This weekend, one of the great choirs in America comes to Harrisburg. The Bach Choir of Bethlehem – not so far away, after all – may be the “oldest Bach choir in America,” founded 113 years ago and internationally renowned for their performances and recordings of Bach’s works, they also perform music by other composers on their programs: in addition to one of Bach’s great motets, “Singet dem Herrn,” their Market Square Concerts program includes Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” and Benjamin Britten’s “Rejoice in the Lamb” as well as a new work by a composer whose name doesn’t begin with a B – Stephen Paulus, who wrote “A Dream of Time” as a commission for the choir’s celebration of conductor Greg Funfgeld’s 25th year as its artistic director and conductor.
The performance is at Market Square Church in downtown Harrisburg at 8:00 and there’s a special pre-concert talk given by conductor Greg Funfgeld beginning at 7:00, which is free to ticket-holders.
The program is entitled Songs of Hope – “From the Psalms of David to 18th century poetry by Christopher Smart written in an English lunatic asylum, and 20th century poetry by Carl Sandburg written in depression-era Chicago, the texts of our ‘Songs of Hope’ are moving affirmations of hope in the face of adversity” – appropriate given the current world news with the political unrest in the Middle East, the devastation in Japan following the recent earthquake there last week and our own concerns about extreme weather and the economy – and their performance here is in preparation for their newest CD which they’ll begin recording the following week.
Several people have told me they plan on going to the pre-concert talk just to get a good seat for the 8:00 performance. There’s been quite a buzz about the choir’s appearance here in the mid-state, so the attendance is expected to be very good.
Joining the 60-voice choir will be the 8-member chamber orchestra, the Virtuosi of the Bach Festival Orchestra, as well as vocal soloists Rosa Lamoreaux (soprano), Daniel Taylor (countertenor), Benjamin Butterfield (tenor) and William Sharp (baritone), familiar names from previous performances and recordings made by the Bach Choir.
Conductor Greg Funfgeld talks about their spring program – this one specifically for their concert in Bethlehem the day after their performance with Market Square Concerts in Harrisburg.
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Here is a video by another famous American choir of another work by Stephen Paulus – his “Pilgrim’s Hymn” performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir:
Update: this is annoying - the video embed code from their website doesn't always seem to work in here, so here's a link to their page, instead. It's a beautiful piece, so please check it out!
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While for me it’s always a thrill to hear great music well performed, there is a personal connection here I am also looking forward to. William Sharp who frequently appears as a soloist with the Bach Choir and has recorded and performed around the country, in addition to teaching at Peabody Institute in Baltimore, was a grad student at the Eastman School of Music my last year there (his wife and I were among those struggling through their doctoral defenses at the same time). It was during a brief time when the great bass, Hans Hotter, best known for his Wagnerian roles and performances of Schubert songs, was in residency there – perhaps for a week. In addition to performing Schubert’s Winterreise, he gave daily master classes (which I think were primarily about Schubert songs) for the school's voice students.
While he worked with all of the students who performed for him, Hotter took an especial interest in Bill, hearing him every day to the point Bill was often preparing new repertoire for the next day's class, even (if I recall) sight-reading when Hotter wanted to hear more. Basically, it amounted to "public" lessons with one of the greatest singers in the world, invaluable experience, no doubt, but also a chance for those of us who sat in on the classes to hear Bill sing and, even in that short time, develop as a sensitive and intuitive performer.
So there’s a certain amount of “I-knew-him-when” pride every time I’d hear a new CD of Bill’s – beginning with the “AIDS Quilt Songbook” or any of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem recordings – and now, another chance to hear him live.
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This program with Market Square Concerts and the Bach Choir of Bethlehem is partially supported by a grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, a program developed and funded by The Heinz Endowments; the William Penn Foundation; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; and The Pew Charitable Trusts; and administered by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Season sponsor: Capital BlueCross. Market Square Concerts is a resident company of Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts. Support is also received from the Cultural Enrichment Fund and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. - - - - - photo credit: header photo by Paul Pearson, from the Bach Choir's blog; photo of William Sharp from his biography page at Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
Can you guess which composer this critic is talking about?
"[This composer's] works do not in general please quite so much as [those by someone else]... [These works] confirm... he has a decided leaning towards the difficult and the unusual. But then, what great and elevated ideas he has too, testifying to a bold spirit!"
