The Red Deer Symphony Orchestra’s London Calling concert was by turns sunny, sombre, contemporary and classical on Saturday.
Josef Haydn provided an upbeat classical symphony, while British composer Malcolm Arnold offered a more modern flute concerto and Giacomo Puccini was called on for a smattering of sadness.
A tortured musician Josef Haydn was not: “He was apparently a very happy person — it really shows,” said Red Deer Symphony Orchestra director Claude Lapalme in introducing Haydn’s last, 104th Symphony, in D Major at the Red Deer College Arts Centre.
Written while Haydn was in England, where he had been hugely successful, all four movements reflect the composer’s sunny disposition.
Even in the slow-moving third movement, the Austrian composer shows that he is having a good time.
Haydn’s career opens with the beginning of the classical era and his 1809 death came at the end of the period.
“He encompasses all of it, and he had a huge influence on it,” said Lapalme.
Haydn, who counted among his his students Ludwig van Beethoven, was not afraid to borrow from others. There is a touch of Beethoven-like drama in the 104th Symphony.
Apparently he had a bit of a rocky relationship with Beethoven. But then again, who didn’t?
It opens with a movement of dramatic contrasts; brash outbursts of music were quietly echoed by soothing strings.
The second movement juxtaposed the plinking of violin strings with smooth long-drawn notes. At one point, it evoked the creation of a feast with the chop, chop, chop of the cutting board, chased by the stir, stir, stir of the cooking pot.
A bouncy third movement suggested a jaunty ride or a high-spirited dance, and the last movement was spirited and lively, involving various sections of the orchestra.
Opening the concert, was Puccini’s I Crisantemi, a moody piece with mournful violins that lapped at the edges of sadness.
It reminded one of the kind of music that might play in a movie as a character looks out of a car’s rear window at a home never to be returned to.
Canadian composer Jim McGrath’s Flute Concerto lightened up the mood with a “folksy and slightly celtic” piece that was led ably by flutist Leslie Newman, a Lacombe native, who is now based in Toronto.
This was her fifth appearance with the RDSO and she dazzled, her pure sound often seeming to lead the orchestra on melodic chases.
In the pieces third movement the cheery optimism seemed to give way to an air of danger or an approaching storm.
Rounding out the first half of the concert was Arnold’s Flute Concerto No. 1 for Flute and Strings.
An English composer, Arnold is apparently proof that leopards can change their spots. A committed boozer, and all-round unpleasant person, Arnold was apparently given six months to live in his 50s.
He gave up the sauce and spent another 30 years composing, his last symphony coming at the age of 83, a year before his death in 2006.
“So it’s never too late,” said Lapalme, of the compsoer who wrote more than 100 film scores, and won the 1957 Oscar for the score for The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Arnold’s work was perhaps the most challenging. The first movement featured rapid changes in tempo, that gave way in the second movement to a softer sound, like a breeze brushing through a forest.
The third movement was enlivened by Newman’s flute, which seemed to be drawing the orchestra into a little dance.
Arnold added a little more variety to what was already a diverse and colourful concert.
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com