St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church was chock-full for Sunday afternoon’s first outing of Spoleto USA’s ever-popular Intermezzi series, offering mostly smaller-scale instrumental classics. Conductor Marc Dana Williams – a well-proven Spoleto veteran – led a gifted gaggle of players from the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in a happy program that included two cherished classics plus a glowing rarity.
For starters, we got the chamber orchestra version of the beloved suite from Aaron Copland’s ballet, Appalachian Spring – a work that screams AMERICANA at you like no other. It’s remained his “smash hit” for decades. I thought I’d long since gotten tired of it – but hearing this scoring, for thirteen assorted instruments, re-opened my ears to the music. Its clearer, uncluttered chamber sonorities reminded me anew of the piece’s harmonic and rhythmic ingenuity. Thank you, Marc – it sounded great.
From there, it was on to one of Western music’s great profundities: the ‘Ricerar for six voices’ from J. S. Bach’s mind-bending Musical Offering, as arranged by 20th-Century serialist Anton Webern. The story here is that old master Bach – already considered a dinosaur by some – was invited to visit the Prussian Emperor Frederick the Great, who employed one of Bach’s sons (Karl Phillip Emmanuel) at the time.
Frederick – himself a dilettante flutist – attempted to confound Bach’s legendary prowess as an improviser by giving him an awkward (and downright ugly) melody to work with. But Bach confounded his majesty right back with some amazing improvisation, followed up later that year by the Musical Offering – a polished chamber masterpiece that proved that he could make great music, even out of a bad tune. (Oh – and Bach got his revenge by making the flute part too difficult for the emperor to play.)
The ‘Ricerar’ movement is one of Bach’s most metaphysical creations, exploring the outer limits of counterpoint. Berg’s expansion of the original chamber scoring actually clarified much of its dense polyphonic texture, thanks to an orchestra’s varied sonorities. Williams and company gave it a glowing reading. If you’re a fan of fugues, I hope you were there: you don’t get to hear this one very often.
Our trusty players wrapped things up with Mozart’s tried-and-true “Linz” symphony (No. 36): one of the fab final five among his symphonies. The man never wrote a bad piece of music. The SFO players sounded juicy and precise – St. Matthew’s is a good venue for small orchestra. I especially liked the smooth, drawn-out woodwind textures that Williams coaxed from them here and there.
This event rounds out a triple-header of super starts for all three of Spoleto’s main series this year (see my previous posts). Why am I not surprised?
A Well-Done first Intermezzo
St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church was chock-full for Sunday afternoon’s first outing of Spoleto USA’s ever-popular Intermezzi series, offering mostly smaller-scale instrumental classics. Conductor Marc Dana Williams – a well-proven Spoleto veteran – led a gifted gaggle of players from the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in a happy program that included two cherished classics plus a glowing rarity.
For starters, we got the chamber orchestra version of the beloved suite from Aaron Copland’s ballet, Appalachian Spring – a work that screams AMERICANA at you like no other. It’s remained his “smash hit” for decades. I thought I’d long since gotten tired of it – but hearing this scoring, for thirteen assorted instruments, re-opened my ears to the music. Its clearer, uncluttered chamber sonorities reminded me anew of the piece’s harmonic and rhythmic ingenuity. Thank you, Marc – it sounded great.
From there, it was on to one of Western music’s great profundities: the ‘Ricerar for six voices’ from J. S. Bach’s mind-bending Musical Offering, as arranged by 20th-Century serialist Anton Webern. The story here is that old master Bach – already considered a dinosaur by some – was invited to visit the Prussian Emperor Frederick the Great, who employed one of Bach’s sons (Karl Phillip Emmanuel) at the time.
Frederick – himself a dilettante flutist – attempted to confound Bach’s legendary prowess as an improviser by giving him an awkward (and downright ugly) melody to work with. But Bach confounded his majesty right back with some amazing improvisation, followed up later that year by the Musical Offering – a polished chamber masterpiece that proved that he could make great music, even out of a bad tune. (Oh – and Bach got his revenge by making the flute part too difficult for the emperor to play.)
The ‘Ricerar’ movement is one of Bach’s most metaphysical creations, exploring the outer limits of counterpoint. Berg’s expansion of the original chamber scoring actually clarified much of its dense polyphonic texture, thanks to an orchestra’s varied sonorities. Williams and company gave it a glowing reading. If you’re a fan of fugues, I hope you were there: you don’t get to hear this one very often.
Our trusty players wrapped things up with Mozart’s tried-and-true “Linz” symphony (No. 36): one of the fab final five among his symphonies. The man never wrote a bad piece of music. The SFO players sounded juicy and precise – St. Matthew’s is a good venue for small orchestra. I especially liked the smooth, drawn-out woodwind textures that Williams coaxed from them here and there.
This event rounds out a triple-header of super starts for all three of Spoleto’s main series this year (see my previous posts). Why am I not surprised?