If this composer "leans toward the difficult and the unusual," your first reaction is probably some highly intellectual "contemporary" or at least early 20th Century composer like Schoenberg.
Actually, it's from an anonymous London critic writing in 1789 about Mozart's new set of six string quartets, dedicated to Haydn.
(Incidentally, when a Viennese publisher sent them to Italy for publication there, the copies were sent back because "the engraving is full of mistakes.")
The second of these quartets, the one in D Minor, K.421, opens Market Square Concert's program this week with the St. Lawrence Quartet.
(Oh, and the "someone else" whose quartets were more pleasing? Those by Leopold Kozeluch. When was the last time you ever heard a quartet by Kozeluch in a concert? Or, for that matter, any of his 33 symphonies or 22 piano concertos? Just sayin'...)
Also on the program is the first published quartet by Felix Mendelssohn and a more recent work composed especially for the St. Lawrence by one of America's leading composers today, John Adams, which they premiered in 2009.
Following that premiere, Allen Kozinn of the New York Times wrote that it was a “stylistically fluid extended fantasy, with the players moving seamlessly through a colorful sequence of episodes.”
This concert takes place at Temple Ohev Sholom in uptown Harrisburg, Thursday evening at 8:00. The temple is located at 2345 N. Front St., Harrisburg, and there is plenty of parking available.
I'll be offering a pre-concert talk at 7:00.
(Now, all we have to do is pray for good weather!)
The St. Lawrence String Quartet, one of the best known quartets from Canada, was founded over 20 years ago, and has long established itself among the world-class chamber ensembles of our generation.
Alex Ross of The New Yorker magazine writes, “The St. Lawrence are remarkable not simply for the quality of their music making, exalted as it is, but for the joy they take in the act of connection.”
They are Ensemble-in-Residence at Stanford University and all live in the San Francisco area. They have a busy touring and festival schedule, and we are fortunate that they are able to return to Harrisburg for another concert this season.
Tickets are $30, $25 seniors, $5 college/university students. School-age students are free. Tickets are available at 717 214-ARTS or at the door.
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Mozart wrote his "Haydn Quartets" – or less confusingly, the "Six Quartets Dedicated to Haydn" – between 1782 and 1785. Unlike many of his works which seemed to be written down in rough draft already complete and finished (complete as in already fully conceived; finished as in not needing any revisions to reach their final form), the sketches for these quartets show a long and (for Mozart) laborious process of trials and corrections.
The story goes that Mozart was so intrigued by what Haydn was doing in the String Quartet Medium with his latest published set – the six quartets, Op. 33 – which came out the year Mozart arrived in Vienna at the age of 25.
Also unusual for Mozart, who seems to have sprung Minerva-like fully formed without formal training, was this need to "study" someone else's music. So taking Haydn's music and studying it to "learn the art of quartet writing" might seem odd, in hindsight. Mozart had written quartets before and could no doubt have continued writing quartets as easily as he wrote symphonies, concertos and operas without "studying" anyone else's music to find out how to improve his craft.
However, that deference may also be a mark of maturity. Haydn, then over twice Mozart's age, after all, was the avowed "Great Composer" of the day – not just a popular one, like Kozeluch. Whatever Mozart was looking for when he arrived in Vienna – primarily, to make a living as a free-lancer rather than be stifled as a court musician in provincial Salzburg – he also realized he could benefit from learning what Haydn (himself, largely untaught) had already accomplished.
It's no small statement to say Mozart's six "Haydn" Quartets are among the finest of the 18th Century – even if they made difficult listening for some people more attuned to works by Kozeluch and other, equally forgotten but once popular composers.
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Both learning and a sense of homage are behind Mendelssohn's first published quartet, as well. Beethoven's last quartets were still new – in fact, so new, if it's true that the opening of the A Minor Quartet was inspired by Beethoven's Op. 135, the "Muss es sein? Es muss sein! (Must it be? It must be!)" statement that opens the last movement, Mendelssohn studied the score even before it had been given its world premiere performance! It was written as a direct response to the news that Beethoven had died on March 27th, 1827.
While his next quartet – the one in E-flat Major – may show less direct influence from Beethoven, Mendelssohn began this quartet at home in Berlin in 1829 but completed it in London in September while on the tour that was the inspiration for what became the "Hebrides Overture (Fingals' Cave)" and the "Scottish" Symphony.
