Blending contemporary and classical
DPO concert weaves themes of environment, politics and timely emotions.
The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2021-2022 Masterworks Series continues with works by composers Jennifer Jolley, Dmitri Shostakovich and Pyotr Tchaikovsky Friday, Nov. 12 and Saturday, Nov. 13 at the Schuster Center.
Titled “Tchaikovsky’s Passion,” the concert will open with Jolley’s “Blue Glacier Decoy,” inspired by a dance piece titled “Glacial Decoy” by the late dancer/choreographer Trisha Brown that evokes Pacific Northwest landscapes, specifically Olympic National Park in Port Angeles, Washington.
“This piece is both in honor of Trisha Brown but also the glaciers and its movement and also the beauty that this national park brings, but also knowing that these glaciers are melting,” said Jolley in DPO artistic notes. “Musically, I wanted to do something that you hear in the chords, (particularly) chord progressions with slow changes over time.”
Within the work, the recorded voice of Brown is heard, urging the listener to find renewed balance in life.
“She is talking to dancers, instructing the (Paris) Opera Ballet if I remember correctly,” Jolley explained. “I thought it was a perfect parallel to describe not only the glaciers themselves which she’s trying to mirror, but musically, I try to represent glaciers over time. So, at the beginning of the piece, you have these very solid chords and eventually they kind of disintegrate over time. I wanted to treat Tricia’s brown voice in the same way… So, at first, you hear her voice completely intact along with hearing the chords completely intact. And then, over time, I do this process called granular synthesis where I just kind of granulize or it sounds like little grains of sand. And so, over time, along with the chords being in a solid state dissipating, you also hear her voice dissipating at the same time.”
“( Jolley’s work) is weird, or at least strange, but it’s also beautiful and haunting,” said DPO artistic director and conductor Neal Gittleman. “It’s one of my favorites among the new works I’ve come across over the past few years, and I’m very excited to introduce it to our audience and our orchestra.”
Next, guest artist and Cleveland Orchestra principal cellist Mark Kosower returns to the DPO for the fourth time, showcasing Shostakovich’s masterful Cello Concerto No. 1. The piece, created with political overtones, contains a majestic march, lovely melodies and a stirring finale.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has said of Kosower, “It was though he touched the instrument and sound flowed out; relaxed, shining, round, extraordinarily beautiful, but at the same time full of character and expression.”
“Shostakovich was continuously making political statements through his music, but
writing in a coded way so that only the people it was intended for would understand and not the regime
who was censoring him from time to time,” said Kosower in DPO artistic notes. “He was always in danger of being eliminated and the Cello Concerto is no exception.”
The concert’s centerpiece, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, known as his “Pathétique” Symphony, will close the evening. The composer held the piece in high regard as his finest achievement. In fact, he said these words to his nephew about the work: “But I absolutely consider it to be the best, and in particular, the most sincere of all my creations. I love it as I have never loved any of my other musical offspring.”
“Coming out of COVID shutdown, streaming era and hybrid era and getting back to more-or-less normal live performance again, I wanted us to play a Tchaikovsky symphony,” said Gittleman, who also contemplated the composer’s Fourth Symphony. “We need the catharsis of the ‘Pathétique.’ It’s the right piece for the times, full of every conceivable emotion – joy, sorrow, love, despair, hope, elation, anger, resignation. And that’s how it came to be on the November Masterworks program.”