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This concert features the winners of our annual Young Artists competition. The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra has a pair of features as well: we open with Albert Roussel’s colorful, impressionistic music for his ballet Bacchus et Ariane. Composed in 1930, the work is based upon the Classical myth of Ariadne, princess of Crete. The most well-known part of the story has her falling in love with the Greek hero Theseus, and helping him to defeat the horrible Minotaur. Ariadne is later abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos, where she encounters the god Bacchus (Dionysus) and becomes his queen. The ballet, featuring choreography by Serge Lifar and sets by surrealist painter Giorio de Chirico, was a success, and Roussel published two suites from its score—the music of the suites is largely unchanged from the music of the ballet’s two acts.

After the Young Artist selections, we close with sensuous, and sometimes rowdy music from Manuel de Falla’s Spanish-themed ballet The Three-Cornered Hat which was the result of a commission by impresario Serge Diaghilev for his famous ballet company, the Ballets Russe. The ballet is in two scenes, with Alarcón’s farcical story set as a series of traditional Andalucian dances. The two suites draw on the main musical episodes of these two scenes, and are presented in the order of the original ballet score. The ballet opens with a bold trumpet fanfare, and then more languid music with flashes of humor that sets the scene. The second scene begins with a pair of thoroughly macho flourishes from the horn and English horn and continues in a series of dramatically rhythmic phrases, leading to a furious ending. The ballet closes with the entire ensemble in the Final Dance, a jota with a lively cross-rhythm throughout. The music is alternately light-hearted and dramatic, but in the end brings this set to a joyful conclusion.

For tickets and more information, visit vancouversymphony.org. 

This program features two fine symphonies, beginning with Mozart’s Symphony No. 38, known universally as the “Prague.” The nickname is a lasting tribute to a city that Mozart found extremely congenial to him and to his music. After intermission, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will grow to the size needed to play one of the largest early romantic symphonies, the Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz.

Mozart premiered his newly completed D major symphony on January 19, 1787 at “Grand Musical Academy,” a benefit concert arranged by his Prague friends. Mozart was extremely pleased by the performance, which employed an orchestra of the best musicians in the Bohemian capital, a group that was apparently better disciplined and more attentive than Vienna orchestras he was used to leading. (He later wrote “My orchestra is in Prague, and my Prague people understand me.”) We have a remarkable account of this concert written by an admiring Bohemian musician. Franz Xaver Niemetschek, who described the effect of the new symphony:

“[Mozart’s symphonies] are true masterpieces of instrumental composition, full of unexpected transitions, and have élan and a fiery momentum, so that they immediately incline the soul to expect something sublime. This is especially true of the great symphony in D Major, which is still a favorite in Prague, even though it has probably been heard a hundred times.”

What is now known as the “Prague” symphony is richly orchestrated, and calls for skillful playing, particularly from the woodwinds. There is also a depth to this music, particularly in the way that Mozart develops his material, that points to what is to come in the great final trilogy of symphonies he would compose in 1788.

All of Berlioz’s compositions illustrated his passions, but none is more directly (and disturbingly) autobiographical than his Symphonie Fantastique. The work grew out of Berlioz’s infatuation with English actress, Harriet Smithson, after seeing her perform in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Written for a huge orchestra, this work uses orchestral effects and even instruments that had never been used in a symphony. (This is, for example, the first appearance of the tuba—or rather its ancestor, the ophicleide—in a piece of orchestral music.) Even more striking is the programmatic idea behind Berlioz’s score. This is not the first programmatic symphony—Berlioz himself credits Beethoven’s “Pastoral” symphony as inspiration—but it is the first in which the extra-musical story line is so explicit. In a story that has echoes of Goethe’s dark Faust, Berlioz musically describes his obsession in great detail, even going to the extent of publishing a written program as an aid to the audience’s imagination. To illustrate his affair, he creates a musical idée fixe (literally “fixed idea” or “obsession”) representing his changing view of his beloved. This idea appears in each movement, but each time in a different character: as a flowing Romantic melody in the opening movement, as a lilting waltz in the second, as a shepherd’s song in the third, and in the fourth movement, it is the last thing the condemned artist thinks of before the blade of guillotine drops. Its final appearance is as a mocking dance in the “Witches’ Sabbath” movement.