Because the publishing of music does not always reflect the chronology of its composition, I need to explain that the 1st String Quartet was written two years after the 2nd String Quartet which in fact were both published before two works he'd composed a few years earlier.
Confusing? Yeah...
Op. 12 – String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat Major (1829, aged 20) Op. 13 – String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor (1827, aged 18) Op. 16 – Octet in E-flat Major (1825, aged 16) Op. 18 – Overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1826, aged 17) Op. 26 – "Fingal's Cave" or "The Hebrides" Overture (conceived 1829, completed 1830) Op. 56 – Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, "Scottish" (begun 1829, completed 1842)
There is also a String Quartet in E-flat Major that he composed when he was 14 but it wasn't published until over 30 years after his death. Like the early string symphonies, it's regarded as a "student work" and was never given an opus number and is generally listed as "Quartet in E-flat (1823)" to distinguish it from the two quartets in the same key he did publish (No. 1 and No. 5).
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John Adams is regarded as one of the most important composers writing today. (He turns 64 next Tuesday, by the way). While his musical style is rooted in the "minimalism" of the 1970s and '80s, it's not a fair description of his music, just as not all of Debussy's music is "impressionistic" and Debussy and Ravel are no more identical for being branded "impressionists" than Philip Glass, Steve Reich and John Adams are identical for being branded "minimalists." Yet it's convenient and it won't go away.
As a medium, the string quartet comes with considerable historical baggage – the repertoire of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Bartok and Shostakovich being not just the greatest of the quartets but some of the greatest music ever composed.
This is not the first time Adams has composed a work for string quartet but it's the first time he's called it simply that – no fanciful title, just an abstract indication of a willingness to face up to this historic legacy.
It's essentially a two-movement work, though the first movement encompasses both the standard opening, more intellectual argument of a sonata movement and a contrasting slow movement. The String Quartet was commissioned jointly by the Juilliard School for its Focus Festival and by Stanford University's "Lively Arts" and the Banff Center, written for the St. Lawrence Quartet who premiered it at Juilliard in January, 2009.
It was not an arbitrary pairing of composer and performer. Like many composers, he was inspired by hearing his performers playing something that so impressed him, he was suddenly taken by the idea of writing for them.
'When he heard them play, Adams said he was reminded of how much the sound of the string quartet is like "elevated human discourse ... like speech brought to the highest, most sublime level."
'Adams, like many composers before him, was hesitant to write a string quartet. But after he saw the St. Lawrence Quartet play Beethoven, he turned into what Nuttall describes as a "kid in a candy shop." All kinds of possibilities were suddenly open, and he began writing.'
Here are comments from reviews of the premiere:
“Like a perpetuum mobile, motion sweeps through the parts: it hums and purrs on the stage. The Canadians play the work as a scherzo with few points of repose. Electrified, like music which is in a constant current. The lively, rhythmically-charged, wild style of playing suits the 20-year-old ensemble, for which Adams has written the perfect work.” Ruhr Nachrichten
“A stunner…the piece boasts all the attributes audiences have come to associate with Adams’ best music… Its controlled restlessness yields to tremendous fervency, from the ‘ghostly’ elements of the first part to the second, with its ascending lines that rise and shimmer like heat off a highway…Adams at his most gripping, and the St. Lawrence players gave the work a fierce, go-for-broke reading.” Mercury News
And here is a YouTube audio (recorded from the NPR interview with its in-studio broadcast) of the final movement of John Adams' String Quartet with the St. Lawrence Quartet.
This weekend, Market Square Concerts presents a recital by pianist Ching-Yun Hu at Whitaker Center – Saturday evening at 8pm.
The program includes sonatas by Beethoven and Australian composer Carl Vine, Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit and two works by Chopin - the Barcarolle in F-sharp Minor and the Polonaise in A-flat, Op. 53, usually known as the "Heroic" Polonaise.
Tickets (available in the downstairs lobby at Whitaker the night of the performance or by calling 717/214-ARTS) are $30, seniors $25, college & university students $5. Tickets for school-aged children are free! (Concert sponsor is Keefer Wood Allen & Rahal, LLP.)
Described as "dazzling" and called "a pianist with the soul of Chopin," Ching-Yun Hu captured the top prize at the 2008 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv, where she was also awarded the Audience Favorite Prize, She then won the 2009 Concert Artists Guild International Competition.
