Novemberfest

Anyone who has lived in this town for more than 10 or 15 years cannot deny the spectacular growth that the city has experienced in that period.  This “crescendo” has been encapsulated by the boom in craft breweries, ignited by a national trend thereto.  Knoxville currently boasts at least ten of these institutions, where ten years ago there might have been one.  The KSO has partnered with several of them in presenting a new and unique music-centric experience called “UnStaged.”  The idea is to bring classical music away from the concert hall, and present it in a more intimate setting in a more informal and thirst-quenching way.

Two promotional performances – “appetizers” – have already taken place at beer terminals in town, and a third is just a couple days away.  On October 5, cellist Stacy Nickell and violinists Ruth Bacon Edewards and Rachel Loseke performed at the Pretentious Beer Company on Central Ave. in the Old City.  The late Classical music patriarch of Knoxville, Norris Dryer, would have been so proud knowing that not only has a brewpub opened up below his old apartment, but also that classical music was being played there!  On the following Thursday, principal bassist Steve Benne, principal oboist Claire Chenette, and violinist Zofia Glashauser performed WAY out west at the Blackhorse Pub and Brewery.  Coming up this Thursday, November 2nd at 5:30, principal bassoonist Aaron Apaza, principal flutist Hannah Hammel and violist Eunsoon Corliss will hold court at the Casual Pint of Downtown at 421 Union Ave., next to the Oliver Hotel.

The main UnStaged event will take place on Thursday, November 9th at 7 pm at The Standard on Jackson Avenue in the Old City (next to Sweet P's Barbecue).  Compositions for various-sized ensembles will be performed in two different performance spaces within the venue, including Mozart's Symphony no. 40 and Milhaud's La creation du monde.  Beers from Alliance Brewing Co., Blackhorse Brewery, Crafty Bastard Brewery and Last Days of Autumn Brewing Co. will be featured.  Food will be tastefully provided by Knoxville caterer Nancy Kendrick, and between sets, the members of the KSO will mingle with concertgoers beer devotees.  The event is funded in part by a generous grant from the American Orchestras' Future Fund, a program of the League of American Orchestras. Tickets are here and include tastings from said brewers.

Outside looking in on the Oct. 5 Pretentious Beer Co event

DYNAMICS AND YOU

DYNAMICS AND YOU

That ticking sound you hear, it sounds like when you've turned your car off and it's cooling down, right? Well, that is the players of the KSO collectively quenching, after an intense run of performances going back to September's Masterworks concerts. The Q Series, Unstaged, and Meet the Musicians slates were full, then the Chamber Classics season started up with a bang on Oct. 1. The Concertmaster and Friends recital at the KMA brought a new star into Knoxville's classical sky in William Shaub, and as if to dot the “ı,” the KSO performed John Williams' dynamic soundtrack to accompany the first Harry Potter film just this past weekend.

I called the Williams score “dynamic,” which is a word that has many meanings in music. It can be a noun or an adjective. As an adjective, it means “vigorous,” “vivid,” or even “vibrant.” The noun version can refer to the “vibe” or the “chemistry” of the group-- e.g., group dynamics. Specific to music, however, the notation of volume at which a player or ensemble should play, the size of the sound, is called the “dynamics.” This is notated with the letters f and p, which are the abbreviations for the Italian words forte (loud) and piano (soft). Multiples of these letters indicate extremes; I have seen as many as five in either direction, but usually only up to two. After three it just gets to be kind of a joke; I mean, we don't have little dials that louden us decibel by decibel, we have pieces of wood and metal, operated by our breath and hands. An increase in volume is called a crescendo, and a decrease a diminuendo (or a decrescendo, they are synonymous). These words can also be replaced with symbols, elongated “>'s” or “<'s” with which the wider, the louder. The usual term for these signs is “hairpin;” I guess “tweezers” would sound a little weird, but it's exactly that shape. A crescendo over several measures will usually just employ the abbreviation cresc., since the converging lines of the symbols would be visual pollution on the page. It's easy to overlook a 5 letter word in italics, however, so a player may boost his chances at correct execution by drawing a symbol in. Slide…

