Second-Guessing the Maestro

Writing about classical music has its advantages. Writers don’t have to sell a ticket or please a patron. Unburdened by the business of music, one is free to advocate for interesting, yet seldom-programmed pieces, or even controversial ones. So, when word came down that Music Director Lucas Richman and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra would be announcing the works for their 2008/2009 Symphony season, I began sharpening my proverbial knives, ready to eviscerate the same old same old. After all, I just wasn’t going to be satisfied if the orchestra started rounding up the usual suspects … the old war-horses … the too-often played hits on the classical jukebox. But with schedule in hand, I blinked.

Yes, a pleasant surprise. With a couple of exceptions which will be noted later, the lineup seemed to be a good mix of solid favorites, some seldom heard, but interesting pieces from known composers, and some really adventuresome choices. This might be really interesting after all.

As has been the custom, the KSO’s season will open in September with a concert of music from American composers. Jennifer Higdon’s six-minute Fanfare Ritmico will open a concert that will feature George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F and two works by Leonard Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and the Candide Overture. Appearing as the piano soloist in the Gershwin will be Spencer Meyer, who dazzled a Knoxville audience last January with his appearance at the Evelyn Miller Young Pianist Series.

Skipping on to November, Richman has continued the pattern of a Beethoven symphony each year, this season’s selection being the Seventh. More interesting perhaps are the other works on the bill, Puccini’s Preludio Sinfonico and Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. The non-operatic works from composers known for opera (Wagner, Bizet, among others) have always been intriguing, and I am looking forward to the Puccini. Max Bruch wrote three violin concertos, yet Nos. 2 & 3 are almost never performed, the No. 1 being immensely popular. That could have been a real opportunity for the orchestra and concertgoers.

If you just can’t get enough Johann Sebastian Bach, then January 2009 is your month. Between the Chamber Series and the Masterworks Series, Bach will be represented by his Viola Concerto, his Concerto for Two Violins, and the Brandenberg Concerto No. 3. The Masterworks concert will also feature Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 with pianist Navah Perlman, daughter of acclaimed violinist Itzhak Perlman.

February’s Masterworks concert will open with the premier of a work commissioned by the KSO, Time Like An Ever Flowing Stream, by Knoxville composer and KSO member, Mark Harrell. Two works by Brahms will fill out the evening.

The very popular (and possibly over-performed) Bolero of Maurice Ravel, scheduled for March, represents a real conflict for me. Like Orff’s Carmina Burana, Bolero attracts concertgoers who are not symphony regulars. For that reason, it is hard to be negative about the programming. Recordings do not do it justice – you have to hear it live. The March program will open with a bold choice, Rainbow Body by contemporary American composer Christopher Theofanidis. Also on the program is the interesting Sibelius Violin Concerto, its revised version first conducted by Richard Strauss. Strauss is also represented on the program by his tone poem Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks.

April 2009 will be a month for the adventuresome concertgoer. The Masterworks concert will open with Messiaen’s Les Offrandes Oubliées followed by Jean Sibelius’s final symphony, the intriguing and original Symphony No. 7. The Knoxville Choral Society will then join the KSO for Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances. Listeners will, of course, recognize the Borodin as the basis for the 1953 Broadway musical Kismet, that includes the song “Stranger in Paradise.”

Frankly, there is precious little to complain about in the 2008/2009 KSO schedule. Maestro Richman has obviously tried to include a lot of musical territory, and Knoxville concertgoers will benefit. One point of contention might be the all-Tchaikovsky concert in October. While I admit to being ambivalent on the Russian composer, I do recognize that he is a favorite of many. Some off-the-beaten paths might have included Carl Nielsen, for example. We should be hearing more Robert Schumann, particularly his later works for violin and orchestra. Or perhaps, a strategic pairing of something from the vast under-performed Baroque catalog with a work from the 1890-1918 period. And we seem to hear the same three or four Mozart symphonies and piano concertos time and again. I believe Haydn wrote a few symphonies, too.