiev. Keep reading for the concert program.
Masterworks Series II
Saturday, December 3, 8 PM
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
Katherine Winterstein, violin
BEETHOVEN Coriolan Overture
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 2
Coriolanus and Beethoven were both passionate, imperious, and iron-willed—so it’s no surprise that the Coriolan Overture is powerful music! Concertmaster Katherine Winterstein is featured in Sergei Prokofiev’s second concerto, a piece which uses Russian-inspired melodic elements--brilliantly orchestrated--and displays the composer’s trademark ironic sense of humor. Schumann’s second symphony was written as he continued to wrestle with mental illness. His staunch wife Clara championed her beloved genius’s progress as he wrote music that is marked with “fire, imagination, freshness, and originality.”
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Thursday, December 1, 2011
2011 VSO Brass Quintet and Counterpoint Holiday Concert Tickets Available TODAY*!
Tickets are now available for our 2011 VSO Brass Quintet and Counterpoint Holiday Concerts, happening in five communities around the state: Warren, Jay, Grafton, Manchester, and Brandon. These concerts are presented in intimate spaces and feature the twelve-member Counterpoint chorus and the VSO Brass Quintet joining forces to regale audiences with festive tunes sure to imbue holiday spirit. Conductor Nathaniel G. Lew leads in a program featuring works fit for the season. Keep reading for the complete schedule. Tickets for these concerts go fast, so be sure to secure your seats today.
*Please note tickets for the Grafton concert will not be available until Saturday, December 3.
2011 VSO Brass Quintet and Counterpoint Holiday Concerts
Thursday, December 15, 7:30 p.m.
Warren United Church, Warren
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2011 VSO Brass Quintet and Counterpoint Holiday Concerts
Friday, December 16, 7:30 p.m.
International Room at Jay Peak Resort, Jay
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2011 VSO Brass Quintet and Counterpoint Holiday Concerts
Saturday, December 17, 5:00 p.m.
The White Church, Grafton
*Please note tickets for the Grafton concert will not be available until Saturday, December 3.
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2011 VSO Brass Quintet and Counterpoint Holiday Concerts
Sunday, December 18, 4:00 p.m.
First Congregational Church, Manchester
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2011 VSO Brass Quintet and Counterpoint Holiday Concerts
Monday, December 19, 7:00 p.m.
Brandon Congregational Church, Brandon
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Keep reading!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
2011 Holiday Pops: Fun and Games
Apart from the eggnog…Christmas IS for kids! Celebrate Christmas 2011 with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra as we take a look at the youthful side of the holiday. Music that reflects a child’s sense of wonder and delight includes Bizet’s “Children’s Games,” the March of the Toys from Babes in Toyland, excerpts from Hansel & Gretel, and of course the Little Drummer Boy. After the Nutcracker’s Mouse King does battle with the tin soldiers, we debut a fractured fairy tale composed by a Vermont teenager. “Sleighride” and an audience singalong are musical stocking stuffers! Keep reading for the program, complete schedule and links to the individual events. Happy Holidays from the VSO!
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
ANDERSON Sleighride
BIZET Jeux d’enfants (Children’s Games)
EILEEN KOCHERLAKOTA Jill and the Beanstalk
TCHAIKOVSKY Excerpts from The Nutcracker
HUMPERDINCK Hansel and Gretel
DAVIS, arr. Wright Little Drummer Boy (Carol of the Drum)
TRADITIONAL Christmas Pop Singalong
SOUSA, arr. Smith Jingle Bells Forever
2011 Holiday Pops I: "Fun & Games"
The National Life Group Holiday Pops Concert
Friday, December 9, 2011, 7:30 p.m.
Barre Opera House, Barre
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
Visit the event page
2011 Holiday Pops II: "Fun & Games"
Saturday, December 10, 2011, 7:30 p.m.
Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
Visit the event page
2011/2012 Sunday Matinee Series I/2011 Holiday Pops III
Sunday, December 11, 2011, 3:00 p.m.
Paramount Theatre, Rutland
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
Holiday Pops: Fun and Games
Visit the event page
Keep reading!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Program notes: December 3
The VSO will present the third installment of its Masterworks Series at the Flynn Center in Burlington on Saturday, December 3, with a program conducted by Anthony Princiotti and featuring Concertmistress Katherine Winterstein playing Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2. Other works on the program include Beethoven's Coriolan Overture and Schumann's Symphony No. 2. Incidentally, these pieces are opuses 63, 62, and 61, respectively. We didn't plan that. Keep reading for the program notes or click here to purchase tickets. You can also learn more on our website.
Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
The Coriolanus of this work is the hero not of the Shakespeare play but of a tragedy by Heinrich von Collin, a Viennese dramatist of the day. Premiered in Vienna in 1802, the play was very successful, mainly due to the actors. By the time Beethoven wrote his overture, in 1807, Coriolan was seldom produced, and his composition came to be accepted almost from the start as a concert overture. Coriolanus, a Roman general of proud and reckless bravery, is exiled for his arrogant contempt towards the plebeians. In revenge, he joins Rome’s enemies, the Volscians, and leads them in an attack on his native city. Although he scorns many peace emissaries, his resolution finally waivers when his wife and son are sent to plead with him. In Collin’s version of the story, he yields to their pleas and then commits suicide. Beethoven did not attempt to outline the entire play; rather, he seized upon the critical moment of decision in the plot and translated it into music of power and nobility. Some commentators have noted that Coriolanus’ character—passionate, imperious, and iron-willed—had much in common with the composer’s.
Violin Concerto No. 2 in g minor, Op. 63
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
At the age of 12, Prokofiev entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory, producing at his examination a portfolio of compositions including four operas, two sonatas, a symphony, and various piano pieces. He was immediately accepted to study under Liadov and Rimsky-Korsakov. By 1914, at the close of his student days, the virtuoso pianist had already written two of his five piano concertos and his first violin concerto.
Prokofiev left his native Russia as the events of the Revolution unfolded, traveling through Japan and arriving in the United States in 1918. Meeting with a less-than enthusiastic reception in America, he left in disgust and settled in Paris. Prokofiev visited Russia in 1927, and returned for good in 1932. It was Stravinsky’s dry observation that Prokofiev’s return to his homeland was “a sacrifice to the bitch goddess, and nothing else. He had no success in the United States or Europe for several seasons, and while his visit to Russia had been a triumph…he was politically naïve…and when he finally understood his position there, it was too late.”
The “position” which Stravinsky mentioned referred to the widely-held belief that Stalinism (and its demand for music that glorified the Soviet worker) was responsible for the paralysis of creative urges in Russian composers. During the 1930s, Shostakovich and many others would be severely criticized by Stalin, and revolutionary Russia would turn out banal and uniform music born of fear. But the 1930s proved to be one of the most productive periods of Prokofiev’s life, and when he was asked in 1937 how it was that he could live and work under Soviet totalitarianism, he replied:
“I care nothing for politics—I’m a composer first and last. Any government that lets me write my music in peace, publishes everything I compose before the ink is dry, and performs every note that comes from my pen, is all right with me. In Europe we all have to fish for performances, cajole conductors and theater directors; in Russia they come to me—I can hardly keep up with the demand. What’s more, I have a comfortable flat in Moscow, a delightful dacha in the country, and a brand-new car. My boys go to a fine English school in Moscow….”
How do we account for Prokofiev’s seeming immunity in the face of crushing political pressures? It appears that the composer did not remain untouched by outside influences, but that much of what gave his music its personal stamp could remain with fewer modifications that required of other composers. His two violin concertos, written some 30 years apart, treat the solo instrument in essentially the same way. Each displays his ironic sense of humor, and his habit, especially in lyrical passages, of abruptly modulating to distant keys, or “tonal dislocation,” as some Soviet critics names it. Above all, each features the brilliant orchestration which gives Prokofiev’s music its characteristic stamp.
