Sarah Says! by Sarah Sommer

As our concert date quickly approaches, we’ve been busy adding final touches to our performance. After our run-out concert last week, we’ve spent time preparing variations in tempi, space between movements, and testing the acoustics in our venue, Borden Auditorium. Even though the debates have heated up slightly during rehearsals, it is my opinion that this is a representation of how we have gone beyond the technicality stage and have entered a higher level of musicality and artistry. What has especially helped us throughout this week has involved setting goals at the beginning of rehearsal to prioritize the spots that need special attention. We are mostly working on ensemble issues and maintaining continuity within works. For example, the Mozart overture, despite its short duration, has brought about many issues regarding balance and rubato. There are many people in the Orpheus Institute with opinions to voice, so we have been experimenting with many different ideas that might not have been explored under the reign of a traditional conductor. So far, the journey has been very positive, and I wish everyone the best of luck and skill on our concert this Friday.

Rehearsal Review by Jason Smoller

Well, two weeks and three days into this year's Orpheus project, I think we are all ready for the concert on Friday! We have reached a point in rehearsals where we can all offer comments on interpretation, rather than worrying about whether we are together or are following the composer's indications. It's been trying at times, with so many different opinions being thrown around and so many brilliant musicians giving suggestions, but in the end, the experience is rewarding. It is really exciting to feel the fourth movement of Prokofiev's "Classical Symphony" chugging along at an unreal pace without a conductor on the podium who can take credit for the exciting sound! It is really thrilling to know that we put this all together by ourselves, and that each of us can take credit for something or another that will happen on Friday night.

Stravinsky's "Symphonies of Wind Instruments" proved much more difficult to put together than any of the other pieces on the program. The piece is riddled with changing meters and unexpected stops. The musicians involved in this project have had to be extremely patient with each other, and some have nearly come to blows! In the end, though, the piece feels fresh and lively when we play it, and our interpretation is much more like chamber music than one might hear in an orchestral performance! It has been an exciting three weeks and we can only hope that it will come to a thrilling finish on Friday at 7:30.

Prokofiev and The Flaxton Boys

As noted in the program notes below, the fourth movement of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony was used as the theme song for a 1969 UK television series called "The Flaxton Boys." Here is the opening clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kkdRC7Ujsw Enjoy!

4 Stars for OIMSM 2008, by Dr. Manly Romero

Hi everyone,

Our Librarian, Dr. Manly Romero, wrote a review of last year's Orpheus Institute performance. With our concert quickly approaching, I thought it would be nice to share! Thank you Manly for your review!

CONCERT REVIEW – Chamber Sinfonia / Orpheus Institute @ MSM November 6, 2008

Last night, Chamber Sinfonia, in its annual Orpheus Institute event sans maestro, performed admirably, if perhaps a bit sleepily, a long program of benchmark works: Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Rimsky-Korsakov’s famously exotic Capriccio Espagnole, balanced by Brahm’s Serenade No. 1 in D Major.

The performance was preceded by a run-out concert to Westchester County’s Mamaroneck High School last Friday. As Michael Roud, a member of the original Orpheus orchestra related, “The run-out concert is the key. That’s what we do in Orpheus. A week before the advertised performance, we learn where we are and where we need to go.” Last night, Mr. Roud was very pleased. “This is the best year yet,” he raved. “It just keeps getting better and better.” Indeed, the concert was very well played, and the orchestra held together even without a leader on the podium.

The carefully colored and shaped accompaniments sang conclusively of a group-minded artistic interpretation, yet several individuals distinguished themselves as well. Kudos to Alexandros Sakarellos, who imaginatively realized the many solo violin passages in Capriccio Espagnole. Flutist Amanda Sparfeld, after a week with the NY Phil, brought her superb sound back to Borden and MSM in Egmont. Sung Jun Kim and Sarah Sommer, clarinets, executed their many notey passages dependably throughout the evening.

One audience member’s only reservation was this: not all the parts can sing at full voice all the time. In orchestral performance, sotto voce is as important as cantabile. This week in particular, we are reminded that in a democracy, leaders are elected; a strong will moves to the foreground, wanes, is replaced by a new idea. In this, our most democratic of orchestras, such a pattern more fully developed might be an improvement.

Still, Dr. Romero says the operation was… a success! Four stars to chamber sinfonia for a committed performance! And to hold us over until the next house-call, some Orchestral Rx for the rest of us: Even if you’re playing with a conductor, nothing’s stopping you from checking out the full score and reaping the benefits!

PROGRAM NOTES!!!