Deeply impressed and equally moved by her artistry, a prominent music critic in Israel wrote, "This young woman brings with her the secret, the mystery and the style. She has the suspense of Brendel, Perahia's lyricism and Barenboim's depth. Are we witnessing the birth of a new Martha Argerich?"
Her Market Square Concerts program opens with one of Beethoven's earlier piano sonatas, published as Op. 2 in 1796, though several other, less daring works pre-date it. At the time, most sonatas were written for "household consumption" or the "amateur market." In an age when every young lady was expected to play the piano or sing, amateur (or, in German, "liebhaber") meant "having a love" for something compared to the professional, more knowledgeable expert (in German, "kenner" or "knower" of something) and, at least then, had no reflection on the level of talent involved.
Each of the three sonatas in this set, Opus 2, have different characters. This sonata was intended for the concert artist more than the household amateur, in days before famous concert artists roamed the halls of Europe performing for a living.
This brilliance – especially relying on Beethoven's skill as an improviser – may have accounted for the reservations Beethoven's teacher had about the pieces – and may also explain why Beethoven published these sonatas and not the earlier ones, their dedication to the old-fashioned Haydn notwithstanding. This dedication was a political formality as it was personal: Beethoven was then unknown but Haydn's name on the title page acted as a kind of endorsement.
Alfred Brendel plays the opening movement of Beethoven's C Major Piano Sonata, Op.2/3.
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Carl Vine might be a slightly less familiar name to American audiences. Born in Perth, Australia, in 1954, he switched majors in college from physics to composition and began his career as a composer of music for the dance. He has gone on to become one of Australia's most prominent composers and wrote his 5th String Quartet in 2007, his 7th Symphony in 2008, and a Violin Concerto that will be premiered this year.
His 3rd Piano Sonata was composed in 2007. According to the composer's web-site,
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This work is constructed in four sections that are to be played without breaks between them: fantasia – rondo – variations – presto.
The Fantasia introduces several ideas which reappear in various guises in all of the other movements, but also includes some undeveloped declamatory material. The Rondo explores a simple rhythmic motive while the Variations develop the chordal theme that opens the work. The Presto is a self-contained ternary structure that echoes thematic components from much that preceded it.
Piano Sonata Nº 3 was commissioned by the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival and the Colburn School, assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. The recipient of the 2004 Gilmore Young Artist Award, Elizabeth Schumann, gave the world premiere performance at Zipper Hall, Los Angeles, California on 11th May 2007.
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Hearing the brief sample (go to his website, click on the "piano music" link in the introductory paragraph, scroll down till you see the information on the Piano Sonata No. 3 and click on the 'speaker icon'), it has the energy and edge that reminds me of, say, a Prokofiev toccata (I was thinking somewhere between the finales of the 3rd Piano Concerto and the 7th Sonata) with that kind of stylistic integrity that makes me wonder "why haven't we heard more of this guy's music?"
Speaking of toccatas, here's the second half of his 1st Piano Sonata: it'll give you an idea.
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In addition to the two works by Chopin, a composer considered by many the "soul" of the Romantic repertoire, there is also one of the masterworks of early 20th Century piano music, Maurice Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, first heard in 1909. The first of its three movements depicts the water-sprite, Ondine, who longs for human contact, a well-worn subject of 19th Century romanticism heard both in music (sometimes called Melusine, she's the subject of a tone-poem by Mendelssohn and, as Rusalka, an opera by Dvorak, among others) and literature (think Hans Christian Anderson's tale of the Little Mermaid). The middle movement is a dark and eerie landscape called "Le gibet" or "The Gallows" with its "bell tinting at the walls of a city under the horizon and the carcass of a hanged man reddened by the setting sun". The final movement evokes the ghostly goblin, Scarbo, who pirouettes and scampers through the darkened recesses of your home (or your mind) in the middle of the night – terrifying enough to play the piece!
If you're like me, you might have taken a look at the calendar and realized, "OMG, Thanksgiving is next week!" and soon you might start freaking out about Christmas being just around the bend (though in some stores, its presence has been around for weeks).
For me, blame it on having spent most of October sick with the flu and then spending November with NaNoWriMo ("National Novel Writing Month") when the goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel's first draft in thirty days.
That's when it dawned on me the next performance with Market Square Concerts is THIS WEEKEND!
Sunday afternoon in fact, November 21st at 4pm at HACC's Rose Lehrman Arts Center. At least the forecast looks like it should be a seasonal fall day. Sorry about losing that Daylight Savings Thing, though...