The concerto is in three movements:
I. Allegro moderato. The opening theme is heard in unaccompanied violin, and with the entrance of the orchestra we hear the first example of the abrupt modulation (from the opening g minor to b minor) that is a hallmark of Prokofiev. A second theme undergoes a like “dislocation,” and the two themes are used in the development.
II. Andante assai. Over pizzicato strings the solo violin sings the lyrical these which forms the basic material of the movement; once again, the harmonic twists and deft orchestration are unmistakably characteristic. A last recollection of the refrain is heard in the French horn.
III. Allegro ben marcato. A flash of the old Prokofiev returns with the incisive rhythms of the rondo finale. Bold effects and virtuoso solo writing stand out against the sparse scoring for the orchestra.
Symphony No. 2 in C Major
Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856)
Even in a time when Romantic excess excused a great deal of eccentric behavior, Schumann's family profile gave every indication that mental instability was part of his inheritance. His father August, like Robert shy and retiring, was a bookseller who enjoyed nothing more than sitting alone in his study smoking pipe after pipe while writing romantic novels. It was said that he had a "nervous disorder" and was quite deranged by the time of his death when Schumann was sixteen. Schumann's sister was mentally and physically challenged, and committed suicide at the age of nineteen. It is no wonder that poor Robert grew up with the fear (tragically realized) that he, too, would become insane.
Throughout his youth, Schumann certainly gave every indication of being, at the least, "high-strung.” As a child he would creep to the piano in the middle of the night, where playing a series of chords would move him to bitter tears. The work of the Romantic writer Jean Paul was his gospel, and Schumann was the truest believer. At eighteen, he wrote to a friend: "If everybody read Jean Paul we should be better but more unhappy. Sometimes he almost clouds my mind, but the rainbow of peace and the natural strength of man bring sweet tears, and the heart comes through its ordeal marvelously purified and softened." The influence of Paul moved Schumann to create, and he tried both literature and composition at the piano. In the words of biographer Brion, "Nourished by the poets of that wonderful period, Schumann's work might well be regarded as a musical transcription of their work; but it went so much further, to become the supreme product of the German Romantic soul, revealing its genius at its most intense and most perfect." While Schumann played with his muses, the one person in the family who seemed to be fully functioning in her role was busy planning Robert's future; thus was Schumann sent by his mother to Leipzig to study law.
Some psychologists have expressed the belief that madness is an essential aspect of genius and that poetry, art and music are the external expressions of delusions. Regardless, the line between visionary and lunatic is a fine one, as the unfortunate Schumann was to demonstrate. Once he arrived in Leipzig, the active music world there was for him an irresistible magnet; law studies went out the window, and Schumann moved in with piano teacher Friedrich Wieck to study, practice and compose. His career as a pianist was cut short when Schumann invented a contraption to strengthen an injured finger and ended up rendering two fingers of his right hand all but useless. Undaunted, he moved directly into composing, an activity for which he was scantily trained. Lack of training was and never would be the slightest obstacle to Schumann's visions for music. He began to write whatever appealed to him, and started his own music magazine, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Through the forum of music criticism Schumann was to offer some of his most enduring contributions to music, from the "discovery " of Chopin to the nurturing of Brahms.
And then, of course, there was Clara. Clara Wieck was a prodigious talent who would evolve into one of the music world's great artists. But when Robert Schumann asked for her hand, she was his teacher's most promising pupil, and the teacher's eighteen-year-old daughter as well--two good reasons for Friedrich Wieck to carefully appraise the unsuccessful, radical idealist and find him a poor match for Clara. In spite of her father's every effort, the two were not to be kept apart and married in 1840 without his permission.
The first months of marriage were filled with the flush of youthful enthusiasm, and Schumann strove to make his new bride happy. One of her most ardent desires was that he be a symphonist..."It would be best if he composed for orchestra. His imagination cannot find sufficient scope on the piano...His compositions are all orchestral in feeling...My highest wish is that he should compose for orchestra--that is his field. May I bring him to it!" For all her brilliance, love clouded Clara's eyes when it came to Robert's strengths and weaknesses. He did not understand the instruments of the orchestra the way he did the piano, and was not truly equipped to translate the beauty of his ideas through an orchestral palette. His symphonies endure, flawed though they may be, as tribute to the freshness and exuberance of his genius.
Schumann's First Symphony was written in his first year of marriage during a period of creative energy and abundant optimism, and the next few years saw several efforts at orchestral works. In 1843 Schumann joined Mendelssohn as a teacher of piano, composition, and score reading at the newly founded Conservatory in Leipzig, and the following year saw a joint concert tour in Russia for Clara and Schumann. Inexorably, though, the dark forces of Schumann's mental illness had begun to manifest themselves. Ten years earlier Schumann had suffered a brush with melancholy, and feared for his sanity. He made no secret of his instability to Clara, who may well have seen herself as a much-needed guide through life for her beloved genius; in fact, he referred to her as his "right hand.” In 1844, depression, memory lapses, and finally a complete breakdown forced Schumann to give up all work. At the suggestion of a physician, they moved to the familiarity and quiet of Dresden, where Schumann began wrestling with his demons in the arena of his Second Symphony.
"I sketched it when I was still in a state of physical suffering; nay, I may say it was, so to speak, the resistance of the spirit which exercised a visible influence here, and through which I sought to contend with my bodily state." This sketch came together in one week in December, but the completion of the work struggled through ups and downs until October 1846, all the while Clara championing her Robert: "Where does he get all his fire, his imagination, his freshness, his originality? One asks that again and again, and one cannot but say that he is one of the elect, to be gifted with such creative power." Between the premiere of the work by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Mendelssohn on November 5, 1846 and its repetition eleven days later, Schumann made many alterations to his voicing and orchestration, most notably the addition of three trombones to the score.
The work, Schumann's longest symphony, is in four movements:
I. Sostenuto assai - Allegro ma non troppo - A trumpet motto opens the work, a "call to arms" which identifies the struggle at hand and recurs throughout the movement. The tempo increases, and the music illustrates Schumann's words: "The first movement is full of...struggle and is very capricious and refractory."
II. Scherzo: Allegro vivace - It was this scherzo which provided Schumann with a lesson in orchestration from Mendelssohn. Opening with a fiery whirling theme in the violins, Schumann continued to use the violins in the first trio section until Mendelssohn suggested the use of the naturally contrasting woodwinds. A second trio section is followed by a reprise of the opening material in combination with the fanfare of the very beginning of the Symphony.
III. Adagio espressivo - This is some of the most beloved of Schumann's orchestral writing, a beautiful melody heard first in the violins, then shared with oboe and the "melancholy bassoon". A fugal subject provides contrast, and the movement ends with the opening theme in major.
IV. Allegro molto vivace - The vigor of the closing movement is a reflection of Schumann's return to health: "In the finale, I first began to feel like myself again; and indeed, I was much better after I had completed the work." Recollections of the Adagio theme are heard, and the trumpet motto returns near the end, at first soft and then victorious.
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Sunday, November 20, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Triple Doubles Coming Soon!
The VSO is proud to announce the forthcoming release of Triple Doubles, a recording project spanning three years and starring the VSO, violinist Jaime Laredo, cellist Sharon Robinson, and conductors Sarah Hicks and Troy Peters. The CD features three double concerti written for Jaime and Sharon by composers David Ludwig, Daron Hagen, and Richard Danielpour. The CD is slated for release this November on Bridge Records. Pre-order your copy today!
