Beethoven’s Ninth will open DPAA’s season
The Dayton Philharmonic will be joined by Dayton Ballet for a staged interpretation of the classical music masterwork.
Reading the program notes at a classical concert can greatly enhance the listening experience. Since 2008, Dennis Loranger, a senior lecturer in Musicology, Music History and Literature at Wright State University, has been penning notes for the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra.
“The key to writing good program notes is to provide helpful information in an informative way, without using jargon or being overly technical,” explains Paul Helfrich, president and CEO of the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance. “Dennis does a great job with this, and his notes definitely enhance the experience for our patrons.”
For the season’s upcoming concert, Sept. 15-16, Loranger will be focusing on Ludwig van Beethoven and his monumental contributions to the art of music. The Dayton Opera, Dayton Ballet, Dayton Opera Chorus and DPO Chorus all will come together for this signature event — “Beethoven’s Ninth: Season Opening Spectacular.”
The highlight of the concert will be a dramatic interpretation of Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9 in D minor” — complete with innovative stagecraft, dance, chorus and
soloists. Also on the program will be “Egmont,” one of Beethoven’s most dramatic overtures, the concert aria “Ah! perfido,” and the choral finale from Beethoven’s oratorio, “Christ on the Mount of Olives.”
Loranger has been interested in music since he was a child and began studying in earnest in high school and college. He worked as a performing musician for several years and then studied music history in graduate school. “I wrote some program notes when I was in college and when I started working full time at Wright State University, my colleague in the School of Music, Chris Chaffee, asked me to write notes for the Dayton Philharmonic.”
In addition to the DPO, Loranger has also written notes for Chamber Music Yellow Springs.
We spoke with him about his unusual role and the upcoming concert:
What’s the challenge of this particular type of writing? What’s the process?
There are several challenges. I have to present the biographical and musical material in such a way that the readers will be entertained and interested, and I try to present a relatively fresh take on the music. I look at the score, listen to recordings, and do a quick overview of the scholarship. I then try to synthesize the musical and scholarly material in a way that makes sense for the audience.
What do you hope readers will get from reading your notes?
A. I hope they get a sense of who the composers were and what they were like. I am tired of the “great man” understanding of music history. It makes far more sense to talk about the musicians as real people. Talented and intelligent though they might be, they are still real people: they had to make livings, they were ambitious and jealous and petty just as we all are. And they wrote their music for other people, too.
I also think it helps audiences to know more about the piece they’re listening to — not just the specific piece, but the circumstances under which it was written and the traditions that it comes from. It’s too easy to treat these pieces as one-offs, as the ineffable product of genius. The actual case is usually far messier. Beethoven, probably the composer who most fits that image of the genius composer, was always aware of who he was writing for and the traditions out of which that music came.
What will be special about this first concert of the season?
I always look forward to these season opening concerts. They have a bright and cheerful quality about them. This one is particularly appealing because of the performance of the Ninth. The pieces are all worth listening to. The Egmont Overture is another example of Beethoven’s “heroic” style. The vocal works are not as wellknown, but worth listening to as well.
The finale — the last movement of the Ninth Symphony — was revolutionary for its time. Unlike all preceding symphonies, which were purely instrumental works, Beethoven’s Ninth uses voices — both solo and ensemble. The opening of the last movement also quotes from each of the previous movements, as though trying out those themes, before finally settling on the famous “Ode to Joy” melody.
Can you tell some interesting things about Beethoven?
Music historians generally divide his musical production into three periods. In the first, he followed the standard practice of his day; he was obviously talented and had his own voice, but he composed works informed by the conventions of late eighteenthcentury musical life.
In his second period, as he came to terms with his growing deafness, he developed a more “heroic” style. These are the works for which we most remember him: the symphonies no. 3, 5, 6, and 7; the “Waldstein” piano sonata; the “Emperor” piano concerto.
In his last period, he was given a kind of “genius grant,” an allowance that meant he could write with considerably more freedom than other composers. The work he wrote during this last period was more difficult. His contemporaries often dismissed this work as incomprehensible.
When he went deaf he contemplated suicide, but managed to talk himself out of it. There is a famous letter he wrote to his brother recounting his struggles with depression and how he came to terms with his hearing loss. Since he was deaf by his middle 30s, he used “conversation” notebooks. Usually his interlocutor would write down a question or statement and Beethoven would respond verbally, but sometimes he wrote down his answers as well. Those answers afford us a chance to eavesdrop on his casual talk.
Is this a good introductory concert for those who normally don’t attend symphony, ballet or opera programs?
I think any concert is good for someone who doesn’t normally attend such programs. Hearing the music live, with an audience, is an altogether different experience from hearing a recording, no matter how technologically perfect that recording may be.
Reading the program notes — before and after
DPO artistic director and conductor Neal Gittleman believes concert programs should serve two functions in this era of online information.
“First, they should give the in-the-hall readers some background and context to help them enjoy the performance,” he says. “And second, they should give the after-the-concert readers something to help reinforce the experience they just had. I think Dennis’ notes do that well.”
Loranger, adds Gittleman, provides some interesting and salient background information but doesn’t get bogged down in technical details and arcana. “And he drops enough hints that those who want to learn more have a head-start on where to point their search engine!”