Boston Globe, MA
Feb 3 2005
Philharmonic performance marks Black History Month
By Robert Knox, Globe Correspondent | February 3, 2005
In tune with Black History Month, the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra
will celebrate the diverse strands of American orchestral music
during an 8 p.m. concert Saturday that will feature William Grant
Still’s ”Afro-American Symphony.”
Originally performed in the 1930s by the New York Philharmonic, it
was the first orchestral work by an African-American composer to be
played by a major American orchestra.
The Plymouth Philharmonic’s music director, Steven Karidoyanes, said
Still’s symphony might remind listeners of a Gershwin classic,
”Rhapsody in Blue,” because it draws on ”that whole Tin Pan Alley,
pop song, jazz influence.” A superb orchestrator, Still was able to
use ”a bluesy English horn,” the baritone clarinet and other reeds
to conjure up the sounds of instruments missing from the symphony
orchestra, Karidoyanes said. ”You really hear a dance band, but
there’s no sax,” he said.
In addition to Still’s symphony, the PPO’s ”American Reflections”
concert, scheduled for 8 p.m. in Plymouth’s Memorial Hall, will
include a tone poem by a Hungarian exile, a work that draws on an
American composer’s Armenian roots, and a work by New Englander
Charles Ives that incorporates church bells, camp songs, and
Protestant hymns.
Ernö Dohnányi’s ”American Rhapsody” was written in the 1950s in
Florida, where the Hungarian composer spent the last 10 years of his
life after fleeing Communist Hungary.
”You’ll never feel the same way about ‘On Top of Old Smoky’ again,”
Karidoyanes said of the composer’s use of the classic folk tune.
Dohnányi added versions of a moving American spiritual and sprightly
fiddle tunes in creating his work’s mixture of themes and moods.
A composition by Somerville native Alan Hovhaness, ”Prayer of St.
Gregory,” is a lush five-minute work with an Eastern European sound.
The piece relies on the orchestra’s strings and a solo by the
philharmonic’s principal trumpet player, Philip Hague. The trumpet
gives voice to the saint who is credited with bringing Christianity
to Armenia.
Ives mixed formal innovation and small town ”Currier and Ives”
Americana in his music, Karidoyanes said, and in ”Camp Meeting
Symphony” employed a free association of popular old time melodies to
create a ”very approachable” orchestral work.