This is the cello part to Beethoven's Violin Concerto, last movement. You can see on the second line down where every other note has a swell on it. In measure 150, a typical Beethoven feature is found; the “crescendo to nothing.” (Not all crescendos result in a f). In measure 158 notice the word dimin. printed, and you'll agree that the dynamic symbol, if used here, would get in the way of other musical indications.

The effect of a composition's dynamics is dependent on each player's adherence to their parts' dynamic markings. A sudden (or subito) piano in the midst of a forte phrase is a lot more embarrassing to miss than the other way around. A sharply attacked note might have the letters sfz or just sf on it; this stands for sforzando and means “with sudden emphasis.” A similar notation is fp, meaning fortepiano, which is just a loud start to a note rather than a sharp attack. The distinction between these two markings can be enigmatic. As if all this wasn't enough, let's throw in accents. They're little “>'s” on a single note, meaning yet another attack scenario. Whatever the indication, the uniformity and force of each players' attack on that note must be worked out precisely; one can't just blat or scrape indiscriminately. Slide…

Here is the opening of Mahler's 4th Symphony. The whole spectrum of dynamic indications is here, as is typical with Mahler's persnickety (yet beautiful) music. Every measure has some sort of “diacritical marks”-- accents, accents under slurs, sforzandos, sforzandos under slurs, fortepianos… All of these must be unified and coordinated across the orchestra-- this is why we rehearse.

So if I said, “the ensemble's attention to dynamics made for an impressive group dynamic that resulted in a dynamic performance,” it appears that I have used the same word three times in one sentence, but I am really just pointing out that the word “dynamic” is a many-splendored thing.  

Concertmaster Series Sets Sail Again

The KSO's Concertmaster & Friends series has experienced a sea change, with a new captain at the helm.  Concertmaster William Shaub brings more youth and vigor to a series that was already pretty youthful and vigorous.  The series has always been a forum which combined virtuoso violin repertoire and staples of chamber music literature, and that will continue under Will's leadership.  The opening installments of the 2017-18 campaign will be this Wednesday and Thursday at 7:00, at the Knoxville Museum of Art.  The program will consist of works by Sarasate, Franck and Beethoven.

Pablo Sarasate was a Spanish violin prodigy from the later 19th century whose considerable technical prowess and pure tone were complemented by a distinctly Spanish compositional style which motivated his contemporaries throughout Europe.  He was the first to translate Spanish melody, rhythm and soul into violin-ese, inspiring the composition of Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Rondo capriccioso and Lalo's Symphonie espagnole.  Will and pianist Kevin Class will perform Sarasate's Romanza Andaluza, from the “Spanish Dances” to open the program.

The first half centerpiece will be César Franck's iconic Sonata for Violin and Piano from 1886.  A highly regarded organist, pianist and teacher, Belgian-born Franck's composing output was sparse until this work (and several that followed) put him on the map in a big way.  The four-movement Sonata was presented to the titanic Belgian violin virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe as a wedding gift in September of 1886, and was performed at the wedding with a guest, Léontine Bordes-Pène playing the piano part.  The first public performance took place in a Brussels museum on December 16th of that year.  Somehow the concert ran long, and despite an official ban on artificial light at the museum, the two performers played the final three movements from memory in the dark.  Will and Kevin will have no such predicament, I assure you.

The concluding work will be Beethoven's Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4.  It's the only minor-key quartet in the Op. 18 folio of 6 quartets, which were commissioned by Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz (not to be confused with Lefkowitz!) of Bohemia.  Three of its movements are of an excitable, stormy nature, with only the Andante scherzoso quasi Allegretto standing out with a quirky charm for comic relief.