Pasadena Symphony 5/6 - season finale: fairy tales, opium overdoses and violinist Frank Huang
Entertainment Desk
April 10, 2006
PASADENA, Calif. On Saturday, May 6, at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, The Pasadena Symphony will close a chapter of its long history – its 78th Season – with a Season finale performance of three works that tell a tale of their own.
The concert will open at 8 p.m. with the Overture from Glinka’s opera Russlan and Ludmilla, based on poet Alexander Pushkin’s satiric fairy tale of the same name, then continue with a work often applauded for its evocation of a fairy tale world – Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1, featuring young violinist Frank Huang. The evening will conclude with Berlioz’s extraordinary and provocative Symphonie fantastique, inspired by the composer’s own story of unrequited love for a Shakespearean actress appearing in Paris.
A free, pre-concert lecture, Insights, will take place promptly at 7 p.m., led by Dr. Bill Toutant, Dean of the College of Arts, Media and Communication at California State University, Northridge. Toutant is also an accomplished composer and host of KCSN Radio’s Opera House.
Outside of Russia, the Overture to Glinka’s opera Russlan and Ludmilla is by far better known and far more often performed than the remainder of the work. Fortunately
for those who might wonder what they are missing, the Overture acts as a kind of musical Cliff Notes version of the opera. Themes incorporated from the full work into the Overture include two melodies from the marriage scene, Russlan’s Second Act aria describing his love for Ludmilla, and the evil dwarf’s motif. Refrains inspired by Russian folk music figure prominently in the Overture as well.
Although audiences hissed at it and critics panned it at its premiere in 1842, Russlan and Ludmilla is today considered to be Glinka’s masterpiece.
It’s an energetic, exuberant work,” says Tom O’Connor, Executive Director of The Pasadena Symphony. “A perfect way to set the tone for the final concert of an exhilarating and successful season.”
When Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 premiered in Paris in 1923, the audience was disappointed. Ever since the premiere of Stravinsky’s groundbreaking work, Rite of Spring, ten years earlier, Parisian audiences wanted new compositions to be equally as scandalous, shocking and experimental.
The renowned Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti was in the audience that night, however, and he disagreed. The concerto, he later wrote in his memoirs, entranced him from the beginning “by its mixture of fairy tale naiveté and daring savagery.”
The most ominous passages are written for the tuba,” adds Jorge Mester, Music Director of The Pasadena Symphony. “It’s not very often you’ll hear the tuba featured in a violin concerto.”
First Prize Winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation's Violin Competition and the 2000 Hannover International Violin Competition, Frank Huang is well on his way towards a major career as a violin virtuoso. At age eleven, he performed with the Houston Symphony Orchestra in a nationally broadcast concert and has since performed with orchestras throughout the world, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, NDR-Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hannover, Amadeus
Chamber Orchestra and the Genoa Orchestra. He has performed on NPR's Performance Today, Good Morning America and CNN's American Morning with Paula Zahn.
He shaped the music with a quiet eloquence that seemed to creep up on the listener,” said the San Francisco Chronicle of a recent performance.
Huang's first commercial recording, comprised of Fantasies by Schubert, Ernst, Schoenberg and Waxman, was released in the fall of 2003. He has had great success great success in competitions since the age of fifteen with top prize awards in the Premio Paganini International Violin Competition and the Indianapolis Violin Competition. He received Gold Medal Awards in the Kingsville International Competition, the Irving M. Klein International Competition and the D'Angelo International Competition.
Composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein once famously described Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique as “the first psychedelic music trip.” Years later, musical opinion is still much the same. Reviewer Darrell Ang warned his readers that the work, while “a storm of symphonic splendor,” was “definitely not for the weakhearted.” Paul Serotsky similarly wrote that the Symphonie Fantastique is “a graphic…portrayal of nightmarish descent into madness and oblivion.”
