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Tickets available at Hawrelak Park beginning at 5pm. About this Concert Kick off the long weekend with three beloved and powerful masterpieces. Vancouver’s Sara Davis Buechner makes her festival debut as we open Symphony Under the Sky with three of classical music’s biggest hits! Featured Repertoire ROSSINI: Overture from The Barber of Seville MOZART: Symphony No. 40 TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1

Next Symphony Under the Sky Performance Sat, September 1 at 2pm Orchestral Showcase

Weekend Pass Includes all 5 ESO performances! Reserved Seating $149 Adult / $75 Child Grass Seating $99 Adult / Children Free

Individual Concerts* Reserved Seating $40 Adult / $20 Child Grass Seating $25 Adult / Children Free *Ticket fees apply to individual concert purchases. Free grass seating applies to children under 12 accompanied by an adult.

Artist Info

Robert Bernhardt, conductor

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Sara Davis Buechner, piano

Program Info

Program

Program Notes

Il barbiere di Siviglia (“The Barber of Seville”): Overture
Gioacchinno Rossini (b. Pesaro, 1792 / d. Passy, 1868)

The overture with which we have come to indelibly associate Rossini’s comic masterpiece The Barber of Seville (or, let’s be honest, its associations with Bugs Bunny massaging hair tonic on the bald pate of Elmer Fudd!) has, musically, nothing to do with the actual opera. For good reason, too. Gioacchino Rossini wrote the overture for another opera – a drama, in fact – which had flopped. Completely unapologetically, and quite typically for him, Rossini merely appropriated what was a fine curtain-raiser, and added it to his comic opera of the merry comings, goings and machinations of Figaro and his fellows.


Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.550
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (b.Salzburg, 1756 / d. Vienna, 1791)

Mozart wrote a great deal of music, but none of it was written strictly for its own sake. Mozart lived before the romantic notion of an artist writing out of a need to produce music, whether it was played or not. So the fact that there does not appear to have been a compelling reason for him to have written his last three symphonies, all composed within six weeks of each other in 1788, does not mean that such a reason did not exist.

It’s likely that Mozart had performances in mind, or at the very least, hoped that publishing the scores would bring in some money. However practical the motivation, the three symphonies he created in this time stand as supreme examples of their art. The middle of the three, No. 40, certainly did not get its first performance until after Mozart had revised it by adding a pair of clarinets to his previous orchestration.

The first movement’s generally lively tempo is contrasted by the minor home key, the unsettledness underlined right at the outset by a dark whisper less than a bar long by the violas before the main tune is heard in the violins. This theme dominates the entire movement, moving through a series of different keys, always slightly angular and a little ominous. The second movement is an Andante which shifts into E-flat Major, but is still dominated by a dark and somber mood. There is an air of a serious, though dignified procession in the music.

The next movement pits a minor-key Menuetto against a contrasting trio in G Major. The latter has a calming effect after the stresses and eddies of the preceding movements, though it is supplanted by the return of the Menuetto theme once again. The final movement, like the first movement, contrasts a lively tempo with a minor key theme. A bucolic theme given out by the winds again offers a respite, but the overall sober and introspective mood never leaves the symphony for long.


Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op.23
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (b. Kamsko-Votinsk, 1840 / d. St. Petersburg, 1893)

So, you write a concerto for someone, hoping he’ll play it, and he writes of it, “The music is vulgar…unplayable…unworthy of its composer,” among other things. Chances are, you’d remove the dedication, and find someone else. That’s exactly what Tchaikovsky did with his First Piano Concerto, crossing out Nikolai Rubinstein’s name, and adding Hans von Bülow’s, as the German musician praised the music highly. Completing the score in late 1874, the concerto was finally premiered on October 25, 1875, in Boston.

The concerto’s remarkable and very famous opening begins with strong horn pronouncements, followed by a rich, romantic melody for strings, punctured by powerful piano chords, and that followed by the piano taking up the rich melody itself. The real surprise is that, following that sweeping opening, that lush melody never shows up in the work again. Instead, a secondary theme, based on a Ukrainian folksong, becomes the basis for the direction the music takes for the rest of the movement. Using a technique often employed in Russian concertos, Tchaikovsky uses repeated statements of the folksong theme to add decorative elements, growing more ornate, while the orchestra – which seldom plays along with the soloist – handles many of the movement’s dramatic flourishes.

The second movement’s A-B-A format combines a slow movement with a Scherzo. The A section is a lovely Andantino in D-flat Major first presented by the flute, then taken up by the piano. That is contrasted by a Prestissimo B section in a quick waltz tempo, the theme of which Tchaikovsky said was based on a French song, Il faut s’amuser, danser et rire. The finale is dominated by two main thematic ideas. A strongly Russian-flavoured dance introduced by the piano alternates with a passionately romantic secondary idea – one of those gorgeously rapturous melodies at which Tchaikovsky excelled.

As a footnote, it’s worth mentioning that, following the concerto’s enthusiastic reception at its first performances, Nikolai Rubinstein had a change of heart, and became one of the work’s greatest champions, performing it several times in his career.

Program notes © 2012 by D.T. Baker

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The gates to the Heritage Amphitheatre open one hour prior to each performance. Lawn chairs and blankets are allowed in grass seating area. Lawn chairs may be placed on the audience-left side of the amphitheatre, and the audience-right side is reserved for blankets.

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Food vendors will be located in the Heritage Amphitheatre and the Winspear Concession stand will offer snacks, hot and cold drinks, wine & beer. You may bring your own food and non-alcoholic beverages, but all alcohol must be purchased inside the amphitheatre.

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