MUSIC

Schoenberg: Accompaniment to a Cinematographic (Film) Scene, Op. 34
Haydn: Symphony Concertante arr. Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra
Haydn: Symphony No. 70

Saturday, April 17, 2010 at 8:00 PM
Pre-concert lecture/discussion at 7:00 PM
Emmanuel Church

Soloists:
Danielle Maddon, violin;
Rafael Popper-Keizer, violoncello;
Peggy Pearson, oboe;
Thomas Stephenson, bassoon
The Orchestra of Emmanuel Music
John Harbison and Michael Beattie, conductors

The geographical origin of these composers is close, and so is their maverick nature. Vienna must have something to do with it – the coffee, the pastry, the sense of cultural centrality? When Richard Strauss first received Schoenberg’s Five Pieces, 1909, he declared it the first piece he had ever been unable to hear and follow. Today, especially in Schoenberg’s own chamber version, it seems clear, fresh, and beautiful. By 1934 Schoenberg was vividly imagining a powerful role for music in the still-young film industry (his Op. 34). The two Haydn pieces on this program are less often played these days than the Schoenberg. They are equally bold and invigorating – the Symphony (1779) with Haydn’s patented tricks and quirks, the Symphony Concertante (1792) with its masterful illumination of its multiple soloists, the autumnal fire of his late style.