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Monday, October 24, 2011
Masterworks tickets for this Saturday: $25/$9
Rush tickets for this Saturday's Masterworks Opening Night are now available for $25 or $9 for students. Use this code at checkout: mw1rush. GET YOUR TICKETS. Or keep reading for the program.
Jaime Laredo, conductor
Vassily Primakov, piano
SAINT-SAENS Danse macabre
RACHMANINOFF Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique
The 2011/2012 Masterworks season begins with a Halloween-themed program guaranteed to send chills up your spine! In Saint-Saëns’ amusing Danse macabre, the xylophone portrays dancing skeletons, as Death plays on a violin tuned to a devilish pitch. Our frighteningly talented young piano soloist plays Rachmaninoff’s virtuosic Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, whose 24 variations weave an ever more diabolic spell on the listener. The Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) plainchant melody which appears in the Rhapsody also permeates Berlioz’ most famous work, Symphonie fantastique. The large forces required (8 timpani and 2 tubas, for starters) dramatize the composer’s strange and ghoulish visions, culminating in the wild Witches’ Sabbath finale. Feel free to come in costume!
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Friday, October 14, 2011
Program notes: Masterworks Opening Night October 29
The 2011/2012 Masterworks season begins Saturday, October 29, with a Halloween-themed program guaranteed to send chills up your spine! In Saint-Saëns’ amusing Danse macabre, the xylophone portrays dancing skeletons, as Death plays on a violin tuned to a devilish pitch. Our frighteningly talented young piano soloist plays Rachmaninoff’s virtuosic Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, whose 24 variations weave an ever more diabolic spell on the listener. The Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) plainchant melody which appears in the Rhapsody also permeates Berlioz’ most famous work, Symphonie fantastique. The large forces required (8 timpani and 2 tubas, for starters) dramatize the composer’s haunting and ghoulish visions, culminating in the wild Witches’ Sabbath finale. Feel free to come in costume! Musically Speaking, our pre-concert talk, starts at 7 p.m. The concert begins at 8 p.m. Keep reading for the program notes!
Danse macabre, Op. 40
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
The ghoulish theme of a witches’ midnight sabbath was enticing to many nineteenth century composers (in addition to Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain is a good example), and Saint-Saëns was one of them. Though in general he was a thoroughly serious composer, there was definitely an antic entertainer in Saint-Saëns’ personality, and in 1874 he produced an amusing variant on the genre, Danse macabre.
A crazy poem by Henri Cazalis is quoted in the score: “Zig and zig and zag, Death sets the rhythm/Striking a tombstone with his heel/Death at midnight plays a dance/Zig and zig and zag, on his violin/One hears the rattling bones of the dancers/But psitt! Suddenly the dance ceases/They push each other, they flee, the cock has crowed.” The harp strikes midnight. Death tunes up his fiddle, but the E string has been lowered a half step (this is called scordiatura) resulting in a discordant interval traditionally known as “the devil in music.” Two themes--a whirling waltz melody and an eerie melody that descends by half steps—are cleverly intermingled towards the end of the piece, when we hear the cock crow in the oboe.
To represent the rattling bones of the dancing skeletons, Saint-Saëns introduced the xylophone to the symphony. It was such a novelty that he actually wrote in the score where to purchase the instrument.
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
“When composing, I am a slave. Beginning at nine in the morning I allow myself no respite until after eleven at night.” S.R.
If ever a virtuoso was said to have been able to possess the souls of his listeners, that virtuoso was Paganini. Scarecrow thin, extremely tall, and intensely absorbed in his spell-weaving, the violinist played music that simply no others could, and was able to switch instantly from pyrotechnical display to heart-rending melodiousness. A popular superstition held that he was in league with the devil. In fact, it has been determined recently that some of Paganini’s inimitable violinistic abilities were more Mendelian than Mephistophelian. Through the inheritance of a defective chromosome, Paganini became a victim of Marfan Syndrome, a disorder of connective tissue, also called Arachnodactyly or “spider fingers.” The excessive length and hyper extensibility of his finger joints was definitely key in the violinist’s attainment of a para-normal technique.
The element of virtuosity is at the heart of Paganini’s style, and it is fair to say that the popularity of his music waned when death brought his performances to an end. If his talents and personality are captured for posterity in any one work, that work would be his Ventiquattro capricci per violini solo, Op. 1. The caprices were potent enough to provide themes for new works by Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, and, of course, Rachmaninoff.
Rachmaninoff composed his Rhapsody in midsummer of 1934 while living at his estate on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Having left his native Russia after the October Revolution in 1917, he was, in 1935, to relocate permanently to the United States. Certainly 1934 must have been a time of decision-making for him, and perhaps it is no coincidence that the liturgical melody Dies Irae is woven through the Rhapsody, this theme being part of the Catholic Mass for the Dead which describes the events on the Day of Judgment. The original title of the work was Rhapsodie (en forme de variations) sur un thème de Paganini; although the title was abbreviated, the work comprises an introduction, the theme, and twenty-four brief variations, of which the seventh, tenth, and twenty-fourth feature the Dies Irae melody.
The piece opens with an eight bar introduction and a first variation titled Precedente. Then the Paganini theme is stated, aptly, by the violins, with the piano executing single note exclamations on the first beat of each measure. The variations are strikingly rhythmic, and the slow Variation 18 is a lyrically beautiful inversion of the theme. The variations thereafter pick up in tempo and character, leading to the final one, which is a thundering combination of the Paganini theme and the Dies Irae melody.
--Hilary Hatch
Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
In 1827, the 24 year-old Hector Berlioz attended a performance of Hamlet at the Odéon in Paris. Although he did not understand a word of English, the female lead, Harriet Smithson, captured his heart with her beauty and her voice. Berlioz sent the actress letter after letter but got no reply. He decided to write a great symphony to woo her with a portrayal of his love. The Symphonie fantastique, completed in 1830, is one of the most original and impassioned works in musical history. It anticipates Wagner’s leitmotif in its use of a recurring melody (which Berlioz called l’idée fixe) to represent Miss Smithson. Unusual orchestral colors and “special effects” abound—the Eb clarinet, chords in the timpani, the dialogue between English horn and oboe. In the last movement, the violins hit their strings with the wooden side of their bows in imitation of the rattling of skeletons. Chimes herald the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath)--the often-quoted plainchant melody from the Latin Mass for the Dead—in the low brass.
Miss Smithson was not present at the work’s premiere; when she finally heard it two years later, Berlioz himself played the drums, and it is said that each time their eyes met, he played with redoubled fury. The actress finally consented to marry her persistent suitor, but this marriage built on fantasy was not destined to last.
Berlioz provided notes to accompany his composition. First a general “argument,” then an explanation of each movement, as follows:
A young musician of morbid sensibility and ardent imagination poisons himself with opium in a fit of amorous despair. The narcotic dose, too weak to result in death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by the strangest visions, during which his sensations, sentiments, and recollections are translated in his sick brain into musical thoughts and images.
Part 1. Reveries, Passions. He first recalls that uneasiness of soul…those moments of causeless melancholy and joy, which he experienced before seeing her whom he loves; then the volcanic love with which she suddenly inspired him, his moments of delirious anguish, of jealous fury, his returns to loving tenderness, and his religious consolations.
Part 2. A Ball. He sees his beloved at a ball, in the midst of the tumult of a brilliant fete.
