On February
15, 2014, the
Prince George's Philharmonic offered up yet another musical
evening. The brilliant performance by the orchestra and its Prince George's
County student collaborators was artfully set off by the moonlit snowy
landscapes that glittered in the cold of the night outside. The Philharmonic offers so much to the
community; its "side-by-side" concerts which include a dozen or more
of the best student musicians in the County, is but one of the many exciting
reasons to attend.
The
evening's performance consisted of musical works by two German composers, Brahms
and Humperdinck, and two Russian composers, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.
The pairing of the two Germanic composers with the two Russians offered the
audience an opportunity to hear the difference between the two 19th-century
compositional styles. In the capable
hands of Maestro Charles Ellis, Brahms’ Academic
Festival Overture, and Humperdinck’s suite from his opera, Hansel and Gretel, permitted the
audience to hear the solid grandeur and rich, sometimes even lush, musical
textures of German Romanticism. In
contrast, Tchaikovsky's Variations on a
Rococo Theme and Rimsky-Korsakov's suite from his opera, Le Coq 'd'Or, brilliantly highlighted
the dance of instrumental colors built on a musical framework that allowed
"light" to filter in amongst the layers of sound - a filigree of
timbres and textures.
The Prince
George's Philharmonic began its February concert with music by Brahms in a
collaborative performance with some of the best musicians in the County high
schools. Each year the Philharmonic invites student musicians to perform a
piece together with the regular members of the orchestra. The Academic Overture of Brahms was written
to commemorate his receiving of an honorary in music however late in life. The
use of college drinking songs as a source of thematic material perhaps went
unnoticed by the parents in the audience.
The
students, listed below, fit right in with their orchestral collaborators. The
enlarged orchestra enhanced the lush layers of music that reached out and
wrapped the listeners in the warmth of Germanic Romanticism. Right at the
beginning of the overture, there was the briefest hint of entrance attacks that
were not on target, but almost immediately this passed and the Brahms marched
on to a rousing and grand finale. The string section with its student partners
produced a rich, chocolately sound appropriate for the holiday just past. The
percussion and brass sections kept the quick and lively pace moving, enticing
the listener to conduct from his seat enthusiastically. The woodwinds provided
the tonal filling between the musical layers that hold the composition together
thereby creating a memorable performance of which the students and Prince
George's County should be proud.
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1st VIOLIN
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FLUTE
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Kayla Carlyle - Suitland High School
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Tesiya Franklin – Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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Victor Baules
- Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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Camille Jones - Bowie High School
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OBOE
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David Dogan – Oxon Hill High School
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2nd VIOLIN
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Vijay Golla – Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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BASSOON
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Perry Gordon – Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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Justin Hosten – Bowie High School
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Cecilia Staggers – Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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Rosetta Irons – Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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HORN
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Anthony Thornton – Suitland High School
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Bree Johnson – Oxon Hill High School
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VIOLA
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TRUMPET
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Stephan Gardner – Bowie High School
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Andrew Skinner – Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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Ucee Nwachul - Suitland High School
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TROMBONE
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Jan Knutson – Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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CELLO
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Janae DuBois - Suitland High School
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TUBA
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Justine Josey - Oxon Hill High School
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Josiahh Herrerz – Oxon Hill High School
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Krysta Hyppolite - Bowie High School
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PERCUSSION
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BASS
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Wesley Collins-Arms – Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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Gene Alestock - Northwestern High School
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Xavier Eubanks – Suitland High School
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CLARINET
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Matthew Spooner - Eleanor Roosevelt High School
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The second
composition on the program was Tchaikovsky's
Variations on a Rococo Theme, in effect a concerto for
solo cello.
Michael Mermagen, an associate professor of cello and chamber music
at The Catholic University of America, demonstrated his mastery of the
instrument, his love of the music, and his artistic understanding of the
seemingly sometimes simple but always complex composition that is Tchaikovsky's
Rococo Variations. The Philharmonic
was a perfect partner for the evening's partnership, for it always provided a
musical framework in which the guest artist could soar. A curious phenomenon of
time distortion that can arise when a performance is at the highest level
appeared for me in the penultimate variation and stretched into the beginning
of the final variation.
After the
break, the orchestra settled in to a performance of the famous music from the
opera, Hansel and Gretel. The well-known
prayer for 14 angels again played with my sense of time as I began to be
transported into musical realms - losing all track of time. But, when the angels
should have appeared at the beginning of the third section of the Humperdinck
suite, something went amiss in the strings. The rich, creamy texture that I’ve
come to expect in this concert season abruptly disappeared, and the, shall we
say, old strings, reappeared, replete with intonation and occasional missed
attacks. I should be quick to note that in general this was not immediately
apparent to the greater number of the audience who were distinctly moved by the
performance as a whole.
The final
suite by the great Russian composer and naval captain, Rimsky-Korsakov, demonstrated
Maestro Ellis’ ability to bring out the textures, timbres and colors of the
individual sections and instruments in the orchestra while at the same time
keeping the whole of the composition together. The eerie
"Orientalism" and exotic sounds of a mythical east shimmered
throughout the performance. The performance of the Golden Cockerel suite demonstrated once again Mr. Ellis’ artistic
mastery and his productive partnership with the masterfully musical members of
the orchestra. Rimsky-Korsakov’s impact
on symphonic orchestration shone forth in this late Romantic composition. One
could hear the lessons learned from Rimsky-Korsakov by 20th-century
film score composers. By the final section of the Rimsky-Korsakov suite the
intonation and attack challenges had been subsumed by the power of late
compositional Romanticism.
All I can
say is you should've been here; you should've heard the student performance;
you should be making plans to attend the next concert in March. An all-Mozart affair, it will be performed at
Suitland High School at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 22, and again at the Bowie
Center for the Performing Arts at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 23. Mr.
Ellis, the Philharmonic, and the Suitland High School Chorus will be joined by
four alumni soloists in a performance of Mozart's Requiem. And, as a bonus, the concert will start with Mozart's
Symphony No. 29 in A Major.