The ensemble is a trio called "Dolce Suono" which means "Sweet Sound" in Italian, a pleasant name for a pleasant combination of instruments – flute, cello and piano. The Philadelphia Inquirer called them "a stunning ensemble."
A PRE-CONCERT TALK
We're trying something a little different with some of the concerts this season: pre-concert talks. Mimi Stillman, the flutist and founder of the ensemble, will be giving this one, beginning at 3:00 and it will be held in the "Black Box," the studio theater that's down at the end of the hall on your left as you walk in the front entrance to the Rose Lehrman auditorium.
STUDENT TICKETS AVAILABLE
Tickets are $30, $25 for seniors - College/university age students can purchase $5 tickets and school-aged children get in FREE. Regular concert tickets are also available at 214-ARTS.
About the Program
There's not a lot of music written for this combination which makes programming a challenge. Unlike string quartets or more standard piano trios, there are no great masterpieces by Beethoven or Mozart written for it, but there is a wealth of lesser-known works that prove to be... well, "sweet," like the "Three Watercolors" which Philippe Gaubert composed in 1915 that's on the program (one of them is, appropriately, "Autumn Evening").
The program ranges from Haydn, writing in 1790, to a work composed last year to celebrate Haydn's life during the Haydn Year (officially, the Bicentennial Anniversary of his Death), called "Laus D" and composed by the ensemble's pianist, Charles Abramovic. Incidentally, the title is a play on "Laus Deo (Praise God)" which Haydn traditionally inscribed at the end of his compositions. The music pays tribute to specific works by Haydn as well as his musical spirit.
Carl Maria von Weber may be best known for his opera, Der Freischütz (without which it would be difficult to imagine a Romantic giant like Wagner), but he wrote at least a few works for the more intimate world of chamber music. His last completed chamber work was the G Minor Flute Trio, written two years before Freischütz around the same time Beethoven was getting ready to embark on what would become his "Late Period."
Like many ensembles who find themselves limited by a repertoire not many composers wrote for, the Dolce Suono Trio has made an effort to add to their repertoire by commissioning 21 new works in the past six years. Their most recent world premiere was Richard Danielpour's Remembering Neda.
The composer – who had a work commissioned by Concertante that was premiered in Harrisburg this past May – sat down for a conversation with flutist Mimi Stillman to talk about the piece prior to its world premiere in Philadelphia last month:
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In the program notes, he wrote, "I have kept much of my personal history at a distance from my work as a composer - until now. 'Remembering Neda' is a cry for understanding in this most troubled place in the world. It is a lamentation for the losses incurred during this dark time in Iran. And it is a prayer of hope that this most unfortunate of situations will one day change."
The New York Times wrote this about the composer: "Mr. Danielpour's soothing eclecticism is like an attentive host seeing to his guests' every need." The San Jose Mercury calls him "a brilliant composer who is unafraid to let his emotions show."
Here's the Dolce Suono Trio performing the first movement of the Flute Trio by Ned Rorem (it's not on the Market Square Concerts program, just an example of their playing):
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I hope you'll be able to join us at the Rose Lehrman Arts Center on the campus of the Harrisburg Area Community College, to hear the Dolce Suono Trio this Sunday afternoon at 4:00 -- and please come an hour earlier for the pre-concert talk!
Market Square Concerts opens its new season with the return of one of the great piano trios in the classical music world today. Trio Solisti performs at 8pm, Saturday, October 9th at Harrisburg's Whitaker Center.
The New York Times called them “consistently brilliant" and The Washington Post referred to their “unrelenting passion and zealous abandon in a transcendent performance.”
A composition they'd commissioned from Paul Moravec, his "Tempest Fantasy," received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2004. They later recorded the work and performed it in Harrisburg – that was one of those blizzard concerts (a "will-it-or-won't-it" weekend) and unfortunately not heard by too many listeners, though everyone in attendance was glad they'd braved the weather.
The good news is – not only is another work by Paul Moravec on this program (they'll be performing his 'Passacaglia'), the weather is likely to be a lot better than that last time...
Perhaps you've heard them at Gretna Music where they've played in past seasons as well, and if you're a fan of Concertante, performing regularly at Harrisburg's Rose Lehrman Arts Center, you already know one of the performers: cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach.
