DSO Chamber Series Highlights Two Great Works

DSO Concertmaster, violinist David Southorn

By Christine Facciolo
The Delaware Symphony Orchestra opened its 2016-17 Chamber Series Tuesday, October 18, at the Hotel du Pont’s Gold Ballroom with stellar performances of two of the most important works of the chamber music repertoire: Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht and Vivaldi’s iconic The Four Seasons.

Schoenberg and Vivaldi might seem like an odd pairing, but both works explore an insightful journey via the pictorial marriage between poetry and music.

Inspired by a poem by Richard Dehmel, Verklarte Nacht describes a conversation between a man and a woman as they walk through a dark forest under a brilliantly expressive night sky. The woman is pregnant with a child of a different man. The man she is walking with loves her and tells her he is prepared to accept her unborn child as his own.

The work unfolds in five sections which correspond to the structure of Dehmel’s poem. The various emotions of the two characters — love, pain, guilt, forgiveness — find their equivalents in Schoenberg’s passionate music, making the work one of the first examples of program music written for a chamber ensemble.

Originally scored for string sextet, DSO Music Director David Amado opted for the expanded version for string orchestra. The group of 22 strings produced a meaty performance that emphasized the dramatic structure of Verklarte Nacht but never at the expense of the score’s lyrical beauty. The textures were appropriately bass heavy, yet every line came through with exceptional clarity, allowing the counterpoint to drive the music and lead the ear through the dense harmonic web. The cadences, where suddenly a radiant major chord wells up from the dour depth, produced a profound sense of exaltation.

The second half of the program featured Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons — one of the most recognizable works of the classical music repertoire. Like Verklarte Nacht, The Four Seasons conveys a journey through spring, summer, autumn and winter. Each season is introduced by a poem, possibly composed by Vivaldi, that offers a description of what experiences the music is about to conjure up: The heat of summer; the peasant celebrations and imbibing of autumn; the violent storms of spring; and the cold and ice of winter.

DSO Concertmaster David Southorn was nothing less than brilliant as soloist in these four “evergreen” concertos. He delivered it all — a powerful sound; immaculate precision and compelling agility in the furious figurations of the fast sections; impeccable phrasing and a polished lyricism in the more tranquil sections. This was a zestful performance that continued unabated until the final note was struck.

Southorn was ably supported by the 22 string players. This was a beautifully balanced performance with a nice contrast between soloist and orchestra. The programmatic drama of the score was neither shortchange nor overdone, leaving the impression that each participant had contributed something important.

See www.delawaresymphony.org. 

Delaware Symphony Orchestra Closes Its 16-17 Season at Gold Ballroom

By Christine Facciolo

One of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra’s greatest strengths is its roster of talented musicians that can be called upon to organize performances in a wide range of complexity and moods in a single evening.

The result is often a delightfully strange assemblage of pieces and the orchestra’s final chamber series concert of the season — “David Amado and Friends” — in The Gold Ballroom of the Hotel du Pont was one of the most curious, featuring Schubert’s richly lyrical Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 99, Shostakovich’s polystylistic Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 67 and Ysaye’s virtuosic Sonata No. 4 for Solo Violin.

The first item on the program — the Ysaye Sonata — was also the most notable outlier. Though not as well-known as Nos. 2 and 3, this sonata is fiercely expressive and violinist Erica Miller captured its virtuosity perfectly. Her mastery of the instrument was complete: her downbow attacks were strong, her intonation precise. She took a rhapsodic approach to the opening Allemnda, showed a reverent calm in the Sarabande and delivered the pyrotechnics of the Finale with poise.

The rest of the pre-intermission portion of the concert was taken up with the Shostakovich trio, one of his most enduringly popular compositions. It was written in 1944 in memory of one of the composer’s closest friends, polymath Ivan Sollertinsky, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack that same year. Shostakovich had also lived through the siege of Leningrad and his anxiety about death permeates the entire work.

Cellist Naomi Gray opened the trio with a note that would be challengingly high, even for a violin. Gray succeeded in striking a delicate balance between beauty and pain which continued as the other instruments joined in. Violinist Luigi Mazzocchi executed the relentlessly jabbing notes of the second movement without sacrificing clarity or intonation. DSO Music Director David Amado’s dramatic phrasing and scrupulous attention to dynamics carried the third movement which consists of a series of heart-wrenching variations over the piano’s bass line. The work culminates in a dance-like finale which features Shostakovich’s first use of Jewish klezmer music, a reference to the influences of the Holocaust around him. The performance concluded with barely audible notes in each instrument’s highest register, moving the whole affair into a different realm.

After intermission, the musicians offered a glittering performance of Schubert’s Piano Trio in B-flat Major, D. 898. This piece was a perfect showcase for the players’ keen sense of ensemble. The performance was a true dialog between piano and strings as well as between the strings themselves. The first and second movements featured song-like phrases from each other players while the scherzo received a sense of urgency. The Rondo finale was full of surprises as the musicians accommodated the sudden accents, key changes and false endings that permeated the movement.

All in all, the trio played with a joyous emerging that brought Schubert’s trio and the concert — and season — to a rousing conclusion.

See www.delawaresymphony.org.

DSO Closes Season on a High Note

By Christine Facciolo
Emotions ran high last week as the Delaware Symphony Orchestra closed its 2015-2016 season — The Season of the Bells — at The Grand Opera House in Wilmington.

Maestro David Amado conducted a program that offered just two works. But when one of those works features the gut wrenching emotionality of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, anything more would have felt like overload.

The concert opened with David Ludwig’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, with Bella Hristova as soloist. The semi-programmatic piece which was commissioned by an eight-orchestra consortium — including the DSO — celebrates Ludwig’s marriage to Hristova. Its three movements recount the wedding ritual (preparation, ceremony, celebration) within the broader themes of partnership, empathy and communion.

Ludwig invested the work with captivating moments and effects: asymmetrical rhythms, loping harmonies, ascending glissandi as well as unusual timbral combinations.

The work opens with a violin exclamation and everything a symphony orchestra can throw at it to signify transformative power of love and commitment before progressing to various Eastern-European style dances. The music builds to a brilliant raucousness, blending virtuosic cadenzas with warm lyricism.

The second movement opens with a tender melody in the solo violin that blossoms and grows joyful. This section serves as a touching tribute to the father Hristova never knew, Soviet-era composer Yuri Chichkov. Ludwig tracked down a rare copy of the violin concerto Chchkov wrote decades ago and incorporated an excerpt into this movement as a tribute to family.