The 2024/25 Symphonic Series season is presented by United Grain Corporation.

This program features two fine symphonies, beginning with Mozart’s Symphony No. 38, known universally as the “Prague.” The nickname is a lasting tribute to a city that Mozart found extremely congenial to him and to his music. After intermission, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will grow to the size needed to play one of the largest early romantic symphonies, the Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz.

Mozart premiered his newly completed D major symphony on January 19, 1787 at “Grand Musical Academy,” a benefit concert arranged by his Prague friends. Mozart was extremely pleased by the performance, which employed an orchestra of the best musicians in the Bohemian capital, a group that was apparently better disciplined and more attentive than Vienna orchestras he was used to leading. (He later wrote “My orchestra is in Prague, and my Prague people understand me.”) We have a remarkable account of this concert written by an admiring Bohemian musician. Franz Xaver Niemetschek, who described the effect of the new symphony:

“[Mozart’s symphonies] are true masterpieces of instrumental composition, full of unexpected transitions, and have élan and a fiery momentum, so that they immediately incline the soul to expect something sublime. This is especially true of the great symphony in D Major, which is still a favorite in Prague, even though it has probably been heard a hundred times.”

What is now known as the “Prague” symphony is richly orchestrated, and calls for skillful playing, particularly from the woodwinds. There is also a depth to this music, particularly in the way that Mozart develops his material, that points to what is to come in the great final trilogy of symphonies he would compose in 1788.

All of Berlioz’s compositions illustrated his passions, but none is more directly (and disturbingly) autobiographical than his Symphonie Fantastique. The work grew out of Berlioz’s infatuation with English actress, Harriet Smithson, after seeing her perform in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Written for a huge orchestra, this work uses orchestral effects and even instruments that had never been used in a symphony. (This is, for example, the first appearance of the tuba—or rather its ancestor, the ophicleide—in a piece of orchestral music.) Even more striking is the programmatic idea behind Berlioz’s score. This is not the first programmatic symphony—Berlioz himself credits Beethoven’s “Pastoral” symphony as inspiration—but it is the first in which the extra-musical story line is so explicit. In a story that has echoes of Goethe’s dark Faust, Berlioz musically describes his obsession in great detail, even going to the extent of publishing a written program as an aid to the audience’s imagination. To illustrate his affair, he creates a musical idée fixe (literally “fixed idea” or “obsession”) representing his changing view of his beloved. This idea appears in each movement, but each time in a different character: as a flowing Romantic melody in the opening movement, as a lilting waltz in the second, as a shepherd’s song in the third, and in the fourth movement, it is the last thing the condemned artist thinks of before the blade of guillotine drops. Its final appearance is as a mocking dance in the “Witches’ Sabbath” movement.

The 2024/25 Symphonic Series season is presented by United Grain Corporation.

To open this program, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra welcomes Spanish harpist Cristina Montes Mateo. She is featured in a challenging contemporary work, the Concerto Capriccio by the 20th-century Catalan master Xavier Montsalvagte. After intermission, we have Rimsky-Korsakov’s masterpiece, Scheherazade.

Writing for harp and orchestra is a challenge, requiring both a knowledge of the technical aspects of the instrument, and a mastery of orchestral writing that will allow the solo part to balance with orchestra. Montsalvagte apparently considered his 1975 Concerto Capriccio to be one of his best works for this very reason, remarking: “perhaps it was the challenge behind the composition; I wanted to write for the harp in such a manner that it would unite with a heterogeneous orchestra. It made for interesting, and difficult, work!”