Part 3. A Scene in the Country. One summer evening in the country, he hears two shepherds playing a Ranz-des-vaches in alternate dialogue. This pastoral duet, the scene around him, the light rustling of the trees gently swayed by the breeze, some hopes he has recently conceived, all combine to restore an unwonted calm to his heart and to impart a more cheerful coloring to his thoughts; but she appears once more, his heart stops beating, he is agitated with painful presentiments; if she were to betray him!...One of the shepherds resumes his artless melody, the other no longer answers him. The sun sets…the sound of distant thunder…solitude…silence.
Part 4. March to the Gallows. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned to death and led to execution. The procession advances to the tones of a march which is now somber and wild, now brilliant and solemn, in which the dull sound of the tread of heavy feet follows without transition upon the most resounding outburst. At the end, the fixed idea reappears for an instant, like a last love-thought interrupted by the fatal stroke.
Part 5. Dream of the Witches’ Sabbath. He sees himself at the witches’ Sabbath, in the midst of a frightful group of ghosts, magicians, and monsters of all sorts, who have come together for his obsequies. He hears strange noises, groans, ringing laughter, shrieks to which other shrieks seem to reply. The beloved melody again reappears; but it has lost its noble and timid character; it has become an ignoble, trivial, and grotesque dance tune; it is she who comes to the witches’ Sabbath…Howlings of joy at her arrival…she takes part in the diabolic orgy…. Funeral knells burlesque parody on the Dies Irae. Witches’ dance. The Witches’ dance and the Dies Irae together.
Keep reading!
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Video Program Notes: Dark Mountains by Robert Paterson
The VSO commissions a piece each year from a composer with Vermont ties for its Made in Vermont Music Festival Statewide Tour. This year, Robert Paterson composed a piece called Dark Mountains that evokes the dark facades of Vermont's mountains in the evening. Watch the video to hear Rob talk about the piece. Keep reading for the complete tour schedule.
Jaime Laredo, conductor and violin
Katherine Winterstein, violin
Russell Wilson, viola
Luke Baker, bass
MOZART Serenata Notturno
HONEGGER Pastorale d'Eté
ROBERT PATERSON Dark Mountains (World Premiere Commission)
SIBELIUS Valse Triste
HAYDN Symphony No. 53, "L'Imperiale"
Friday, September 23
Johnson
Saturday, September 24
Vergennes
Sunday, September 25
Derby Line
Thursday, September 29
Lyndonville
Friday, September 30
Bellows Falls
Saturday, October 1
Randolph
Sunday, October 2
Woodstock
Monday, October 3
Castleton
Keep reading!
Monday, September 19, 2011
The VSO feeds bodies, hearts, and minds post-Irene
Your Vermont Symphony Orchestra is hitting the road for its 16th annual foliage season Made in Vermont Music Festival statewide tour featuring world renowned violinist Jaime Laredo. We are encouraging audiences to also support the flood relief effort, and offer three opportunities for you to provide food for the body, the heart, and the mind:
>> bring non-perishable food items to help replenish the depleted Vermont Foodbank inventory;
>> bring a contribution for the Vermont Farm Disaster Relief Fund; or
>> bring a contribution for the VSO to deliver free SymphonyKids educational outreach programs to schools in the most devastated towns.
Enjoy your VSO and help to rebuild Vermont. We hope you can come. Thank you. Keep reading for the complete tour schedule and program.
Jaime Laredo, conductor and violin
Katherine Winterstein, violin
Russell Wilson, viola
Luke Baker, bass
MOZART Serenata Notturno
HONEGGER Pastorale d'Eté
ROBERT PATERSON Dark Mountains (World Premiere Commission)
SIBELIUS Valse Triste
HAYDN Symphony No. 53, "L'Imperiale"
Friday, September 23
Johnson
Saturday, September 24
Vergennes
Sunday, September 25
Derby Line
Thursday, September 29
Lyndonville
Friday, September 30
Bellows Falls
Saturday, October 1
Randolph
Sunday, October 2
Woodstock
Monday, October 3
Castleton
Keep reading!
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Program notes: Made in Vermont Music Festival
The Made in Vermont Music Festival Statewide Tour crisscrosses Vermont during our glorious fall foliage season, bringing classical chamber works to eight communities along the way. The tour begins in Johnson on September 23 and continues on to Vergennes (9/24), Derby Line (9/25), Lyndonville (9/29), Bellows Falls (9/30), Randolph (10/1), Woodstock (10/2), and Castleton (10/3). Tickets are available now at the Flynn Regional Box Office online, in person, or by calling (802) 86-FLYNN. The concert includes a fond look backward at summer with Honegger’s serene Pastorale d’été. A salute to autumn follows naturally, in a world premiere commission by award-winning composer Robert Paterson. Music Director Jaime Laredo is featured in one of Mozart’s most humorous pieces, Serenata Notturno, in which the timpanist gets equal billing with a solo string quartet! Sibelius’ Valse Triste, beloved of filmmakers, portrays an unearthly waltz by spectral couples. The performance concludes with Haydn’s Symphony No. 53, aptly nicknamed L’Imperiale. Keep reading for the program notes for this series.
Serenata Notturno No. 6 in D Major, K. 239
W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born only six years after the death of Bach, was the most wide-ranging of composers in the idioms he adopted, absorbing musical elements from both past and present. In his more popular works, such as his serenades or divertimenti he would sometimes adopt the old concerto form or alternatively write a suite of dances after the old French manner.
The Serenata Notturno employs the concerto form. In fact, it is very much like the Baroque concerto grosso familiar to the earlier composers– Corelli, Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel. In such a three movement concerto, the larger body of players (the ripieno) is set off against the concertino, or smaller group. In this case the ripieno consists of the main string body, minus double bass but with tympani, while the concertino consists of a quartet of two violins, viola, and double bass. The interplay of these two groups provides contrast, variety, and not a little humor.
Yet the sound and internal organization of the Serenata Notturno are very different from that of a Baroque concerto. By Mozart's time the style of music had changed. The basso continuo, performed by a keyboard instrument, was disappearing. Vivaldi and other composers of the baroque period also witnessed in their later years a falling away in the use of counterpoint. Deemed archaic, it was being replaced by short aria-like phrases from the Italian and French operatic traditions when Mozart was born (in 1756) and three years later when the older Haydn entered the service of the Esterhazy family as court composer.
The new idiom was known as the style galant because of its tuneful elegance and charming stylishness. It is this style that Mozart learned and mastered as a boy, and which pervades his early music such as this Serenata Notturno. Written in January 1776, it may have been devised for the city of Salzburg's New Year's celebrations. No one is sure of its exact purpose, but its joyous lighthearted spirit, tinged with little patches of humor, suggest Mozart in a happy frame of mind, despite his increasingly irksome dealings with his boss, the demanding and unpleasant Archbishop of Salzburg.
The first movement, as the title Marcia suggests, is indeed march-like, but in the light genteel manner of the prevailing gallant style. It is also arranged in the simple sonata-allegro form of the early classical period, with a strong first subject followed by a gentler second. Mozart has fun in his brief development section with syncopations, string plucking and tympani noise, before the return of the two opening subjects.
The second movement Menuetto continues in a similarly charming vein. The dotted rhythm brings a kind of jaunty elegance to the dance, where the middle Trio section, given to the concertino group, is characterized by a lighter touch, with delightful triplet figures weaving dainty traceries around the main melody.
The main theme of the third movement Rondo moves along at a brisk pace, but then is halted in its tracks by one of those Mozartian interruptions we often come across during the course of his final movements. This time it is an Adagio, played with due seriousness by the smaller concertino group. It sounds very much like a dig at the Baroque solemnities of the earlier generation (very Handelian in fact), but Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein suggests that this brief tune, along with the next much faster one, refer to popular tunes of the day probably well-known to the local populace. And as Mozart so easily slid into these little diversions, so does he slide out of them and back to the main Rondo theme, to finish off the piece in a lively fashion.
