UC Davis Orchestra greets new year with Elgar, Wagner
Details
What: UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, featuring soloist Jeremy Tai
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis
Tickets: $12-$17 general, $8 students; www.mondaviarts.org, (530) 754-2787
The UC Davis Symphony Orchestra’s next concert — at 7 p.m. Sunday in the Mondavi Center’s Jackson Hall — will be a tad unusual: The orchestra will not perform a symphony.
“It’s a four-fold concert,” said conductor Christian Baldini. “We’re doing challenging works that call for a lot of work from our orchestra members. By not doing a symphony, we have the possibility of exploring a wider range of repertoire.”
Instead of following the traditional overture-concerto-symphony concert plan, Sunday’s program will feature a famous piece by Richard Wagner — the grand, majestic, regal overture to his opera “Tannhäuser” (1842-45). Like many projects connected to Wagner, this overture is outsized: It runs some 15 minutes (longer and meatier than most), it calls for a lot of instruments, and it contains some spectacular, and by no means easy-to-play, passages for different sections of the orchestra.
“It is a big, big, big overture, and it puts great demands on the brass, and it can be almost ridiculously difficult for the strings — things that are excellent for the orchestra to learn. And it’s a magnificent piece,” Baldini said.
There also will be a much shorter Intermezzo from Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s opera “Pagliacci” (1892). “It is a complete contrast to the Wagner … it’s anti-Wagner, basically. It is introspective, and when there is a climax, it arrives … but then dissipates … a completely different musical world than ‘Tannhäuser.’ ”
The longest piece on the program will be Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto (1919). It was the British composer’s last major work, written during the exhaustion of the aftermath of World War I, at a time when the composer’s penchant for music reflecting “pomp and circumstance” was somewhat out of fashion after the recent experience with trench warfare and poison gas by tens of thousands of British servicemen.
Some music historians believe Elgar was, to a degree, reflecting on his career — and not always doing so in a happy mood — when he wrote this concerto, which is noted for its elegiac nature.
The following year, Elgar suffered a devastating personal loss when his wife died, and he largely retired from composing.
“The Elgar has this extreme range of emotions. … It is a very intense piece,” Baldini explained. “It can be very delicate and introspective at times, but at some moments it has this explosion of feelings.”
The soloist for this rather serious concerto will be 12-year-old Jeremy Tai.
“I heard Jeremy Tai play last year as part of the Mondavi Center’s Young Artist Competition,” Baldini said. “He walked into the room — this little boy — and he sat down and started playing with this big sound. He had such an intensity that I was completely mesmerized.
“He ended up winning the competition’s Junior Division, and I was so highly impressed that I wanted him to perform with our orchestra. He is a remarkable musician already, and a very generous soul,” Baldini continued. “When he won the Young Artist Competition last year, he immediately donated the money to earthquake and tsunami relief in Japan.”
Also on the program will be the winner of this year’s UC Davis Symphony Orchestra Composition contest, a nine-minute piece titled “aspirative plosives” by Gabriel José Bolaños Chamorro, a graduate student in composition in the UCD music department.
“It has nothing to do with explosives,” Baldini quipped. “The piece makes very interesting use of percussion, including vibraphone, cymbals, bass drum and more. There is also a nice part for the contrabassoon, and over in the strings, the double bass does some interesting things. He’s using the lower range of instruments quite a lot.
“And in sections of the piece, there is some room for freedom for the performers. He gives a series of five or six notes and asks for the players to repeat them — but he does not want synchronicity. It’s a very interesting effect.”
Tickets to Sunday’s 7 p.m. concert are $12 to $17 general and $8 for students, available at www.mondaviarts.org or (530) 754-2787.
— Reach Jeff Hudson at jhudson@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8055.
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=128992
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Posted by Jeff Hudson
on Jan 23 2012.
Last Login: Sat 19 May 2012 11:40:19 AM PDT
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