Geo
Douglas Lowry
b. Spokane, Washington / January 31, 1951
First performance by the RPO; world premiere.
Douglas Lowry began his tenure as sixth dean of the Eastman School of Music in August 2007. Prior to his arrival at Eastman, he served for seven years as Dean and Thomas James Kelly Professor of Music at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. While in Cincinnati, Lowry was a periodic host of WVXU’s Around Cincinnati, a radio series focusing on the arts and entertainment in the Greater Cincinnati area. He also served on the boards of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera, and the School for Creative and Performing Arts. He continues to serve on the board and co-chair the artistic directorate of the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. Previously he served as Associate Dean and Chair of the Conducting Department at the Flora L. Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California.
As a composer, Lowry has written for a wide variety of media. Recent commissions and premieres include works for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, Cincinnati Playhouse, St. Louis Repertory Theater, the CCM Chamber Players in performance at the University of Michigan, and the Cincinnati Pops. His compositions appear on recordings issued by Summit Records and BIS.
Lowry holds degrees in composition, conducting, and music performance from the University of Arizona and the University of Southern California. He serves on the boards of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Mercury Opera Rochester.
The composer has written the following introduction to his composition, Geo:
“One of the transforming insights of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the invention of the still photograph, the closest approximation of a viewed image heretofore known. George Eastman transformed the still photograph not only into a global business enterprise, but also a burgeoning art form.
“Still symbols, though, sometimes seek motion. Narrative prose becomes a stage play; the still photograph becomes a “motion picture.” Geo is an homage to a man who, as we know, “built” the Eastman Kodak Company, created the Eastman School of Music and its original Eastman Theatre, and was a cornerstone founder of the University of Rochester and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Eastman was also a seminal force in the transformation of the still photograph into moving pictures. Geo pays tribute to George’s dream, revitalized as Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, yet also salutes Eastman’s cinematic spirit in a style of music that moving pictures ultimately inspired. The Eastman Theatre was originally conceived not only as a concert hall but as a movie house.
“Geo begins as George’s ghost is awakened with a clarion call from the brass. Startled at the clamor, he sits up only to see his Theatre transformed into a modern performing space, its grandeur intact, its dimensions perhaps a little more intimate than the original house. George’s ghost darts around the room, through the crystals in the chandelier, beaming up and around the murals and icons, and finally comes to rest, at which point he gazes down on the reclining ghost of his mother, Maria Kilbourn. (The orchestra plays a slow, simple elegy to Maria.) George summons Maria to a waltz; as is the nature of some dances, the waltz gets complicated, and George and Maria swirl around the hall in a kind of impressionistic frenzy. Worn out, they sit down, take note of George’s “new” hall, and listen as the orchestra romps through the celebratory bustle of the twentieth century. After the opening musical panorama reprises in a loud and brassy finale, we imagine the ghost of George Eastman standing and tipping his hat to us in the audience. We hope he is happy.
“Geo was commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and its distinguished music director, Christopher Seaman.”
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125
Ludwig van Beethoven
b. Bonn, Germany / December 15, 1770
d. Vienna, Austria / March 26, 1827
First performed by the RPO on March 7, 1935; Guy Fraser Harrison, conductor. Last performed July 8, 2006; Christopher Seaman, conductor.
The evolution of this towering piece, one of the supreme achievements of western art, spanned more than three decades. Once Beethoven read Friedrich Schiller’s poem Ode to Joy in 1793, he determined one day to set it to music. By mid-1823 he had virtually completed Symphony No. 9. But when he came to feel that it cried out for words to express its goals more clearly, it became clear to him that his long-delayed rendezvous with the Ode to Joy had finally arrived. He discarded the instrumental finale he had composed for the symphony and he found it a home as the final movement of the String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132.
Symphony No. 9 was heard for the first time on May 7, 1824, in Vienna with Michael Umlauf conducting. The composer sat in the midst of the orchestra, score in hand, in order to indicate the tempos he wished to be taken. The performance, which had been allotted only two rehearsals, was at best a mediocre one, yet it still drew an enthusiastic response from the audience.
By setting particular words in the Ninth, Beethoven let it be known that he considered it more than an abstract work. This prompts speculation as to whether he had conceived every movement with specific extra‑musical ideas in mind. He left no direct indications; such considerations must rest with listeners. In general terms, however, the sequence of moods in its three opening sections is as easy to follow as the finale’s.
The first movement begins quietly, yet it vibrates with the expectancy of drama. The musicologist Sir Donald Tovey, citing the great number of times this passage has been imitated, credits it with exerting “the deepest and widest influence on later music” of anything Beethoven wrote. Throughout this movement’s dramatic course, interludes of repose crop up, but tension and turmoil stand squarely at center stage. The conclusion is, if anything, even bleaker than the beginning.
The following scherzo raised this type of piece, formerly a simple jest or dance, to Olympian heights of drive and brilliance. At times, the energy level and driving rhythm push the music close to the diabolical. Beethoven gave the timpani player one of the finest opportunities for display in all music.
The prayer‑like slow movement at last brings a sense of repose to the symphony. It consists of variations on two gloriously warm-hearted themes.
After the finale’s turbulent introduction, Beethoven proceeded to first review, then reject brief excerpts from the preceding movements. Cellos and basses then quietly state the finale’s principal theme, a melody whose very lack of guile makes it completely appropriate to its function. It gathers momentum slowly, yet inexorably, until a reprise of the movement’s opening outburst sets the scene for the baritone soloist’s entry – and a whole new era in music.
Beethoven’s setting of the Ode to Joy contains a tremendous variety of incident. Its kaleidoscope of episodes, in fact, makes up an entire symphony in miniature. They include passages of almost frenzied choral celebration; a march‑like tenor solo spiked with Turkish percussion; a brilliant fugue for orchestra alone; and the simple, affecting piety of the central call to faith in God. Finally, orchestra and chorus rush headlong to the exultant conclusion.
© 2009 Don Anderson. All rights reserved.
