Des Moines Symphony

At the appropriate moment, we will surprise you.  Enough said.  Then right into Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso no. 1 (1977), which we'll play conventionally enough, although it's not every day you hear an amplified harpsichord.  This piece starts out just like a baroque concerto for two violins, but it immediately takes a wicked left turn, exploring some unexpected sound worlds along the way.

As you've probably guessed from the title "REWIND", this evening is a journey back through time.  Though the pieces are not in precise reverse chronological order, they are arranged to sound that way.

From Schnittke, we launch into Alexander Raskatov's 5 Minuten aus dem Leben WAM (2000), which translates into "5 minutes out of the life of WAM".  You don't have to listen too carefully to figure out to whom the acronym refers.  This piece, for violin solo, is written in a style which borrows heavily from the late 1700s, but there are some dead giveaways that it was written a lot later: violins ricocheting their bows while their fingers slide up the fingerboard, the use of windchimes, and piercing interjections of bowed antique cymbals.  At the end, the melody is played simultaneously in three keys by the violins - not exactly typical for the 18^th century.

"T.S. Eliot" from As Others See Us (1992) blends old and new in a startling juxtaposition of two style periods: Italian Renaissance and American jazz.  The piece starts out with such masterful mimicry that one can't help thinking it's a Palestrina transcription, but gradually it becomes clear that something very odd is going on.  Without batting an eyelash, the piece morphs into out-and-out swinging nightclub jazz and back again, taking the audience along for the ride.

Stravinsky's Pulcinella (1920) borrows thematic material from Pergolesi - in the case of the Serenata you'll hear this evening, from the first act of his opera Il flaminio.  Regardless of its source, this music is pure Stravinsky, combining ricochets of the string bows and hollow plucked harmonics with one of the most beautiful melodies ever written, played here by the oboe and solo violin.

groups of six notes, played at the beginning by the violins over an accompaniment which could have come straight out of the Baroque.  Gradually, though, the piece transforms, becoming richer, more complex in texture, and more impassioned - until it abandons Bach and becomes pure Villa-Lobos, soaring and singing and pleading.

The waltz from Stravinsky's Suite for Small Orchestra no. 2 (1914) is, again, a throwback to a different time - in this case, the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th, when the waltz was the king of the dances.  As with Pulcinella, Stravinsky thoroughly appropriates the waltz idiom, giving it an unaccustomed melodic line and orchestrating it for a bizarre accumulation of winds and trumpet.  It is short and exquisite - almost as if one opened up a miniature music box for a moment and then closed it.

In this concert, the dividing line between old and new is Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht (Transfigured Night), a piece that acts as a musical prism through which we can look both forwards and backwards in time.  Why Schoenberg?  This piece and this composer are very much the epitome of the juncture between old and new, traditional and modern.  Verklaerte Nacht (1902, revised in 1943 for string orchestra) is imbued with the soul and philosophy of the Romantic period, and we hear this in the richly textured string writing, the singing melodies, and the sheer drama of the piece.  On the other hand, it also points clearly to what is coming - Schoenberg's complete break with the past and the beginnings of modern music.  If we listen carefully, we become increasingly aware of sections of this piece that have lost their tonal underpinnings, floating adrift.

The poem on which the piece is based (by Richard Dehmel) is about the transfiguration of an unborn child from the unwanted bastard of an illicit relationship into a much-beloved child with two parents, devoted to it and each other.   In the poem, the pregnant woman walks side-by-side with her lover, afraid to tell him about the child she is carrying - he is not the father.  The entire first half of the piece shows clearly the anguish she feels inside after telling him.  Then, in a magic moment, he accepts the child and her as his own, as the cello sings out comfort.  Just like Schoenberg's music (and the concept behind REWIND), this poem is about coming to terms with the past and striking out boldly into the future.

Mozart wrote his Serenade in D (1772) when he was a teenager - 16, to be exact.  The sheer exuberance seems about right for his age, but it defies comprehension how a young boy could have written this piece.  In the Allegro we hear tonight, listen for the wealth of melodic material, the perfection of structural proportions, and the effortlessness of it all.  But more than this, Mozart is Mozart because of the drama and the excitement he creates.  Sharp contrasts of loud and soft dynamics, of high and low pitch registers - it all adds up to a breathless, momentum-filled ride.

Biagio Marini is one of those composers incomprehensibly ignored by posterity.  Sure, the cognoscenti have much to say about him, but when was the last time you heard him in a concert hall?  His achingly poignant Passacaglio (1655) speaks volumes for a composer who truly understood how to affect a person's emotions through sound.  We hear moments of almost painful dissonance scattered throughout the piece - some of which are resolved in totally unorthodox ways, if at all.

A Bird's Song (1692), by Purcell, is a piece rarely performed outside of its context within the opera A Faerie Queen.  In this version for two flutes and basso continuo, the flutes have a densely compacted dialogue, complete with echoes and interlaced melodic interchange.  At a minute and a half, it is the shortest piece on the concert - and utterly sublime.

REWIND has no breaks.  Instead, Judd Greenstein, Paul Fowler, and Joshua Penman have written music (REWIND 1, 2, 3, etc.) that not only connects each individual piece to what comes before and after it, but also acts as a commentary - from our vantage point in 2008 - about what it means to be a part of this evolving continuum called music history.

We have a lot of tricks up our sleeves this evening - new music, old music, acoustic and electronic music, lighting, two world-class violin soloists, many different performing areas on two distinct floors - but......for us, it's all about the music.  This concert functions as a single, unbroken arc of glorious music, designed to involve you wholly in a journey through time and through the mind.