Last Saturday, the Colby Symphony Orchestra performed a concert under the title, “Journey to the Romantic Era.” The orchestra holds roughly two concerts each semester. This concert showcased pieces from the Romantic era by composers Louise Farrenc, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Johannes Brahms.
The concert began with a performance of Farrenc’s Overture No. 1 in E minor. As a female composer in nineteenth-century France, Farrenc was not permitted to study composition at the Paris Conservatoire. Instead, she had to study privately under a professor employed by the Conservatoire and began publishing works for piano in the 1820s. The Orchestra performed one of Farrenc’s concert overtures, which is a genre of standalone orchestral works that is similar to the overture movement of an opera.
Farrenc’s Overture No. 1 was written in 1834. The melody begins assertively with double-dotted quarter notes and quickly softens before entering the Allegro Agitato tempo. The faster section of the piece consists of the first violins playing descending eighth notes while the rest of the orchestra plays quarter notes. The first violins continue to play fast descending lines throughout the piece, in contrast to the rest of the orchestra, and switch to tremolos in some parts. The contrast between various sections of the Overture No. 1 is created primarily through the variance in the lengths of notes that are played by instruments.
The overture was followed by a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Visiting Assistant Professor of music, Keer Wang, as the piano soloist. Born in 1873, Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Russian-American virtuoso pianist and composer who wrote some of the most technically demanding works in the piano repertoire. His pieces are known for their dense texture and chords with large intervals between notes, which often exceed a perfect fifth. Rachmaninoff wrote his second concerto between 1900 and 1901 after the unsuccessful premiere of his Symphony No. 1 in 1895. He met daily with his psychiatrist, Dr. Nikolai Dahl, while writing his second concerto to recover from the depression caused by the first symphony. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 was dedicated to Dr. Dahl.
Admittedly, the Colby Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s concerto was imperfect. In particular, the Allegro section in the latter half of the first movement saw some discrepancies between the piano and orchestra, which made it difficult to hear the melody being shared between the triplets played by the piano and orchestra. As a result, the Masestoso/Alla Marcia section immediately following Allegro did not sound as climactic.
Despite its imperfections, the Colby Symphony Orchestra’s performance of the Rachmaninoff concerto was remarkable in proving that a non-conservatory, community orchestra can perform such a virtuosic piece. Furthermore, the musical decisions involved in the performance were interesting, especially Professor Wang’s decision to clearly “roll” the F note in the bass of the opening of the concerto instead of subverting it as it is commonly done.
As was the case for Farrenc’s Overture, contrast played an important role in the Orchestra’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s concerto. The contrast between note speeds was especially vivid in the a tempo/espressivo section of the second movement, where the pianist played a simple melody composed of single, double, and eighth notes in octaves, in contrast to the multi-instrumental triplets played by the orchestra.
Contrast can be a useful concept also to inquire about the social aspect of the Colby Symphony Orchestra; we cannot overlook the fact that it is composed of mostly professional musicians in the central Maine area and that the number of Colby students in the Orchestra is diminishing. Despite such factors, the Orchestra is able to perform repertoire at the professional level and remain distinctly Colby.
~ Benjamin Ha `27
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