Professor John Tribelhorn
MUS 100 – 1343/Concert Report
26 November 2016
Echoes of Nations On Friday evening, November 18, 2016, at 8 PM, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra presented Beyond the Score: Dvorak Symphony No. 9: Whose World? inside the beautiful Copley Symphony Hall in San Diego. Instrumentation included one piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, horns, two trumpets, three trombones, one tuba, timpani, triangle, symbols, violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. Originally a production of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the first half of the performance was intended to help concert goers (whether first – time or regular attender) meet and learn about the composer and his inspiration behind the …show more content…
This portion of the program was a multimedia concert, including live actors, media, and performance of fragments of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op 95. After the intermission, the audience experienced Dvorak’s entire Symphony No. 9 (composed between December 1892 and spring 1893) with its four movements – Adagio-Allegro molto, Largo, Scherzo-Molto vivace, and Allegro con fuoco. Now, sit back and enjoy Beyond the Score and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 through a novice musician’s eyes, ears, and heart and experience “echoes of nations” (San Diego Symphony). In Beyond the Score, audience goers first experienced “echoes of nations” through visual media, theatrical performances, and musical fragments of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9. The audience quickly learned that Antonin Leopold Dvorak (September 8, 1841-May 1, 1904) of Kralupy, Bohemia was invited to New York to direct the …show more content…
The single theme which would be played throughout all the movements was introduced or one should say announced with a fanfare here. The dotted rhythm is one that would forever stick in the audience goer’s mind. The strings played a portion which was very light and airy. The flutist performed the section, which we had learned in Beyond the Score, that was similar to “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”. The “echoes of nations” theme was portrayed in the echo of instruments playing the same succession of notes beginning with the flute to violins to cellos to full orchestra. One couldn’t help but notice all the bows were in unison and I learned that the strokes are marked in the score or directed by the