“Transformations” and “Visions of a Brighter Tomorrow” on the masterworks series
By Peter Alexander Oct. 11 at 5:40 p.m.
Conductor Michael Butterman and the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra will slip gently into their new season with a concert at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15, in Macky Auditorium. (Please note the change of time and day from recent seasons.)
The first piece on the program will be Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten by the living Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, a quiet, reflective piece for strings and a tolling chime. “It’s a very effective work,” Butterman says. “It’s totally hypnotic, this sort of neo-minimalist language, if you want to call it that, that is very deeply felt and meditative.
“There are typically two ways to start a program. Either you get people’s attention with a lot of fireworks, loud and fast, or (you can have) a very centered piece to open the concert, rather than one that gets your blood pressure up. Either approach is effective, but we’re going to (open the season) relatively calm and quiet.”
Following the gentle and soothing strains of the Cantus, Butterman and the Phil will be joined by pianist Anne-Marie McDermott for Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, a work that certainly has its showy moments but is generally more amiable than most Beethoven.
“The Beethoven Fourth is my favorite piano concerto,” Butterman says. “There’s something very special about it, especially the second movement. It’s very affecting and dramatic in its relatively simple construct.”
Unlike other concertos of the time, Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto starts with the solo instrument alone, playing dolce e piano (sweetly and softly)—continuing the gentle mood of the concert. The dramatic second movement, which juxtaposes the piano and the strings, has been described by Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny as “an antique tragic scene.” The following finale is both lyrical and jovial, more in the mood of Haydn than either the grandiosity or the ferocity of Beethoven’s more powerful concertos and symphonies.
Butterman has not worked with McDermott before, but he knows her recordings and her reputation in the music world. “Knowing especially her affinity for and experience in chamber music, this seems like an ideal concerto for her to play,” he says. “I’m looking forward to welcoming her.”
In addition to her recordings of music by composers form Bach to Shostakovich, McDermott has been an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Her recordings of 20th-century music, including the complete piano works of Prokofiev and Gershwin, have received extensive critical praise. She is currently director of Colorado’s Bravo! Vail Music Festival.
Butterman explains how he selected the remainder of the concert program: “The question was, do you end with a symphony or something like that?” he says. But instead of a single larger work, he selected two pieces, both by 20th-century composers and both based on earlier music from their home countries: Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme by Purcell and Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes of Carl Maria von Weber.
Britten’s score, known as A Young person’s Guide to the Orchestra when performed with a narration, comprises 13 variations, each devoted to a single instrument or section of the orchestra, and a fugue that brings them all together. Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis features four movements, each a transformation of music by the early Romantic German composer Carl Maria von Weber. Like Britten’s piece, it is a virtuoso score for orchestra, although it is not constructed as a set of variations.
“Together the two of them are 40 or 44 minutes,” Butterman says. “Taken together they have the time span and the weight of a symphony, although they are not constructed that way. They are much more episodic, and they are each colorful in their own way.
“I think of each of them as real showcases for the orchestra—Britten intentionally so, but no less so in the case of Hindemith as he crafts some really colorful and stirring renditions of these pieces.
“I think those are good season-starter kinds of pieces, because they’re rousing.”
The second masterworks concert of the fall (Nov. 12) is listed below. Tickets for the entire Boulder Phil season are available HERE. Please note that the opening concert will be at 4 p.m. Sunday. All of the masterworks concerts during the fall will be Sunday afternoon, as opposed to the usual Saturday evening times of recent seasons.
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Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Fall 2023 concert series
“Transformation”
Boulder Philharmonic, Michael Butterman, conductor
With Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
- Arvo Pärt: Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten
- Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major
- Benjamin Britten: Variations on a Theme by Purcell
- Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes of Carl Maria von Weber
4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15
Macky Auditorium
“Visions of a Brighter Tomorrow”
Boulder Philharmonic, Michael Butterman, conductor
With 3rd Law Dance/Theater and Richard Scofano, bandoneon
- Jeffrey Nytch: Beacon (world premiere)
- Scofano: La Tierra Sin Mal (The World without Evil)
- Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor
4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12
Macky Auditorium
The Nutcracker
Boulder Philharmonic, Gary Lewis, conductor
With Boulder Ballet
- Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Ballet
2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 24
2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Saturday Nov. 25
2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 26
Macky Auditorium
“Holiday Brass”
Boulder Phil Brass and Percussion
Gary Lewis, conductor
4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17
Mountain View Methodist Church
Sharps & Flatirons 