March 12, 2005 7:30 pm
Great Hall, GBPAC, Cedar Falls
Peter Schickele, composer-in-residence & narrator
Mozart – Overture, Le Nozze di Figaro
Schickele – What Did You Do Today at Jeffey's House? [1984]
Schickele – The Chenoo Who Stayed to Dinner [1977]
Shostakovich – Symphony no. 1
Schickele, WCFSO impress audience
By George F. Day
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
March 16, 2005
The fifth subscription concert of the season for the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra was presented last weekend at the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center. An impressive program was conducted by Music Director Jason Weinberger, featuring music and narration by Peter Schickele.
The program was nicely balanced. The first half of the bill was all fun and games; the second half was very serious, almost painfully so.
Things got off to a bubbly beginning with the ‘Overture to the Marriage of Figaro’ by Mozart. Few pieces are happier than this one; it’s simply filled with joyful good humor. The orchestra’s playing was swift and precise, making the most of Mozart’s delightful little internal contrast between pure comedy and mock-seriousness, the prevailing moods of the opera itself.
The next two pieces were composed by Schickele, who is Music Alive composer-in-residence with the WCFSO. He spoke about the origins of each work and was narrator for one of them. Schickele is given to long titles for his compositions. For this concert, they were ‘What Do You Do Today at Jeffrey’s House’ and ‘The Chenoo Who Stayed to Dinner.’
The former was based on a series of memories of the composer’s youth when he spent much time with his best friend, Jeffrey. The second was a musical dramatization of a Canadian Indian legend with Schickele as narrator. Schickele’s music is never dull. It is playful, full of life; in fact, like life itself it consists of great variety with plenty of surprises. The scores we heard had passages of hot jazz, sweet lyricism and soaring crescendos. Clearly the work of a master composer who also aims to please his audience.
[In addition to the program in the Great Hall there was a splendid pre-concert program in the lobby by the Northern Iowa Flute Choir conducted by Angeleita Floyd, and this too included enchanting music by Schickele.]
After intermission came a work on a grander scale: The Symphony no. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich. The piece is immense, large in scope, not easy to understand and, I should think, formidable to play and conduct. The audience enjoyed the symphony. I did too, but it is something one has to hear a number of times to fully appreciate it. It is a severe piece, not just solemn but tragic in theme. Yet there are moments that are sweet or even comic, for example when massive orchestral sound is interrupted by a lovely, plaintive song. And then there are the startling piano passages, this time admirably played by Marleta Matheson.
When the history of the WCFSO’s 75th year is written, it surely will emphasize that with last month’s performance of the Mahler Second and this of Shostakovich’s First, Maestro Weinberger has taken the orchestra to the summit.
Note: All reviews are edited for length and spelling.