Alan Futterman: Student musicians take center stage
Our exciting season finale is a summation of work by both orchestra and chorus but also a nod to the future, with three of the finest student musicians in our region.
Ottorino Respighi’s Vetrate di chiesa or "Church Windows" is a mammoth work for a huge orchestra which includes organ, piano, bells, celesta and three different sized gongs. The brilliantly colorful orchestration illustrates four biblical scenes from stained glass cathedral windows. However, if you travel through Europe seeking the church with the original windows, you will search in vain. Everything about this piece seems to have evolved backwards.
Respighi first composed these pieces for solo piano as preludes on Gregorian Melodies. There was no connection to any scenes or historical visions. Later he arranged them, quite brilliantly, for orchestra.
He wanted to call them "Church Doors." A friend commented that the title was a bit lackluster and suggested "Church Windows." Then the two of them sat around thinking of Biblical scenes that might be imagined during each piece, and inscribed appropriate Bible passages to each score. So now we have a huge orchestral work describing the most heartfelt Bible quotations and illustrating the grandest possible stained glass windows — which, of course, do not exist.
When I last performed this work, I was so impressed by the religious spirit and the obvious connections to Gregorian Chant that I decided to compose a part for chorus so the audience can have the added experience of enjoying the chant that Respighi obviously heard in his head while writing the original piano pieces. Tonight will be the debut of these choral parts.
We begin the evening with three of the finest young virtuosi in our region. Sarah Jung, winner of our Bremerton Symphony Young Artist Competition Junior Division competition, will perform the first movement of Glazunov’s romantic Violin Concerto in A Minor. Listening to the perfect flowing melodies, it is hard to remember that Sarah is only in 10th grade.
You will experience some of the finest viola playing we have ever heard in Kitsap County when David Forman performs the first movement of the Walton Viola Concerto. Walton is under-appreciated here in the U.S., but well respected in Europe. Better known for his film scores, his music for "Henry the Fifth" with Sir Lawrence Olivier is a classic that we should bring to Kitsap in the near future.
The judges heard several wonderful pianists in the competition. They were having a hard time choosing a winner until late in the day, when Luke Arnold arrived with a concert rarity, the Frederick Delius Piano Concerto in C Minor, and blew everyone else off the stage with a thrilling performance. This is relatively early Delius, and he seems to be searching for his own style. However, the search is great fun for all of us. The passages reminiscent of Saint-Saëns or Brahms are delightful and just before the end, he seems to be channeling Richard Strauss with some brilliant near-quotes from "Death and Transfiguration," one of our greatest orchestral scores. This is a new and unexpected pleasure for performers and participants.
The last notes of the season will be by Sir Edward Elgar with one of the most glorious and lofty melodies in the literature, "Nimrod." LeeAnne Campos will direct the Bremerton Symphony Chorale in this unforgettable vignette a cappella, followed by the entire symphony and chorale with Elgar’s massive orchestration.
Alan Futterman is the director of the Bremerton Symphony Orchestra.
PREVIEW
Bremerton Symphony Orchestra and Chorale
Who: Bremerton Symphony Orchestra, Alan Futterman, music director; Bremerton Symphony Chorale, LeeAnne Campos, director; Young Artist competition winners Luke Arnold, piano, David Forman, viola, and Sarah Jung, violin
What: "Lux Aeterna" program featuring music by Elgar, Respighi, Glazunov, Walton and Delius
Where: Bremerton Performing Arts Center, 1500 13th St., Bremerton
When: 7:30 p.m. May 13
Tickets: $28-$10
Information: 360-373-1722, bremertonsymphony.org