Concert Program:

1. Berlioz, Roman Carnival Overture
2. Grieg, Piano Concerto in A Minor
3. Dvořák, Symphony No. 6

Conductor:

Raphael Luz, Guest Conductor

Time:

Saturday, April 14th Concert is at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, April 15th Concert is at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 14th Concert

The Trinity Anglican Church
79 Victoria Street, Aurora

 
Sunday, April 15th Concert

The Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts

10268 Yonge Street, Richmond Hill

The Roman Carnival Overture of Hector Berlioz was salvaged by Berlioz from the score of a failed opera. As a piece unto itself it has met with enthusiasitc praise and is a staple of modern concert repertoire. The music is imbued with Berlioz rich glowing orchestration and contains the exuberance and gaiety of a common street dance - the saltarello

The Concerto in A minor by Edvard Grieg is firmly linked to Grieg's Norwegian roots. Tchaikovsky wrote: there prevails that fascinating melancholy which seems to reflect in itself all the beauty of Norwegian scenery, now grandiose and sublime in its vast expanse, now gray and dull, but always full of charm. . . and quickly finds its way into our hearts to evoke a warm and sympathetic response.Hearing the music of Grieg we instinctively recognize that it was written by a man impelled by an irresistible impulse to give vent by means of sounds to a flood of poetical emotion, which obeys no theory or principle, is stamped with no impress but that of a vigorous and sincere artistic feeling.

What warmth and passion in his melodic phrases, what teeming vitality in his harmony, what originality and beauty in the turn of his piquant and ingenious modulations and rhythms, and in all the rest what interest, novelty and independence! If we add to this that rarest of qualities, a perfect simplicity, far removed from affectation and pretense . . . it is not surprising that everyone should delight in Grieg.

 Anton Dvořák's 6th is one of the most majestic in the entire concert repertoire. It is grand an rhetorical but totally unselfconscious. The famous British musicologist Francis Tovey writes: the very first line presents us with those intimations of mortality that make the child sublime.

In this symphony Dvorák moves with great mastery and freedom; the scale and proportions are throughout noble. There is no illusion about it; the grandeur [of the first statement for full orchestra of the main theme] is not that of particular styles or particular themes, it is that of life itself; and when that grandeur is present art has little leisure for even the most solemn questions of taste, except in so far as the power to appreciate life is itself the one genuine matter of taste.