Finally, the third movement “Festival” is as about as bacchanalian as a wedding reception can get. Bulgarian dances with their fluctuating rhythms run rampant, including Ludwig’s own version of the “Crooked Dance,” which mimics how the less-than-sure-footed revelers attempt to make their way home.

Hristova is one of today’s most celebrated artists with a superb technique and a sumptuous sound. Not surprisingly, she invested this performance with a sense of the whole, while balancing fiery virtuoso and deep passion with a sensitivity and softness.

Political passion consumed the second half of the program which featured Shostakovich’s massive Symphony No. 11, which premiered in 1957. The symphony is subtitled The Year 1905, a reference to the failed Russian revolution of that year. Critics initially dismissed the work as little more than glorified film music. Many now consider it to be more reflective in attitude, one that looks back on Russian history from the standpoint of 1957. Another interpretation views the symphony as a response to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the composer’s widow has stated that he did in fact “have it in mind” during its composition.

Lasting more than an hour, the symphony consists of four movements played without pause. Each movement bears a descriptive title relating to the revolution. The brooding first movement “The Palace Square” readily conveys the tension of the gathering workers, whose massacre is the subject of the feverish second movement “The 9th of January.” The third movement “In Memoriam” is deeply meditative while the finale, “The Tocsin,” sizzles with excitement.

Amado and the DSO performed this difficult piece with heart-wrenching emotion and cinematic sweep. The strings invested just the right amount of melancholy in the slow movements while the brass, winds and percussion brought drama and tension to the fast movements, especially the finale with its floor-shaking bass drum, crashing cymbals and tam-tam and cataclysmic tolling of the Bells of Remembrance.

It was a masterful rendition that kept the audience on the edges of their seats during the performance and brought them to their feet at its conclusion.

See www.delawaresymphony.org.

An Much-Welcomed 'Spring Night' Courtesy of Delaware Symphony Orchestra

By Christine Facciolo

Myth, legend and a concerto featuring a most unlikely instrument filled the bill last weekend as the Delaware Symphony Orchestra (DSO) performed its Classic Series “Spring Night” at the Laird Performing Arts Center at The Tatnall School in Greenville.

This was also the occasion to honor Christopher Theofanidis, this year’s recipient of the DSO’s A.I. duPont Composer’s Award. Theofanidis, Professor of Composition at Yale University School of Music, is one of today’s most celebrated and sought-after composers. His orchestra concert work Rainbow Body is one of the most performed new orchestral works of the last 10 years, having been performed by more than 100 orchestras worldwide.

The concert opened with a performance of Theofanidis’s Dreamtime Ancestors, a 17-minute tone poem based on Australian aboriginal creation myths. Theofanidis, who spent time in Western Australia, developed a fondness for these stories while working on his oratorio “Creation/Creator” in 2015.

The stories hold that we are connected to our ancestors past and future through the land. Our ancestors made the land leaving behind remnants of their existence. That is why we feel connected to a certain place. Theofanidis’s tone poem calls the dream state an “all-at-once-time,” where there is no past present or future. He read a tone poem to introduce the audience to these concepts before his composition was performed.

The work unfolds in three movements. The first is called “Songlines.” These are the things our ancestors left on Earth, such as rivers and mountain ranges. The second movement is called “Rainbow Serpent.” This mythical character is common to all aboriginal tribes in Australia. As the serpent moved along the Earth, it left a rainbow in its wake. Its light represents the source of the sun. The closing movement “Earth Stone Speaks a Poem” tells us that even so-called dead objects have something to say.

Dreamtime Ancestors is a romantically lyrical piece of music with no sharp edges, a perfect vehicle for DSO players. Theofanidis has crafted a work that is both accessible yet rhythmically, melodically and texturally complex.

The piece opens with a horn fanfare followed by layers of strings punctuated by cymbal crashes. The initial theme recurs throughout the movement which concludes with a drum roll, cymbal crash as the strings fade out.

The strings own the second movement as their lingering sounds recall the halo effect left by the serpent as it slithered along the Earth. The energetic final movement opens with a clapboard sound (provided by principal percussionist William Kerrigan) after which the strings, then horns and winds join in. Principal flutist Kimberly Reighley offers a strong passage and the movement comes to a close with a resounding crash.

Dreamtime Ancestors was matched with a deserving rarity, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Tuba Concerto of 1954. The tuba did not gain membership in the symphonic orchestra until valves were perfected in the second decade of the 19th Century. Composers welcomed its profound timbre, but Vaughan Williams tapped into the soul of the instrument.

This is a serious concerto in three movements, complete with cadenzas in the first and third movements. In his pre-concert remarks, DSO Principal Tubist Brian Brown revealed he had studied with John Fletcher who made the seminal recording of the work under the baton of Andre Previn in 1972.

Brown delivered a performance that proved him a worthy successor. His tone was big, fat and buttery yet deft and delicate. The opening movement with its run-filled cadenza and the rapid finale were convincing even as they had their share of humor. But it was in the second movement, Romanza: Andante sostenuto, where Vaughan Williams is at his most pastoral and for those few minutes Brown made you believe his instrument is the most beautiful in the orchestra. To be moved to tears by a tuba was indeed a rare pleasure.

After intermission, the orchestra took up works by Modest Mussorgsky (1839-81) and Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971).

Mussorgsky (1839-81) was one Russian committed to making music based on his country’s folklore, rather than the refined manners of 18th Century France or Italy. His Night on Bald Mountain, composed in 1867, evokes a witches’ Sabbath on Mount Tiglav, near Kiev. So violent and strident were its harmonies and instrumentation that it shocked fellow Russian nationalist Rimsky-Korsakov, who felt compelled to purge the score of those atrocities following Mussorgsky’s death. He even tacked on a conclusion designed to bring the work into line with contemporary standards of piety.

Nothing got lost in this performance, though, as DSO Music Director David Amado drew out the shocking elements retained in the score. There was nothing refined or stylized about this performance. This was pure Mussorgsky. Punctuation by one of the Bells of Remembrance just added to the authenticity of the performance.

Furthermore, if not for Rimsky-Korsakov’s serene conclusion, we would have been deprived of Charles Salinger’s superb clarinet solo and Kimberly Reighley’s mesmerizing flute solo in the composition’s closing minutes.

Following was a knockout performance of Stravinsky’s Petroushka. This centerpiece of ballets written for Serge Diaghilev tells the story of the lonely of the sad puppet Petroushka and his said demise.

Amado led an extraordinary performance that brought out all the colors of Stravinsky’s kaleidoscopic score: the hectic opening of the Shrovetide Fair in all its exuberance; Petroushka’s pathos and his rage against the machine; the Moor’s bizarre dance with the ballerina and the eerie code with the ghost of Petroushka thumbing his nose at the magician.

