The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
– Paul Dukas (1865–1935)
Poèmes pour Mi; Katherine Lerner Lee VAP ’23 soprano – Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
Scheherazade – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
(1844–1908)
What a wonderful concert. I learned so much. If you think the Dukas is just a Mickey Mouse trick, think again. Yes, the basic theme, apprentice runs amok, is inherent in the work. But when you actually see a conductor taking an orchestra through its paces to paint that picture both visually and aurally, you see it and hear it anew. And, yes, this was the first time I’d ever heard the piece live. That actually goes for all three pieces on the program.
The Messiaen composition was nine art songs for soprano and orchestra divided into two parts—First Book (four songs) and Second Book (five songs). It didn’t really matter because Messiaen’s musical style was so nebulous (to me) that it was difficult to follow the progression. Were the individual songs pretty and interesting? Yes. Did they make sense, logically, to me? No. But that’s part of what makes Messiaen Messiaen.
Scheherazade is a work I have heard many time as complete performances or as individual movements. There are four—The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship, The Legend of the Kalendar Prince, The Young Prince and the Young Princess, and Festival at Baghdad–The Sea–The Shipwreck. Here’s the backstory, and it’s a doozy. Touching on the tales of the Arabian Nights, Scheherazade keeps spinning new tales for 1,001 nights in order to prevent her husband, Sultan Shakriar, from executing her. Fun stuff, right? Well, yeah, the score is fun stuff. While I enjoyed these four movements in their entirety, it made me realize something. I’m used to hearing a well-mixed and engineered recording. That’s not what you hear in the concert hall. You hear a performance that may be a little rough around the edges, and that maybe doesn’t flow the way you’re used to, but you’re hearing it live. And I loved that experience.
I’m so glad I went. I just wish that my The Orchestra Now buddy had been with me, but she is recovering from eye surgery and, wisely, decided to stay home. Next time for sure!
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