In his suite of piano miniatures called ?Pictures at an Exhibition,? Modest Mussorgsky leads listeners on a promenade of paintings. They are pictures by his friend Viktor Hartmann, and they include scenes of an ox-drawn cart, baby chicks being hatched and two French women arguing in a marketplace.
Mussorgsky?s final musical image, ?The Great Gate of Kiev,? especially as Maurice Ravel later arranged it for orchestra, is a majestic vision that sends chills down the spine.The Kansas City Symphony, conducted by its music director, Michael Stern, will open its second season in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts next weekend with ?Pictures at an Exhibition,? as well as another work inspired by art. In addition, violinist Vadim Gluzman will join the orchestra for Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky?s Violin Concerto.Stern and the Kansas City Symphony are riding high. They finally have the hall of their dreams, and they have proven definitively, in concert after concert, that their musicianship is as world-class as the Kauffman?s Helzberg Hall. ?We?re feeling settled in but also charged up,? Stern said in a recent interview. ?I thought last year was runaway fantastic for us, and I think, as anybody would expect, the more we played in the space, the more we adapted to the new acoustic and learned to exploit those new acoustics to the benefit of the music. So the more we do it, the easier and better it becomes.?I also think, for the audience, the experience of hearing concerts in the hall has now become a welcome and comfortable pleasure.?Mussorgsky?s ?Pictures? is a fitting work to open a season that, Stern says, will feature many musical works inspired by the visual arts. ?We?re having a special emphasis on pictures in music and the link between the visual art of painting and other plastic arts and music,? he said. ?We?ve chosen a bunch of works which highlight that, and that, of course, explains the opening program, but we also have a smattering of works all through the season which touch on the theme.?One of the high points is the world premiere Feb. 1, 2 and 3 of a new commissioned work, a big work, which is basically a new ?Pictures at an Exhibition,? written for us by Adam Schoenberg.?Unlike the Mussorgsky, which only uses paintings from one artist, these are all works held at the Nelson-Atkins. It?s a really Kansas City-centric ?Pictures at an Exhibition.? The music and the message will be universal enough to play anywhere, but the inspiration is coming not only from paintings but also from sculpture, photographs and a whole range of art, all of it from the Nelson-Atkins collection.?Schoenberg, who is the Kansas City Symphony?s first composer-in-residence, also wrote ?Finding Rothko,? which opens this season?s first concert. Stern commissioned that work several years ago. ?It was based on four different tableaus by the abstract artist Mark Rothko,? Stern said. ?I think he did a wonderful job because he got the moods totally right. The mood in an abstract painting is subjective, but Adam certainly gives a valid representation of the moods he felt. All four movements are very varied and beautifully done.?Stern describes Schoenberg?s music as extremely honest and direct.?And it?s accessible,? he said, ?but not in a patronizing way at all. It?s accessible, because it?s true. It?s beautiful but it also has sweep to it, and I think it?s a voice that could only be American. You can really say that his aesthetic sensibility is American.?We premiered his ?American Symphony? here, which was a huge success, and people really responded to his music, so we?re very much looking forward to this new piece.?Schoenberg?s take on Rothko?s mystical abstraction will be nicely balanced by Mussorgsky?s Old Master literalism.???Pictures at an Exhibition? is a piece that I love,? Stern said. ?It is such a showcase for the orchestra, with such a wonderful, evocative orchestration by Maurice Ravel.?Ravel was a master of instrumentation and, knowing how to write for the orchestra, took this primal and slightly unvarnished music by Mussorgsky, which sounds utterly powerful and fantastic on the piano, and made it something even more fantastical for the orchestra. It?s really a tour de force in terms of his manipulation of the colors of the different instruments in the orchestra. I think it serves the music beautifully.?The other Russian masterpiece on the opening program is Tchaikovsky?s Violin Concerto in D Major, featuring Gluzman, who was born in the former Soviet Union and learned his craft from teachers steeped in the Romantic approach to the violin. ?Vadim Gluzman has appeared once with the Kansas City Symphony in a special concert, but this will be his subscription debut,? Stern said. ?He is a phenomenal player, a powerhouse violinist of the old-school