Coming in October

Join the GSO for its 2010-2011 season premier! The GSO will be performing Grieg's In Autumn, Glazunov's "Autumn" from The Seasons, Vaughan Williams' Tuba Concerto in F Minor, and Brahms' Symphony No. 2 in D Major, to name a few!
Friday, October 22nd, 2010
8:00pm
Patty Granville Arts Center

Coming in November

The GSO will be performing Piazolla's "Otoņo Porteņo" (Buenos Aires Autumn), Mozart's Symphony No. 36 in C Major "Linz", Beethoven's Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano. This performance will also feature Vivaldi's "Autumn" from The Four Seasons.
Friday, November 19th, 2010
8:00pm
Patty Granville Arts Center
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Friday, October 22nd, 2010 | 8:00pm | Patty Granville Arts Center

Edvard Grieg – In Autumn, Op. 11   

Timing:  11’7 

The opening Andante in D Major starts with chords played by the orchestra contrasting with a sunny woodwind theme. The tension slowly builds to a D Minor Allegro section in sonata form.  The orchestra takes up the main theme in D Minor taken from a song entitled "Autumn Storm." After the main theme, we hear a secondary theme in F Major. The development brings the return of previous themes through a series of restless modulations. After a slower section for horn and strings, the recapitulation brings the return of the main themes. The overture concludes with a triumphant reprise of the opening woodwind theme.

Alexander Glazunov – “Autumn” from The Seasons (Vremena goda) Op. 67b  

Timing:  4’02

The score for The Seasons was originally intended to have been composed by Glazunov's colleague and close friend, the Italian composer and conductor Riccardo Drigo, who for many years held the posts of director of music and Chef d’orchestre to the Ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. Another of Marius Petipa's ballets which was also in the preliminary stages at same time as that of The Seasons was Petipa's Les Millions d’Arlequin (a.k.a. Harlequinade); a work originally intended to have had a score supplied by Glazunov. Since both Drigo and Glazunov each had an affinity towards the other's assigned ballet, the two composers agreed that Glazunov would compose The Seasons and that Drigo would compose Les Millions d’Arlequin.

Petipa's Les Millions d'Arlequin was presented for the first time before the royal court at the Imperial Theatre of the Hermitage on 23 February 1900. The Seasons would premiere three days later.

In 1907 Nikolai Legat staged a revival of The Seasons at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. This production was performed on occasion by the Imperial Ballet after the Russian Revolution, being performed for the last time in 1927.

The Seasons lived on in an abridged edition in the repertory of Anna Pavlova's touring company.

Ralph Vaughan Williams – Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra in F Minor           

Timing:  13’

The Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra in F Minor by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams dates from 1954. Vaughan Williams wrote the concerto for Philip Catelinet, principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), and Catelinet was the soloist in the premiere on 13 June 1954, with Sir John Barbirolli conducting. Catelinet was also the soloist in the work's first recording made that same year, again with Barbirolli and the LSO.

While at first viewed as the eccentric idea of an aging composer, the concerto soon became one of Vaughan Williams' most popular works, and an essential part of the tuba repertoire. The work is in three movements:
  1. Prelude: Allegro Moderato
  2. Romanza: Andante Sostenuto
  3. Finale - Rondo alla tedesca: Allegro

A performance commonly takes about 13 minutes.

Johannes Brahms – Symphony No. 2 n D Major, Op. 73              

Timing:  45’

The Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 was composed by Johannes Brahms in the summer of 1877 during a visit to Pörtschach am Wörthersee, a town in the Austrian province of Carinthia. Its gestation was brief in comparison with the fifteen years which Brahms took to complete his First Symphony.

The cheerfulness of the Symphony has been likened with the pastoral mood of Ludwig Van Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. In contrast, Brahms's First Symphony was marked by its sombre tonality (C Minor).

The composer had written to his publisher (November 22, 1877) that the forthcoming symphony would be music of melancholy, that indeed the score must come out in mourning.  And while the work is neither tragic nor especially dramatic, the mood of the first two movements, largely quiet or contemplative and reaching climaxes in the minor, suggests that this letter may not have been entirely a creation of wit. The last two movements are lighter in mood but also much briefer. The subtle interplay of contrasting melodies overlapping and being passed around throughout the instruments of the orchestra allow the conductor to dictate the mood by emphasizing different parts.

The premiere was given on December 30, 1877 in Vienna under the direction of Hans Richter. A typical performance lasts between 40 and 50 minutes.