Pastorale d’été
Arnold Honegger (1892-1955)
Pastorale d’été (Summer Pastorale) is a short symphonic poem for chamber orchestra inspired by a vacation trip the composer took in the Swiss alps in 1920. The score is inscribed with an epigraph by the poet Arthur Rimbaud: “J’ai embrassé l’aube d’été” (I have embraced the summer dawn). The mood is atmospheric and restrained: it seems to be a musical impression of a peaceful early morning in the mountains. The work begins with a languorous soaring theme in the French horn, which is then taken up by the strings. Flute and clarinet tell us the birds are already singing. The middle section is more lively, and colorfully orchestrated; the main theme returns to close the piece in the placid manner of the opening.
Honegger was one of six French composers traditionally bracketed together as the “Les Six,” a composers’ avant garde of the 1920s. Honegger, however, went his own way, not being interested in the new craze for jazz, and admiring rather than disavowing Wagner, Debussy, and Ravel. He stood instead for the classical virtues of balance and craftsmanship, and was drawn to Romantic imagery. The editor of the 1924 pocket score of this piece declared, “Pastorale d’été is absolute music which steers clear from descriptive tendencies.” This is nonsense! Pastorale d’été is a perfect example of illustrative music at its most exquisite.
Robert Paterson
Dark Mountains
I would like to thank the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Jaime Laredo, David Ludwig and the VSO staff for the opportunity to write this piece. This orchestra holds a special place in my heart, since my wife and I played in the orchestra years ago and I have many friends in the orchestra.
This piece is commissioned by and dedicated to the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Jaime Laredo, Music Director, for the 2011 Made in Vermont Music Festival statewide concert tour
– Robert Paterson
Valse triste, Op. 44, No. 1
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Valse triste (Sad waltz) is a short orchestral work by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It was originally part of the incidental music he composed for his brother-in-law Arvid Jarnefelt’s 1903 play Kuolema (Death). In 1904 Sibelius revised the piece, which was performed in Helsinki on April 25 under the current title. It was an instant hit with the public, took on a life of its own, and remains one of Sibelius’ signature pieces.
The background to the music as it functions within the original play is expanded upon by the program notes for the production:
It is night. The son, who has been watching beside the bedside of his sick mother, has fallen asleep from sheer weariness. Gradually, a ruddy light is diffused through the room: there is a sound of distant music. The glow and the music steal nearer until the strains of a waltz melody float distantly to our ears. The sleeping mother awakens, rises from her bed and, in her long white garment, which takes the semblance of a ball dress, begins to move silently and slowly to and fro. She waves her hands and beckons in time to the music, as though she were summoning a crowd of invisible guests. And now they appear, these strange visionary couples, turning and gliding to an unearthly waltz rhythm. The dying woman mingles with the dancers; she strives to make them look into her eyes, but the shadowy guests one and all avoid her glance. Then she seems to sink exhausted on her bed and the music breaks off. Presently she gathers all her strength and invokes the dance once more, with more energetic gestures than before. Back come the shadowy dancers, gyrating in a wild, mad rhythm. The weird gaiety reaches a climax; there is a knock at the door, which flies wide open. The mother utters a despairing cry, the spectral guests vanish, the music dies away. Death stands on the threshold.
A synthesizer version of Valse triste was used in Making The Shining, a documentary by Stanley Kubrick’s daughter about her father’s film. The music was also used in the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday. The animated film Allegro Non Troppo used Valse triste in “Feline Fantasies,” a segment about the ghost of a cat roaming around the ruins of the house it once inhabited.
Symphony No. 53 in D Major, L’Imperiale
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
In 1761, Haydn was hired as assistant Kapellmeister by the Esterhazy family, for whom he was to work for 32 years. These fabulously wealthy Hungarian nobles maintained one of the best musical establishments in Europe. As a servant of Prince Esterhazy, Haydn reported for orders twice a day. He had to select and manage an orchestra, conduct two concerts a week, organize the music library, copy music, and of course compose. Although Haydn was chronically overworked (on one of his scores, he corrected an error, noting “Written while asleep” ) and missed the gaiety of Vienna’s social life, on the whole, he felt fortunate. “My Prince was always satisfied with my work. Not only did I have the encouragement of constant approval, but as conductor of the orchestra I could experiment, find out what made a good effect and what weakened it, so I was free to alter, improve, add, or omit, and be as bold as I pleased. Cut off from the world, I had no one to bother me and was forced to become original.” Although his fame soon spread beyond Esterhaza, Haydn was always modest about his talents. He attributed most of his success to hard work. “I was never a quick writer,” he said, “and composed with care and diligence.” He was forced to admit, however, “I did, of course, have talent.”
That talent is very evident in his wonderful Symphony No. 53. No one seems quite clear about the subtitle “L’imperiale,” but the most obvious explanation is that it was played for the imperial court during one of their state visits to the Esterhazy castle of Kittsee. It became the most popular of all of Haydn’s pre-Paris symphonies. “Elegant” is the first adjective that occurs to describe the work; yet there rich passages of exceptional beauty as well.
James Webster has grouped the Symphony No. 53 with others of the same period (1770s) and categorized Haydn’s writing during this time as “theatrical and popular.” Prince Esterhazy may have instructed Haydn that he had gone too far in the experimentation of his Sturm und Drang period; whatever the reason, there is a definite stylistic change in works from this period. Haydn seems to be turning his increasing technical command towards entertainment.
The second movement is in double variation form (ABA1B1, etc.), a format which Haydn perfected in slow movements from works he composed in this decade. This beautiful symphony reaches its peak in an amazing finale—and there is a choice to be made! There are multiple finales--at least four that we know of—for this work, although two of them may not have been written by Haydn. The first, composed in 1777, was an adaptation of the overture to an unknown opera. The second originally had no flute or timpani parts, but H. Robbins Landon added them in the Eulenburg edition he edited. In case you are curious, we will be using the former in our performance today. Keep reading!
Friday, September 2, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
2011/2012 Masterworks Series single tickets available September 19
The 2011/2012 Masterworks Series tickets will be available through the Flynn Regional Box Office beginning September 19. Mark your calendars! Keep reading for the complete schedule and to download a subscription form. Subscribe to all 5 concerts and save! Find us on Facebook or sign up for our e-mail list and don't miss any updates.
Download a Masterworks Series subscription form.
October 29, 2011
Jaime Laredo, conductorVassily Primakov, piano
SAINT-SAENS Danse macabre
RACHMANINOFF Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique
December 3, 2011
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
Katherine Winterstein, violin
BEETHOVEN Coriolan Overture
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 2
January 28, 2012
Robert De Cormier, conductor
Soloists TBA
VSO Chorus
FAURE Requiem
MOZART Requiem
March 10, 2012
Jaime Laredo, conductor
Jennifer Montone, horn
PROKOFIEV Classical Symphony
STRAUSS Horn Concerto No. 1
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3, "Eroica"
April 28, 2012
Jaime Laredo, conductor
Alon Goldstein, piano
OSVALDO GOLIJOV Sidereus
FALLA Nights in the Gardens of Spain
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 1
Keep reading!
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Symphony Sampler is August 26 in Newport
Symphony Sampler is a regional event hosted by the North Country Friends of the VSO. It's an excellent opportunity to socialize, enjoy music made by local musicians, and support the VSO. The event will be held on Friday night, August 26, beginning at 6 p.m. at the Dancing Sail at Eastside Restaurant in Newport.
