Coffee Classics Series
Thursday, March 20, 2008
10:30 AM - Whitney Hall
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Hilliard Lyons Classics Series
Saturday, March 22, 2008
8:00 PM - Whitney Hall
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Jorge
Mester, Conductor
Howard Shelley, piano
Anton Dvorak Czech Suite in D Major, op. 39
Erno Dohnanyi Variations on a Nursery Song
Robert Schumann Symphony No. 1 in B-Flat Major,
op. 38 (Spring)
Program notes by Rebecca Jemian:
The pieces on this program were composed under the influence of the Austrian branch of the Hapsburg empire. The empire, which lasted for centuries until its end in 1918, reached out from Vienna into Hungary and Bohemia, and even extended its shadow into Germany. Schumann’s symphony continued the traditions of such earlier Hapsburg-connected composers as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Dvorák’s career flourished during a period when the outlying regions of the empire were chafing against the restraints imposed by the distant court; nationalism was on the rise, and his Czech Suite celebrates the spirit of his homeland. Dohnányi composed his set of variations in Hungary only four years before the end of the empire. Dohnányi had set about collecting folk songs in the Hungarian countryside in the early part of the century, in an exercise that asserted the rightful place of native music. While two of these three compositions reflect a resistance to the empire, they all benefit from the rise and flowering of orchestral music that occurred during the Hapsburg era (click here for more).
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