Glens Falls Symphony 40th Anniversary Season Starts this Sunday!
The Glens Falls Symphony’s 40th Anniversary Season starts this Sunday, October 8th, 2023! It will be featuring Metropolitan Opera Star and Mezzo-Soprano MaryAnn McCormick, performing Edward Elgar’s “Sea Pictures” as the symphony kicks off their highly anticipated year of Music & Adventure!
The adventure starts with a Short Ride on a Fast Machine – John Adams, born in 1947, composed Short Ride in a Fast Machine in 1986 on a commission from the Great Woods Music Festival in Mansfield, Massachusetts. It’s a good example of Adams’s particular take on minimalism – its melody (if one can call it that) is monotonous, but the rhythm and meter constantly and unexpectedly shift; as does the instrumentation, keeping a sense of both exhilaration and scariness… There are also echoes of Aaron Copland and John Williams in the harmonic language. Asked about the title, Adams said, “You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn’t?”
The next piece is Sea Pictures, Op. 37, by Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Composing songs was not one of Edward Elgar’s strong points – he usually composed them out of a more mundane than artistic imperative, or as he referred to them, “a nice little earner.” He started a number of song cycles, but completed only Sea Pictures, which premiered in October of 1899. The poems of Sea Pictures provide five different perspectives on the sea by five diverse speakers! For more information on this piece, please visit our website at www.theglensfallssymphony.org
The orchestra will round out the evening by dancing through time and space with Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, by Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943). Composed in 1940 and dedicated to Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Symphonic Dances is Rachmaninov’s last work, and is often considered his best orchestral composition. Surprised by its favorable reception, Rachmaninov commented: “I don’t know how it happened. It must have been my last spark.”
The work is something of a retrospective nostalgic piece that recalls pre-Bolshevik Russia, with its romantic sentimentality and the pervasiveness of the Russian Orthodox Church. The first dance – marked Nonallegro – has a primeval quality with its pounding ostinato and large percussion section; in it, Rachmaninov demonstrates a particular interest in the musical texture of individual instruments. The middle section features the oboe and the alto saxophone – Rachmaninov’s only scoring for this instrument – in a series of birdcalls, followed by another of the composer’s broad romantic themes on the saxophone, taken up later by the violins.
A fanfare for muted trumpets introduces the second dance, Andante con moto (Tempo di valse). It is a dreamy serenade, mostly lightly orchestrated, with solos passed off from one instrument, or section, to another in mid-phrase. As the waltz approaches the end, the tempo becomes increasingly erratic, ending with a frantic coda.
Following a slow introduction, the dark final dance (marked Allegro assai) combines the syncopated rhythm of a theme from the Vespers, with dance-like allusions to the Dies Irae plainchant melody – Rachmaninov’s signature theme from the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead. It has a contrasting middle section in which the tempo slows considerably, focusing on the strings… When the initial tempo resumes, the solo trumpet begins hinting more broadly at the Dies Irae; and finally, near the end, Rachmaninov states it openly as part of the climax to the movement with the full battery of percussion instruments in attendance… Now, the character and meaning of the entire movement is revealed as a dance of death.
Concert #2: November 12, 2023
Astor Piazolla – Otoño Porteño
(Buenos Aires Autumn) with Michael Emery
Maurice Ravel – Le Tombeau de Couperin
INTERMISSION
Felix Mendelssohn – Symphony No. 4, “Italian”
About MaryAnn McCormick:
Internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano MaryAnn McCormick has been hailed in the press as “charismatic”, “spell-binding”, and “elegant”. She has performed at top theaters all over the world for more than 25 years, and has sung with the Metropolitan Opera for more than 20 seasons; as well as with La Scala in Milan, Rome Opera, Turin Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and others. The recipient of a 2012 Grammy award for her participation in Wagner’s Ring Cycle with the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. McCormick has performed many roles there in more than 118 performances, and most recently as Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro.
Equally at home with concert repertoire, she has performed with many of the greatest orchestras – including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. She has recorded with the Emerson String Quartet, the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur, Orchestre National de France in the role of Tigrane in Puccini’s Edgar, and is featured singing in the Miramax film, The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Ms. McCormick’s numerous awards include the Grammy Award in 2012, the Best Opera Recording/
Wagner’s Ring Cycle (Metropolitan Opera/James Levine), the Richard Tucker Career Grant, the George London Foundation Award, and the International Tchaikovsky Competition, among others… And in 2015, Ms. McCormick was honored to join the voice faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
About Glens Falls Symphony:
Since Maestro Charles Peltz’ arrival in 2000, the fully professional Glens Falls Symphony has performed a dynamic repertoire, regularly including musical premieres and world-renowned guest artists while expanding musical offerings to include family concerts, summer pops programs, and more. Cited as “one of the great orchestras of our country” by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Joseph Schwantner, the orchestra comprises professional musicians who come from all over the Northeast to perform.
Glens Falls Symphony 2023-24 Season
All concerts on Sunday at 4:00 PM
Glens Falls High School Auditorium, 10 Quade St, Glens Falls, NY 12801
Pre-Concert Talk at 3:00 PM (FREE with price of Ticket)
TICKETS
Season and single tickets are priced in three tiers:
Adult: $39/33/26
Student: $10
Student Season Tickets: $50
For information regarding ticket pricing and seating for season, visit www.theglensfallssymphony.org, call the Symphony office at (518) 793-1348, or stop by the office – upstairs in the LARAC Gallery building at 7 Lapham Place in Glens Falls; office hours are Monday through Friday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.