Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss

November 3 @ 8pm

Daniel Meyer conductor
Amitai Vardi clarinet

Beethoven Coriolan Overture
Mozart Clarinet Concerto
Schoenberg Five Pieces for Orchestra
R. Strauss Der Rosenkavalier Suite
 

This program highlights artists who made their fame in Vienna, an epicenter of musical creativity.  One of Vienna’s most famous residents was the legendary Ludwig van Beethoven. The music of his Coriolan Overture is bold, probing, constantly searching for the elusive victory of light over darkness.  One of Mozart’s final works was the Clarinet Concerto, which was written for a dear friend who could make the instrument truly sing.  As one of the first composers to adopt and fully integrate the sound of the clarinet into the orchestra, Mozart’s concerto for this expressive instrument will come to life in the hands of our own virtuoso, Erie Philharmonic Principal Clarinet Amitai Vardi.  Arnold Schoenberg lived in a Vienna starting to collapse under the weight of its own decadence.  You can hear it in his highly concentrated, deeply expressive Five Pieces for Orchestra. We’ll end with Richard Strauss, whose style reverted to nostalgia in his music from the opera Der Rosenkavalier. Its waltzes and exquisitely decorated melodies are wedded to sumptuous harmonies.

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