register |  login
› EVERGREEN
Loading Ad
Visit Other Hubs:
ADVERTISEMENT
Loading Tower
RECENT STORIES

Denver Philharmonic Orchestra 0pening concert

Contributed by: Robin McNeil on 9/24/2006

On Oct. 7 former CU faculty member, Alvin Chow, will perform Maurice Ravel's Concerto For The Left Hand Alone with the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra. The performance of this rarely heard work will take place at the King Center on the Auraria Campus at 7:30 p.m.

In addition to the Ravel, the DPO will also perform Stravinsky's Petrushka and the American Festival Overture by Dudley Buck.

Mr. Chow has performed in such major concert halls as the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Weill and Steinway Halls in New York City, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Presented as soloist in such cities as Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Seattle, Detroit and Miami, Mr. Chow has appeared as soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Pan-Asia Symphony in Hong Kong, and the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg, among others. He has been heard in national broadcasts on National Public Radio's Performance Today, and on CBC Radio in Canada.

Alvin Chow has appeared throughout North America and in Asia as orchestral soloist and recitalist. In addition, he has performed extensively in duo-piano recitals with his wife, Angela Cheng, and his twin brother, Alan. A native of Miami, Florida, he graduated as Co-Valedictorian at the University of Maryland, where he was a student of Nelita True. Mr. Chow received the Victor Herbert Prize in Piano upon graduation from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Sascha Gorodnitzki, and held the Joseph Battista Memorial Scholarship at Indiana University as a student of Menahem Pressler. Formerly a professor at Southwest Missouri State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, he is currently on the artist faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Ravel's Concerto For the Left Hand Alone owes its existence to the tragedy of war. Paul Wittgenstein (the brother of philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein) was a young and rising pianist, when he lost his right arm in World War I. Coming from a wealthy family, he could afford to commission compositions from the outstanding composers of his time. He wrote to Ravel, Prokofieff, Richard Strauss, and Rachmaninoff, to ask them for pieces for the left hand alone. All but Rachmaninoff responded. When it was finished in 1931, Ravel asked his friend, Walter Bricht, to come to Paris to read through the orchestra part on a second piano, while he, Ravel, played the through the solo part. Bricht told this writer in 1963, that when he arrived at Ravel's house, George Gershwin was there, and both composer's scores, including the scores of Alban Berg, were scattered over the piano, the dining room table, and a few were on the dining room floor. Bricht said that it was impossible to discover who was studying with whom, but that there was a definite interchange going on. The world premier of this concerto took place in Vienna in a salon setting at Paul Wittgenstein's house with Walter Bricht at the second piano. Ravel had traveled to Vienna so that he could attend this premier.

This concerto is dark and has a decidedly moody character. Its single movement contains three parts, slow-fast-slow, done without interruption. The normal framework is usually fast-slow-fast. It begins with the low strings playing an arpeggiated chord, E-A-G-D, and after a few bars, the contra-bassoon enters with one of the main themes, low and ominous. There is a very long and gradual crescendo leaving one with the impression of an amoeba climbing out of its primeval ooze. As the higher strings enter, it begins to gain momentum, even at a slow tempo, until the piano enters after several pages. The middle section has often been described as "jazz influenced," but while it is certainly very excitedly rhythmic, I am not sure I would say it sounds like jazz. It is surely driven, like no other piece Ravel wrote, sounding very much as if the music could run you down if you got in its way. The third section is the cadenza, where familiar themes return against typical Ravelian washes of sound.

Petrushka is one of Igor Stravinsky's most successful compositions. A classic love triangle, all of the characters in this ballet are puppets, Petrushka, the evil Moor, and the Ballerina, and yet it is so well done that the audience forgets that is so. It is a sad story of unrequited love, chases, and captivity, and its similarities to the Anderson's Little Tin Soldier is unmistakable. The ballet had a rocky start because the Aleksandr Benois, who wrote the libretto, and Sergei Diaghilev, the founder of the Ballets Russes, simply did not get along. Eventually the two reconciled and real progress was made. Add to this mix, Michel Fokine, the choreographer of the Ballets Russes, and success was assured. The four artists worked together, headstrong as they were, and produced one of the most glorious ballets ever written. Everything about the original production was intricately detailed; sets, costumes, and colors of the scenery. It was (and is) very difficult, as there were sometimes 100 people on stage in order to depict the Butter Week Fair in St. Petersburg (celebrated the week before Lent) where the puppet show takes place. Though modern productions are different from the first, the vision of these four men, the amalgam of all the arts, is still readily apparent, and that vision was to portray the human need for love even through puppets. This is a morbid story, and the death of Petrushka comes in a quiet passage with clarinet and violin. While his death attracts the police, the puppeteer tells them that it is only a puppet who has "died" and there is nothing to worry about. However, at the end of the ballet, Petrushka's ghost appears, as if providing proof that he had a soul and that there is much more to his existence and his love for the Ballerina.

Dudley Buck (1839-1909) was an American organist and composer who, like many American musicians of the time, studied in Europe, as there were no genuinely established music schools in this country. He studied piano with the great teacher Ignaz Moscheles and composition with Moritz Hauptmann (with whom he was steeped in German romanticism) at the Leipzig Conservatory. He also studied at the Paris Conservatory. He became well known for his sacred and secular cantatas. The American Festival Overture is one of many settings of the melody that would one day become our National Anthem. It was composed for the World's Peace Jubilee in Boston, 1872.

Tickets for this concert will be on sale at the King Center Box office only - please call 303-556-2296. There will be free parking in the Tivoli Parking Lot adjacent to the King Center. For more information visit the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra's web site at www.denverphilharmonic.org. The DPO telephone is 303-836-7445.




SUBMIT COMMENT

Rate the above story



Talk Back : submit comments to the story

*Note: you need to log-in to add a comment or rating.

CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Robin McNeil

Littleton , CO

Robin McNeil has posted 1005 stories and 0 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Robin McNeil 's average story rating is 5.
SAVE AND SHARE THIS STORY

STORY RSS FEEDS
WANT TO WRITE FOR YOURHUB.COM?
Want to see the stories you write and the photos you shoot featured in the YourHub.com Thursday print section available all over the Front Range and with home subscriptions of the The Denver Post? All you have to do is register, then post a story or column, start a blog or tell everyone what events are happening in town. We will print the best stories, columns, event listings, photos and blog entries in our print sections.

ADVERTISEMENT
Loading Ad

Loading Ad
ADVERTISEMENT
Loading Ad

This YourHub.com community is produced by The Denver Newspaper Agency
Web Development and Channel Analytics provided by Indigio

terms of use //  privacy policy
the staff //  advertise //  help & faq
buy photos