The American String Teachers Association (ASTA) will be holding its national conference in Salt Lake City on March 18-21, and the Brigham Young University Philharmonic will be part of the opening day events.
Lynn Harrell (Photo Credit: Chad Batka)
“We have Lynn Harrell coming to play with us for our spring concert, and I contacted ASTA early to find out if they would be interested in hearing something special,” said Kory Katseanes, head of the orchestra program and director of the school of music at BYU. The organization was extremely interested, so the BYU Philharmonic will be the opening concert of the four-day convention.
Speaking with Reichel Recommends Katseanes said, “We’re happy to have Lynn join us. I love his playing and I’ve admired him for many years. And the students are excited to play with him, too.”
One of the foremost cellists in the world today, Harrell will be playing Dvorák’s B minor Concerto. “We’re thrilled he’s doing it,” Katseanes said. “It’s such a great work. I think of it as Dvorák’s 10th symphony.”
The Dvorák is a concerto that Harrell has recorded and played many times in his long and distinguished career. “I’ve given maybe 300 performances of the Dvorák,” Harrell said in a phone interview from his home in Santa Monica, Calif. “It’s a wonderful piece to give to the audience.”
Harrell said that Dvorák had a strong personal connection to the concerto. “He was living in New York when he wrote it. After he had finished it, he got word that his sister-in-law, who was his first love, was dying.”
Kory Katseanes
His reaction to the news was to rewrite the last section of the final movement. “Instead of closing with more bravura, he gave it a more inward looking, reflective ending. It was a funereal love song.”
There are other passages in the concerto that indicate Dvorák was thinking of his love for Josefina Kaunitzova, the woman who became his sister-in-law. There are hints of Tatiana’s Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin as well as quotes from Dvorák’s song “Lass mich allein,” which was Josefina’s favorite. “The entire concerto is a testament to Dvorák’s inner feelings for this woman,” Harrell said.
The concerto is also indebted to Victor Herbert’s Cello Concerto No. 2 in E minor, which Dvorák heard in New York.
Today, if anyone remembers Herbert at all it’s as the composer of once popular operettas like Babes in Toyland and Naughty Marietta. But Herbert also wrote operas and orchestral works. And besides being a prolific composer he was also a virtuoso cellist and the principal cello in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and later, the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
When he heard it for the first time, Dvorák was enthralled by Herbert’s concerto. “He had to go back and hear it again,” Harrell said. “He also stole from it.” What Dvorák took away from the Herbert concerto was “how to write for a full romantic symphony orchestra and still let the cello be heard.”
For Harrell, the three movements of the concerto are quite distinct. “The first movement is war like, youthful and energetic. The second is dream like and pastoral, while the third opens as a march to battle then turns inward before dying away with the heartbeats of his beloved.”
In addition to the Dvorák, the program also includes the overture to Hector Berlioz’s opera Benvenuto Cellini and Richard Strauss’ tone poem Don Juan.
“It’s a killer program,” Katseanes said. “I needed to find something that would match the second half with the Dvorák and which would showcase the orchestra.”
There will be two performances: the first on March 17 at BYU, the second the following evening in Abravanel Hall. “The philharmonic has played in Abravanel Hall before, but it’s been a long time,” Katseanes said. “I hope this concert starts a new tradition.
“Salt Lake has a lot of [BYU] alumni and a lot of music lovers. We would like to show them what we’ve got going on at the school and let them see what they’re missing.”
- CONCERT DETAILS:
- What: Lynn Harrell, cello, BYU Philharmonic, Kory Katseanes, conductor
- Venue: de Jong Concert Hall, Harris Fine Arts Center, BYU
- Time and Date: 7:30 p.m. March 17
- Tickets: $15 general, $12 seniors and BYU alumni, $10 all students with ID
- Phone: 801-422-4322
- Web: www.byuarts.com
- ALSO: Abravanel Hall, 8 p.m. March 18, free but tickets required, available at the door or by calling 801-422-6304 (a very limited number of tickets is still available).
- ALSO: Master Class with Lynn Harrell, 5 p.m. March 16, de Jong Concert Hall, Harris Fine Arts Center, BYU, free.