Especially noteworthy were contributions from (again) flutist Reighley, trumpet Brian Kuszyk, clarinetist Salinger and pianist Lura Johnson.

See www.delawaresymphony.org. 

Percussion Rules with DSO Chamber Series

By Christine Facciolo
For centuries, people all over the world have pounded on percussion instruments to accompany music, dance and ritual. Yet percussion did not emerge as a vital musical entity until 1934 when Edgard Varese’s Ionization, one of the first compositions for percussion ensemble, premiered at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Nicolas Slominsky, to whom it was dedicated. One critic likened the performance to “a sock in the jaw.”

They didn’t play Varese Tuesday night, but the Delaware Symphony Orchestra percussionists William Kerrigan, Thomas Blanchard and William Wozniak did offer a sonically and visually captivating program that offered a fantastic — and flawless — insight into the creativity and versatility of this powerful section of the orchestra. “Percussion Rules,” the third concert in the DSO’s chamber series, presented gems of the repertoire that had a little something for every taste and tilt: classical, avant garde, ragtime as well as a swig of Latin.

The evening kicked off with Trio per uno (1999) by Serbian composer Nebojsa Zivkovic. This 20-minute work opened with a movement the composer aptly describes as a “wild archaic ritual.” This section had the three players gathered around a flat bass drum beating it obsessively with timbale sticks. This nervous pulsing on the bass drum was punctuated with unison thwacks from the pair of bongs and china-gongs allotted each player. Kerrigan, Blanchard and Wozniak offered a visceral and virtuosic performance that tapped an elemental strain of the human psyche.

By contrast, the slow middle movement presented a slow, contemplative melody that served as a respite before the volcanic close: sheer speed and energy replete with guttural, primordial shouts.

Stubernic (2000) by Mark Ford offered the trio another opportunity to showcase its prowess on a single instrument, this time the marimba. The Latin-inspired piece takes its name from Stefan and Mary K. Stuber, the composer’s former classmates who traveled extensively throughout Guatemala and Nicaragua. Moving around the instrument in circular motion — as if playing musical chairs — the three players dazzled the audience with their breakneck speed and tightly controlled ensemble work.

DSO pianist Lura Johnson joined the percussionists in a performance of John Cage’s Amores (1943), a four movement work featuring prepared piano. The composer described the work as “an attempt to express in combination the erotic and the tranquil, two of the permanent emotions of the Indian tradition.”

Prior to the performance, Johnson explained how she’d gone to Home Depot earlier that day to purchase the stipulated in the score, including nine screws, eight bolts, two nuts and three strips of rubber. Depending on what is applied to its strings and where, the piano can produce a limitless variety of pitched and unpitched sounds, becoming a miniature percussion orchestra all by itself

Johnson soloed in the two outer movements and conducted the inner two which were for percussion alone. The first of the two inner movements featured nine tom-toms and a pod rattle which provided contrast with its periodic nervous rustling. The second scored for seven wood blocks was a waltz-like affair.

DSO principal flutist Kimberly Reighley soloed in An Idyll for the Misbegotten (1986) by George Crumb, a past winner of the DSO’s A.I. duPont Composer’s Award. The piece takes the melancholy flute solo of Debussy’s Syrinx and surrounds it with three rumbling drums. The composer felt that the combination of flute and drums best evoked “the voice of nature.” Crumb further stated that his idyll “should be heard from afar, over a lake, on a moonlight evening in August.”

Reighley supplied a superb solo, playing lines that fluttered, dipped and soared over a bass drum that evoked the sound of rolling, distant thunder. A call-and-response from the other two percussionists made it feel as if the impending storm had broken the skies wide open,

Each half of the program closed with a performance of a traditional Guatemalan song, Lain Nebaj and Manzanilla, both of which evoked the warmth of the tropics on this mild spring evening.

With the audience on its feet, the trio offered one last selection. Teaming once again with pianist Lura Johnson, they gave a rollicking rendition of George Hamilton Green’s xylophone rag Log Cabin Blues, with Kerrigan on xylophone and Wozniak on the drum set. Blanchard did the honors as sound effects man.

See www.desymphony.org. 

DSO & Brasil Guitar Duo Wow Audiences with US Premiere

By Christine Facciolo
The Delaware Symphony Orchestra (DSO) both secured a place in music history and established itself as a strong contender for a 2017 Grammy nod with this weekend’s performance and recording of three double guitar concerti, including the US Premiere of El Libro de Los Signos (The Book of Signs) by Cuban composer and cultural icon, Leo Brouwer.

Lending their virtuosic playing to the project was the Brasil Guitar Duo, the stunning collaboration of the supremely musical Joao Luiz and Douglas Lora. Endowed with extraordinary professionalism and technical mastery, these two young talents — who met as teen-aged guitar students in Sao Paolo — have earned critical acclaim for the sensitivity, refinement and mutual respect they bring to every performance.

The near sell-out crowd was especially hushed during their performance. One might attribute that to the fact that they knew recording was in progress. But it’s more likely they were simply in awe of this breathtaking display of artistry.

Luiz and Lora introduced themselves to the audience with a masterful performance of the unaccompanied Sete Aneis (7 Rings) by Brazilian composer Egberto Gismonti (b. 1947). This one-movement composition in Rondo form is based on the “choro,” one of the first forms of Brazilian urban music, which made its way to Rio de Janeiro from Africa in the mid-19th Century. The work is a study in contrasts and the duo accommodated. A wistful opening morphed into a blazing pizzicato passage before wrapping up with a lyrical and tender finish.

Next came the much-anticipated US Premiere of El Libro de los Signos (The Book of Signs) by Brouwer (b. 1939), widely considered to be the most significant living composer of art music for the guitar. This work — scored for two guitars and string orchestra — features music from Brouwer’s Afro-Cuban roots mixed with traditional form. The work was composed in 2003 at the behest of Greek guitarist Costas Cotsiolis and John Williams, and premiered in January 2004 at the Megaron Theatre in Athens. According to the composer, its language uses sounds to explore its rest-motion ambivalence.

The first movement features a series of variations on a theme by Beethoven. The second gives the same treatment to a more lyrical theme. The third — and most virtuosic — exhibits more of the Cuban influence. Brouwer achieves a seamless web of sound by the interplay of passages that at times have the guitars sounding like the orchestra and at other times having the orchestra play in the style of a guitar.

