The RosenthalsOctober 17 & 18Thunder Mountain High School Auditorium The Program The Soloists The Orchestra Photos |
![]() Thunder Mountain High School Auditorium |
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Saturday, October 17Concert Conversation at 7pmPerformance at 8pm |
Sunday, October 18Concert Conversation at 2pmPerformance at 3pm Admission is Pay-as-you-can |
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The Program:
Haydn - Lo Speziale Overture Spohr - Concertante No. 2 for Two Violins and Orchestra Sibelius - Symphony No. 2 |
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Haydn - Lo Speziale Overture
Lo Speziale (or The Pharmacist) is a comic opera, written in 1769 for Haydn's patrons, the Esterhazys. This charming opera tells the story of the elderly apothecary, Sempronio, who is determined to marry his young ward, Grilletta, primarily for money. In this love rectangle, Sempronio has not one but two young rivals: his apprentice Mengone, who has taken the job only to be near Grilletta, and the rich young dandy Volpino. After a succession of disguises and intrigues, the apprentice ultimately wins Grilletta's hand. Spohr - Concertante in B Minor for Two Violins and Orchestra
Louis Spohr was one of the most important musicians in the 19th century. Unfortunately, today he is all but forgotten. In his time, he was known as a composer and conductor, and he also performed as a virtuoso violinist. Legend has it that Spohr was the first conductor to use a baton to direct an orchestra. Spohr's compositional styles were creative and varied, and he can be placed somewhere between Beethoven and Mendelssohn in the development of the Romantic sound. Spohr wrote 15 violin concertos and at least 5 concertante, or concertos for more than one instrument. The Concertante in B Minor is one of these double concertos - in this case for two violins and orchestra. The concertante was a popular form in the late Classical and early Romantic eras. It tended to be more symphonic and less virtuosic than a solo concerto, and it gave the composer the opportunity to play with the wonderful sound combinations of a duo (or trio or more) as well as the full orchestra. Sibelius - Symphony No. 2 in D Major
I love the mysterious sounds of the fields and forests, water and mountains. It pleases me greatly to be called a poet of nature, for nature has truly been the book of books for me. Jean Sibelius was a national hero in his native Finland. He achieved artistic maturity right at the time when Finland was searching for its cultural and national identity, and as his early works were based largely on Finish legends, he became Finland's most important artist. When was only 32 years old, the Finish government granted him an annual salary as recognition of his contributions to the nation so that he could compose freely. As a symphonist, Sibelius was certainly influenced by Tchaikovsky and Brahms. He writes on the same scale, with large movements and powerful gestures. However, his use of structure and form are very different than the German and Russian composers'. His works straddle the divide between Romanticism and Modernism. Truthfully, Sibelius's music mystified me for many years. I have always liked the beautiful melodies and powerful sounds of his symphonies, but I had a difficult time understanding where they were going. I finally began to understand them a bit better after speaking to a German friend in graduate school. This friend said she was also confused by Sibelius until her youth symphony took a train trip through Finland. She said that for nearly three days, she would look out the window of the train and see the same view of dense trees. Finally, at the end of the journey, the trees opened up into a magnificent view of the ocean. For her, she said she could see the landscape reflected in the music. I think that we can find musical representations of Alaska's topography as well in Siblelius's music: massive mountains, vast, dense forests, cold seas. The other thing that helped me to understand Sibelius was to stop searching for a structure that starts with an idea, alters it, and returns to the original thought, which is the basis of German symphonic form. Instead, I think of Sibelius's music more as a giant snowball. It starts with a small idea that continually circles around. Each time it rolls around it picks up another idea, and like a snowball, gathers in size and strength until it finally comes to a halt. At the end of the 19th century, Czarist Russia tightened its grip on Finland. Although Sibelius was never a political activist, his music was more than subtly nationalist. His 1899 tone poem Finlandia became an anthem for Finish nationalism, and his second symphony from three years later is the most nationalistic of his seven symphonies. Sibelius - Symphony No. 2, mvt 3 The first movement evokes images of the Finnish landscape -- the trees, lakes, and mountains. The second movement offers folk-like melodies intertwined with the tentative pizzicato of the strings. The agitated scherzo of the third movement sounds like a call to arms or awakening of the national spirit. The dramatic change of mood of the middle section returns at the end of the third movement to lead us without break into the fourth movement -- a song of triumph. |
