Orchestra Wellington’s Third Subscription Concert “Polish”

Orchestra Wellington’s Third Subscription Concert “Polish”

Night on Bald Mountain Modeste Mussorgsky
Piano Concerto Op 20 in F-sharp minor Aleksander Scriabin
Symphony no 3 in D Major Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei, Musical Director
Michael Houstoun, Piano

Here is music to conjure up pictures in the mind’s eye! Few people could hear Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain without recalling Disney’s fantastic images created for the 1940 film Fantasia. Inspired by Gogol’s story of a witches’ Black Sabbath on the eerie Bald Mountain, Mussorgsky created a tense and dramatic score that resolves into one of the most beautiful clarinet solos ever written.

Scriabin was a pianist-composer who saw music in colour, and ascribed mystical powers to it - and to himself! As he said in one of his notebooks: “I will ignite your imagination with the delight of my promise. I will bedeck you in the excellence of my dreams. I will veil the sky of your wishes with the sparkling stars of my creation. I bring not truth, but freedom.”

His 1897 piano concerto was written as he moved from composing Chopinesque miniatures towards the larger, wilder musical canvases of his later career. Pianist Michael Houstoun says he finds the concerto highly poetic. “Its qualities are veiled, sometimes almost like a meditation. It’s a fabulous work.”

This concert is named for Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony, known as the Polish. It, too, is a transitional work. Here, Tchaikovsky loosens the demands of classical European forms in order to strike out on his own with this freely-imagined symphony. The Polish plays up his strengths, with middle movements that conjure up the grace and energy of the ballet, and in the middle, a yearning slow movement that could only be a wordless love song. As Music Director Marc Taddei says, “It is unique among all of his symphonies, being in a major key and with five movements. It is very free in inspiration and one hears intimations of the great ballet scores that he was just about to begin writing.”

As you may know, shortly before our last concert, Matthew Ross resigned from his position as Concertmaster for Orchestra Wellington. We wish to thank him for his 12 years of service to the organisation and wish him the best. We also wish to congratulate longstanding Principal of the First Violins, Stephanie Rolfe, for successfully stepping up and leading the Orchestra through its last concert.

As we get the recruitment process underway, we are delighted to be able to announce a Guest Concertmaster for this concert, Vesa-Matti Leppänen. To say this is a privilege would be an understatement. Leppänen comes to us from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, where he is Concertmaster. This generous gesture is a visible demonstration of the way arts organisations and artists in Wellington are enriched by their cooperation and exchange with each other.

Saturday 8 August, 7:30pm
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Tickets from Ticketek, 0800 842 538

Ticket Prices Wellington:
Adult Full Price $60
Under 35, (with ID), $25
Concession (Gold Card Holder), $48
Community Services Card $12
Student (with ID) $12
Child (still at school) $10

ENDS

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