May 2025 | Gershwin & Blooming Brilliance

Our Blooming Brilliance performance on May 10th has turned into a wonderful concert with something for everyone. I must confess that it was only partially planned by me. More than half the concert consists of works that our award-winning students brought to us in this year’s Young Artist Competition. It should never be doubted that in addition to obvious technical ability, our students also have impeccable taste. We now have two American overtures, a Russian work, a Czech piece, a Spanish tone-poem, and a German Concertino.

My planned repertoire includes two rousing overtures by George Gershwin. Of Thee I Sing won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932, the first musical ever to win this award. This music has the typical harmonies of the 1930’s. While the tunes are not so familiar today, the show was a great spoof on American politics and ran for 447 performances. Girl Crazy, has a zany and perhaps ridiculous plot but may be Gershwin’s greatest musical score. The tunes are spectacular and known universally today, including, I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, But Not For Me, etc.

One might wonder whether this can or should co-exist on a program with a tone-poem by Maurice Ravel, but the connections are real and historical. Ravel was one of Gershwin’s absolute favorite composers. They corresponded and Gershwin worked all his life to learn and emulate the orchestration expertise of Ravel. Alborada del gracioso, has no exact translation in English but the closest rendering might be “Morning Song of the Jester.”

This jester in Spanish comedy has been called a genial buffoon, an amusingly entertaining person, and a servant who comments on the actions of his superiors. Bassoonists everywhere are not amused that they are once again called upon to play the role of the clown of the orchestra and yet, Ravel has here written an absolutely beautiful solo soliloquy for this instrument.    

Thanks to Chaz Niles, we now add Tchaikovsky’s sensational Piano Concerto #1, a perennial audience favorite.  Criticized as being unplayable at first, this is now called the ultimate romantic piano concerto full of lush melodies, rhythmic invention requiring phenomenal piano technique and a work that has been recorded by almost every major piano soloist.

Leah Everling brings us Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, the greatest cello concerto in the classical repertoire. Dvorak has not only composed a masterpiece for the solo cellist, he writes for the orchestra as if composing another huge symphonic work. You will hear echoes of the New World Symphony with its horn fanfares, rippling woodwind figurations, and the use of atmospheric minor keys for poignant melodies.

Finally, Clarinetist James McCourt presents Carl Maria von Weber’s Concertino in Eb. Weber was the most important composer in the development of early German romantic Opera. His Der Freischütz, Oberon, and Euryanthe were both the inspiration and the models for Richard Wagner. Along the way Weber became an expert in all the orchestral instruments. His writing for clarinet is superb, showing that he knew exactly how to use the instrument for maximum expression. Mr. McCourt’s bravura performance will not disappoint. See you on May 10th!