The evening includes:
--Music by The Bassooniacs, a quartet which includes VSO bassoonist Rachael Elliott of St. Johnsbury and Steve Tatum, a NCUHS graduate.
--Sumptuous buffet and cash bar
--Multi-prize raffle (grand prize is a hotel stay in Burlington and a pair of tickets to a Masterworks Series concert)
--Live auction of an original painted Adirondack chair and a Symphony Sampler quilt made by Carolyn Ferrara
Tickets are $30 for adults, $25 for ages 13-17, $20 for under age 13. Seating is limited. Tickets are nonrefundable. For more information, call (802) 334-8110 or (800) VSO-9293 x14. You may purchase tickets by completing and remitting this form. Keep reading!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
3rd Annual Instant Wine Cellar Raffle
Take a chance at enjoying wine of noble vintage like Dick and Judy Koloski, last year's winners (pictured), by purchasing a ticket for our 3rd Annual Instant Wine Cellar Raffle. Only 450 tickets will be sold for this exciting raffle. The prize includes 100+ bottles of wine and a wine cellar. Visit our website for more details. Call Mike at (800) 876-9293 x 25 or e-mail mike@vso.org to buy a ticket. Keep reading!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Volunteers still needed for July 9 concert in Randolph
We're still searching for a few great people to assist in the smooth production of our summer festival tour concert at Three Stallion Inn in Randolph on Saturday, July 9. Volunteers help park cars, rip tickets, pass out program books, and more. You receive a free t-shirt and you are the first people on site, so you will be able to secure prime real estate on the picnic field. Come join us! E-mail Katie@vso.org to sign up or if you have questions. Keep reading!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
On Stage with the VSO at the Summer Festival Tour
During our Summer Festival Tour, we have some special guests that join us on stage from time to time. We often have guest conductors and guest chimists. There's a point in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture when the chimes are whacked in a very random and obvious way, the composer's method of invoking thoughts of church bells. This Fourth of July, we welcome David Schraffenberger, who provided us with this hilarious introductory verbiage. Look for David on stage on July 4 in Shelburne.
David Schraffenberger is a recovering roadie. He manages Production Advantage, Inc., a nice little catalog company serving the live entertainment industry. He's also on the Board of Trustees for IA Stagehands Local 919, Burlington, VT and the VP of the VT/NH Marketing Group. See if you can pick out the delicate melody of the chime part from the opening theme of the popular cartoon, Futurama, masterfully woven into the intricate chime part Tchaikovsky wrote into the 1812 overture.Keep reading!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Summer Festival Tour: What to do the day of the concert?
You have your tickets for a 2011 TD Bank Summer Festival Tour concert. You have decided on your picnic dinner menu, the perfect wine pairing, and your lawn chairs are in the car. You wake up on the day of the concert and there are a few clouds in the sky. Will the concert be outdoors? We receive an inundation of calls in our office from concertgoers wondering if we are going to be outdoors or indoors. Here is a guide to learning about this important decision that happens each concert day.
1. Wait. We make our rain calls at different times each day, but we absolutely make a decision by 3 p.m.
2. Check the web. We will post our rain decision on the website (www.vso.org -- check the scrolling calendar in the bottom left hand column) and on our Facebook page.
3. Listen to the radio. We report our rain call decisions to local radio stations and VPR. Listen in for an announcement.
4. Pick up the phone. Call the VSO office at (800) 876-9293 and listen to the main outgoing message. We update this information daily during the tour.
5. Get directions. If we are going inside, links to Google maps of the rain sites can be found on the event pages.
We'll see you there!
Keep reading for the complete concert schedule.
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourFriday, July 1, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Sugarbush Resort, Warren
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourSaturday, July 2, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Hildene Meadowlands, Manchester
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourSunday, July 3, 2011, gates open at 5:30 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Grafton Ponds, Grafton
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourMonday, July 4, 2011, gates open at 5:15 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Shelburne Farms, Shelburne
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourThursday, July 7, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Mountain Top Inn, Chittenden
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourFriday, July 8, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Quechee Polo Grounds, Quechee
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourSaturday, July 9, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Three Stallion Inn, Randolph
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourSunday, July 10, 2011, gates open at 5:30 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Trapp Family Lodge Concert Meadow, Stowe
Visit the event page Keep reading!
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
We still need a few helping hands!
Summer Festival Tour a "big smile"
Keep reading for the complete schedule.
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourFriday, July 1, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Sugarbush Resort, Warren
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourSaturday, July 2, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Hildene Meadowlands, Manchester
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourSunday, July 3, 2011, gates open at 5:30 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Grafton Ponds, Grafton
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourMonday, July 4, 2011, gates open at 5:15 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Shelburne Farms, Shelburne
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourThursday, July 7, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Mountain Top Inn, Chittenden
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourFriday, July 8, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Quechee Polo Grounds, Quechee
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourSaturday, July 9, 2011, gates open at 5 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Three Stallion Inn, Randolph
Visit the event page
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival TourSunday, July 10, 2011, gates open at 5:30 p.m. for picnicking, concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
Trapp Family Lodge Concert Meadow, Stowe
Visit the event page
Keep reading!
King Arthur Flour Giveaway at our Summer Festival Tour Concerts!
Only concert attendees will be allowed to enter this giveaway. An entry form will be located inside your program book at the concert. We hope to see you at our 2011 TD Bank Summer Festival Tour!
Keep reading!
Friday, June 17, 2011
2010/2011 SymphonyKids Official Statistics
Keep reading!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Seeking Production Crew for the TD Bank Summer Festival Tour
SymphonyKids Spotlight: Raising Cane
Each year, the BCA Center gives the VSO a grant to send one Musicians-in-the-Schools ensemble to every elementary school in Burlington. This year, our woodwind trio, Raising Cane, has the pleasure of making the annual rounds. WCAX produced a short video of the trio at Champlain Elementary on Tuesday, May 24, 2011. Watch the video below by clicking "Keep reading!" See the video, complete article and photos on the WCAX website. Read more to find out about bringing any of the VSO's SymphonyKids Educational Outreach programs into your school.
Our core outreach program, Musicians-in-the-Schools, includes seven different ensembles that are available for in-school presentations. Concerts include demonstration of instruments, a wide sampling of repertoire, audience participation, and a certain amount of zany humor. These groups normally present three 45-minute shows a day, which can be in three different schools if they are close enough geographically. All presentations are most appropriate for elementary age students. The cost is $285 per performance, or $850 for a full day. Subsidy money is often available, especially if schools help set up bookings. For more information or to book a Musicians-in-the-Schools ensemble, please e-mail Eleanor Long or call (800) VSO-9293 x 14.
Keep reading!
Monday, May 16, 2011
2011 TD Bank Summer Festival Tour dates announced
Enjoy music fit for a king…on a soft summer evening in Vermont! The Vermont Symphony Orchestra presents its popular TD Bank Summer Festival Tour in eight outdoor locations this summer with a program entitled “Symphony Royale,” Anthony Princiotti conducting. From Friday, July 1 through Sunday, July 10, the Orchestra will perform in eight idyllic mountain and lakeside settings across the state. Tickets are now available through the Flynn Regional Box Office and will be available at local outlets by the end of the week.
Handel’s musical fireworks begin the program and Northstar’s real-life fireworks conclude it, in this homage to royalty. Our noble procession includes Scheherazade’s Kalendar Prince, the King and Queen of Troy, and the King of Siam. In honor of Independence Day, we celebrate our freedom from monarchical rule with America’s own version of royalty, Duke Ellington! The performance is crowned, as always, by the majestic 1812 Overture and selections from Sousa, the March King.
