The Red Deer Symphony Orchestra is preparing for a melodious concert featuring ‘the elegant cello.’
With Tchaikovsky, Respighi and Beethoven works on the program, the Saturday, Nov. 4, performance at the Red Deer College Arts Centre “will be a lovely, lovely concert,” promises music director Claude Lapalme.
“As my wife says, ‘Everything sounds better on the cello,’ Lapalme joked. His spouse is the RDSO’s principal cellist Janet Kuschak.
While Kuschak will perform with the orchestra at the concert — and even play with a chamber group in the Arts Centre’s foyer before the show, the main spotlight that evening will fall upon Edmonton Symphony Orchestra cellist Rafael Hoekman.
The musician who’s also performed with orchestras in Winnipeg, Calgary and Windsor, Ont. will be the featured soloist for Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations.
Lapalme describes this “Mozart-ean” work as highly virtuosic, requiring great confidence and a delicate touch. Tchaikovsky wrote it for Moscow’s greatest cellist, Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, a transplanted German.
But, while Fitzenhagen generally appreciated the Rococo Variations, he thought he could make improvements by removing one of the eight variations and then rejigging the order of the remaining ones.
Lapalme said Tchaikovsky reportedly wasn’t thrilled by this, but the piece was published with Fitzenhagen’s revisions anyway, and has mostly been played that way.
The RDSO intends to give Tchaikovsky his due by playing the work the way it was written — with all eight variations in their originally conceived order. “I think both versions work well,” said Lapalme, but he sees no reason to omit the eighth variation. “It’s really, really cute!”
Besides these eight “little gems” that vary in mood and tempo, the RDSO will also tackle Respighi’s ever-popular Ancient Airs and Dances, No. 3, and Beethoven’s fourth symphony.
Both works are uplifting, said Lapalme. The Respighi piece, based on Italian Renaissance music, is complicated, but melodious. And Beethoven’s “smaller-scale symphony” starts out mysteriously, but soon leads to joyous movements.
“It’s extremely easy listening,” said Lapalme, who hopes the audience will enjoy the accessible musical evening.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter