EVDOL 029 - Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center

Deborah Bradley Kramer
This class is a prelude to the wonderful and eclectic offerings on August 6-7 by the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, spanning the 18th century to the present time. Marianna Martines was an extraordinary figure, known for her expansive gifts as a composer, pianist, and singer. Despite facing gender-based obstacles, Martines was able to establish herself as a prominent musician in the Viennese musical scene, even performing frequently at the Imperial Court for the Empress Maria Theresa. Her Symphony in C Major (c. 1770s) illuminates her brilliance and highlights many of the enduring characteristics of the Classical period within a rich and colorful orchestral palette. The inspiration for Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony (1833) was a trip he made to Italy, from 1829 to 1831, on the urging of his friend, the poet Goethe, and composition teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter. The country delighted him, and of his travels he wrote, “the whole country had such a festive air that I felt as if I were a young prince making his entry.” Writing to his sister Fanny, he reported, “I have once more begun to compose with fresh vigor, and the Italian Symphony makes rapid progress; it will be the happiest piece I have ever written, especially the last movement.” The symphony was meant to embody not only his impressions of the art and landscape he had encountered, but also the vitality of the people. Since its premiere, the symphony remains one of his most beloved works. Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Oboe Concerto in A Minor (1944) is a virtuosic tour de force with shifting moods and only a few brief opportunities for the performer to rest the lips and renew the breath and—after all that—ending with a high D played pianissimo! Oboe concertos are not often heard, and it was Vaughan Williams who, with this concerto in 1944, essentially reestablished the oboe concerto as a viable form after a century and a half or more of obscurity. Arnhold Creative Associate Caroline Shaw, one of the country’s leading young composers and winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize, offers Entr’acte (2017), which was inspired by her hearing a Haydn quartet. She writes that it is “riffing on that classical form but taking it a little further … to the other side of Alice’s looking glass, in a kind of absurd, subtle, technicolor transition.” Written for string quartet and structured like a minuet and trio, Entr’acte is filled with thrilling dynamic and timbral variations and extended techniques, and it’s one of Shaw’s most frequently performed pieces.

Included in the tuition price is one (1) complimentary ticket to the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center performance on August 7th for every student.

August 7

10am–3pm ET, with one hour lunch break

In Person Only

(The class will go to the concert at night)

$180