Press

March 28th, 2009

Warren Philharmonic Concert of March 28, 2009

Jerome K. Stephens

What was so special about the classical music concert on March 28, 2009. I suppose it was nothing in the minds of many, all of whom missed something extraordinary by staying home. It was the Warren Philharmonic Orchestra gave that concert.

Who are they? Nothing but a group of very well trained professional musicians. All of them played their best under their also extraordinary conductor, Susan Davenny Wyner. The orchestra is small by big city standards, but there was nothing second rate about the performance. It was very professionally done. After all, this is the orchestra and conductor that accompanied the combined choruses did that top notch performance of the Verdi Requiem in April, 2008. Those who did not attend that performance missed something wonderful.

There are those, local newspaper editors among them, who have the idea that classical music is dead. Ha! Just two hours drive away to the South East, there are classical music performances that are often sold out. One will find in the audiences old people, young people, families, bikers, factory workers – in fact, a cross section of the entire community. I have talked to the professionals comprising the groups performing the concerts in the Warren Civic series of concerts. They are acquainted with their fellow professionals, and they often attend classical concerts when they have the time off. Do they know something the local Warren Civic audiences don’t? It would seem that they do.

The central presentations were the Polovtsian Dances from the opera, Prince Igor, by Aleksandr Borodin, and the simple appearing, but actually quite difficult, Bolero, by Maurice Ravel. There were also two of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, dances from Mozart’s Opera, Idomeneo, Johann Strauss the Younger’s waltz, On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Johann Strauss the Elder’s Radetzky March, and selections from the musical, Fiddler on the Roof.

The two Slavonic Dances, one from each set, opened the program. These were an outcome of Johannes Brahms sending a set of duets for 2 sopranos and piano by Dvorak to his own publisher, Fritz Simrock, with an enthusiastic recommendation. Simrock published them, and commissioned the first set of Slavonic Dances, which were originally for piano 4 hands. They were orchestrated later. They were enthusiastically received by both critics and the public, who assaulted the music shops to purchase the scores. (People entertained themselves then. Composers and their publishers depended on the sales of such piano compositions and string quartets, trios, piano and strings quintets to amateur musicians for their income. It wasn’t in the concert hall that the money was made.) The second set was published about 1886, and was received with equal enthusiasm.

An interesting footnote is that Georg Szell liked to include them in his Cleveland Orchestra programs, much to the dismay of the local culture vultures, which included one of the local newspaper’s resident music critics. He continuously chided Szell for playing that “Czech hillbilly music.” I did NOT agree. That they were actually original compositions seems to have escaped his notice. Certainly the Warren Philharmonic’s performance showed their true worth.

Borodin’s opera , Prince Igor, was never completed by him. Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov completed it, and it was premiered in November, 1890. The opera itself is seldom performed, but the outtake, the Polovtsian Dances, which occur at the end of the first act, are frequently performed by most symphony orchestras. They were orchestrated by Borodin, and in the opera, the dancers also sing. The lines sung by the slave maidens in the Gliding Dance of the (Slave) Maidens are “Fly on the wings of the wind to our native land, dear song of ours – there, where we have sung you at liberty, where we felt so free in singing you.” In the Wild Dance of the Men, the men sing “Sing songs of praise to the Khan! Sing! Praise the power and valor of the Khan!” Well, you get the picture.

The performance by the Warren Philharmonic was excellent. If it had been possible to have a chorus singing those lines, it would have been out of this world.

The waltz set, On the Beautiful Blue Danube, by Johann Strauss the Younger, was next on the program. Actually, the central theme began life as a rather humdrum chorus for men’s voices celebrating the advent of the carbon arc lamps on the streets of Vienna. Fortunately for posterity, it didn’t stay that way. A footnote. If one attends one of the Oktoberfests popping up around the US, it is interesting to see and hear in some of the German folk dance performances the same three four meter with emphasis on the first beat also characterizes the music for those dances, or Lander as they were called.

The waltz begins with a legato statement of the main theme. There was a practical reason for this. In the days before public address systems, that opening theme was a signal to the men attending the ball that they should ask their partners if they wished to dance, and, if they assented, lead them to the floor. As each new theme was begun, partners could be exchanged. The finale allowed the ladies to return to their seats. At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the ability to hold one’s own on the dance floor was considered to be of great enough importance that it was a part of what was taught to fledgling officers at West Point.

Needless to say, the performance at the concert was, as always, very welcome.

The founder of the Strauss waltz dynasty was Johann Strauss the Elder. He was born in the Viennese suburb of Leopoldstadt in 1804. He was fascinated by the music of the wandering tavern musicians who worked along the Danube, but did not receive any proper instruction in the violin that became his trademark until around 1817. In September of 1825, he became second music director under Joseph Lanner, and formed his own orchestra in May of 1827. The Radetzky-Marsch, the 228th composition of his career, was composed in 1848, and dedicated to the Austrian army. He died of scarlet fever in September, 1849.

The Radetzky March is the most often performed of the elder Strauss’ compositions. It is a staple of New Year’s orchestral celebrations, and has become particularly well known through Vienna Symphony New Year telecasts.

The ever popular Bolero by Maurice Ravel concluded the performance. Technically, a bolero is a dance originating in Spain during the last part of the 18th Century, add was popular in the court and theaters through the 19th Century. It continues today in the traditional song and dance genres of Andalusia, Castile, and Mallorca. It is in a triple meter at a moderate tempo, usually performed by a couple. Various interpretations are also found in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Ravel’s Bolero was the result of a commission for a ballet by the dancer, Ida Rubenstein. Ravel originally intended to orchestrate some of the piano pieced by Albéniz. He was disappointed to find out from his friend, the Cuban composer Joaquín Nin, that the composer Enrique Arbós was already engaged in such a project. Ravel was unhappy, but soon came up with another idea. The Bolero was the result.

Ravel’s Bolero, originally titled Fandango, differs from the bolero of the dance halls. It employs a consistently moderate and uniform tempo in its melody and harmony with a recurrent underlying rhythm. The crescendo is gradual from the beginning, and the snare drum plays an important role in this piece. Maestra Wyner placed the orchestra’s snare drummer at the front of the orchestra., emphasizing that importance, and he performed splendidly.

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, when he conducted the work with the Pittsburgh Symphony early this year, used 2 snare drummers, the second one coming in two thirds of the way through the piece, to obtain the crescendo he wanted.. What is there to choose between the two approaches? Each was equally effective, and all depends on what the conductor wants.

Bolero was intended to be a ballet. There is one scene taking place in a tavern, with a female dancer (Ida Rubenstein) dancing on a table. The dance becomes more frenzied, until a fight breaks out as the cataclysmic shift to E Major arrives.

Ravel thought that without the ballet, the composition couldn’t possibly work as a concert piece. As evidenced by the Warren Philharmonics performance, what he thought were the weaknesses of Bolero were actually its strengths, and concert audiences have proved him wrong for nearly 80 years.

Also on the program were selections from the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, which rounded out the evening very well.