When Kennett Symphony Music Director Michael Hall learned that the orchestra’s 83rd season would open at Longwood Gardens, he started thinking about nature. The concert is this Sunday, Oct. 15 beginning at 7:30 p.m.
“The inspiration came from Longwood,” he said.
But then he wondered what music would work. There’s plenty of music about nature, he said, but he let his imagination go and looked at a piece by Sibellius, about the play “Pelleas and Mellisande,” a tragic love story along the lines of “Romeo and Juliet.”
Hall described the music as being incidental to the play, with many short pieces, each with nature-related titles. In one section, you can hear waves undulating, he said.
“But the main idea of that piece is this doomed love affair,” Hall explained. And that’s when his creative thought process kicked in and he decided on the theme of love and nature for the opening performance.
He continued, saying the small pieces by Sibelius are rangy, one is light and carefree, “Yet there are moments in this piece that are darker and everything is foreboding. There’s always a sense of ‘Oh my, this isn’t going to end well.’ So, there are moments where you can hear natural sounds, but everything is overlaid with this tragic love affair…There’s love and nature, but there’s humor, and tragedy at the end,” he said.
Then there’s The Hebrides, by Mendelssohn.
“This piece has moments where you can imagine the sea undulating. You can imagine the waves hitting the rocks. There are a few great moments where the crescendo is huge, right up, and then right down again…The whole piece describes in music these islands and the atmosphere.”
The concert opens with a piece by Glen Buhr, called Akasha, the Sanskrit word for sky.
“It’s a short four-minute piece, very open with woodwinds fluttering around, ascending and descending, and this repeated pattern with the strings and some very solemn brass chorale. It’s not about any one thing but the title “Sky.” It’s an open, lighter-than-air kind of piece,” he said.
The concert ends with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4 – with Risa Hokamura as the soloist. He said he never worked with Hokamura before, but she was recommended by an agency, Young Concert Artists or YCA, that only handles young artists. Hall said he likes that type of performer because of their energy and fresh outlook on classical music.
The violin concerto is not a pastoral piece, but “there is something so innocent about it, and there’s something humorous about it, and clever.
“It’s a light, clever, and playful piece,” Hall said.
After Sunday’s performance, the Kennett Symphony’s next concert will be one of its Reimagined Concert Experience at Mendenhall Inn. Those concerts are informal where people can walk around, get drinks and food, and no set seating, and where Hall has the orchestra play pieces of the performance, he then explains them, and then, after a brief pause, the orchestra does the whole concert.
For tickets to this Sunday’s performance at Longwood, visit https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=193423.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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