viernes, 21 de mayo de 2021

Reflexiones sobre el concierto de clausura de la Flint Symphony Orchestra y la Sinfonía No. 3 Polaca, de Tchaikovsky


Welcome to our last concert of the season! We are very excited and happy to be able to have a season and, especially, to have some audience. You know, nobody ever told the musicians this, but to encourage them not to forget what our mission is all about…We practice all our lives when we were kids to dominate and control the instrument; but, why? Because our instrument is going to make the sounds we have inside ourselves, in our minds, and in our souls. So, once we control the instrument it comes out all that beauty, all the things that we learned for years, and then, when we’re united in an orchestra to share it with our colleagues. Exciting! It is so exciting to think about and to accomplished it. But that is only the beginning of the mission, because our mission is to share it with the audiences. Out comes that ¨Boom¨ that really can bring out all those beautiful sounds, all those beautiful notes, from all those beautiful works written by masters, titans. They left this legacy to be always in our lives:  In everybody’s life.

We have had an interesting year, to say the least, and I think we came through it and we are going to be stronger than ever!  Because we don’t give up.  We are not going to give up. The musicians don’t give up, and nobody gives up, because we understand that we have to enthuse the people, we have to enthuse the audience, we have to enthuse the communities, and to give that energy, so you can keep creating, keep doing wonderful things.

The next work we are going to perform is by Tchaikovsky, who had an interesting life. He was always dedicating his moments to writing music; so, he wrote ballets, piano concertos, a wonderful violin concerto, and extraordinary symphonies, suites, and many other things, chamber music and operas. 

I think that if there is something as an example to follow is what he did. He wrote music in the times when Russia was a Tsarist Empire.  And the music lasted there with great fame. And then he came to NY, at Carnegie Hall -that was actually opened with a Tchaikovsky work-. And then Tsarist Russia disappeared, and became another nation, with a different system all together; then, after the years that system disappeared and came another system, and do you know what never disappeared?… Tchaikovsky.

He never did, his music is still played there, here and everywhere. So, this third symphony that he composed is a unique one, because it has five movements, not four as the typical ones, but five (like Beethoven´s 6th symphony and the Mahler´s 3rd of course, with even six movements.) So, the last movement is called “Alla Polaca”, it is a Polish dance and that’s why this symphony  got the nick name “The Polish”, and you will see when you will hear it, the music is really up-beat.

The first movement is a funeral march, and is going to be transformed little by little into something more jolly, something more exciting, something happier. The second movement is “Alla Tedesca”, which means German style, which is a waltz.  The third movement is an “Elegy”; the fourth movement is a Scherzo, fluttering like butterflies, like A Midsummer Night´s Dream, something really fast, Fairies! And then the last movement, Polish.

Thank you so much again and we want to, really, end this season with only one thing, that we’ll be back! 

Enrique Arturo Diemecke