The Schenectady Symphony concert will feature pieces from the classical period

The Schenectady Symphony Orchestras concert on Sunday will not just be entertainment, but a lesson in musical history.

This season, we took a time machine to different time periods, from Baroque to Romantic, said Music Director Glen Cortese. This concert is centered around the classical period.

For many musicologists, this period is characterized by the work of composers such as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven or by music written roughly from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s. Among these composers, the concert will include Antonio Salieris Sinfonia in D major from 1779.

This piece is very representative of the era, Cortese said. He followed all the rules of the road. It’s fun, energetic, short… crystal clear. It is a polished, sunny and luminous diamond.

Salieri was Kapellmeister at the court of Emperor Joseph II from 1788 to 1824 and enjoyed considerable success, notably at the opera. In his position despite rumors of the so-called rivalry he had with the young Mozart, as depicted in the 1984 film, Amadeus Salieri often arranged for Mozart’s work to be featured.

Salieri was a great composer in his own right, Cortese said.

But in 1785 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his Piano Concerto in D minor which is one of more than a dozen he wrote between 1784 and 1786 as a way to earn money with him as a soloist . Although they are all considered wonderful, this concerto has a different inflection.

This is where he explores a romantic and dramatic voice, Cortese said. It’s classic but pushes the boundaries with pathos and depth. It’s intense…almost Beethovian, unbridled in its passion.

All three movements show Mozart’s penchant for having wonderful conversations between piano and orchestra in the first movement, a slow and moving inner movement and a bubbly, witty finale. British pianist Philip Fisher will be the soloist.

He’s an incredible pianist, Cortese said.

This will be Fisher’s second appearance with the orchestra. Last season, it was featured during the orchestras’ virtual concert season as part of a Back to Basic program.

I’m glad to come back. Fisher said in a statement. There’s simply nothing that can replace the thrill of making music for a live audience.

Gioachino Rossini’s 1816 Overture to The Barber of Seville also looks to the Romantic period.

It’s a crossbreed and right in the middle of its production, Cortese said. It has a classical structure but more in an Italian voice than Mozart’s Viennese. It has a virtuoso orchestra and a kind of aesthetic firework against Mozart’s internal pathos and drama. It’s a tour de force.

The SSO also does the original version of Rossini’s orchestration in that there are no trombones and a smaller brass section. He probably wrote it at the last minute, something he was famous for, Cortese said.

The composer who comes closest to the Romantic period, Johannes Brahms, is represented here because his 1873 piece, Variations on a Theme by Haydn, is based on the Haydns 1780 St. Anthonys Chorale.

It’s a very classic approach to his variations and he sticks to the chorale, Cortese said. But the harmony and the melody are romantic in his own room. This is how older music can affect music from a later time.

For this concert, there will be only about 45 musicians with no lower brass, no percussion except timpani, no harp and only strings and woodwinds.

Schenectady Symphony Orchestra

WHEN: 3 p.m. on Sunday, January 29
WHERE: Supervisors
HOW MUCH: $22, $15, free for 18 and under
MORE INFO: www.proctors.org; 518 346 6204

Categories: Entertainment, Life and Arts, Schenectady