style. And he?s a lovely musician, an open, honest, exciting musician.?It?s going to be fantastic to do Tchaikovsky with him. There?s something really great in his mastery of the instrument. It?s just really nice to make music with him for that reason.?Gluzman also has fond feelings for Stern and his famous violinist father.?Isaac Stern was an important mentor and guiding light in my life and career,? Gluzman said. ?This concert I will do with Michael Stern in Kansas City is very special and completes a personal circle for me, not only because Michael himself is a fantastic musician, but somehow for me, I will go onstage with Isaac.?Gluzman will play a Stradivarius once owned by Leopold Auer, the violinist Tchaikovsky wanted to give his work its premiere. Auer however, declined to play the concerto because he doubted the ?intrinsic worth? of the piece and thought certain passages were ?not suited to the character of the instrument.?In spite of Auer?s reservations, Tchaikovsky?s concerto has become an audience favorite. Stern thinks it?s obvious why the work is such a crowd-pleaser.?Simply put, it?s one of the most exciting pieces ever written for the violin,? he said. ?It?s a wonderfully built piece. It?s got every bell and whistle you can imagine in terms of technical fireworks, but it?s also extraordinarily beautiful. It?s got everything that a great classic concerto in the Romantic mold should have.?And Tchaikovsky knew how to spin a melody. The third movement is hell-bent for leather. You just get swept away.?These are heady times for the Kansas City Symphony, and Stern?s goal is to keep giving audiences that ?swept away? feeling.?We had a gangbuster year last year, but this year there?s no let-up,? Stern said. ?We?ve got great guests, and ticket sales are fantastic, and everything is really humming along, so we?re feeling really good about that. ?The newness has worn off, but not the freshness. The excitement is still there, but now you sort of anticipate it and look forward to it because you?ve already experienced it and you want more of it. For us that?s just great.??SEASON OPENERThe Kansas City Symphony will open its second season in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sept. 30. For tickets, call 816-471-0400 or visit kcsymphony.org. Guest violin soloist Vadim Gluzman will lead a master class with students from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Park University at 11 a.m. Saturday in Helzberg Hall. The class will be followed by a conversation between Gluzman and Stern and a question and answer period. The master class is free and open to the public, but reservations are required, which may be made at the Symphony?s website.Tak?cs QuartetThe Tak?cs Quartet epitomizes the kind of musicmaking we associate with the Friends of Chamber Music: elegant, refined, intelligent and classy. So it?s appropriate that the quartet will open the Friends? new season with a program of Franz Schubert, Antonin Dvorak and Benjamin Britten at 8 p.m. Friday at the Folly Theater, 300 W. 12th St.The Tak?cs has performed highly acclaimed concerts previously on the Friends of Chamber Music?s series, including a very memorable cycle of the complete string quartets by B?la Bart?k.Friday night, the quartet will perform two of the most beloved works in the chamber music repertoire, Schubert?s ?Rosamunde? Quartet and Dvorak?s ?American? Quartet. Both works have a warmth and lyricism that make you feel like you?re sipping a snifter of fine brandy as you listen.In between the Schubert and Dvorak, the Tak?cs will perform a bracing, modernist work by Britten. The English composer wrote the String Quartet No. 2 in 1945, not long after returning from Germany, where he had performed for survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The work at times shows the influence of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich, but it also pays tribute to English Baroque composer Henry Purcell. Britten himself was quite taken with the work and declared, ?To my mind it is the greatest advance I have yet made.?For tickets, call 816-561-9999 or visit chambermusic.org. Dance on screenThis is late notice, but if you love great dance, you?ll definitely want to make this. There will be an HD broadcast of the Nederlands Dans Theater at 10 a.m. today at the Tivoli Cinemas, 4050 Pennsylvania Ave.The group, considered one of the greatest dance companies in the world, will perform four contemporary pieces. The New York Times says, ?If you see one live performance this year, Nederlands Dans Theater is the one to see.? So there.Tickets will be available at the door. For more information, visit tivolikc.com. Patrick NeasSource: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/22/3825006/kc-symphony-opens-on-a-high-note.html
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