this weekend at the oregon symphony

If this past weekend’s Oregon Symphony concerts were a bit of a programming head-scratcher¹, this weekend’s are right on the money. Three (not four) works, each a stunning examples of their composer at the height of his powers.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 90 is, well, his ninetieth work in the genre – and with Haydn, if a symphony hasn’t gotten a nickname, it’s going to be hard to pick from a lineup. That aside, it’s a fantastic work that seems to have a little bit of everything. The winds and strings all get a good workout with some crazy passage work in the outer movements. The two inner movements are a double-variation Andante, which has some gorgeous moments for both the principal flute and oboe (with a bit of “anything you can do, I can do better” oneupmanship), and a quite refined (for Haydn) Menuetto. But it’s the last movement that has the big joke – most likely aimed at his patron Prince Esterhazy – the finale that won’t quit ending. It proved confounding to early audiences, and I’m betting that we’ll get a lot of people to applaud at the “wrong” (but actually, in terms of the joke, the “right”) time.

Brahms’ Variations of a Theme of Haydn follows, and aside from having an inordinate amount of viola audition excerpts embedded in its confines, it is one of the most perfect gems of an orchestral piece that Brahms ever wrote. The theme is lovely, and orchestrated so perfectly, and then it is simply transported. Not just varied, but taken to entirely new emotionally experiential planes. And the way he mashes everything back together in the finale is something that only Bach was able to do better.

The ‘big’ piece on the program is what I regard as Richard Strauss’ most masterful tone poem, Don Quixote. So much of Strauss’ work can be seen as simply facile and emotionally remote, with emphasis placed upon beauty over every other consideration. Here, however, we get our third set of variations in this program (yes – some subtle, cleverly tight programming here, not shouting it at the audience, preening for attention, high marks for this!) that tell the story of the addled knight errant (represented by the solo cellist) and his faithful, not-the-sharpest-knife-in-the-drawer companion, Sancho Panza (of course, represented by the viola, along with the bass clarinet and tenor tuba) as they seek to save the Don’s hallucinated damsel in distress, Dulcinea. It is an incredible journey, vividly told, and while beautiful, also very deeply emotional in its description of a once proud man losing his very grip on reality.

I’m very much looking forward to preparing these works, and hope you can join us for what should prove to be a remarkable concert!

www.orsymphony.org

¹Four work concerts almost never work. The concert is either two long overall, or one half is unbalanced. In general, it feels like one extra work has been shoehorned into the standard formula. In addition, having the Quiet City soloists play from the midst of the orchestra and then proceeding directly into Miraculous Mandarin deprived them of a proper solo bow (and audience appreciation), and the cityscape connection was so tenuous as to be nonexistent, so radically different were the sound worlds. Just my opinion, your mileage may vary…