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The Soloists:Linda Rosenthal
Violinist Linda Rosenthal performs throughout North America, Europe and Asia in recitals, as a soloist and as a chamber musician. She is the Artistic Director of Juneau Jazz & Classics, an annual festival that features internationally renowned jazz and classical artists, now celebrating its 23rd season. She is also Artistic Director of the Lake Placid Chamber Music Seminar for Adults in New York and Professor of Music at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, Alaska, where she makes her home. Over the past decade Ms. Rosenthal has commissioned and premiered more than a dozen works, including pieces for solo violin, electric violin, violin and piano, violin and narrator, and Glacier Blue, a Concerto for Solo Violin and Big Band. Ms. Rosenthal's solo CDs feature the sonatas of Copland, Piston and Porter, favorite violin encores and Fiddle de Bop, a lively collection of Americana music for violin and piano. In addition to a busy schedule performing solo and chamber music, Ms. Rosenthal also tours Strings & Stories, a dynamic pairing of music and theater for audiences of all ages, which she created and premiered for the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in 1995. Since its debut performance, she and Los Angeles actor Bill Blush have performed Strings & Stories for thousands of children in schools, libraries and theaters throughout the United States under the auspices of the Piatigorsky Foundation in New York City. Ms. Rosenthal plays on a violin made in Turin, Italy in 1772 by J. B. Guadagnini. ![]() Paul RosenthalPaul Rosenthal was born in 1942 and began playing the violin at the age of three. He studied with Dorothy DeLay and Ivan Galamian at the Juilliard School and with Jascha Heifetz at the University of Southern California. Rosenthal has made his home in Alaska since 1969 and continues to enjoy performing innumerable concerts in every corner of the vast state. In 1972, Rosenthal founded the Sitka Summer Music Festival which continues to attract musicians and audiences from many countries and is recognized as one of the outstanding chamber music festivals in the United States. He also directs the festival's affiliated Autumn Classics and Winter Classics series in Anchorage. "One of the foremost chamber musicians today, when Rosenthal lends his superb artistry to any ensemble, the result is transcendent." (Deseret News, Salt Lake City) Paul Rosenthal describes himself as the luckiest violinist in all the world. His greatest pleasure, in the colorful words of Ambrose Bierce, is to tickle human ears----his own and others'---by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat. In more than half a century of performing in this way Paul has covered much of the globe many times. Almost forty years ago good fortune brought him to Alaska, where the warmth of the concert public and of people in general, in addition to the bounty and magnificence of Nature, persuaded him (correctly, as it's turned out) that he had found a place where a person with such an ambition might flourish. Paul long ago imagined that other musicians too would find Alaska a special place to visit and to make music. With that in mind he created a festival of Chamber Music in the picturesque seacoast town of Sitka, where every June performers from all over the the world love to come and share their talents with devoted audiences in this place of special peace and beauty. Paul's violin, made by Joseph Guarnerius in 1706, is also a source of inspiration to him. It's a pleasure of a very special sort to commune with this beautiful instrument every day, to enjoy its original appearance, to hold it, to feel its vibrations against the body. Travel has changed with the times, of course, and these days Paul will sometimes travel with one of his other violins, all of which are objects of inspiration as well. An old friend of Paul, formerly a cellist in the Boston Symphony, has begun to make astonishingly successful stringed instruments out of carbon-fibre and Paul has lately very much enjoyed performing sometimes on one of these "instruments of the future." |
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The Orchestra:Music Director: Kyle Wiley Pickett
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Photos taken by Dave Depew:
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