The duo rounded out their portion of the concert with a performance of the Concerto Caboclo for two guitars and orchestra composed especially for them by fellow Brazilian Paulo Bellinati (b. 1950). The duo honored their idol — who was in attendance — with a masterful performance.

Bellinati draws on Brazil’s rich musical heritage, infusing it with contemporary harmonies and techniques. The opening movement is most unusual for a concerto. In place of a fast-paced Allegro, the soloists enter with a cadenza in which they share musical materials much like a conversation. The orchestra entered only to be interrupted by another cadenza. Even as the movement increased in intensity, the music never lost the relaxed and lyrical feel of the coutryside.

The second movement (Adagio) was inspired by the Brazilian songs known as modas de viola. In keeping with the question-and-answer structure of these songs, one could frequently hear rhythmic ostinatos used in one guitar as accompaniment for the other. More ostinatos are heard in the final movement, which featured catchy rhythms and flashy fingerwork. Maestro David Amado’s meticulous direction of the orchestra’s dynamic levels ensured that the soloists were never overpowered.

The second half of the program was devoted to a performance of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, an opium-filled tale of love, obsession, betrayal and murder. In his pre-concert remarks, commented on how Berlioz, who made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his “Treatise on Instrumentation,” took an abstract form — the symphony — and used it to tell a story. And while symphonies that followed a program had existed before, most notably Beethoven’s Pastoral, Berlioz took the process to its logical conclusion with every note geared to the specifics of his p lot. That accomplishment as well as his use of the “idée fixe” would go on to inspire composers like Wagner and Liszt.

This truly iconic work poses a challenge to any conductor: Do you play the music and let the story take care of itself, or do you help it along? Amado’s reading is absolutely on the right side of sentimentality. His interpretation bristled with desire and intention. The first movement was playful and flirtatious. The ball waltzed itself into sheer delirium. As the music turned dark, Amado followed suit: the rhythms were unyielding; the mocking of Berlioz’s hero filled with spite. He kept the momentum going beyond the March to the Scaffold. The Witches’ Sabbath with its growly brass and tense strings sustained the nightmare to the very end. And let’s not forget the punctuation of the requiem Dies Irae by The Bells of Remembrance, which are featured in each concert of the DSO’s Classics Series this season.

See www.delawaresymphony.org.

A Masterful Performance of 9/11 Remembrance from DSO & Mastersingers of Wilmington

By Guest Blogger, Christine Facciolo
Christine holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Music and continues to apply her voice to all genres of music. An arts lover since childhood, she currently works as a freelance writer.

Mozart’s Requiem took on an added poignancy as the Delaware Symphony Orchestra opened its 2015-16 season — the “Season of the Bells” — with a tribute to the September 11th terrorist attacks.

The deeply human drama of the Requiem was a perfect choice for the concert, titled Remembrance and Redemption.

Musicologists often argue about what the work might have sounded like had Mozart lived to complete it, demonstrating what his pupil Franz Xaver Sussmayr did to make the work performable.

DSO Music Director David Amado took a different tack. In his pre-concert lecture, he maintained that whatever the weaknesses and differences in Sussmayr’s work, he did at least know Mozart and his version has endured for more than two centuries.

Whether by sheer artistry or the suggestive power of the occasion — I like to think a bit of both — the musicians and singers seemed at their best in the intimate sections of the Requiem.

The soloists soprano Brenda Harris (who traveled last-minute from Connecticut to fill in for the ailing Mary Wilson), mezzo-soprano Meg Bragle, tenor Brian Downen and baritone Grant Youngblood drew the pathos and solace from the Recordare and the Tuba mirum, the latter graced by a lyrical trombone solo.

The Mastersingers of Wilmington sang with force and assurance, executing complex vocal lines with ease and applying judicious phrasing.

This concert was the first in the five-concert Classics series to feature the Bells of Remembrance, Brother David Schlatter’s poignant memorial to those who lost their lives at Ground Zero including his friend, mentor and fellow Franciscan Father Mychal Judge, the first to die in the terrorist attacks. Amado chose Cesar Franck’s symphonic poem, “Le Chasseur maudit” (The Accursed Hunter) for the bells’ season debut, quipping that he was giving the rarely performed work its Delaware premiere just as he gave it its St. Louis premiere during his tenure with that city’s orchestra. Based on the poem “Der wilde Jager” by Gottfried Burger, the story is a classic tale of disobedience and damnation: a miscreant count chooses hunting over church one Sunday and is condemned to be chased by demons for all eternity.

The horns were resplendent; the call to the hunt in the opening bars was arresting. The alternation between solemn hymns and frantic hunt was powerfully executed. The orchestra’s principal players, especially the winds, provided subtly colored solos. The tolling of the church bells — this time with real bells — was a dramatic and somewhat sinister harbinger of what was to come.

But it was the waves of sound from each section of the orchestra that drove the action, culminating in a massive G minor thwack from the deity.

The concert opened with George Tsontakis’ Laconika (2010), with the composer in attendance. The title is a pun on the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s name (LACO) as well as a nod to the native New Yorker’s Greek heritage, as he explained.

The title also represents the composer’s intent on writing something laconic or Spartan rather than the larger movements he typically favors. As a result, the 15-minute score divides into five, short pop-song sized pieces: Alarming, Lacomotion, Mercurial, Laconicrimosa and Twilight.

This is hardly groundbreaking music — the ear catches more than a few clichés — but Tsontakis somehow manages to keep it sounding fresh and authentic, and the DSO obliges. Apropos this concert, Laconicrimosa, which was written when the composer’s mother was ill, makes reference to the Lacrimosa of Mozart’s Requiem.

The tone for the evening was set with a solemn arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner by Otto Werner Mueller, professor of conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and Amado’s teacher.

See www.delawaresymphony.org and www.marketstreetmusicde.org. 

DSO Delivers Body and Soul

By Guest Blogger, Christine Facciolo
Christine holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Music and continues to apply her voice to all genres of music. An arts lover since childhood, she currently works as a freelance writer.

Great composers have a gift for looking backward as they push forward.

The Delaware Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Music Director David Amado, presented works by three such composers Friday, March 13, at the Laird Performing Arts Center at Tatnall School.

The program featured works by Johannes Brahms (Variations on a Theme by Haydn), Gerald Finzi (Clarinet Concerto) and Jean Sibelius (Symphony No. 2). Brahms knew his Baroque and Classical music well. His love of the old masters was instilled in him by his first important teacher, Eduard Marxsen. Brahms himself would go on to advise younger composers to obtain a thorough grounding in counterpoint. This work frequently refers back to earlier eras of music, using complex counterpoint in places, yet it remains firmly rooted in the late Romantic style.

Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto is everything that the Brahms isn't: Reserved and contemplative. Not surprising, since the composer was seriously traumatized by the deaths of three of his elder brothers in World War I. (He would leave London after the World War II to live in the country, devoting himself to composition, growing rare apples and editing the works of earlier little-known composers.) His work combines influences from the Baroque as well as English folk music tradition, yet like Brahms, his unique personal style shines through.

Sibelius’ Second Symphony is the first major step on a journey that would culminate in the Seventh Symphony which marked his true ambition: The fusing of form and content into an organic and natural unity.

The orchestra was fully engaged from the first note of the Brahms, infusing the graceful march-like theme — which actually is not by Haydn but apparently enough like him to have fooled both Brahms and Haydn scholar Karl Ferdinand Pohl — with a hymn-like solemnity that pervaded the entire work.

Eight compact and wonderfully diverse variations follow, expressing dark brooding mystery in some and joyful exuberance in others. The entrance of the strings in the first variation fast forwards the listener from the 18th Century to late Romanticism. The boisterous variation 6 has all the character of the hunt with horns coming to the fore. The finale is a stirring passacaglia itself a set of variations with the larger variations after which the theme returns triumphantly in full orchestral mode — replete with triangles and piccolos. If ever there was a transcendental moment in music, this is it.

The result was a transparency of sound which kept all the parts in balance and playing off each other nicely.

In the end, the work does have a direct link to Haydn: In the code of the finale, Brahms quotes directly from the second movement of Haydn’s Clock Symphony which he regarded as one of the greatest symphonic movements of the Classical period.

The Finzi Clarinet Concerto was the astute choice of DSO’s principal clarinetist Charles Salinger. His virtuosic playing did this imaginative but rarely performed work proud, being properly assertive in the opening movement and delightfully playful in the rondo-finale. Both soloist and strings were most impressive in their execution of the concerto’s beautiful second movement.

The highlight of the evening was a glorious rendering of the Sibelius Symphony No. 2. In accordance with the composer’s intentions, Amado kept themes restrained in the first three movements, including the touching elegy embedded in the third movement, beautifully introduced by principal oboist Jeffrey O’Donnell.

This restraint gave way to the rising power of the finale, sending the orchestra soaring with a pronounced sense of majesty and bringing the audience to its feet.

See delawaresymphony.org. 

Bravo to the 'Heroes and Heroines' of the DSO!

By Guest Blogger, Chuck Holdeman
Chuck is a regional composer of lyrical, contemporary classical music, including opera, orchestral music, songs, chamber music, and music for film.


The Delaware Symphony kicked off its 2014-15 season Friday evening at Wilmington's Grand Opera House. Board chair Charles Babcock — thrust into his role by the sudden death last summer of then chairman Bruce Kallos — gave a light-hearted (if lengthy) welcome to the near full house.

Music Director David Amado led the orchestra and audience in an enthusiastic rendition of our national anthem. Those of us who attended the pre-concert lecture had already met the soloist for Beethoven's 5th piano concerto — Venezuelan Gabriela Martinez, a charming and lovely young woman, is a graduate of Juilliard and winner of the Anton Rubenstein competition. Her conversation with Amado revealed her strong feelings for the music of Beethoven and her ability to learn concertos quickly — her budding career has included filling in for indisposed soloists.

While their discussion prepared us for a concerto of heroic dimension, the performance by Martinez and the DSO seemed to be propelled instead by lyrical sweep. Martinez plays with a clarity that communicates with great immediacy to an audience. I also enjoyed her use of the pedals, which colorized her sensitive phrasing. While she could always be heard over the orchestra, she nevertheless finessed her approach with daring pianissimos. She and Amado suggested that the second movement was the opposite of the first, introspective as opposed to heroic, yet they chose a tempo a little quicker than some, emphasizing the congenial rather than the mystical. Martinez had spoken of the chamber music implication of Beethoven's detailed writing for the orchestral instruments. Her obvious intense listening to those voices produced a beautiful unanimity, also enhanced by the sensitivity of conductor Amado, himself a pianist. The brilliance of the finale was as much due to Beethoven's witty side as to the composer's heroic strokes. I much preferred to take this concerto on its own terms, rather than be put in the frame of mind of Beethoven's publisher, who dubbed the piece "Emperor." I think for Beethoven, it was just music.

The second half gave us Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov's suite Scheherazade, based on this heroine's endless spinning of tales during 1,001 nights, successfully fending off the threat of the murderous Sultan. As a musician myself (a former bassoonist in the DSO), I realized I had performed this piece much more often than I had actually heard it from the audience. What a brilliant masterpiece it is! Most of the piece plays itself: the rich Arab-tinged harmonies, the memorable tunes, the rhythmic propulsiveness, the striking instrumental solos.

As in their lyrical approach to Beethoven, Amado and the orchestra relished the sweeping melodies, the swells of Rimsky's ocean. The only place that may not have worked quite so well was in the second movement, The Kalendar Prince, which is highly sectionalized. Yes, a good story has many fascinating episodes, but there must be a dramatic tension binding them — as with comedy, it's in the timing, which might have been more dramatically satisfying in this performance. I cannot fail to mention many of the featured musicians, quite a few of whom were my colleagues when I was in the orchestra. One who came after me is the youthfully ebullient concertmaster David Southorn, who shown brightly in Rimsky's numerous violin cadenzas, representing the storyteller, also functioning as a unifying motif. An older musician might display a broader range of expression, especially in the intimate direction, but the audience responded to Southorn's drama, command, and beauty of tone with hearty shouts of 'bravo' during the concertmaster's many bows at the conclusion.

Similar command was shown by my longtime colleague, bassoonist Jon Gaarder, whose pacing and virtuosity were just terrific. Charles Salinger's clarinet and Kim Reighley's flute sounded as lovely and apt as they always do, and Stephanie Wilson, taking the principal oboe role, made a strong impression every time she entered. I can tell you that for double reed players, who generally make their own reeds, the mark of having a good night on stage is having a good reed. Stephanie, nice reed!! Trumpeter Brian Kuszyk, wow, what triple tonguing. And those solos for second trombone, bravo Richard Linn. There was plenty for both first and second horn, bravi Karen Schubert and Lisa Dunham. And thank you, Doug McNames, for those particularly generous glissandos on the 'cello.

