Battle Creek Symphony
Saturday, March 19, 2011, 7:30 pm
W.K. Kellogg Auditorium
Battle Creek Boychoir
Battle Creek Girls Chorus
Journey with Gershwin to the jazz and smoke of Roaring 20's Paris. Then enter the moody world of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances. Plus, get a sneak preview of the Battle Creek Boychoir and Girls Chorus performance adventure to Paris.
Gershwin: An American in Paris
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances
Advance tickets start at just $8
An American in Paris
George Gershwin was perhaps the most serious popular composer who ever lived. When asked if he was practicing Bach's preludes and fugues to become a concert pianist, he replied, "No. I'm practicing to become a popular-song composer."
Gershwin composed his famous tone poem, An American in Paris, in 1928, on a commission from the New York Philharmonic, when he was just 30 years old. It was inspired by, and written during, a visit to Europe and reflects his own feelings as an American tourist nostalgic for home. In order to make it sound authentic, he even brought some taxi horns for the New York premier at Carnegie Hall.
"My purpose here is to portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere," he explained. As he sets out, we can hear the angry noise of Paris taxis. Then a trombone tell us that a music hall is near by. Our American walks on by, hearing a clarinet and then a solo violin, which represents a lady who stops him, but only momentarily. (Gershwin himself was never married, claiming that he was too busy for serious romances.)
Suddenly our walker seems to be overcome with homesickness, and the music turns into American blues, reminding him of home. But then two trumpets play a rousing Charleston theme, signaling that he has encountered a fellow compatriot, and they set out to enjoy Paris together.
The blues theme comes back again, but it is full of excitement this second time, suggesting that in a beautiful, intoxicating place like Paris, people cannot help but to be happy.
Symphonic Dances
Rachmaninoff liked to quote the old Russian proverb, "If you hunt two hares at once, how sure can you be that you will catch a single one?"
Yet he seemed to hunt three hares all at the same time as a composer, a concert pianist, and a conductor.
He wrote his last work, "Symphonic Dances" in 1940, after he had permanently left Russia for Europe and the United States. Like much of his music, it is highly dramatic, and like his later works, it contains unusual harmonies, sometimes even resembling some of those found in Stavinsky's "Rite of Spring." He even features the alto saxophone, for the first time, in this work. But "Symphonic Dances" also looks back, containing some of the beautiful, lush melodies for which Rachmaninoff was famous.
Some have said that though he wrote these dances in New York, overlooking the Long Island Sound, they helped connect him with his native Russia, recalling ecclesiastical chants from his earlier music.
In the first movement, "Noon," he recalls the opening theme from his First Symphony, which he had based upon Russian ecclesiastical music.
The second, "Dusk," was meant to recall the years before the Russian Revolution. And the third, "Midnight," first presents a death theme, based on the medieval "Dies Irae" and then a resurrection theme from his "All-night Vigil," obviously suggesting hope and salvation. In fact, he actually wrote the word "Hallelujah" in the score at this point.
Symphonic Dances was first presented in 1941 by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, to whom it was dedicated.
Linda Jo Scott, program annotator
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