ORPHEUS @ MSM PROGRAM NOTES

Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 21

Felix Mendelssohn

In August 1826, when Felix Mendelssohn was only 17 years old, he completed his Midsummer Night’s Dream concert overture, inspired by a recent reissue of a German translation of the Shakespeare play. The piece did not immediately receive a public premiere; the Mendelssohn family arranged a private performance in their home. The public first heard the piece as a piano duet, arranged by Felix and his sister Fanny. In February 1827, Mendelssohn traveled to Stettin, Pomerania (modern-day Poland), where Carl Loewe conducted the public premiere of the overture.

The piece is constructed in a traditional manner—a sonata form can be easily imposed (an exposition at bar 1, a development beginning in bar 250, and a recapitulation at bar 394)—but more interesting to the composition of the piece are three appearances of four opening chords at bars 1, 394, and 682. These chords provide a sort of pivot point around which Mendelssohn could weave fantasia-like flights of fancy. Mendelssohn is said to have written these evocative chords after hearing an evening breeze rustling the leaves in his family’s garden.

Though it is constructed in a clear classical sonata form, the overture is also programmatic, suggesting images from the fairyland of Shakespeare’s play. Mendelssohn’s music mirrors many motives from the play: fairies singing and dancing; lovers chasing each other; rustic clowns frolicking in the woods; Titania, the fairy queen, gliding gracefully through the crowds; and Puck playing impish tricks on everybody. The overture invites the listener into a fantastic dream world filled with humor, refinement, and elegance.

Mendelssohn experimented a great deal with orchestral color, which is best illustrated by the contrast between the four ethereal chords in the woodwinds and brass, which give way to a quicksilver theme in the violins. It is interesting to note that the score calls for an Ophicleïde, a keyed brass instrument with a warm, dark sound, created around the turn of the 19^th century. As the instrument has died out, the part is now played on the modern tuba.

Mendelssohn incorporated his concert overture into a suite of Incidental Music for a Midsummer Night’s Dream (Opus 61), which he wrote in 1842 on commission for Friedrich Wilhelm IV, the Crown prince of Prussia. The incidental music follows the overture so directly that a listener might never know that 16 years had passed between compositions.

–Jason Smoller

Concerto in D Minor for Flute and String Orchestra, H. 425 (W. 22)

C. P. E. Bach

Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach was born in 1714 in Weimar Germany to Johann Sebastian Bach and his first wife Maria Barbara Bach. Though his parents provided him music lessons at an early age, he chose to study law at both the University of Leipzig and Frankfurt Oder. Soon after graduation, however, he took a musical post at the court of Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great).

C. P. E. Bach’s primary responsibility was to accompany Frederick’s nightly performances on the flute. While Bach remained in Frederick’s service for nearly 30 years, he was severely underpaid, a financial situation that must have been a source of tension between him, Frederick and the other court musicians. Frederick clearly favored the famous flutist Johann Joachim Quantz over Bach, both as a musician and as a composer. Quantz’s salary reached as high as 2000 thalers a year, while Bach’s was only 300 thalers. A typical nightly performance would include half a dozen compositions by Quantz, who wrote over 300 concerti for the flute while in the service of the king. Bach, by contrast, only wrote five. Frederick was a decent flutist but by no means a virtuoso. It is likely that C. P. E. Bach’s flute compositions were challenging for the king to play, thus only reinforcing the favoritism Frederick showed Quantz.

C. P. E. Bach’s compositions are characterized by quick mood changes and colorful harmonies. He provides very detailed performance explanations for his Flute Concerto in D Minor. Not only does Bach suggest direction for the fast and intricate articulation of the work, he also states his preference on individual embellishment and tempo fluctuation. Bach argued for tastefully expanding and contracting the tempo—or “violations of the beat”—as it was often musical and “exceptionally beautiful.”

–Elizabeth Schurgin

Symphonies of Wind Instruments

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)

“This music is not meant to ‘please’ an audience,” Stravinsky wrote of his Symphonies of Wind Instruments, yet it has remained an important part of the wind repertory for nearly ninety years. The piece is hardly recognizable as a traditional symphony: it is not a multi-movement work that features woodwind and brass solos emerging from a lush string texture. Instead, it derives its title from the Greek word symphonia, or “sounding together in harmony.” Stravinsky elaborated on the title, calling the work “an austere ritual, which is unfolded in terms of short litanies between different groups of homogenous instruments.”

Although the piece is scored for a full complement of woodwinds and brass (3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, and tuba), Symphonies of Wind Instruments invites the listener into a harsh and angular soundscape. Rich, stabilizing violin and cello lines are nowhere to be found, and the resulting atmosphere is at times stark and unsympathetic.

The piece is written in four episodes, which are related in tempo and by recurring fragments of thematic material. The first is composed of quirky Russian folk melodies, played by the high woodwinds. The flutes, bassoons, and low clarinets characterize the second section’s flowing pastoral theme. The third episode is marked by sharp fortissimo chords in all of the winds and brass; its fierce dance rhythms and its heavy texture and harmonic language are reminiscent of The Rite of Spring, which was written only seven years earlier. The piece concludes with a poignant and cathartic brass chorale.