Keep reading for the schedule and program or view it on our website by clicking here.
“The VSO is the only orchestra that actually tours the state each summer,” says executive director Alan Jordan. “All of us look forward to the summer tour. It’s become a cherished summer tradition. This summer, we’re especially lucky to be the only outdoor concert at Shelburne Farms,” he says. “So we hope people will get their tickets, gather their picnics, and join us under the stars in a town nearby this July.”
Gates at the various sites will open for picnicking between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m. depending on location. Tickets range from $31-34 for adults; free to $17 for children under age 12. Tickets purchased at the gate will be subject to a surcharge, so advance purchase is recommended. All sites are wheelchair accessible.
For nine consecutive years, TD Bank has kindly served as the title sponsor for the VSO’s Summer Festival Tour.
SMITH Star Spangled Banner
DVORAK Carnival Overture
HANDEL Overture from Music for the Royal Fireworks
BERLIOZ Ballet Music from Les Troyens
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV The Kalendar Prince from Scheherazade
MEYERBEER Coronation March from Le Prophète
ELLINGTON, arr. CUSTER Duke Ellington!
RODGERS, arr. BENNETT The King and I
TCHAIKOVSKY 1812 Overture
Friday, July 1 Sugarbush Resort, Warren
Saturday, July 2 Hildene Meadowlands, Manchester
Sunday, July 3 Grafton Ponds, Grafton
Monday, July 4 Shelburne Farms, Shelburne
Thursday, July 7 Mountain Top Inn, Chittenden
Friday, July 8 Quechee Polo Grounds, Quechee
Saturday, July 9 Three Stallion Inn, Randolph
Sunday, July 10 Trapp Family Lodge Concert Meadow, Stowe
Keep reading!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Listen to Musically Speaking featuring Yo-Yo Ma
Listen to the April 30 Masterworks Series finale pre-concert talk. This installment of Musically Speaking features Walter Parker interviewing Jaime Laredo and Yo-Yo Ma. Click here to listen. Keep reading for the complete 2011/2012 Masterworks Series at the Flynn Center in Burlington. Subscribe to the series today and guarantee your seats.
October 29, 2011
Jaime Laredo, conductor
Vassily Primakov, piano
SAINT-SAENS Danse Macabre
RACHMANINOFF Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique
December 3, 2011
Anthony Princiotti, conductor
Katherine Winterstein, violin
BEETHOVEN Coriolan Overture
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 2
January 28, 2012
Robert De Cormier, conductor
Soloists TBA
VSO Chorus
FAURE Requiem
MOZART Requiem
March 10, 2012
Jaime Laredo, conductor
Jennifer Montone, horn
PROKOFIEV Classical Symphony
STRAUSS Horn Concerto No. 1
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3, "Eroica"
April 28, 2012
Jaime Laredo, conductor
Alon Goldstein, piano
OSVALDO GOLIJOV Sidereus
FALLA Nights in the Gardens of Spain
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 1
Keep reading!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Jaime Laredo on WCAX
The headline isn't an accurate description of the content. Jaime has been our music director for more than a decade.
Keep reading!
Friday, April 22, 2011
If you can't use your Yo-Yo Ma tickets....
We hope you are looking forward to the April 30th Masterworks series season finale concert featuring Yo-Yo Ma as much as we are.
As you know, this concert (noted recently by the Burlington Free Press as the classical music event of the year) has been sold out since September. We currently have a waiting list of some 90 people looking for more than 200 total tickets. Obviously, many will not be able to be accommodated.
We always encourage ticket holders to return any tickets that will not be used to the VSO so they may be used by others. With every Masterworks concert selling out this season, this request became even more important. Now with the Yo-Yo Ma appearance, we know every seat will be filled if ticket holders do not let unused tickets go to waste.
If for any reason you find you will be unable to use all the tickets you ordered, please contact Mia at the VSO office at (800) VSO-9293, ext. 10, so we can make these tickets available to others.
Thank you.
P. S. - Ensure that you won’t miss a single note by subscribing to the VSO’s 2011/2012 Masterworks series. Contact Mia for details! If you have already subscribed, thank you!
Keep reading for the April 30 Masterworks series finale program.
2010/2011 Masterworks Series 5
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Flynn Center, Burlington
To have the most famous classical musician in the world on stage with us at the Flynn is a dream come true! The legendary Yo-Yo Ma (who is not only the ultimate artist but also a U.N. Messenger of Peace) joins his good friend Jaime Laredo and the VSO for two popular showpieces. The program opens with Poulenc’s delightfully satirical Sinfonietta, and also includes Ravel’s charming Pavane.
Jaime Laredo, conductor
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
POULENC Sinfonietta
TCHAIKOVSKY Variations on a Rococo Theme
RAVEL Pavane for a Dead Princess
SAINT-SAENS Cello Concerto No. 1
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Monday, April 11, 2011
VSO Radio Auction Results Announced
The Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s 14th annual Radio Auction over the stations of the Radio Vermont Group raised $16,329 to support the VSO’s statewide performances and educational presentations. Over the lifetime of the event, presented by the Central Vermont Friends of the VSO, the Radio Auction has raised $221,803.
“The Radio Vermont Group has done it again,” exclaimed a jubilant VSO Executive Director Alan Jordan. “We are so grateful for the support from bidders, item donors, block sponsors, media supporters, volunteers and businesses that provided food for our auction workers. But we are particularly thankful to the Radio Vermont Group for their annual hosting of this event that has now raised more than $220,000 to help carry on the good work of the VSO across Vermont.”
The March 31st radio auction included over 95 items donated by individuals and businesses from across Central Vermont and the Champlain Valley. Block sponsors were Sullivan, Powers, & Company; Northfield Savings Bank, Waitsfield & Champlain Valley Telecom; Houseneeds.com; Dubois Construction and Lamberton Electric; Gallagher, Flynn, & Company; and Morse Farm Maple Sugar Works. Media support was provided by the Barre Times-Argus, News and Citizen, Rutland Herald, Stowe Reporter, Transcript, Valley Reporter, Waterbury Record, and The World. The Radio Auction was carried live on WDEV 550AM, 96.1FM, 96.5FM, and 101.9FM in the Kingdom; WCVT Classic Vermont 101.7FM and 102.5FM; and WLVB 93.9FM.
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Program notes: April 30 Masterworks Series Finale
To have the most famous classical musician in the world on stage with us at the Flynn is a dream come true! The legendary Yo-Yo Ma (who is not only the ultimate artist but also a U.N. Messenger of Peace) joins his good friend Jaime Laredo and the VSO for two popular showpieces. The program opens with Poulenc’s delightfully satirical Sinfonietta, and also includes Ravel’s charming Pavane. Be sure to arrive by 7 p.m. for Musically Speaking, our pre-concert talks. Keep reading for the complete program notes for this exciting evening.
Sinfonietta
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Poulenc’s mother was a talented amateur pianist (which may account for the composer’s predilection for that instrument)—he absorbed his first musical influences from a vantage point underneath his mother’s grand piano. At age fourteen, he heard the eminent pianist Eduard Risler play Chabrier’s Dix pieces pittoresques, and from that point there was no turning back: he knew he wanted to be a composer. Poulenc also favored wind instruments over strings, in general, calling his Sextuor for piano and wind quintet “an homage to the wind instruments which I have loved from the moment I began composing.”
