Ode To Joy

Symphony selections show lighter side of composers

The Fort Smith Symphony Orchestra will perform three works Saturday that are “lighter in nature compared to what their composers are normally known for,” says John Jeter, music director of the symphony.

The event is called “Evening Serenade” and will feature Handel’s Water Music Suite No. 2 in D major, Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor and Johannes Brahms’ Serenade No. 1, op. 11 in D major. Er-Gene Kahng, assistant concertmaster of the symphony and a violin professor at the University of Arkansas, will be the violin soloist for the Mendelssohn piece and in the orchestra for the Brahms work.

Jeter says the first work by Handel is “a Baroque music greatest-hits piece.” It was written in 1717 and composed for a king, “who wanted music to be performed while he was traveling down the river in his royal barge,” he adds. The upbeat piece is for strings and a few woodwind and brass instruments. It was derived for different types of dances, such as courtly dances, and is very rhythmic, regal music, he says.

The Violin Concerto No.

2 in D minor is a lesser known concerto written by Mendelssohn in his early teens. Jeter says when people say they are playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, every violinist will assumes it’s the famous one in E minor he wrote years later. Mendelssohn was a child prodigy, writing the piece for a string orchestra and a violin soloist, but the piece was not discovered until the 1940s, he says. It’s more of a classical sounding piece, andMendelssohn is considered an early Romantic composer.

The work is very exciting, fast moving and a brilliant virtuoso piece for the violin, he says.

Jeter says the soloist Kahng is a terrific violinist. Kahng, who began playing violin at age 5, says the piece posed a challenge for her because Mendelssohn, a violinist himself, was not as specific in his indications about what he would like the violinist to perform.

“When the composer gives less instruction, that gives us as the interpreters more freedom,” she says.

Kahng says she has to make sure to interpret with responsibility, trying to honor the composer’s intentions and adding her flair to the piece.

She says she feels a great catharsis when playing the concerto.

After intermission, the symphony will perform the Brahms work he wrote at age 24. Jeter describes it as a youthful work that is very happy, upbeat and optimistic, adjectives that don’t really describe Brahms when he becomes a mature composer.

Whats Up, Pages 17 on 01/25/2013

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