Stravinsky published this chorale in 1920, prior to the premiere of the entire work. It appeared in a special issue of La revue musicale dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, who died in 1918. Although it was originally published as a piano score, the reverent Chorale is orchestrated for brass alone, with woodwinds joining in to end the piece with a C major chord. The juxtaposition of this chord with the simultaneous G major chord creates an eerie and open final tonality.

This work was conceived not as an audience-pleaser, but rather as an introspective homage “to the memory of Claude Achille Debussy,” whom Stravinsky greatly admired. In 1936, Stravinsky wrote, “I did not, and indeed I could not, count on any immediate success for this work. It lacks all those elements that infallibly appeal to the ordinary listener, or to which he is accustomed.”

–Jason Smoller

Overture to Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756–1791)

When the thirty-year-old Mozart finished conducting the dress rehearsal of Le nozze di Figaro in May 1786, “the orchestra… never…ceased applauding by beating the bows of their violins against the music desks,” according to the Irish tenor Michael Kelly, who sang at the premiere; “the little man acknowledged by repeated obeisances his thanks for those distinguishing marks of enthusiastic applause bestowed upon him.” At the public opening the next night, the applause caused five numbers to be encored.

The overture does not introduce any thematic material from the opera; instead, it serves to create an atmosphere and to prepare the audience for the intrigue they are about to see. The piece does not follow tradition; one would expect a slow introduction followed by a longer, animated piece to open an opera. Originally, Mozart had composed an Andante middle section, but he rejected it before the premiere and united the outer Presto sections to create a more compact and unified movement that maintains a playful character throughout.

–Jason Smoller

“Classical Symphony,” op. 25 (Symphony No. 1)

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953)

Russian composer, conductor, and pianist Sergei Prokofiev was born in 1891 and began composing at the age of five. At thirteen, he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory as a pianist, and it was here that his interest in composition blossomed. Before long, he began taking lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov.

It wasn’t until Prokofiev studied Haydn symphonies under the tutelage of conductor Tcherepnin in 1916 that he was inspired to write his first symphony. “I thought that if Haydn were alive today, he would compose just as he did before, but at the same time would include something new in his manner of composition,” Prokofiev wrote. He composed his “Classical Symphony” between 1916 and 1918 and personally conducted its premiere in Petrograd on April 21, 1918. This premiere was almost two years before Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, a work often regarded as the start of the neoclassical movement.

Prokofiev employs several classical compositional elements. To begin, the proportion of the symphony is typical of that during the classical period. The score calls for timpani and two each of the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn and trumpet. It is traditionally played with a smaller string section, making the piece particularly suitable for the Orpheus Institute at MSM. The opening Allegro and Finale are written in sonata form, while the third movement, interestingly enough, is titled “Gavotte,” a type of dance from the Baroque period. In addition to the structure of his movements, Prokofiev chose classically inspired melodies based on triadic intervals.

It is Prokofiev’s choice of harmony that makes the work “neoclassical.” The composition has a remarkable tendency to skirt keys. For example, while the beginning of the first movement starts in D major, by the eleventh measure, the orchestra somewhat precociously modulates to C major. Prokofiev flirts with C for a brief moment before returning back to D major. The fourth movement, saturated with Prokofiev’s sarcastic humor, is particularly interesting harmonically as Prokofiev seeks to use primarily major chords. As such, he modulates frequently and often abruptly. Prokofiev uses this harmonic jauntiness to highlight the ebullient character of the movement.

–Elizabeth Schurgin

A Conductorless Concerto, by Joe Lee

What is the conductor's role in a concerto with a soloist? Some would say his or her responsibility is to connect the soloist with the orchestra to form one cohesive unit. When this method is successful, the overall result might be one of a solid performance at the possible forfeit of some artistic liberties on behalf of the soloist. Others might say that it is the role of the conductor to simply guide the orchestra down the path the soloist has set in rehearsal and will set in the performance, basically to get out of the way and let the soloist lead. This can lead to a complete and genuine expression of the soloist's interpretation but may result at the cost of ensemble. Obviously these are only a few ideas of what the role of the conductor is in a concerto setting but in both cases the responsibility of the conductor is very important. So what would this all look like if we took the conductor out of the picture?

For me, rehearsing a concerto without a conductor has been an interesting experience. Without the conductor calling the shots, the responsibility falls upon the soloists and the orchestra. This makes the experience feel more like chamber music to me and has been liberating when it comes to phrasing the accompaniment. This also gives a greater connection to the soloist because you are not trying play with him/her through the conductor which can cause delays in entrances practically speaking but also is just one more person you have to be together with. On the other hand, other responsibilities fall on the orchestra which they did not have to proactively consider before hand when the conductor was there such as tempo and balance. Either way the rehearsals have been very detail oriented and I look forward to the performance on Friday.

