Mozart concerto, Handel, Corelli, and a kinder, gentler Schoenberg

By Peter Alexander

Pianist David Korevaar

You know it’s an unusual Christmas concert when one of the composers is the fearsome atonal composer Arnold Schoenberg.

But conductor Bahman Saless, who has programmed the Schoenberg Christmas Music for concerts with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra Dec. 21 and 22, assures listeners it is thoroughly enjoyable, not written in the composer’s dissonant and fiercely intellectual style. Instead, it is a gentle fantasia on Praetorius’ familiar carol “Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen” (Lo, how a rose e’er blooming).

“I think in in his spare time he wrote some stuff for fun,” Saless says. “He was probably tired of his own intellect.”

In addition to Schoenberg’s Christmas Music the program will feature Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in B-flat, known as the “Christmas Concerto”; another Concerto Grosso in B-flat by Handel; some regular Christmas carol arrangements; and pianist David Korevaar playing and conducting Mozart’s Piano Concerto in B-flat, K595.

Read more in Boulder Weekly.

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“The Gift of Music”
Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless, conductor
With David Korevaar, piano

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major
Handel: Concerto Grosso in B-flat major, Op 3 no. 1
Arnold Schoenberg: Christmas Music
Corelli: Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6 no. 8 (“Christmas Concerto”)
Holiday carols

7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 21, Broomfield Auditorium, 3 Community Park Rd., Broomfield
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 22, Boulder Adventist Church, 345 Mapleton Ave., Boulder

Tickets