Berlioz’s emotions were unquestionably at fever pitch when he composed Symphonie fantastique and joined the musical form of the symphony to a deliberately constructed story incorporating an opium overdose, a ball, suicide, guillotine and witch’s sabbath. Subtitled “Episode in the Life of an Artist,” the work was inspired by Berlioz’s obsession from afar with Harriet Smithson, an actress portraying Juliet and Ophelia in Parisian productions of Shakespeare’s plays, who is represented musically by an “idée fixe” that appears throughout all five movements.
Originally, Berlioz envisioned a 220-member orchestra. He wound up having to make do, however, with 130 musicians. Nevertheless, there was no doubt in his listeners’ minds during that first performance in 1830 that they were “hearing music,” says Jane Vial Jaffee, musicologist for The Pasadena Symphony, “that sounded like no other.”
A century earlier, the composer himself echoed these sentiments. “The predominant qualities of my music,” said Berlioz, “are passionate expression, inner fire, rhythmic drive…and the unexpected.”
The Pasadena Symphony’s Season Finale concert is made possible thanks to the generosity of the following supporters: Concert Sponsor, the Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts; Concert Co-sponsors Teresa and Hubert Yen; and co-sponsors Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Erskine, Mr. and Mrs. Charles R Norman, and Dr and Mrs. John D. Roberts. Special thanks are also due to Katherine and David Lee, of le bijou Luxury Jewelers in Old Pasadena, for underwriting the fee of soloist Frank Huang and Fidelity Investments/Pasadena for sponsoring the Gold Room post-concert reception for major donors and musicians.
Established in 1928, The Pasadena Symphony is committed to providing orchestral performances of the highest quality and to benefiting the community through its music, education and outreach programs. The Pasadena Symphony performs monthly, October through May, at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, located at 300 East Green
Street in Pasadena. Concerts begin promptly at 8 p.m., with a free pre-concert lecture series “Insights” taking place in the auditorium at 7 p.m.
Individual ticket prices range from $15 to $72, with discounts available for groups of ten or more. Student and senior rush tickets will also be available on the day of the concert for $12. To purchase tickets to any performances of The Pasadena Symphony, call the box office at 626.584.8833. To learn more about The Pasadena Symphony, call The Pasadena Symphony’s offices at 626.793.7172 or visit the orchestra’s website at www.pasadenasymphony.org
The concert will open at 8 p.m. with the Overture from Glinka’s opera Russlan and Ludmilla, based on poet Alexander Pushkin’s satiric fairy tale of the same name, then continue with a work often applauded for its evocation of a fairy tale world – Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1, featuring young violinist Frank Huang. The evening will conclude with Berlioz’s extraordinary and provocative Symphonie fantastique, inspired by the composer’s own story of unrequited love for a Shakespearean actress appearing in Paris.
A free, pre-concert lecture, Insights, will take place promptly at 7 p.m., led by Dr. Bill Toutant, Dean of the College of Arts, Media and Communication at California State University, Northridge. Toutant is also an accomplished composer and host of KCSN Radio’s Opera House.
Outside of Russia, the Overture to Glinka’s opera Russlan and Ludmilla is by far better known and far more often performed than the remainder of the work. Fortunately
for those who might wonder what they are missing, the Overture acts as a kind of musical Cliff Notes version of the opera. Themes incorporated from the full work into the Overture include two melodies from the marriage scene, Russlan’s Second Act aria describing his love for Ludmilla, and the evil dwarf’s motif. Refrains inspired by Russian folk music figure prominently in the Overture as well.
Although audiences hissed at it and critics panned it at its premiere in 1842, Russlan and Ludmilla is today considered to be Glinka’s masterpiece.
It’s an energetic, exuberant work,” says Tom O’Connor, Executive Director of The Pasadena Symphony. “A perfect way to set the tone for the final concert of an exhilarating and successful season.”
When Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 premiered in Paris in 1923, the audience was disappointed. Ever since the premiere of Stravinsky’s groundbreaking work, Rite of Spring, ten years earlier, Parisian audiences wanted new compositions to be equally as scandalous, shocking and experimental.