She'll be joined by her colleagues, violinist Maria Bachmann (who appeared a few seasons ago in a recital program, with the world premiere of Philip Glass's new Violin Sonata) and pianist Jon Klibonoff.
The "major work" on the program will be one of Dvořák's piano trios – while the famous "Dumky" Trio may be more frequently performed, the F Minor Trio was a more significant work in Antonin Dvořák's development and is usually considered one of his finest and most heartfelt pieces. (You can hear a recording by the legendary trio with Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky and Leonard Pennario, here.)
Rachmaninoff may be better known for his piano concertos and works for solo piano, so a piano trio by him (even a fairly short one-movement work like his Trio élégiaque No. 1) may seem unusual. Written when he was 19, it's still full of the beautiful melodies and lush harmonies that make all of his music an incredible listening experience. (You can hear the beginning of the trio, performed by the Borodin Trio, here.)
Leonard Bernstein's Piano Trio was also written by a 19-year-old – when Bernstein was a Harvard student studying with Walter Piston. You can hear Central Pennsylvania's own Newstead Trio playing the 2nd movement, here.
Paul Moravec (right) has a long history with Trio Solisti and violinist Maria Bachmann, for whom he's written a number of works. He composed the Passacaglia that's on their Market Square Concerts program in 2006, two years after the Pulitzer-prize-winning "Tempest Fantasy." While I couldn't find an on-line link to the Passacaglia, you can hear Trio Solisti performing his "Tempest Fantasy" here.
A visit to Argentina rounds out the program with "Le grand Tango" by Astor Piazzolla, the "King of the Tango" (considering Johann Strauss was the Waltz King and John Philip Sousa was the March King, why not a Tango King, especially when Piazzolla wrote most of the best ones around?) Most of his music is available in different arrangements – here's one for viola and accordion (and I'm not joking)!
Tickets for Trio Solisti are $30 (seniors $25) with tickets for college and university students $5. School age children are free, thanks to a generous grant from the Derek and Margaret Hathaway Foundation.
The opening concert of Market Square Concert's new season is sponsored by Lois
Lehrman Grass, honoring the memory of Dr. Robert E. Dye.
It may have been one of the hottest performances at the Glen Allen Mill in recent memory - not just because of the playing: Tchaikovsky's "Souvenir of Florence" sizzled for any number of reasons but it didn't lack for fireworks in case any one was expecting the 1812 Overture to end this summer concert, instead.
But there's one more performance at the mill - Sunday afternoon at 4pm - and the forecast is supposed to be "cooler" than Saturday's near-record high of 95° (though one thermometer in the vicinity of the mill was unofficially reading 98°), somplete with a mind-boggling heat index of 103°. According to some, it could be "around 90°" while other sources say "92°" on Sunday and by comparison to Saturday's temperature, that's definitely cooler (it's all relative).
The heat frustration didn't seem to dampen the players' enthusiasm or the listeners' enjoyment.
The Fry Street String Quartet is back for their 7th season with Market Square Concerts' SummerMusic and they were joined Saturday night by oboist Gerard Reuter and by Harrisburg Symphony musicians Peter Sirotin, the orchestra's associate concertmaster (playing viola in this performance), and principal cellist Fiona Thompson.
On Sunday, pianist Stuart Malina, music director and conductor of the Harrisburg Symphony, who'll perform the Oboe Sonata by Camille Saint-Saens with Gerard Reuter as well as Beethoven's C Minor Piano Trio (Op. 1, No. 3) and the Piano Quintet by Robert Schumann with the quartet.
The Glen Allen Mill is located on McCormick Road between Bowmansdale and Lisburn: From Rt. 15 South, take Rossmoyne Rd exit, turn left at light – continue on Rossmoyne Rd to Lisburn Rd – turn right onto Lisburn Rd – a few hundred yards later, bear right at the fork onto Arcona Rd – follow Arcona Rd until it dead ends at McCormick Rd – turn left onto McCormick Rd – the Mill is ¼ mile ahead on the right. Parking is in the meadow behind the Mill – follow the road over the creek – the entrance is on the right.
Summer is definitely here. We've had the 4th of July Weekend, our first heat wave of the season and the awakening of the cicadas (nature's vuvuzelas) to prove it. With any luck, the weather will be less hot and less humid next week.
Why?
Because it's time for Market Square Concerts' SummerMusic 2010 beginning July 21st.
