A personal note on today’s concert

It happened to me again. I created a concert program a year and a half ago, and by the time I get on stage to conduct it, it gets a new meaning. The concert program is “wiser than its creator” and it definitely means more than just the sum of its pieces. Honestly, it is chilling, mysterious and somewhat scary to perform today’s program on the week of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Kernis: Musica Celestis
Bernstein: Chichester Psalms
Beethoven: Symphony #9

As a musician and the Music Director of the Huntsville Symphony I will dedicate this concert to the memory of the victims of the Boston bombings. We will also remember all the heroes of the horrific events. We must remember that there were, there are so many people who helped when it was most needed. We do what we can as musicians. The program is built like a huge “crescendo”. We’ll remember the victims with the slow, celestial opening. Chichester Psalms is a piece of music to help us cope with our loss and to “sing out loud” everything what goes through your mind in the aftermath of the events. And finally Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is our long journey from horrors and doubts to consolation, to hope and to the joy that is being born from the compassionate acts of good people.

Mozart Symphony tailored to fit Mahler 4

First concert of “Voices and Symphonies” series with Hungarian Radio Symphony (MR Symphony)
http://www.mrze.hu
at Palace of the Arts, Budapest.
First half: Mahler Symphony #4
http://www.wikipedia.org
Second half: Mozart “Prague” Symphony with ‘Un moto di gioia’ concert aria as the “missing minuet”
http://www.wikipedia.org

I designed this program to tell the ‘story’ of the “Lied Symphonie”. Mahler’s Fourth is the last of his symphonies inspired by “The Boy’s Magic Horn” collection of poems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Des_Knaben_Wunderhorn
I picked a three movement Mozart Symphony for the second (!) half of the program and inserted an aria about “the joyous movement of the heart” (written as an addition to Marriage of Figaro). It rhymes with the Mahler Symphony and “completes” the three movement classical symphony into a four movement piece. It is also a reminder that back in the days of Mozart the usual concert format was very different. They often mixed genres. A concert-aria could end up after one or two movements of a symphony paired with a concert rondo for piano and orchestra for example.

I am curious what the critics will have to say about this. 🙂