Upcoming Concerts in October

Time is really flying by! It seems like the FREE Concert took place only days ago, but the 2010-2011 season is well underway.

Fantastic programs for the rest of this month are still available.  Even if you have tons of midterms to study for and papers to write, try to take a break to catch these weekly concerts.

n Brahms Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4:

On Friday, October 15, at 8:00 PM, Saturday, October 16, at 8:00 PM, and Sunday, October 17, at 2:00 PM, The Philadelphia Orchestra will be performing Brahms’s Symphonies No. 2 and No. 4, under the direction of Christoph von Dohnányi.

Initially, the reaction to Brahms’s Symphony No. 4, which premiered in October1885, was borderline negative; audiences declared it “un-Brahmsian.” Music critic Max Kalbeck even suggested that Brahms should omit the fourth movement.

However, the fourth movement is the most interesting of the movements. While composing the Symphony, Brahms, the intellectual, became occupied with Renaissance and Baroque music. Essentially, the last movement is a set of variations over an ostinato bass from a Bach cantata. By quoting Bach, recalling Beethoven, and adding a Romantic twist of his own, Brahms concluded his symphonic output with a synthesis of the compositional styles of the great German composers.

Because Brahms’s Fourth Symphony has been characterized as “tragic”, it makes more sense for the Orchestra to play it first, before the sunnier, and cheerful Second Symphony.

n  YNS—Haydn and Mahler:

October ends with an exciting concert, led by newly-appointed Music Director Designate Yannick Nézet-Séguin in his first official Philadelphia Orchestra concert under his new title. Yannick will have a chance to show off his conducting skills by conducting two works by the composers that essentially book-ended the era of the symphony—Haydn and Mahler.

By listening to Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 (“Military”) from the 18^th century and the Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 from the 20^th century, one will hear how the symphony evolved.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 is one of his London Symphonies—the conclusion and climax of his symphonic output. The nickname “Military” is derived from the second movement’s domination of “Turkish”-sounding instruments—bass drum, cymbals, and triangle—that give the military-coloring to the march-like movements and the bugle call for solo trumpet in the conclusion of the movement. Ever since its premiere in London, this Symphony has been one of Haydn’s most popular works. Why? Because the “Turkish”-music was all the rage in Europe at the time.

If 1790s London audiences found Haydn’s military, cacophonous, music exciting, they would throw a fit if they were to hear Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 over a hundred years later. If you would like to know why they would respond in this way, go to the Orchestra concert on either Friday, October 29, 2010, at 8:00 PM, Saturday, October 30, 2010, at 8:00 PM, or Sunday October 31, 2010, at 2:00 PM. 

--Amalya Lehmann