ARMISTICE CENTENARY
SSO plans special concert
As the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War approaches, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra’s concert is joining in the commemoration of the event.
The concert on Saturday, Nov. 10 at TCU Place is themed, for lack of a better term, with Remembrance Day in mind. The pieces in the program were all either drawn from composers personally affected by the war or inspired by the events later on.
Music director Eric Paetkau said it’s something of a unique challenge to find the right array of pieces to fit this kind of a program, but he also said that’s something the orchestra faces in every concert — this one just carries some extra meaning.
“As an orchestra, I feel it’s very important that we reflect the community, and that we’re relevant (in) a lot of ways to the community,” Paetkau said.
The symphony performance is based around Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, written by Elgar as a reflection of his experiences living through the First World War. The introspective and retrospective piece was an appropriate “first piece of the puzzle” for the show, according to Paetkau. The symphony is also bringing in a feature soloist — young cellist Stephane Tetreault from Quebec — to play the concerto as part of a concert.
Tetreault, who’s never visited Saskatoon before, said the Elgar concerto is one of his favourite pieces to play because of its beauty and depth. He remembers seeing it played by one of his idols, the famous cellist Jacqueline du Pré, and it’s always stuck with him.
“I remember bawling my eyes out at the age of 10 ... because I found it so beautiful,” he said. “You feel the tragedy and the emotion ... without knowing the history.”
Tetreault said the fact that it’s the 100th anniversary of the First World War armistice doesn’t necessarily make it more challenging to play a piece brimming with the connective history that Elgar’s concerto carries, but instead said that knowledge gives him more of a “responsibility” to perform the piece.
“It’s like his last cry of anguish and emotion ... it’s very moving,” Tetreault said. “I think it’s absolutely fitting to play that concerto for Remembrance Day.”
The concert will also perform A Song Before Sunrise by Frederick Delius, Flanders Field Reflections by Canadian composer John Burge, and Le tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel. Each of the pieces carry a similar meaningful connection to the First World War — for instance, Paetkau said Ravel dedicated each movement of his piece to a friend
I remember bawling my eyes out at the age of 10 ... because I found it so beautiful. You feel the tragedy and the emotion ... without knowing the history.
he lost during the war.
Paetkau said programming a concert always takes thought and planning. A lot of music was written around the time of the war, he said, so it wasn’t hard to find pieces. Instead, the challenge was finding the right pieces for the orchestra to play and for the audience to listen to.
“The one thing that I think they’ll come away with is being moved,” he said. “Because that is what a lot of this music is about. And they’ll feel it.”