The Lafayette/Oxford/University Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming spring concert, “Masterworks in Jeans,” is directed by Selim Giray and will showcase a variety of symphonic stylings at 7:30 tonight at the Ford Center.
“We ask that our audience members feel comfortable, come as they are and join us to hear these exquisite works,” Giray said.
The first piece is Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.” Composer Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a series of six concertos and dedicated those to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, Germany.
This fifth concerto is broken up into three movements and features three solo instruments: the flute, the violin and the harpsichord.
The first and last sections have a fast tempo, while the middle section slows down.
“This is a particularly interesting composition, for it features the harpsichord in an extended cadenza written specifically to showcase the instrument in the first movement,” Giray said.
University of Mississippi faculty member Stacy Rodgers will be the soloist on the harpsichord.
“The three movements are very upbeat, with the first and last bright, but the middle part is a bit more somber,” Rodgers said. “Overall, the piece has a nice, effective contrast.”
Rodgers is head of keyboard studies and collaborative piano in the Department of Music. His wife, Diane Wang, will perform a solo on the flute, and Robert Riggs will perform a solo on the violin.
Ronald Vernon, who led the LOU Symphony for more than 40 years, will be the guest conductor.
The second work, played with trumpets and string instruments, is titled “The Hollow Men for Trumpet and String Orchestra, Op. 25” by Vincent Persichetti. It has been said to emulate the mood of the T.S. Eliot poem “The Hollow Men” with its quiet yet underlying tension.
“The music springs from the disillusioned subtleties of a poem that intensifies the sense of emptiness and hopelessness of mankind,” American composer Vincent Persichetti said in an interview.
The third and final piece is “Symphony No. 8” by Franz Schubert. The unfinished symphony was composed six years prior to the composer’s untimely death in 1828. It was hidden and not performed for more than 40 years until its premiere in Vienna, Austria, in 1865.
“Though it is among several incomplete works of Schubert, it remains among the most celebrated works of his,” Giray said.
There are two movements in this piece, with the first movement fast and the second movement slow “but with motion.”
“The work is unique, that is, deceptively unassuming yet sublimely dramatic,” Giray said.
Giray said he hopes to see first-time audience members who have never attended a symphonic concert before.
This article was submitted to The Daily Mississippian from an advanced reporting class.