Amado and all the strings deserve high praise for the third movement, The Young Prince and Princess. The sound was lush and the ultra-romantic interpretation was remarkably complex, and everyone managed to do it together! One colleague I missed is cymbal-player Tom Blanchard. Rimsky, like many Russian composers, wrote a lot for the cymbals, and Blanchard is a player who can actually build a phrase with this crashing instrument. I like a loud cymbal, but the substitute last night tended to just play loud.

It was indeed a very beautiful concert with an especially large and vocal audience, a terrific launch to the new season by The Delaware Symphony Orchestra! The next program will be given on October 17 & 19 at The Tatnall School.

See www.delawaresymphony.org.

Igor & Elvis...A Pair Not to be Missed!

By Guest Blogger, Chuck Holdeman
Chuck is a regional composer of lyrical, contemporary classical music, including opera, orchestral music, songs, chamber music, music for film, and music for educational purposes. www.chuckholdeman.com

Tuesday evening's Delaware Symphony concert — the second in its elegant chamber music series in the Hotel DuPont's Gold Ballroom — was perhaps the quirkiest ever presented there. It featured bassoonist Jon Gaarder impersonating Elvis, in full regalia, performing composer Michael Daugherty's Dead Elvis, written in 1993 and incorporating the well-known chant for wrath of judgment day, the Dies Irae. As a former DSO bassoonist myself who performed this work in 2008, I took great pleasure in witnessing the whole wacky spectacle from the outside.

Daugherty chose the same instrumentation as Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale, a septet mixture of woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion, the work which comprised the second half of Tuesday's concert. And speaking as primarily a composer now, I can continue to wonder — how did Stravinsky do it? There is a certain thinness in the texture with so few colors from each family of instruments, but this results in a wonderful clarity, a bracing zap to the ear of each instrument's declamation.

Perhaps the most poignant and plaintive movement was the duet for Gaarder's bassoon and Jonathan Troy's clarinet — so few notes and so much expression. The chorales near the end were gorgeous, but how 'bout the romping rhythms of the marches, the ragtime, and other dances? DSO concertmaster David Southorn was brilliant in the athletically demanding violin part; in time his Tango may become even more sly. All this is in the service of a Russian folk tale, a version by Swiss author C. F. Ramuz, originally in French. Conductor David Amado explained how the standard English translation can sound stilted and even boring, and so Amado undertook his own edited revision, very successful to this listener.

I particularly enjoyed the use of lots of rhyming, and also references to our time and place- the soldier marches "between Lums Pond and Bear," and at another point is treated to chicken wings. Three readers told the story: OperaDelaware's Brendan Cooke as the soldier, joined by two Delaware Theater Company executives, Bud Martin as a wittily sarcastic Devil, and Charles Conway as the Narrator. The large audience was uninhibited in both laughter and applause.

For Dead Elvis, Gaarder chose a sparkly white jumpsuit, white shoes, a thick (not really greasy) wig, and giant shades. He sauntered on stage with characteristic Elvis gestures and wiggles, and also smoothed his locks during the music's sudden pregnant pauses. The music is a study in zany extremes, the bassoon screaming to its ultimate high E or plummeting to its grotesque low B-flat. The tiny E-flat clarinet screeches, the trombone wails its glissandi, the drummer, the DSO's veteran master Bill Kerrigan, flails his collection of bells and other high-pitched gadgets.

I highly recommend this most entertaining and musically rewarding show which will be repeated Friday night, January 31 at 7:30 PM at the Queen Theater, World Cafe Live. The next two DSO concerts at the Hotel DuPont are on February 25 and April 1.

See www.delawaresymphony.org.

The Delaware Symphony Chamber Series

The Saint Paul’s Suite is a joyous collage of folk tunes which Gustav Holst wrote to express his gratitude for a soundproof studio provided by his employers at Saint Paul’s Girls School. The string chamber ensemble of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra (DSO) made it a glorious celebration of sound — from the dancing Jig to the exciting dance of the second violins in the Ostinato, the popping pizzicato of the Intermezzo and impressive first violin solos by Erika Miller to the resounding echoes of Greensleeves against the Dargason in the Finale. A great piece in the hands of great musicians is a treat.

Jeffrey O’Donnell was in top form playing the Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Concerto in A minor for oboe and strings.  Although I heard many recordings in preparing for this review, I felt Mr. O’Donnell produced the most rounded tone, smoother than any of the recordings I found. Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote the piece for oboe virtuoso Leon Goosens and left little space for the oboe to rest.  Mr. O’Donnell seemed to have no trouble with the demanding part and even made his sound have a punchier and more reedy character for the Minuet and Musette, calling to mind a bagpipe. The seventeen-member chamber orchestra was perfect for the balance, the room and the piece. The ensemble and soloist had plenty of energy and power left for the effervescent Finale.

The Serenade in E Major for string orchestra, op. 22 by Antonin Dvorak was yet another style of composing with folk inspiration. The composition is a wonderful canvas on which to illustrate the great strings of the DSO. The audience could experience the fine bass playing by Daniel McDougall and Arthur Marks and get the full thrust of the viola section as rarely heard so clearly in full orchestra. The high notes of the three celli alternating with the violins seemed effortless. The flexible response to Maestro Amado’s ritardandi in the Scherzo and the sheer joy of the performance convinced me that the donations by those who would save the DSO have been well worth the investment — and the large audience indicates the investment will benefit us all.

See delawaresymphony.org.

The DSO is back…and kicking!

The Delaware Symphony Orchestra boldly began their new 2013-2014 season with a new piece and three exciting works from the standard orchestral repertoire. But nothing is standard about the analysis and pre-concert lectures by Maestro David Amado. His wit, vocabulary and inquisitive mind make his talks on music well worth a hurried supper. He did not disappoint with his thesis that Igor Stravinsky took the theme from Debussy’s Prelude to the afternoon of a faun for his Firebird Suite. The audience and I were perplexed by this comparison of a raucous ritualistic dance being the same as an impressionistic daydream, but on closer examination one can see it. Would that the Maestro had once again let the orchestra open their season with the version of the Star Spangled Banner for which the composer was arrested, but the audience happily sang along for the standard version from the Arthur Luck collection. 

The DSO’s  Music Committee was courageous in choosing a new piece to begin the concert and they made a safe choice: Robert Ward’s Festive Ode is a marvelous mix of extremely well-orchestrated American music which allowed each section of the orchestra to be highlighted and it was a fun homecoming experience. 

Misha Dichter took command of a beautiful Steinway grand which had so much horsepower that he managed to overshadow the orchestra for a while, but pulled back with his sensitive yet untrammeled version of the famous Variation 18.  The percussion section was magically energetic with the dies irae theme, hats off to the glockenspiel! 

