CARNEVOLAR IX: DÉCOMPOSITION
Caitlin Kelley, concertmaster and solo violin
Geoffrey Larson, conductor
Amanda Harris, piano
ABOUT SMCO
A professional ensemble flexible in size and instrumentation, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra is made up of adventurous artists hailing from all over the United States, Asia, and Europe. Since 2009, the SMCO has crafted performances that tell the story of the human experience in new ways, collaborating with creators of many different genres of art. SMCO features music by composers of under-represented groups, such as women and people of color, on every performance.
Photo by Carlin Ma
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ON THE PROGRAM
Giuseppe Verdi: Prelude to Macbeth
Opening his operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece, Verdi portrays the shrieking and cackling of the witches, together with thunderous foreshadowing of a tale of betrayal and death.
Camille Saint-Saëns: Danse macabre
Death appears on Halloween night and plays his fiddle, coaxing the dead from their graves and whipping them into a dancing frenzy in Saint-Saëns’ epic tone poem. One string on the solo violin is given an alternate tuning, opening the piece with the “devil’s interval,” that of a tritone.
Franz Schubert arr. Liszt: Der Erlkönig
Schubert’s chilling song “The Erl-King,” originally written for baritone voice and piano, tells the story of a father and son’s ill-fated ride through a dark forest. The increasingly desperate tale is told through three voices: the father, the child, and the devilishly sweet Erlkönig, who seeks to claim the life of the boy. In Schubert’s song, the singer portrays all three characters; in Franz Liszt’s virtuosic transcription, the solo pianist is given the task of portraying not only the characters, but the galloping accompaniment as well.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Finale from Swan Lake
In this monumental ballet, Prince Siegfried has fallen in love with Odette, the Swan Queen, cursed to only take human form between midnight and dawn. Siegfried is tricked by the evil sorcerer Baron von Rothbart into thinking that Rothbart’s daughter Odile, making a sultry appearance as a black swan, is his dear Odette. When he mistakenly pledges his love to Odile, Odette’s fatal curse is fulfilled. She is consumed by the lake, where he chooses to join her in death.
Eleni Karaindrou: To Vals Tou Gámou
Literally translated to English as “The Waltz of the Wedding,” this short piece was written for Greek director Theo Angelopoulos’ film The Beekeeper, where it tragically accompanies a father’s final farewell to his daughter.
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Finale from Scheherazade
Portraying episodes in the legend One Thousand and One Nights (or Arabian Nights), where the murderous ruler Shahryar is convinced to spare the life of his newly-wedded wife Scheherazade based on the fantastic tales she tells him every night. A melody portraying the storyteller herself is played in dramatic fashion by the solo violin in this finale, followed by episodes that Rimsky-Korsakov loosely titled “Festival at Baghdad,” “The Sea,” and “The Ship Breaks Against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman.”
INTERMISSION
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Andante con duolo from Manfred Symphony
Tchaikovsky’s unique Manfred Symphony is his longest symphonic work, a massive hour-long tour-de-force that follows the story of Lord Byron’s epic poem of the same name. The titular character, having suffered devastating losses of romance and fortune in life, turns to devilish forces and gains dark powers, portrayed with earth-shattering power in this excerpt from the piece’s first movement.
Engelbert Humperdinck: Witch's Ride from Hansel and Gretel
The titular children get lost in the forest in Humperdinck’s operatic adaptation of the famous fairy tale, destined to meet a wicked witch with an unquenchable hunger for oven-baked kids. The witch takes to the sky in this blockbuster interlude from the opera.
Antonín Dvořák: Excerpt from The Water Goblin
Having been lured into marriage with this watery villain, a woman struggles to escape its monstrous grasp and save her child in this dark tone poem by the renowned Czech composer.
Christoph Willibald Gluck: Dance of the Furies from Orpheus and Euridice
Gluck’s opera is inspired by the Orpheus myth, where the legendary Thracian musician journeys to the underworld to save his beloved after she is killed by a snake bite. He comes face to face with the furies in the depths of hell in this fiery interlude.