The first piece of Poulenc’s to be performed, Rapsodie nègre, for baritone and chamber ensemble, brought him to the attention of Stravinsky, whose music clearly influenced the younger composer. In 1920 the critic Henri Collet coined the soubriquet “Les Six” for a group of six avant-garde composers, formed by Eric Satie, which included Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honneger, Georges Auric, and two others whom we challenge you to name! Although the members disavowed a communal musical aim, there were more similarities than differences. For the most part, their writing was clear, light-hearted, and entertaining.
Composed in 1947, Sinfonietta was premiered in London the next year, under the baton of Roger Desormière. The music is light, even at times satirical, and overflowing with popular turns and dance rhythms. (Ravel is said to have admitted to Poulenc that he envied his ability to “write his own folksongs.”) It is in four movements: Allegro con fuoco, Molto vivace, Andante cantabile, Très vite et très gai (“very fast and very gay”). Scholars (or nitpickers) may notice some structural weaknesses in the work, but to quote the composer, “Don’t analyze my music—love it!” Sinfonietta was written as a result of a commission from the BBC, to celebrate the opening of the Third Programme (now Radio 3). Sinfonietta is his only symphonic work, and is as close as Poulenc ever got to writing a symphony. It is full of his trademark charm and wit, and deserves to be heard more often.
Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 33
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Tchaikovsky had the greatest love and respect for Mozart, even going so far as to call him "the Christ of Music." Tchaikovsky worshipped Mozart's works as an example of the perfection of a past age, compared to which his own era seemed debased and vulgar. The Rococo Variations, written in 1876, pays tribute to the eighteenth-century manner in a charmingly antique theme beautifully suited to variation. Dedicated to his good friend, the German cellist Wilhelm Fitzhagen, this is Tchaikovsky's one great work for solo cello with orchestral accompaniment.
The formal shape is that of a theme with seven variations. The work begins with an orchestral introduction. After the initial dialogue between strings and winds, a romantic horn melody leads to the theme, presented by the solo cello. The variations are separated by orchestral interludes and solo cadenzas.
In his biography of Tchaikovsky, Edwin Evans describes the Variations as "...one of the finest display pieces in existence. Each variation has a charm and piquancy of its own, and is accompanied by orchestration of that lucid, dainty type of which Tchaikovsky was such a master when it suited his purpose." Serenely lyrical phrases alternate with passages of extreme virtuosity. The English musicologist Eric Blom writes: "The cello's abnormally, almost freakishly wide range is exploited here to the full with the greatest vivacity and brilliance."
One of the joys for the listener is hearing the delightful blend of old and "new." The rich contrasts between soloist and orchestra inspire awe for the orchestration as well as the solo performance.
Pavane for a Dead Princess (Pavane pour une infante defunte)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
In 1898, ten years after he had entered the Paris Conservatory, Ravel wrote the “Pavane for a Dead Princess,” a brief work for piano solo. First performed in 1902, it was not until 1910 that the composer scored the work for small orchestra. It became his artistic albatross long before Bolero took its place as his most often performed work, and like Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata or Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor, it was played widely but not well.
Ravel was quick to disavow any meaning in his title. HE chose the title simply because he enjoyed the alliteration, and offered this caveat: “Do not attach to the title any more importance than it has. Do not dramatize it. It is not a funeral lament for a dead child, but rather an evocation of the pavane which could have been danced by such a little princess (Infanta) as painted by Velasquez at the Spanish court.”
In an exasperated aside to an aspiring pianist performing very seriously and very under tempo, Ravel remarked, “The next time remember that I have written a pavane for a deceased princess, not a deceased pavane for a princess.”
--Hilary Hatch
Cello Concerto No. 1 in a minor, Op. 33
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Saint-Saëns wrote ten concertos, among them two for violoncello, over the course of a long and productive composing career. Famous during his lifetime as a brilliant organist, concert pianist, music critic, and composer of operas and ballets, Saint-Saëns is remembered today mainly for his instrumental works. Although he championed the radical “new music” of Liszt, Berlioz, and Wagner, his own compositions are remarkable for their conservative and classic restraint.
The Cello Concerto No. 1, written in 1872 for the distinguished first cellist of the Paris Conservatory Orchestra, August Tolbecque, is a modest work: engagingly unpretentious, yet far from frivolous and equally far from being academic. It is in three contrasting movements that are played continuously. The orchestra has a large share in the piece, but Saint-Saëns prevents it from overshadowing the solo part with consummate skill.
The concerto starts with a terse, controlled opening tune in the cello which presages the economical and understated nature of the entire work. The middle movement begins with a soft dance-like interlude in the strings which is then embroidered upon by the solo cello. A cadenza capped by a series of rising trills leads into the final allegro, where the original theme is developed in a vigorous dialogue between orchestra and cello, with greater and greater virtuosity demanded of the soloist.
Yo-Yo Ma, Cello
For his latest album, Songs of Joy & Peace, the multiple Grammy award-winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma invited many of his favorite artists from the worlds of popular and classical music to collaborate on a selection of songs--some sacred, some secular, some traditionally seasonal, some simply beloved--connected in their sense of wonder and appreciation of the holiday season. Yo-Yo Ma conceived of Songs of Joy & Peace as a universal holiday house party of music "uniting different forms of joy" with the idea of combining familiar material with songs that would offer the listener the gift of discovery performed by old friends and new. Songs of Joy & Peace celebrates the universal hopes, dreams and good cheer animating seasonal festivals--Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid, Kwanzaa, Yuletide, Winter Solstice, New Year's, Ramadan--the world over.
Celebrating his 30th anniversary with Sony Classical and Sony Masterworks, Yo-Yo Ma is an exclusive Sony Classical artist, and his discography of over 75 albums (including 15 Grammy Award winners) reflects his wide-ranging interests. He has made several successful recordings that defy categorization, among them Hush with Bobby McFerrin, Appalachia Waltz and Appalachian Journey with Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer and two Grammy-winning tributes to the music of Brazil: Obrigado Brazil and Obrigado Brazil - Live in Concert. Yo-Yo Ma's most recent recordings include Paris: La Belle Époque, with pianist Kathryn Stott; Appassionato, which contains some of the world’s most romantic music; and New Impossibilities, a live album recorded with the Silk Road Ensemble and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also appears on John Williams' soundtrack for Rob Marshall's film Memoirs of a Geisha. Across this full range of releases, Yo-Yo Ma remains one of the best-selling recording artists in the classical field. All of his recent albums have quickly entered the Billboard chart of classical best sellers, remaining in the Top 15 for extended periods, often with as many as four titles simultaneously on the list.
Yo-Yo Ma is strongly committed to educational programs that not only bring young audiences into contact with music but also allow them to participate in its creation. While touring, he takes time whenever possible to conduct master classes as well as more informal programs for students--musicians and non-musicians alike. At the same time, he continues to develop new concert programs for family audiences (helping, for instance, to inaugurate the family series at Carnegie Hall). In each of these undertakings, he works to connect music to students' daily surroundings and activities with the goal of making music and creativity a vital part of children's lives from an early age. He has also reached young audiences through appearances on Arthur, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street.
Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four and soon came with his family to New York, where he spent most of his formative years. Later, his principal teacher was Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School. He sought out a traditional liberal arts education to expand upon his conservatory training, graduating from Harvard University in 1976. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the Glenn Gould Prize (1999), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Dan David Prize (2006), the Sonning Prize (2006), and the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award (2008). Appointed a CultureConnect Ambassador by the United States Department of State in 2002, Yo-Yo Ma has met with, trained and mentored thousands of students worldwide, including Lithuania, Korea, Lebanon, Azerbaijan and China. He has performed with and conducted master classes for members of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra. In 2006, Secretary General Kofi Annan named him a U.N. Messenger of Peace and in 2007 Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon extended his appointment.
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