Mon Mar 4, 2013: Tchaikovsky & Copland from Milwaukee

Tonight it's the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra led by music director Edo de Waart. On the program: two works by Tchaikovsky:  the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and the Nutcracker Suite, which sounds good any time of year (!). Also on the program: Copland’s 3rd Symphony and music of Marc Neikrug: the Los Alamos Suite.

 

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
Edo de Waart, conductor
TCHAIKOVSKY: Romeo and Juliet, Overture Fantasy
TCHAIKOVSKY: Suite from “The Nutcracker”, Op.71a
COPLAND: Symphony No. 3
Mark NEIKRUG (b. 1946): “Los Alamos” Suite

The Symphony No. 3 by COPLAND is his third and final symphony, written at the end of World War II (1946).  It is known as an essential American symphony that fuses his distinct "Americana" style of the ballets (Rodeo, Appalachian Spring etc.) with the form of the symphony, which was generally a European-dominated musical form. The Fanfare for the Common Man is used as a theme in the fourth movement. Various fragments from Fanfare are also used for primary thematic material in the first three movements. Its premiere performance took place on October 18, 1946, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky. (per wikipedia)

"Los Alamos' is an opera about the formation of the atomic bomb written from an anti-nuclear stance . Los Alamos, written in 1988, was the first American work commissioned and premiered by the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The North American premiere was given at the Aspen Music Festival,1992. In 1998 the world premiere of “Suite from Los Alamos” was given in Brussels by the English Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Pinchas Zukerman. (source: LA Phil website)