Rimsky-Korsakov, the great Russian nationalist and leading teacher at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, first conceived of a work on stories from The Thousand and One Nights in the winter of 1887. He finished Scheherazade in 1888, during his summer break from teaching duties. Rimsky-Korsakov was an acknowledged master of scoring music for orchestra (his Principles of Orchestration is still one of the standard works on the subject)—for him, “…orchestration is part of the very soul of the work.” Scheherazade may well be his masterwork in this regard—are few other works that make such effective use of orchestral color.

The 2024/25 Symphonic Series season is presented by United Grain Corporation.

To open this program, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra welcomes Spanish harpist Cristina Montes Mateo. She is featured in a challenging contemporary work, the Concerto Capriccio by the 20th-century Catalan master Xavier Montsalvagte. After intermission, we have Rimsky-Korsakov’s masterpiece, Scheherazade.

Writing for harp and orchestra is a challenge, requiring both a knowledge of the technical aspects of the instrument, and a mastery of orchestral writing that will allow the solo part to balance with orchestra. Montsalvagte apparently considered his 1975 Concerto Capriccio to be one of his best works for this very reason, remarking: “perhaps it was the challenge behind the composition; I wanted to write for the harp in such a manner that it would unite with a heterogeneous orchestra. It made for interesting, and difficult, work!”

Rimsky-Korsakov, the great Russian nationalist and leading teacher at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, first conceived of a work on stories from The Thousand and One Nights in the winter of 1887. He finished Scheherazade in 1888, during his summer break from teaching duties. Rimsky-Korsakov was an acknowledged master of scoring music for orchestra (his Principles of Orchestration is still one of the standard works on the subject)—for him, “…orchestration is part of the very soul of the work.” Scheherazade may well be his masterwork in this regard—are few other works that make such effective use of orchestral color.

The 2024/25 Symphonic Series season is presented by United Grain Corporation.

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra welcomes back pianist Olga Kern to play Beethoven’s first piano concerto, a work written when Beethoven was just forging a reputation in his adopted hometown, Vienna. Then it is on to an amazing piece that is a true landmark music history, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

The Concerto No.1 was performed for the first time at another Viennese concert on December 15, 1795. It was finally published—probably with revisions—in 1801, with a dedication to one of his aristocratic patrons, Princess Barbara Odescalchi.

In both of his early concertos, Beethoven was clearly working within the Classical outlines laid out in the concertos of Mozart and his teacher Haydn. However, there is a power and expansiveness in these works that is pure Beethoven, particularly in the Concerto No.1. Much of this character must have come from Beethoven’s own character as a soloist. We know, for example, that he favored extreme dynamic contrasts—in fact, he seems to have destroyed more than one of the rather delicate fortepianos of the day with his forceful attacks! His personality comes through in the many contrasts to be found in the Concerto No.1: from pianissimo to fortissimo, from simple melodies to flashy passage-work, and from cool gentility to emotional flourishes.

The premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is infamous as the scene of a riot. An open dress rehearsal on the day before had been well-attended and uneventful, but on opening night, the jeers and catcalls began almost immediately, followed quickly by cries of “Ta guele!” (“Shut up!”). Twenty years later, Stravinsky remembered:

“During the whole performance I was at Nijinsky’s side in the wings. He was standing on a chair, screaming ‘sixteen, seventeen, eighteen’—they had their own method of counting to keep time. Naturally, the poor dancers could hear nothing by reason of the row in the auditorium and the sound of their own dance steps. I had to hold Nijinsky by his clothes, for he was furious, and ready to dash on stage at any moment and create a scandal. Diaghilev kept ordering the electricians to turn the lights on or off, hoping in that way to put a stop to the noise. That is all I can remember about that first performance.”

Why were they so upset? The riot seems to have been the work of a small group, a clacque who came determined to disrupt the performance. The main objection was probably to Nijinsky’s revolutionary choreography. (Parisians took their ballet seriously.) But according to biographer Stephen Walsh: “…the music might well have merited a riot. Certainly it was to remain the most notoriously violent score of a time when huge, noisy orchestras and harsh dissonance were more or less commonplace appurtenances of the new music.”

The 2024/25 Symphonic Series season is presented by United Grain Corporation.