Clyde Mitchell; Maestro’s Musings:
It is an honour and a pleasure to work with the marvelous musicians of the Culver City Symphony Orchestra after our exciting Marina del Rey concert in August, 2022. I have been looking forward to tonight for months.
Many people are worried about performing music by Russian composers these days, but when you realize that Tchaikovsky came from a family of Ukrainian Cossacks and Prokofiev was born in what is now Ukraine, that assuages some of our concerns. They wouldn’t like what’s going on ‘over there’ any more than we do. So, we are pleased and proud to present tonight’s music by Slavic composers.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is perhaps best known for a few favorite symphonies, concerti and a little ‘gem’ known as ‘The 1812’, but he achieved even greater fame with his ballets. In 1875 he accepted the commission from the Bolshoi to create music based on German Medieval Chivalry, ‘Swan Lake’. This was his first of many successful stage works including ‘Nutcracker’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’. We will present three spectacular scenes from ‘Swan Lake’; Appearance of the Swans, the famous Waltz and one of the brilliant, characteristic dances, the Hungarian Czardas.
Sergei Prokofiev was the finest pianist of his time. Thirty years before ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ he was starting a career as a piano soloist, and like Beethoven and Liszt before him, composed concerti for himself. The 2nd Concerto is infamous for its difficulty. It has four virtuosic movements (including several elongated cadenzas to display technical prowess) and it was composed, revised and premiered while Prokofiev was mourning the suicide of his best friend. Expect to hear everything from gorgeous melodies ranging from Andantino to the furious and wild Allegro tempestoso.
Czech composer Antonin Dvorak employed rhythms and melodies from Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia. He was brought to America in 1893 as the Director of the National Conservatory of Music to teach young American composers, dividing his time between New York and Spillville, Iowa where there was a huge enclave of Czech émigrés. He was so homesick that his final symphony ‘From the New World,’ incorporating Native American melodies and Negro Spirituals, shows us that he was looking forward to his eagerly anticipated return home. From the melancholic opening to the triumphant ending, Dvorak shares his journey to and from the New World.
Johannes Brahms, the German Romantic composer, took Dvorak under his wing and essentially gave him his career. To close we might have a little salute to this connection...
It is an honour and a pleasure to work with the marvelous musicians of the Culver City Symphony Orchestra after our exciting Marina del Rey concert in August, 2022. I have been looking forward to tonight for months.
Many people are worried about performing music by Russian composers these days, but when you realize that Tchaikovsky came from a family of Ukrainian Cossacks and Prokofiev was born in what is now Ukraine, that assuages some of our concerns. They wouldn’t like what’s going on ‘over there’ any more than we do. So, we are pleased and proud to present tonight’s music by Slavic composers.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is perhaps best known for a few favorite symphonies, concerti and a little ‘gem’ known as ‘The 1812’, but he achieved even greater fame with his ballets. In 1875 he accepted the commission from the Bolshoi to create music based on German Medieval Chivalry, ‘Swan Lake’. This was his first of many successful stage works including ‘Nutcracker’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’. We will present three spectacular scenes from ‘Swan Lake’; Appearance of the Swans, the famous Waltz and one of the brilliant, characteristic dances, the Hungarian Czardas.
Sergei Prokofiev was the finest pianist of his time. Thirty years before ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ he was starting a career as a piano soloist, and like Beethoven and Liszt before him, composed concerti for himself. The 2nd Concerto is infamous for its difficulty. It has four virtuosic movements (including several elongated cadenzas to display technical prowess) and it was composed, revised and premiered while Prokofiev was mourning the suicide of his best friend. Expect to hear everything from gorgeous melodies ranging from Andantino to the furious and wild Allegro tempestoso.
Czech composer Antonin Dvorak employed rhythms and melodies from Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia. He was brought to America in 1893 as the Director of the National Conservatory of Music to teach young American composers, dividing his time between New York and Spillville, Iowa where there was a huge enclave of Czech émigrés. He was so homesick that his final symphony ‘From the New World,’ incorporating Native American melodies and Negro Spirituals, shows us that he was looking forward to his eagerly anticipated return home. From the melancholic opening to the triumphant ending, Dvorak shares his journey to and from the New World.
Johannes Brahms, the German Romantic composer, took Dvorak under his wing and essentially gave him his career. To close we might have a little salute to this connection...