Tonight, Music Director, José Luis Gomez, and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, dive deep into late 19th century orchestral splendor. This will be the very, VERY long-awaited TSO Premier-- 134 years since its composition! -- of Anton Bruckner's sprawling and storied 7th Symphony. The concert will open, like a raucous, outsized Tucson Rodeo 'Prelude', with superstar cowboy -- er, famed power pianist! -- Barry Douglas, saddling up his Steinway 'D', to ride the Great War Horse, Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, into a Shootout at the TCC Corral!
Irish pianist Barry Douglas, whose career was launched, as he became, in 1986, only the second non-Russian to win the quadrennial Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, has a repertoire forged somewhat in the mold of the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter. Douglas wowed the Tchaikovsky Competition judges and audience with his stunning 'Pictures at an Exhibition', by Mussorgsky, which Richter had redefined, and the Tchaikovsky PC #1 -- another Richter centerpiece. And on his first venture into the Old Pueblo, in the early 1990s, Douglas finished his solo recital with Prokofiev's turbulent, if not violent, 7th Sonata, which Richter had given the premiere in Moscow. On that night, driving furiously through the infamous 7-time 'Precipitato' finale, the sheer force of Douglas delivery through the climactic culmination of the work, had the Centennial Hall concert grand shaking and bucking on its iron tripod dolly. Thankfully, it did not jump off during the performance -- some of us had serious worries! It was still in place and in good shape as as the kind virtuoso waltzed back onstage and spun out a beautiful, tender little Rachmaninoff arrangement of a Tchaikovsky song. What an evening that was!
The symphonies of Anton Bruckner, all follow a fairly consistent order and organization of four movements. Their internal structural and musical content, however, represent a singular musical revolution; one which took several generations to achieve broad acceptance and appreciation. 19th century European / Germanic symphonic tradition was highly focused on the intricacies of thematic development, and linear, dramatic storytelling. Orchestration, like the detailed brush strokes of a master portrait artist, functioned as the color palette for the tale being told.
Bruckner's symphonies, which were championed by the great conductor and fellow composer, Gustav Mahler, stupendously forgo storytelling logic and traditional procedures of musical development. We will not attempt to scale the great mountain amidst lightning bolts. We will simply appear on the mountain as we take in the vista before us. We will not follow the script of expounding a potent idea, developing it, and following it to conclusion. We will state an idea, and simply review it under various lights and from new angles. Bruckner's musical ideas are long, and his formal structures sprawling. There is Schubertian clarity and lyricism, spun out with Wagnerian harmonic language and structural freedom. From Beethoven through Mahler, the conclusion of a large symphony is most always a dramatic culmination of forces; a giant exclamation mark. With Bruckner, there is certainly drama, yet the triumphant arrival home, the insistent pounding of the final cord, is missing. The statements often simply end. It is stunning in method and message; a huge alternate point of view, beautifully and robustly communicated by the composer. The crushing, iconic theme of the third movement Scherzo is unforgettably imprinted by its intensity. In some of its vigorous iterations, you may hear the language and spirit of Dvořák's 'Symphony for the New World, which was composed 10 years later.
This concert is part of Music Director, José Luis Gomez' ongoing, fervent love affair with 19th Century Romanticism. This poor man is fully lost in the rich depths of this music. Luckily, as he and his orchestra, poised and ready, find and climb their way out, we shall share in their glorious treasures! A delicious feast awaits.
~Steven Gendel
HEAR IT - Humanity's Expressive Artists Reveal & Illuminate Truth
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