AU Symphony Orchestra "Creation" Concert

Andrews University Symphony Orchestra’s “Creation” Concert conducted by Chris Wild and Kristii Rasmussen

The Andrews University Symphony Orchestra’s first full-length concert of the year, titled “Creation,” presents four compositions that reflect the brilliance and beauty of our planet, as well as some of the greatest musical accomplishments of mankind. The concert will begin with Franz Joseph Haydn’s orchestral introduction to his 1798 oratorio, "The Creation." The first movement of this work—"The Representation of Chaos"—depicts a vast and bleak canvas with sounds that are quite mysterious for a Classical work. In a full performance of "The Creation," this orchestral introduction precedes the arrival of an archangel declaring “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.” Following "The Representation of Chaos," we will perform one of the most beautiful excerpts from the late Romantic era, Gustav Mahler’s "Adagietto" for harp and string orchestra, found within his colossal "Symphony No. 5." This movement of the symphony is frequently performed alone and is arguably Mahler’s most recognizable music. He composed it between 1901 and 1902, coinciding with his courtship and marriage to wife Alma, and the "Adagietto" is said to reflect a love song he also wrote for her. They welcomed the birth of their first daughter in late 1902, a few months after he completed the fifth symphony. The tempo of the composition is so flexible that performances of it can vary between seven minutes (such as those conducted by Mahler himself) and fifteen minutes. The final composition on the first half of our concert is Johann Sebastian Bach’s "Toccata and Fugue in D minor," here orchestrated for full orchestra by Leopold Stokowski, a former music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Bach’s incomparable ability to structure fugues is an example of some of the finest architectural accomplishments fashioned by hand. This particular artform is also the genesis of hundreds of years of musical development, as Bach incorporates technical advancements in writing for multiple voices made during the Medieval and Renaissance eras into his complex fugue forms. The "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" was originally intended for solo organ, but Stokowski’s adaptation for full orchestra is performed often and seems appropriate given the significant weight of the music. On this evening, it will be conducted by the AUSO’s new manager and assistant conductor, graduate student Kristii Rasmussen.

Like Haydn’s "Creation," Benjamin Britten’s "Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes" are taken from a work that features singers, his 1945 opera "Peter Grimes." The orchestral interludes are found at the beginning of each act of the opera, providing an atmospheric setting for the unfolding drama. Whereas the compositions on the first half of our concert are mostly noble, "Peter Grimes" amounts to more of a cautionary tale, where the protagonist of the story is subject to mob persecution and also the dangers of fishing off the coast of England. Adjacent to the drama of the opera, the orchestral interludes are staggering in their beauty and creativity: the first one, “Dawn,” unifies all of the violins and flutes in peaceful melodies, juxtaposed with the worldly weight of the brass and percussion, and a windy combination of clarinets, violas and harp. The second interlude, “Sunday Morning,” portrays the overlapping tones and rhythms of English church bells surrounding morning church services in a pulsating manner that seems to anticipate American Minimalist music. The third interlude is the tranquil “Moonlight,” where the orchestra seems to breathe in patterns reminiscent of the heaving surface of the English Channel. Given its proximity to the ocean, and the English town’s reliance on fishing, it seems inevitable that a great storm would enter the picture. Indeed, the final interlude is titled "Storm" and is a magnificent conclusion to the dramatic work, a tragic opera.

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