Mr. Dichter played a clean, but quietly expressive Claire de Lune as an encore and Maestro Amado and the orchestra surprised him after that by playing Happy Birthday to honor the day.  (Mr. Dichter seemed pleased and surprised by the gesture.)

Mr. Amado had the orchestra illustrate the themes of the Prelude to the afternoon of a faun by Claude Debussy. The soft colors of the orchestra told us that none of the players had lost any luster in the rough and uncertain past year.  The dynamics were so soft, especially with Katy Ambrose’s delicate horn entrance on a whisper. What a woodwind section the DSO has as well!

After the impressionistic pastels came the thunderous Firebird Suite.  The strings outdid themselves with a super soft beginning and eerie harmonics.  The clarinets took the magic jazzy, klezmer lines and played them as if they were easy as pie.  The Infernal dance had that unleashed wildness led by  Donna Battista on piano and some great percussion on xylophone.  Jon Gaarder played a smooth and controlled lullaby solo before the thunderous finale. 

Welcome back to the Grand, Delaware Symphony Orchestra!

See www.delawaresymphony.org.

The future of the Delaware Symphony

The one benefit of the Delaware Symphony’s declaration of a suspended season for 2012-2013 has been the excellent and prolific coverage of their plight in the News Journal.  Never before has the DSO had so much press!

Perhaps this will get some people talking about solutions for the 2012-2013 season.  In such a crisis situation, the best thing to start with is to count assets and liabilities.  Executive Director Lee Williamson was quite right to declare a state of emergency, but the latest suggestions of a cure might kill the patient, so could we please go back to some sensible solutions?

Listing the assets of the DSO would take much more space than this blog usually devotes to a single article, but a few essentials must be listed.  The excellent musicians who are currently in the Delaware Symphony (and many from the past who stuck it out when the DSO was but a fledgling of its current musical achievement) have migrated to Wilmington and the surrounding area because of the symphony.  Yes, they had to take other jobs to support themselves and to be able to play in a symphony.  (Note here that even to play in a regional symphony and even to qualify to play in the DSO when it was NOT as good as it is now, the musicians had to be of a very high quality.)

The musicians themselves have fanned out and many have started some ‘side jobs’ that have produced excellent public school music programs.  Just to cite a few:  Martin Beech, Associate Principal Second Violin, conducts the orchestra at the Kennett High School  and Kennett Middle School in nearby Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.  .Mr. Beech started teaching 38 years ago, taking over when there were only 12 string students district-wide.  Today, the district has a full-time music teacher for the elementary schools and Mr. Beech has string lessons, full orchestra class, string ensemble and string chamber groups at both the high and middle school.  The orchestras grew from 45 students in each school to about 75 students today.   Rosaria Macera, violin, is director of the orchestra at Newark High School.  Since Newark High is a choice school, kids bus from all over the district because they want a chance to play in an orchestra. Ms. Macera’s orchestra has become an exacting, award-winning program which has attracted the attention of Maestro Simeone Tartaglione of the Newark Symphony Orchestra.  He has invited many of Ms. Macera’s students to participate in coordinated activities with his symphony.  These two examples of ‘side jobs’ of Delaware Symphony members shows how deeply the DSO musicians affect our community far beyond their roles as symphony musicians.

Maestro David Amado is also a tremendous asset of the Delaware Symphony.  He is talented, has local roots, and he has taken the DSO to greater heights than they have known in their entire 100-year history.  Credit must be given not only to Maestro Amado’s predecessors for providing him with a very good orchestra to begin with, but also to the musicians who patiently played and improved and stayed with an orchestra that, quite frankly, wasn’t all that hot forty years ago.  It took a great deal of faith for many people to persevere to create the orchestra we have today.  Maestro Amado is still here with us and is under contract, so he is a current asset.  He is also devoted to the DSO and their progress and his reputation will be strongly influenced by what happens in the coming season.   Rest assured that he will be energetically fighting for the DSO’s survival.

Maestro Amado and others have also created assets in their connections to other institutions in Delaware.  There have been many coordinated programs between the University of Delaware Music Department and the DSO – some fine performances with Dr. Paul Head’s University Chorale which brought in large audiences.  There was a coordinated New Year’s Eve Gala at the Delaware Art Museum; there have been many education programs from visits to schools, to family concerts, to hosting 90-plus girl scouts to earn their music badges. 

Last and not least are the audience members.  As Harry Themal correctly pointed out in his June 11 editorial in the News Journal, they are ‘aging and dwindling’, but they are not dead!  And I might add that the audiences who filled the Grand for the pops and youth concerts are not really all that aging and dwindling.  Must the DSO tell them to look for other entertainment in the 2012-2013 season?  In doing so, the DSO would be telling local area restaurants, hotels, cafes and parking facilities to expect hundreds fewer customers on symphony nights.

For the liabilities, we should list not just the actual money owed, but the loss of goodwill created by forcing the DSO to cancel the scheduled artists for the 2012-2013.  Wise though the decision may have seemed at the time,  the cost of cancellation in most cases is a hefty fee which would have been better spent in asking that artist to retool and use a piece from their repertoire that would have fit a smaller chamber orchestra or group.  This would have not only been a better cost outcome, but it would have sent the message that artists can count on the DSO as a potential employer, even if they could not finance the original schedule with full orchestra.

Another liability is the loss of faith and trust of the musicians.  The potential earnings lost by the sudden suspension vary from musician to musician, but the loss of trust in the DSO is the same.  This is a tremendous hurdle for David Amado. He has built up the musicians’ trust over a number of years and he and the orchestra members have developed a rapport which has resulted in some excellent performances.  The board and executive director have done him a great disservice by being too quick with the knife.

The absence of a development director is a liability.  To say you have no season and no planned concerts and still want donations is a nonstarter.  To say you want donations and have no one to coordinate them is another nonstarter.  Cutting this off is cutting off the water and roots of your tree.  If the board does not correct this, they might as well chop it down.

If the community wants to retain the magnificent quality of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra and the associated effects of parallel events created by the DSO and its members, they must stop the bleeding and start tending this incredible oak which has been growing for the past one hundred years.  Insist that the symphony regroup, have smaller concerts and spend a year not suspended but reduced.  Give Maestro Amado enough budget to get as many of his musicians performing as possible.  Get a development director to send those musicians EVERYWHERE.  Have that person tap into grants from everything from special education to reading promotion to musical paper dances. Connect to untapped groups rather than sending profuse and expensive mailings to people who just attended a concert.  Send out complimentary tickets to every major company and hotel in the county to grab those potential audiences who are not already there.  Do whatever you have to do.    