Charles Gounod: Variations de Cléopâtre from Faust Ballet Music
Doing a deal with the devil rarely works out in one’s favor, as Faust learns in Goethe’s epic tale, turned into an opera by the French composer Charles Gounod. In this ballet music, inserted into the beginning of the opera’s final act, Faust’s demonic confidant-turned-master Mephistopheles orchestrates an orgy in the underworld, depicting famous figures from history such as Cleopatra.
Frederic Chopin: Nocturne No. 19 in E minor
Composed when Chopin was just seventeen years old, this brooding, magical work was the first nocturne he ever wrote, still at home in his native Poland.
Modest Mussorgsky, orch. Rimsky-Korsakov: Night on Bald Mountain
A young Modest Mussorgsky composed this depiction of the legendary witches’ sabbath on St. John’s eve, when all manner of dead and ghoulish creatures awake. Often taken apart and rearranged during his life, it was re-orchestrated into this particularly hard-hitting version by his fellow Russian composer, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, five years after Mussorgsky’s death.
Antonín Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 5 in B-Flat minor
Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances were the works that first earned him international renown. Originally composed as four-hand piano pieces, the were championed by Johannes Brahms, who helped all of Europe to recognize Dvořák’s incredible gift for singable melody and infectious rhythm.
Aram Khachaturian: Waltz and Mazurka from Masquerade Suite
Originally written to accompany a play, Masquerade stands as one of the Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian’s most enduring masterworks. The selections from his suite show the wry humor, colorful melodies, and playful orchestration that make us adore this darkly elegant music.
Carl Maria von Weber: Excerpt from Overture to Der Freischütz
The huntsman Max endeavors to enter a marksman (Freischütz) competition and win the hand of his beloved Agatha in marriage. Dealing with the devil by way of the conniving Kaspar, who also seeks to wed Agatha, Max agrees to the casting of magic bullets. Though he puts Agatha’s life in danger, demonic double-dealing will see the damnation of Kaspar instead, and a princely wedding in the cards.
Jacques Offenbach: Le galop infernal from Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld
In Offenbach’s distinctly comic adaptation of the Orpheus myth, our protagonist begrudgingly journeys to the underworld to save Eurydice from an eternity of damnation only to find that the place is one big party. By far the hottest dance craze in hell is Le galop infernal where chorus sings the virtues of its moves and the “damned” dance along. Paris’ Moulin Rouge adapted Offenbach’s music to their trademark can-can in the 1890s, and the rest is history.
Notes by Geoffrey Larson
Photo by Carlin Ma
MUSICIANS OF THE ORCHESTRA
Violin I
Caitlin Kelley, Concertmaster and Solo Violin
Liza Zurlinden
Libby Phelps
Olivia Cottrell
Adam Syed
Lauren Eastman
Violin II
Jiyeon Yeo
Kathy Shaw
Lizzy Pedersen
Thao Huynh
Janet Utterback-Peck
Anastasia Nicolov
Viola
Tricia Wu
Kelly Moore
Bryan Jankanish
Elizabeth Boardman
Evan Uebelacker
Cello
Adrian Golay
Mary Riles
Michael King
Colin Meek
Bass
Attila Kiss
Bryan Kolk
Michael Moore
Flute
Joshua Romatowski
Kate Johnson
Christina Medawar, piccolo
Oboe
Bhavani Kotha
Jamie Sanidad, English horn
Clarinet
Ashley Cook, bass clarinet
Hsing-Hui Hsu
Bassoon
Kate MacKenzie
Cyrus Roat
French Horn
Erin Shumate
Burke Anderson
Shae Wirth
Ron Gilbert
Trumpet
Scott Meredith
Carrie Blosser
Trombone
Zach MacLurg
Neal Muppidi
Bass Trombone
Antonio Portela
Tuba
Kevin Wenglin
Harp
Lauren Wessels
Solo Piano
Amanda Harris
Timpani
Gordon Robbe
Percussion
Aaron Butler
Evan Berge
Jonathan Rodriguez
Board of Directors
Steven M. Reeder, President
Marcia Johnson
Andrew Fox