Marc Taddei Music Director Orchestra Wellington Photo: Supplied
This concert features soloist Amalia Hall (violin) with Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei and Andrew Atkins.
This final OW performance for 2018 begins with the Overture to Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which is full of the opera’s themes.
Sama, the new Violin Concerto by Michael Norris, was much anticipated, for the work itself and also the performance by the Orchestra’s starry young concertmaster, Amalia Hall.
The programme ended with a persuasive and well-received performance of Dvořák’s New World Symphony, Marc Taddei making the most of his resources.
Find out more and listen to this performance here:
MOZART arr Busoni: Don Giovanni Overture
Mozart only wrote the overture to 'Don Giovanni' on the morning of the first performance and he filled it with references to the drama to come, as well as the brilliant chatter of the sparkling society in which it takes place.
Conductor Andrew Atkins Photo: Stephen Gibbs
In keeping with Orchestra Wellington's Bohemian theme for 2018, this overture has strong connections with Prague. 'Don Giovanni' was commissioned and premièred by Prague's National Theatre. It was presented as an opera buffa or comic opera. Maybe the cynical, wise-cracking character Leporello fits that genre, but the rest of the opera is about an amoral character cutting a swathe through polite society, and is as dramatic as the overture's opening chords suggest. Don Giovanni seduces, betrays and murders before eventually confronting judgement. But he remains defiant and unrepentant as he meets his end.
Recorded 1 December 2018, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
Michael NORRIS: Violin Concerto - Sama (première)
Sama (Arabic for ‘listening’) is a Sufi ceremony that includes elements of ritual, singing, dancing, poetry and prayers.
Michael Norris Photo: Supplied
The famous whirling dervishes have a version of this ecstatic devotional dance where they keep their left foot anchored to the ground and one palm always gesturing earthwards while the other hand is raised up to face the expanse of the universe.
Their spinning trance acts as a conduit between the two realms.
This concerto tries to capture this sense.
Amalia Hall (violin), Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei
Three Movements:
- Ard. The flutes, violas, harp and vibraphones open with a ritualistic ‘tolling’. The soloist enters with a quiet but intense motif, which flourishes throughout the movement, representing life and growth.
- Fada. A vast space of cosmic proportions above which the soloist floats in distant ecstasy. The orchestra illuminates the scene in washes of light; the soloist attempts to goad them into disquiet.
- Semazen. The soloist whips up frantic whirling gestures in an almost constant state of ‘vortical’ force. This movement quotes and extrapolates motifs from a couple of 20th century works that share this whirling quality: Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum and Helmut Lachenmann’s Mouvement (-vor der Estarrung). ~ Notes by Erica Challis
Recorded 1 December 2018, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert.
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
DVOŘÁK: Symphony No 9 in E minor, From the New World
Dvořák's interest in the folk music of his homeland made him acutely interested in the folk music he found in 'the new world'.
Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei.
Marc Taddei Music Director Orchestra Wellington Photo: Supplied
Between 1892 and 1894 Dvořák left his native Bohemia and became effectively the director of New York's National Conservatory. Curious about his new environment, he toured the United States' Midwest, observing the people and landscapes. His interest in the folk music of his homeland made him acutely interested in the folk music developing in this 'new world'.
What he heard led him to urge American composers to look to the music of the African American folk tradition for inspiration. His suggestion that the music of a people born into slavery was to have the greatest influence on the music of America was met with an incredulity that was at times overtly racist. Yet his words proved to be prophetic.
The New World Symphony was finished in Spillville, a town of Bohemian immigrants in Iowa where Dvořák took lodgings for a while in 1893. The symphony celebrates the expansive energy and novelty of the 'new world' Dvořák found himself in, and also reflects his yearning for home.
Recorded 1 December 2018, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert.
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