But don’t stop the music.

A Wonderous Exploration of The Planets with The Delaware Symphony Orchestra

Artwork via DSO

Once a season, the Delaware Symphony Orchestra offers a “Family Pops” program, an afternoon of family-friendly selections when children are openly welcome to experience the magic of live symphony. On Saturday afternoon, I brought my 12-year-old son, a budding middle school percussionist, to the Grand Opera House to see The Planets, the 1917 suite by British composer Gustav Holst, conducted by David Amado.


The seven-part tribute to the planets of our solar system (it excludes the home planet Earth and the then-undiscovered Pluto, which works out, since it lost its designation as a planet in 2006) has the feel of a modern science fiction movie score -- and it virtually becomes one, minus the “fiction,” as spectacular real and digitally animated footage from nearly 40 years of space exploration is shown on a big screen over the orchestra. 


Parallels between Holst’s early 20th Century piece and later sci-fi and fantasy pieces are clearly drawn; before the screen is unveiled, the program features popular pieces such as John Williams’ “Adventures On Earth” from E.T., “Star Wars Suite for Orchestra,” and “Double Trouble” from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; as wells as the selections “Over the Rainbow” and George Gershwin’s “I’ve Got Rhythm” by the Wilmington Children’s Chorus, directed by Kimberly Doucette. To experience such familiar pieces played by a live symphony orchestra is real treat, both for kids and for the parents who grew up with most of them.


After a brief intermission, the main event begins. Narrated by David Stradley, who sets up each section with an explanation of of the visuals to accompany the music, The Planets is truly otherworldly, even with footage that is clearly scientific. The amazing sounds and sights make you feel small, as the sheer awesomeness of the solar system is explored. I wasn’t bored for a moment (though my mind did wander as I absorbed the suite, in a good way); my son and niece, who also attended, agreed that the upbeat “Jupiter” and “Uranus” were their favorites. At two hours total, one might expect the young audience members to become restless. If any were, they didn’t cause much of a disruption, making it wonderful way to spend an afternoon, with or without kids.


http://www.delawaresymphony.org/

Delaware Valley Chorale and Delaware Symphony at Immanuel Church

David Christopher conducted members of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra and his Delaware Valley Chorale in a performance May 15 at Immanuel Church on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Gloria by Lee Hoiby, an American composer who died at age 85 this past March, was harmonically conservative. Hoiby was often accused of having the same style as those who preceded him a century before. Yet, he was called to Curtis by Gian Carlo Menotti after one of his friends showed his work to the famous composer and teacher at the Curtis Institute. Hoiby went on to have a long and successful career.

Written in memory of the brother of one of the DVC members, this piece has a lovely trumpet, trombone and timpani orchestration with organ obbligato that is tightly written and worked beautifully in the large stone sanctuary.

The Brahms Requiem had the support of 52 instrumentalists which sometimes overwhelmed the chorus, but sounded so good that you forgot about that right away.

Soloist Grant Youngblood had no problem holding his own against the group, mesmerizing the audience with his full, rich voice and his ability to communicate the Herr, lehre doch mich (Lord, make me know) and the Denn haben wir keine bleibende Stadt (For we have no continuing city).

Soprano June Suh’s mellow, rounded sound also carried over the orchestra without a hitch. Her high notes seemed effortless as she sang with quiet poise. Her solo melted away but the note continued on the flute in a transition so seamless no one knew where the soprano voice ended and the flute began.

It was a great idea to have players from the Delaware Symphony support this impressive chorale performance.

See www.delawarevalleychorale.org.

Subs and heros

When you go to the Delaware Symphony, they do not list the extra musicians they hire for a performance. Last Saturday, I was delighted to see pianist Hiroko Yamazaki ready to play for the Kurt Weill Little Threepenny Music (Suite from the Threepenny Opera) – in other words, the jazzy suite which includes songs like Mac the Knife.

Most of the instruments had been cleared from the stage and Ms. Yamazaki ripped off ragtime/honkytonk sounds that blended seamlessly with the trombone, banjo, guitar and accordion. For a moment, it seemed we were in pre-war Berlin with Sally Bowles in a Kneipe enjoying a St. Pauli Girl in dim light.

But in the next piece, the pianist turned into an expert vibrationist, playing single sustained notes and holding the pedal so the plaintive string sounds in the Symphony of sorrowful songs by Henrik Mikolaj Gorecki could seek their reflected harmonics from the soundboard of the piano – a mysteriously rousing effect.

Whernever Ms. Yamazaki is playing – be it accompanying Twinkle twinkle, little star in a beginner’s Suzuki instrumental recital or zipping into a Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, she puts her heart into it.

She is a hero, not just a sub.

Music and gardens

This Thursday, April 22, the Brandywine Baroque ensemble will play in the Copeland Lecture Hall at Winterthur Gardens. The weather should be good for a visit to the gardens and you can finish out the beautiful afternoon by enjoying the amazing sounds of Delaware’s premiere Baroque ensemble. Karen Flint, harpsichord, Doug McNames, cello, Eileen Grycky, flute, Cynthia Freivogel and Martin Davids, violin, and Laura Heimes, soprano can easily take you back to the eighteenth century as you imagine the life at a large estate like this stately gem.

Could this be a revival of the partnership between music and public gardens? How wonderful it is to visit Lewes and hear an outdoor concert by the Delaware Symphony in July – with birds swooping overhead, two-year-olds frolicking and dancing to patriotic marches and marveling at the fireworks that end the evening. Or to enjoy the weekly lunchtime concerts hosted each May through July on the waterfront by the Riverfront Development Corporation of Wilmington.

Longwood has had a long history of musical performances – they have even had the Philadelphia Orchestra twice and they host a Wine and Jazz Fest in the summer and have myriad concerts throughout the year.

Longtime Delaware Symphony Orchestra members recall many chamber concerts in the lecture hall at Winterthur – some followed by formal teas in the cafeteria. Pam Nelson, violist, and Chuck Holdeman, bassoonist told me the symphony used to play at the Arts and Crafts Festivals, at Rockwood, and at the County Pride Festival in Rockford Park. There had been a long-standing date for the DSO to end the summer with a rousing performance of the 1812 Overture complete with cannons shot from the grounds of Winterthur. What fun and what a wonderful opportunity to introduce young people to the joys of classical music!

Long may the union of classical music and gardens last! For details on Brandywine Baroque’s upcoming performance, visit Winterthur’s website or call 800.448.3883.

See www.winterthur.org

See http://www.brandywinebaroque.org