In addition to cook-outs and holidays, Summer also means summer music festivals. This year's SummerMusic series includes three programs – one at the home-base of Market Square Presbyterian Church in Downtown Harrisburg, along with two weekend performances at the Glen Allen Mill along the Yellow Breeches Creek.
Tickets for any or all of the concerts – honoring the memory of Jason Litton – are available by calling 717 214-ARTS or at the Whitaker Center Box Office. Remaining tickets will be available at the door.
Space for seating inside the mill is limited so I'd recommend getting there earlier rather than cutting it close to curtain-time.
The Fry Street Quartet and oboist Gerard Reuter return for the series along with Stuart Malina, stepping over from his podium with the Harrisburg Symphony, to play chamber music along with two of his colleagues in the orchestra, associate concertmaster Peter Sirotin and principal cellist Fiona Thompson.
The first concert is Wednesday evening (July 21st) at Market Square Church and begins at 6:00 (yes, that's not a typo – hang around after work, if you're in-town or stop by on your way home).
The program opens with an oboe concerto by Bach – this one in F Major (BWV. 1053 for those of you who keep score by the Complete Works Catalogue) – and continues with a relatively early work of Beethoven's from his first set of string quartets, the D Major, Op. 18 #3.
On the second half, it's a delightful set of Romances for oboe and piano by Robert Schumann and then some very serious music by Felix Mendelssohn, a composer you normally associate with “delightful” (think “Wedding March” or the Italian Symphony). This is one of his very last works, the String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 80, and written in memory of his sister Fanny who'd recently died – he called it his “Requiem for Fanny” – and little did anyone know that less than two months later, Mendelssohn himself would be dead at the age of 38. Now, that may sound like a bummer for a summer concert, but this music is very powerful and impassioned rather than somber – an emotional thunderstorm, perhaps – a cathartic moment from a composer's world that yielded a personal solution to the question “how does an artist turn Life into Art?”
Incidentally, to help you digest all that, afterward consider going across the square to Bricco and The Hilton Patio which will be offering 20% off food following the concert (have your ticket stub or program booklet handy).
Then the series moves to the banks of a beautifully pastoral tree-lined stream flowing past an old mill originally built in the 18th Century (see top photo).
Saturday evening's concert – July 24th at 8pm – will feature Mozart's Oboe Quartet, the Serenade for String Trio by Erno Dohnanyi and a serenade for six strings by Tchaikovsky better known as “The Souvenir of Florence,” a very Russian-sounding work despite the location of its inspiration (the work is actually based on themes that came to him while on holiday there, jotted down in a note-book since they didn't fit into the opera he was working on at the time).
Sunday afternoon's concert – July 25th at 4pm – includes another early work by Beethoven (actually, his first completed piece to be published, even though it's No. 3 from the set of Piano Trios, Op. 1), a work that Camille Saint-Saëns wrote when he was 85 (his oboe sonata, Op.166) and a work that Robert Schumann wrote in a flurry of chamber music creativity one summer that saw not only three string quartets, the piano quartet and several other smaller works for various combinations, but also the Piano Quintet they'll be playing that afternoon (one of Schumann's most popular works).
And I should point out it IS air-conditioned after a fashion: they've managed to rig up window-units in the mill to keep it cooler – but it's summer so definitely, the dress-code is casual.
The concerts are inside the mill, so they'll go on rain or shine. If the weather permits, you can picnic along the Yellow Breeches from 6pm on Saturday or after the concert until 8pm on Sunday.
Directions to the Mill which is located on McCormick Road between Bowmansdale and Lisburn: From Rt. 15 S, take Rossmoyne Rd exit, turn left at light – continue on Rossmoyne Rd to Lisburn Rd – turn right onto Lisburn Rd – a few hundred yards later, bear right at the fork onto Arcona Rd – follow Arcona Rd until it dead ends at McCormick Rd – turn left onto McCormick Rd – the Mill is ¼ mile ahead on the right. Parking is in the meadow behind the Mill – follow the road over the creek – the entrance is on the right.
- - - - - “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” – Stella Adler - - - - -
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets can be purchased online through our website here or here;
by calling 717-221-9599;
or by emailing info@marketsquareconcerts.org.
Tickets are also available at the door prior to each concert.
Student Tickets: We also offer $5 tickets for college/university students. School-age students are free. You can get these tickets at the door before each concert.
