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Feb
09
Saturday
Feb
09
Sat
Music :: Classical
Great Falls Symphony Presents: Heart and Fire
7:30 PM
Mansfield Theater
Description:
We warm up this concert with a slow dance for a beautiful princess, then change pace with a lushly romantic piano concerto, and conclude with a love story and a magical fairy bird. French composer Maurice Ravel imagined a Spanish princess dancing a pavane, a courtly, Renaissance-era dance in Pavane for a Dead Princess. While it’s meant to be played slowly, Ravel didn’t want it to plod, exclaiming that it was “Pavane for a Dead Princess,” not “Dead Pavane for a Princess.” The Pavane is filled with expressive melody and haunting subtlety. There was a nostalgic enthusiasm for Spanish customs and sensibilities at the time, shared by other composers such as Debussy, and also demonstrated in Ravel’s own Bolero.

Niccolo Paganini was a violinist of legendary virtuosity; it was said he had made a pact with the devil. His musical sorcery inspired dozens of composers, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, who had his own virtuosic skills on piano. Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini includes 24 variations in all, with No. 18 being the most famous and familiar. Lush and romantic, it is the emotional climax and one of the great melodies of symphonic music.

Interestingly, it is an inversion of Paganini’s theme (played upside down). Rhapsody is a glittering showpiece for a virtuoso. Dominic Cheli will perform this work of pianistic bravura with the orchestra.

Igor Stravinsky was just 28 when his spectacular collaboration with the Ballet Russes at the Paris Opera catapulted him to fame in 1910. The Firebird–an exotic tale of a Russian prince, thirteen maidens, a fairy-bird, and an evil ogre–was an overnight sensation. There’s a violent infernal dance that contrasts with the Berceuse (Lullaby), a delicate and mysterious song for solo bassoon. A glorious, victorious finale concludes the magical music.

The Firebird was innovative–Stravinsky made history with special items like the harmonic arpeggios for strings in the introduction or the solos for the small D-clarinet at several points. His new combinations of instrumental colors appeared on virtually every page of the score. Stravinsky himself conducted the concert suite in hundreds of performances over the next half century. The Firebird is a work of such brilliance that even without his next two huge hits, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky’s name would still be known to us today.
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Age Group: All Ages
Tags: # GFSymphony
Venue: Mansfield Theater
Address: 2 Park Dr. S Great Falls, MT 59401
Phone: 4064558510

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