Orpheus Side By Side

We were fortunate to start off our season with a side by side with members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The rehearsal began with a reading of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Nights Dream Overture. Members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra sat at the head of their sections helping direct both the reading and the rehearsal that followed. It was interesting to observe their interactions. At the end of the initial reading, they immediate jumped into discussion. At first, their comments were directed locally; once they gave feedback to their individual sections and larger instrumental groups, Orpheus members then addressed the ensemble. Through our observations, we learned how to positively construct a comment. After all, our goal is to make chamber music in a symphonic setting. Everything is about compromise and thus it is important that we refrain from accusatory statements. Orpheus members employed words such as “we” and “the ensemble.” Their rhetoric helped create a community feel and will serve as a model for us in the upcoming weeks.

After members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra led Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Nights Dream Overture, they took a backseat and allowed members from OIMSM to lead. This allowed Orpheus members to help direct the students in the OIMSM. After the Mendelssohn, we moved on to Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony so that we could include some of the wind players on rotation. Overall, the side by side was a success and we would like to thank the members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra who gave us such a wonderful introduction to the project!

Power Orpheus

Hello again! We have been so wrapped up in our rehearsals that we have neglected to post the past two weeks. But fret not faithful readers! In anticipation of our concert this Friday at the Manhattan School of Music, we will be "power blogging" every day until then. We hope to get you excited for our concert and to fill you in on what has been happening with our project. And help spread the word, OIMSM's concert is THIS FRIDAY (NOVEMBER 6) at 7:30pm in Borden Auditorium at the Manhattan School of Music. Please come! We promise it will be a totally unique and quite awesome experience :)

Kyle's Program Love?

Well, after long hours of discussion and an arm wrestling tournament, OI did the impossible: we picked a program for our fall concert:

Mendelssohn Midsummer Nights Dream Overture

CPE Bach Flute Concerto

Stravinsky Symphonies of Wind Instruments

Mozart Marriage of Figaro Overture

Prokofiev Classical Symphony

Great program. Everyone gets to show off what they can do on their instrument. Yes folks, there's even some timpani and tuba!

These meetings have been great because they bring everyone together. It's a great way to get to know people. For instance, I met a nice girl whose name is Shelly...or...wait...is it Sharon? Well, anyway, she's an oboist - errr, hold on, bassoon? Anyways, these meetings have been a great way to get to know people.

Just wait til rehearsals begin.

Kyle, percussion

Potential Programs from the Program Committee

Hi everyone,

The program committee wanted to send out four different programs that we put together this afternoon, which tomorrow we will discuss. Everyone take a look at them and come tomorrow prepared to share what you think. Many of the programs contain pieces that can be swapped out with pieces from other programs and the Mozart and Beethoven concerts have two symphonies listed to be voted on, so keep that in mind as well. It might also help to listen to some of the pieces you are not as familiar with. You can do that by using Naxos, which is available through the MSM music library website.

Weber: Overture to Oberon (10')

CPE Bach: Flute Concerto (22')

BREAK

Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 (35') OR Symphony No. 8 (27')

Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments (9') Winds and Perc. ONLY

CPE Bach: Flute Concerto (22')

BREAK

Takemitsu: (10') Strings ONLY

Mozart: Symphony No. 35 (18') OR Symphony No. 39 (29')

Mendelssohn Midsummer Nights Dream Overture (12')

CPE Bach: Flute Concerto (22')

BREAK

Prokofiev: Summer Suite (13')

Kodaly: Variations on a Hungarian Folksong (25')

Verdi: Nabucco Overture (8')

CPE Bach: Flute Concerto (22')

BREAK

Stravinsky: Scherzo a la russe (5')

Debussy: Three Nocturnes (25')

See you tomorrow morning!

Madison

Welcome back!

Welcome back! OIMSM is about to start its 2009 season! We are joined this year by the incoming class for the Orchestral Performance program and promising new talent means a promising new season. In addition to our final performance on Friday, November 6, we will have several runout concerts this series. Stay posted for more information.

Thus far, we have had an introductory meeting where Alan Kay, clarinetist from the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra gave us an overview of the project. Mr. Kay, along with several other Orpheus members, will help oversee the OIMSM. We look forward to working with Mr. Kay and his colleagues.

In addition to Mr. Kay's speech, we picked the members of each OIMSM committee. The committees this year are the same as last year. For the upcoming OIMSM series, we hope to post various entries from members of these committees to give our readers a chance to get a better look at how this unique ensemble is run.

Tomorrow marks our second meeting of the series. We hope to decide on a program. Please read the upcoming post by Madison, one of our french horn players and member of the Programming Committee.