PREVIEW
Mozart & Mendelssohn
Sunday, Oct. 27 at 2 p.m.
Winspear Centre
4 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Tickets: $42 to $77 Call 780-1414 or online at winspearcentre.com
The upcoming performance of Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at Winspear Centre may be titled Mozart & Mendelssohn, two great masters of the classical and romantic era, but in addition to the standard repertoire, there is another M on the Sunday Showcase program, a St. Albert stalwart that composed a Canadian orchestral work.
Michael Massey, a triple-threat composer-conductor-pianist, enjoys the world premiere of Symphonic Poem No. 2 – Two Rivers, his ninth composition since he turned 70 in 2015.
The symphonic poem refers to two rivers he crosses every day to go to work – the Sturgeon River and the Saskatchewan River.
As conductor of the Edmonton Youth Orchestra, Massey originally planned the new composition for his Intermediate Orchestra.
“But I realized after a week that it was a bigger piece,” he said, describing what is both an ode to nature and the dramatization of human experience.
The concept gained traction after reading about two St. Albert residential schools located at Poundmaker and Seven Hills.
“I was reading how the kids were not allowed to do one thing or another. They were not allowed to dance their Red River Jig. Can you imagine? I was reading how the kids in church would lean against the pew and jig with their feet underneath it,” Massey said.
Visualizing the beauty of Sturgeon River flowing lazily through town was an easy image to digest. But the contrasting destructive elements sitting on the river’s banks, the attempts to obliterate a culture did not sit well with the composer.
Massey penned the 15 ½ minute work in three movements. The prologue starts as a small river trickling through time.
“It morphs into the Red River Jig but quickly becomes eviscerated.”
Linking the Sturgeon and the Saskatchewan are two chorales. Sleepers Awake and Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence are two hymns that are thick and lush, yet at times ambiguously light and dark.
“They go into the Saskatchewan and it’s one big crescendo from beginning to end. It starts very quietly on a glacier and builds and builds, and goes off into the distance.”
Since Massey, who first joined the ESO as part of the cello section in 1970, celebrates 50 years of music making, it is more than fitting to observe this golden jubilee with a world premiere.
Music Director Emeritus William Eddins conducts the program. In addition to Massey’s composition, the ESO plays Debussy’s impressionistic Rhapsodie, Mozart’s fiery Symphony No. 29 in A Major and Mendelssohn’s expressive Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minor.
While this program embraces past musical history, it also salutes Alberta culture in a diverse and profound way.
