Thierry Fischer
By now everyone probably knows that Utah Symphony music director Thierry Fischer not only is a huge admirer of Igor Stravinsky, but also a noted interpreter of his music. One of his goals during his tenure here is to program all of the Russian composer’s orchestral works – and so far, he’s well on his way to accomplishing that objective. Not counting the works that guest conductors have done, Fischer has already conducted the complete scores to L’Oiseau de feu (The Firebird) and Pétrouchka. And this weekend he’ll finish Stravinsky’s early trio of ballets with the complete Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring). “I want to end with something we will remember throughout the summer,” he joked.
But on a more serious note he added, “(Rite) is an excellent way to get a good orchestral sound for next season.”
Fischer met with Reichel Recommends late Monday afternoon in his office in Abravanel Hall, after auditions for a new assistant concertmaster, to talk about this weekend’s program as well as what he’ll be doing after he returns to Europe.
The Swiss maestro is always elated whenever he can conduct The Rite of Spring, a work he considers to be one of the most significant musical creations of the 20th century. “It is the most singular and unique piece in the history of music,” he said. “It opened so many doors for other composers, like Debussy.” What fascinates Fischer about the score is the “notion of interruption” as he calls it. “There are never any smooth connections between the dances. There are all these abrupt breaks and silences. It is amazing. It is a work that has not been imitated, because it cannot be imitated.”
Finding companion pieces to The Rite of Spring can be difficult. Fischer’s solution is to include two other works from the early 20th century: Charles Ives’ Three Places in New England and Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs. The fact that these three works were written within a short span of time – approximately within a 35-year period – isn’t lost on Fischer. Their chronological proximity played a role in his decision to put them on the same program. “The 20th century is much more open than the 19th,” he said. “When the Romantic period was broken wide open by Schoenberg, it opened many different lines of composing.”
Fischer likes the “warm sounds” of the Strauss songs, which will be sung this weekend by soprano Janice Chandler Eteme. “It can give you such pleasure” listening to them, he said. And he considers Ives to be in a league of his own. “The sound world he creates is distinctly his own.” Like Stravinsky, Ives’s music can’t be duplicated by anyone else. “He is also unique, and he is incredibly inspiring to other composers. (Elliott) Carter is one of the many later American composers who was inspired by Ives.”
After the concerts on Friday and Saturday, Fischer returns home for a brief break before heading out to Korea and China for several engagements in June. In July he’ll be leading his other ensemble, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, in two big concerts at the Proms in London for which he’s programmed music by French composers, the complete Firebird ballet, Carter’s Flute Concerto, with Emmanuel Pahud as soloist, and Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 7.
The second of the two concerts, with the pair of Beethoven symphonies, will help Fischer prepare for the upcoming Utah Symphony season, in which he will conduct all of the symphonies of Beethoven, starting with the Ninth on the opening night weekend of Sept. 9-10. The companion piece for that will be John Adams’ powerful On the Transmigration of the Souls, a work commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to commemorate Sept. 11 and premiered by it and Lorin Maazel in September 2002. “This is an incredible work,” Fischer said of the Adams. “This will be a very emotional concert. I just hope it won’t be too overwhelming.”
CONCERT INFORMATION:
What: Janice Chandler Eteme, soprano, Thierry Fischer, conductor, Utah Symphony
Location: Abravanel Hall
Time and Date: 8 p.m. May 27-28
Tickets: $15-$85 ($5 higher when purchased on day of performance)
Phone: 801-355-2787 or 888-451-2787
Web: www.usuo.org
ALSO: From 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on May 27 on the plaza in front of Abravanel Hall the Utah Symphony will be hosting “Instruments on the Plaza,” where people of all ages can touch, hold and learn how to make basic sounds on a large variety of instruments.