The renowned Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti was in the audience that night, however, and he disagreed. The concerto, he later wrote in his memoirs, entranced him from the beginning “by its mixture of fairy tale naiveté and daring savagery.”
The most ominous passages are written for the tuba,” adds Jorge Mester, Music Director of The Pasadena Symphony. “It’s not very often you’ll hear the tuba featured in a violin concerto.”
First Prize Winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation's Violin Competition and the 2000 Hannover International Violin Competition, Frank Huang is well on his way towards a major career as a violin virtuoso. At age eleven, he performed with the Houston Symphony Orchestra in a nationally broadcast concert and has since performed with orchestras throughout the world, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, NDR-Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hannover, Amadeus
Chamber Orchestra and the Genoa Orchestra. He has performed on NPR's Performance Today, Good Morning America and CNN's American Morning with Paula Zahn.
He shaped the music with a quiet eloquence that seemed to creep up on the listener,” said the San Francisco Chronicle of a recent performance.
Huang's first commercial recording, comprised of Fantasies by Schubert, Ernst, Schoenberg and Waxman, was released in the fall of 2003. He has had great success great success in competitions since the age of fifteen with top prize awards in the Premio Paganini International Violin Competition and the Indianapolis Violin Competition. He received Gold Medal Awards in the Kingsville International Competition, the Irving M. Klein International Competition and the D'Angelo International Competition.
Composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein once famously described Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique as “the first psychedelic music trip.” Years later, musical opinion is still much the same. Reviewer Darrell Ang warned his readers that the work, while “a storm of symphonic splendor,” was “definitely not for the weakhearted.” Paul Serotsky similarly wrote that the Symphonie Fantastique is “a graphic…portrayal of nightmarish descent into madness and oblivion.”
Berlioz’s emotions were unquestionably at fever pitch when he composed Symphonie fantastique and joined the musical form of the symphony to a deliberately constructed story incorporating an opium overdose, a ball, suicide, guillotine and witch’s sabbath. Subtitled “Episode in the Life of an Artist,” the work was inspired by Berlioz’s obsession from afar with Harriet Smithson, an actress portraying Juliet and Ophelia in Parisian productions of Shakespeare’s plays, who is represented musically by an “idée fixe” that appears throughout all five movements.
Originally, Berlioz envisioned a 220-member orchestra. He wound up having to make do, however, with 130 musicians. Nevertheless, there was no doubt in his listeners’ minds during that first performance in 1830 that they were “hearing music,” says Jane Vial Jaffee, musicologist for The Pasadena Symphony, “that sounded like no other.”
A century earlier, the composer himself echoed these sentiments. “The predominant qualities of my music,” said Berlioz, “are passionate expression, inner fire, rhythmic drive…and the unexpected.”
The Pasadena Symphony’s Season Finale concert is made possible thanks to the generosity of the following supporters: Concert Sponsor, the Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts; Concert Co-sponsors Teresa and Hubert Yen; and co-sponsors Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Erskine, Mr. and Mrs. Charles R Norman, and Dr and Mrs. John D. Roberts. Special thanks are also due to Katherine and David Lee, of le bijou Luxury Jewelers in Old Pasadena, for underwriting the fee of soloist Frank Huang and Fidelity Investments/Pasadena for sponsoring the Gold Room post-concert reception for major donors and musicians.
Established in 1928, The Pasadena Symphony is committed to providing orchestral performances of the highest quality and to benefiting the community through its music, education and outreach programs. The Pasadena Symphony performs monthly, October through May, at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, located at 300 East Green
Street in Pasadena. Concerts begin promptly at 8 p.m., with a free pre-concert lecture series “Insights” taking place in the auditorium at 7 p.m.
Individual ticket prices range from $15 to $72, with discounts available for groups of ten or more. Student and senior rush tickets will also be available on the day of the concert for $12. To purchase tickets to any performances of The Pasadena Symphony, call the box office at 626.584.8833. To learn more about The Pasadena Symphony, call The Pasadena Symphony’s offices at 626.793.7172 or visit the orchestra’s website at www.pasadenasymphony.org
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