Axe ’Em, Jacks!
The Orchestra of the Pines at Stephen F. Austin State University will perform a program featuring great string repertoire at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 24, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.
Dr. Gene H. Moon, director of orchestras at SFA, said the concert will include “one very staple work in the string orchestra repertoire and another that is rather quite obscure.”
“As a university orchestra, we primarily focus on the performance art of orchestra repertoire that usually directs us towards full orchestra music, which includes the complement of woodwinds, brass and percussion,” Moon said. “However, we never have the opportunity to truly pay homage to the great string orchestra literature. Therefore, we wanted to program a concert that is lighter in nature but offers a sampling of some great string repertoire.”
The program features a not-so-well-known work – a love song titled “Langsamer Satz” by Anton Webern, a 20th century composer known for his work in the 12-tone compositional technique.
“While not the most melodic or tuneful, the 12-tone composition technique was designed to prove that all notes are create equal and thus each given the greatest harmonic and melodic sounds,” Moon explained. “What usually results is a work that is, perhaps in my sole opinion, more mathematically intellectual than melodically memorable.
“However, Webern did dabble in the tonal side of music,” he said, explaining that “Langsamer Satz” translates to slow movement.
“Webern, deeply in love, penned the work as an ode of to his beloved, remarking upon his words, ‘To walk like this forever among the flowers, with my beloved beside me, to feel myself so utterly at one with the Universe, without a care, as free as a lark in the sky above – Oh, what splendor . . . Our love filled the air. We were two drunken souls . . . ’"
The program also features Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings,” which Moon described as a “dynamite opus” that is a staple in the string orchestra repertoire. Written in C major and in four movements, the serenade is a work that the composer expressed as “a heartfelt piece written from inner conviction.”
Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.