2 weeks Ago By By Jim Lowe Staff Writer
It opens with a sudden “crack of the whip” setting off a race between the piccolo and the piano. Next weekend, Allison Cerutti will be the featured soloist when the Vermont Philharmonic performs Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major in Randolph and Barre. “I love those big romantic concertos with sweeping lines, like the Rachmaninoff Second, but that’s not really what I do,” she said.
“The Ravel is very different from that. It’s got opportunities to be expressive; the slow movement is really beautiful, with opportunities for collaboration with the orchestra. “I love the opportunity to paint beautiful colors,” she said.
“You have harp, you have like little swirly string things, really soft translucent string colors. There are lots of woodwind solos — lots of piccolo. “The character of it is really fun,” Cerutti said.
“I really find it appealing. It’s clever and joyful. It’s a lot of things I really like.
” The Vermont Philharmonic, conducted by Music Director Louis Kosma, will present its Spring Concerts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 26, at the Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph, and at 2 p.
m. Sunday, April 27, at the Barre Opera House. In addition to the Ravel, the program features Brahms’ Symphony No.
3 and the Overture to “Die Freischütz” by Carl Maria von Weber. Ravel wrote his Piano Concerto in G major between 1929 and 1931, and the first performance was given in Paris in 1932 by Marguerite Long with the Orchestre Lamoureux conducted by the composer. Within months, the work was performed in the major cities of Europe and in the United States.
In an interview with the music critic Pierre Leroi, published in October 1931, Ravel said: “My only wish ...
was to write a genuine concerto, that is, a brilliant work, clearly highlighting the soloist’s virtuosity, without seeking to show profundity. As a model, I took two musicians who, in my opinion, best illustrated this type of composition: Mozart and Saint-Saëns. This is why the concerto, which I originally thought of titling Divertissement, contains the three customary parts: the initial Allegro, a compact classical structure, is followed by an Adagio, in which I wanted to render particular homage to ‘scholasticism,’ and in which I attempted to write as well as I could; to conclude, a lively movement in Rondo form, likewise conceived in accordance with the most immutable traditions.
” Cerutti, the soloist, a native of Northfield, has music degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and the Hartt School of Music, and is a protégée of the late Louis Moyse. She performs solo and in chamber music throughout Vermont and Canada, and has twice previously been featured soloist with the Philharmonic. “The first movement is cheerful,” she said of the concerto.
“It’s got some sultry, jazzy episodes in it, but it ends fast and furious — which is delightful. It’s got a beautiful cadenza, not virtuosic, but expansive. “The slow movement is beautiful, with a beautiful solo for the English horn, then the orchestra takes over,” Cerutti said.
“The third movement is madcap, and it’s funny.” “This work is a challenge and not only for the piano but for the orchestra, and for many of the principal players in orchestra.” Kosma said.
“It has a tremendous amount of individual solos — it has an E-flat clarinet, the higher clarinet, which has particular stuff. Trombone has some interesting interjections which use the slide factor very much, the glide from one note to the other. And it uses harmonics (for an ethereal sound) throughout all of the strings.
” In Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90, Kosma finds “lovely melodies.
More introspection. I could use the term gentler. It’s something that I think the orchestra is enjoying very much, so they’re doing well with it.
They’re working very hard on it.” The work was written in summer 1883, nearly six years after he completed his Symphony No. 2.
In the interim, Brahms had written some of his greatest works, including the Violin Concerto, two overtures (Tragic Overture and Academic Festival Overture), and the Piano Concerto No. 2. The premiere of the Third Symphony was given in 1883 by the Vienna Philharmonic under Hans Richter.
“This work actually was one that Brahms really liked himself,” Kosma said. “There’s speculation, and I explained this to the orchestra, that in the first movement there’s a statement of a theme, which may not mean much to people — F-A flat-F. Brahms had a motto, “frei aber froh (free but happy).
” “There are different kinds of fireworks in it,” Kosma said. “And one of the really major factors is this symphony does not have a loud ending. It has a wonderfully soft winding-down ending — one where you can kind of just sit and think for a while instead of jumping out of your chair.
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