By David Hennessee
Hello all, I hope you had a great summer! The symphony is getting ready for Opening Night, when we will be performing Berlioz’s Overture to Beatrice and Benedict, Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, and Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with Robert Thies as soloist. It’s been a while since I last blogged; I had some ideas about the “brotherhood of man” and “Freude” around the time we played Beethoven 9 in May but was so busy learning all those notes, I didn’t find the time to get them down on (virtual) paper. By the way, check out the first minute or so of this video to hear us playing Beethoven (and get a close-up of violists Kim Wilkins and Karen Loewi-Jones rockin’ out!)
Some more recent concerts that many of us in the Symphony played kind of got me thinking. First there was the “Summer of Love” Pops concert with all those groovy feel-good popular songs from 1967-1970. The next week, some of us performed for the Symphony of the Vines September 11th memorial concerts. On the program were the Barber Adagio and Mozart Requiem. Quite a change from “Windy” and “Happy Together,” right? Well, maybe… but from another perspective, I think it’s interesting that at the height of the Vietnam War, with all that violence and social unrest, some of the music our culture was so lighthearted. I guess that’s the great paradox of the 1960s… a time of joy, understanding, love and peace, but also struggle and unrest. And that’s a bit similar to the paradox of music like the Barber Adagio and Mozart Requiem… melancholy, evoking intense emotions of loss and pain, yet ultimately cathartic and healing.
The father of the Franciscan Order at Mission San Miguel gave a mini-sermon before the 9/11 memorial concert on the Franciscan idea that “if you don’t transform your pain, you will transmit it.” In essence that’s what a Requiem does; it takes the subject of death and makes something beautiful and healing out of it.
That phrase – “if you don’t transform your pain, you will transmit it” – really struck a chord with me, making me think about how great art has the power to do just that. Moreover, in their personal lives artists often face struggles that they work through and heal in the artistic process. Then as performers, viewers, or readers, we are privileged to experience that transformation of pain, witnessing its power, and possibly letting it heal some of our own.
This theme of transforming pain actually ties together all the works we are performing on Opening Night. Before writing the opera Beatrice and Benedict, Berlioz, for example, developed an intestinal illness that troubled him for the rest of his life, and he began writing an opera that he was unable to finish because of that illness. Despite these difficulties, he finished his next opera, Beatrice and Benedict. Interestingly, he recounted that at the premiere, his conducting was strengthened because the physical pain let him be “emotionally detached” and “less excitable.” The story of Beatrice and Benedict fits the theme of transformation as well. Based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, this comedy describes how the main characters despise one another when they first meet, but in the end realize their mutual love and respect.
The story of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is well known and also
involves transformation. Rachmaninoff’s first symphony was not well-received by contemporary critics, and on top of that, the composer faced a number of personal problems that sent him into a depression that lasted for several years. Unable to compose, Rachmaninoff began therapy in which he repeated to himself “You will begin to write your concerto…You will work with great facility…The concerto will be of an excellent quality…” The therapy worked, and the Concerto has been one of the most popular works in the repertoire ever since. In the lush, melancholy melodies that run through this concerto, I think you can hear some of Rachmaninoff’s sadness and its transformation into beauty.
Also on the program is a suite from Stravinsky’s Firebird ballet, a work that describes a world of trickery, fantasy, and magic. In the animated film Fantasia 2000, Disney used the music to evoke a volcanic eruption, its aftermath, and rebirth.
See you on Opening Night!
