Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s latest television special, Seattle Symphony from Benaroya Hall: Brahms, Kernis, and Kodály, will re-broadcast on KCTS Television on Sunday, September 2, at 1 p.m., and Tuesday, September 4, at 3 a.m. This exciting program received outstanding ratings and reviews after its April debut.
The locally-produced, high-definition, two-hour program begins with Music Director Gerard Schwarz conducting the Orchestra in Zoltan Kodály’s Háry János Suite, featuring Alexander Eppler on the cimbalom, a Hungarian stringed instrument. The program continues with Aaron Jay Kernis’ Newly Drawn Sky and closes with Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, featuring pianist André Watts. Short documentary segments in the program incorporate remarks by Schwarz, Kernis and Watts providing and introduction and context for each work. Seattle Symphony from Benaroya Hall was produced by John Forsen and directed by Jim Angelo.
Symphony audiences will have another opportunity to hear the Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto this season when guest pianist Vladimir Feltsman returns for a “Week of Brahms” on Saturday, November 10, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, November 11, at 2 p.m.
SEATTLE SYMPHONY FROM BENAROYA HALL
Zoltán Kodály’s Háry János opera was inspired by Hungary’s most popular folk hero of the same name, a teller of tall tales and performer of outrageous deeds. The story of Háry János, a celebration of Hungarian peasantry, was a natural subject for one of Hungary’s leading nationalist composers. This suite musically vitalizes the hero’s exploits, including triumphs in battle and in love.
Alexander Eppler is one of the premier wooden-instrument makers and players in the Northwest. The Northwest native was educated at the Bulgarian State Conservatory, where he studied music, kaval performance and conducting. While in Europe, he learned to play cimbalom, the complex forerunner to the hammered dulcimer which is highlighted as part of this program. While in America the dulcimer is seen as a folk instrument, the cimbalom is considered a concert instrument in Europe.
Aaron Jay Kernis composed Newly Drawn Sky in 2005 with self-described Romantic sensibilities. Says Kernis, “I want everything to be included in music; soaring melody, consonance, tension, dissonance, drive, relaxation, color, strong harmony and form––and for every possible emotion to be elicited actively by the passionate use of these elements.” An orchestral poem in one movement, the work draws its inspiration from the changing colors of the summer sky at dusk. In 1998, Kernis won the Pulitzer Prize for composition and, in 2002, was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Award.
Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major is one of the great works for piano and orchestra, ample in its dimensions, rich in musical detail, and superbly written for both the keyboard and orchestral instruments. The opening movement upholds the Romantic tradition of heroic expression. A scherzo expands the conventional concerto design to four movements and an exquisite slow movement gives way to a buoyant finale.
At age 16, André Watts was asked by Leonard Bernstein to debut with the New York Philharmonic in their Young People’s Concerts. Two weeks later, Bernstein asked Watts to substitute at the last minute for an ailing Glenn Gould with the New York Philharmonic and a star was born. Watts went on to win the Avery Fisher Prize in 1988 and has received honorary doctorates from Yale and Brandeis universities; University of Pennsylvania and Miami University in Ohio; Albright and Trinity colleges; The Juilliard School of Music and Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Recent highlights include marking both his 60th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as his induction to the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in June 2006. Since 2004, he has served as the Jack I. and Dora B. Hamlin Endowed Chair in Music at Indiana University. -- www.seattlesymphony.org
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