LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Sunday, Nov. 20, four giants of the classical era will be featured in the annual Fall Concert of the Lake County Symphony, taking place at 3 p.m. at Lakeport’s Soper-Reese Theatre, with two others saluted by the LCSA Youth Orchestra.
The orchestra’s music director and conductor John Parkinson has selected works by Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Mendelssohn as proven favorites not only for the audience, but also for the 50-plus musicians forming the Symphony.
As is traditional, the young musicians of the LCSA Youth Orchestra will open the concert under the direction of Sue Condit with pieces featuring two other musical giants.
The first is J.S. Bach’s “Badinerie” from his Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Major, featuring flute, violins, viola and bass. It is representative of the Baroque period.
The second piece is “Allegro Vivace” or “The Hunt” by W.A. Mozart. It is his String Quartet No. 17, which was the composer’s fourth quartet dedicated to Haydn. It is in four movements.
The full orchestra will open with the “Overture to Rosamunde” which was patched together by Franz Schubert from music he had written in earlier times for other purposes.
He had agreed to compose incidental music for a play entitled “Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus,” but was too short on time for an original overture, so adopted one from an opera he had written the previous year, and even that piece had elements from even earlier works.
The play, which had to do with a shepherdess aspiring to be queen, flopped after just two performances, but Schubert’s lyrical “Overture” lived on, to be enjoyed by generations of musicians and audiences worldwide.
“The Ruy Blas” by Felix Mendelssohn was commissioned in 1839 to be performed for a play written by Victor Hugo, but it was delivered without an overture.
When it was implied that perhaps the composer lacked the necessary drive or talent to finish the job, or that he simply disliked the story of an indentured servant in love with a queen (which he did) it resulted in a whirlwind of action, and a completed overture in just three days. This is the piece that the symphony will deliver as its second number.
“The Academic Festival Overture” evidently resulted from what its composer Johannes Brahms felt was a veiled insult from Breslau University which had granted him an honorary doctorate in absentia, while describing him only as “A Serious Musician.”
Brahms responded with a piece that incorporated much of the university’s student music, including marches and even drinking songs. But even in jest it proved to be a serious, and popular composition, that sparkles with some of the finest of Brahms noted orchestral techniques as will be amply demonstrated by the Lake County Symphony.
Prior to intermission Martin Scheel, who serves as announcer and master of ceremonies for the symphony, will offer a special tribute to Umpqua Bank which has agreed to commercial sponsorship of the concert.
In the lobby members of the Lake County Symphony Association will serve complimentary juices and cookies, but of course a selection of premium Lake County wines will also be offered for sale at moderate prices’
The orchestra’s final piece is the “Symphony in C Major” by Ludwig von Beethoven. This work spanned two centuries with Beethoven starting it in 1799, and finishing it in 1800 with a performance in Vienna.
Although it contains inventive nuances, critics contend it represents classical forms, not of the new 19th century, but of the old 18th of Mozart who had died less than a decade earlier, and Haydn, who was still alive and performing and who had actually been a music teacher to the brash, young Beethoven.
Although this led to sometimes-strained relationships between them, Beethoven scored his first symphony to a Haydn-style orchestra, including clarinets that were not yet a standard feature. It also was written in the conventional four-movement form.
But Beethoven was already on the path to become the greatest symphonist before or since his time, with eight additional symphonies to be completed in his next 13 years, and numerous other works as well. Lake County is indeed fortunate to have an orchestra that measures up to the Beethoven standard.
Advance ticket purchases are recommended, and can be obtained online at www.soperreesetheatre.com or by phone at 707-263-0577.
Tickets are $25 general admission or $30 for premium reserved seating. Symphony Association members receive a $5 discount.
A full dress rehearsal takes place at 11 a.m., and young people under 18 are encouraged to attend free of charge. Others may do so for just $5.
The next performance of the Symphony will take place on Sunday, Dec. 18, when the always-popular Christmas Concert will be held.
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