Piano trios, Tchaikovsky 5 and two Romantic piano concertos on programs

By Peter Alexander Feb. 13 at 2:38 p.m.

The Boulder Symphony will be the first of two area orchestras to perform Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony this weekend, as part of a program Friday and Saturday (Feb. 16 and 17; details below) that also features Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto played by Chinese pianist Jialin Yao.

The program opens with Conga del Fuego Nuevo (“New fire” conga) by Mexican composer Arturo Marquez. The son of a Mexican mariachi musician, Marquez studied in Mexico and the United States, where he earned an MFA in composition at the California Institute of Fine Arts. A Cuban carnival dance, the conga was the source of the “conga line” made popular in the U.S. by Xavier Cougat and other bandleaders.

Currently a student at the Juilliard School of Music, Yao won the 2023 International Keyboard Odyssiad® and Festival Competition. Boulder Symphony’s conductor, Devin Patrick Hughes, was quoted in the concert press release: “Jialin is a rockstar! He plays the Rachmaninoff 3 . . .  with ease, soulfulness, and a virtuosity that rivals any of the great pianists.”

Rachmaninoff wrote his Third Piano Concerto, considered one of the most virtuosic and challenging piano concertos, in 1909 and played the first performance in New York later that year. The initial reception was mixed at best, but Rachmaninoff gave a more successful second performance the following January conducted by Gustav Mahler. Today the concerto is widely accepted as one of the greatest and most demanding works in the piano repertoire. 

The work that audiences can hear twice this weekend, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, was composed over the summer of 1888. In spite of powerful emotional currents, the composer did not give the symphony any program or explicit personal meaning. After the first performances, he wrote in a letter “I have come to the conclusion that [the symphony] is a failure. There is something repellent in it . . . which the public instinctively recognizes.”

In spite of that conclusion, the Fifth Symphony has become on of Tchaikovsky’s most performed orchestra works. The coincidence of two performances, by two different orchestras on the front range in a single weekend, is an indication of how successful the symphony has been with both conductors and audiences. 

The Boulder Symphony will also play the Symphony on Sunday as part of its GLOW Project, free concerts designed for people with dementia, neurological and developmental disabilities. That performance will consist of only the symphony, played with no intermission and lasting approximately 45 minutes. 

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Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor
With Jialin Yao, piano

• Arturo Marquez: Conga del Fuego Nuevo (“New fire” conga)
• Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor
• Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor

7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 16 and 17
Gordon Gamm Auditorium, Dairy Arts Center

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GLOW Concert
Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor

• Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor

2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 18
Gordon Gamm Auditorium, Dairy Arts Center

REGISTRATION

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The weekend’s second performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony will be provided by the Longmont Symphony (LSO)and conductor Elliot Moore (7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17; details below).

The program, which includes Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture Romeo and Juliet and the Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor played by Marika Bournaki, is billed as “Portrait of a Composer.” This is an annual series for the LSO and Moore, providing an opportunity to focus on the life and works of a single composer who is part of the orchestral tradition.

Bournaki teaches piano as a faculty member of Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va. She was born in Montreal—leading to her being dubbed “the Celine Dion of classical”—and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School of Music. She was the subject of an award-winning documentary film, “I Am Not a Rockstar,” that covered her musical studies, staring when she was 12 and first took lessons at Juilliard, through the age of 20.

She has performed extensively with regional orchestras in the United States and Canada as well as in Switzerland, Russia and Romania. She is also an active chamber musician who has performed at Bargemusic in Brooklyn and the Cape Cod music festival, among other venues. Her educational activities have included programs that bring music to underserved populations in Canada.

Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto had its premiere in 1875 in Boston played by Hans von Bülow. Nikolai Rubinstein, for whom it had been written, was first critical of the piece leading to the first performance being given outside of Russia. Rubinstein later changed his mind about the concerto, and performed it widely. 

Today it is one of the most popular piano concertos. In addition to frequent appearances on orchestral programs, it was used as the sporting anthem for the Russian Olympic Committee at the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, during the time that Russian athletes were banned from appearing under the Russian national flag. American pianist Van Cliburn famously won the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow playing the concerto.

Almost as popular as the Piano Concerto, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet is one of several works by the composer inspired by Shakespeare. After a stormy beginning, the music breaks into a soaring love theme that has been used in films and television, from The Three Musketeers to SpongeBob SquarePants. 

The concert concludes with the Fifth Symphony, one of four by two different organizations over the weekend—yet another testament to Tchaikovsky’s place in the orchestral repertoire and in the hearts of audiences.

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Tchaikovsky: A Portrait
Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor
With Marika Bournaki, piano

• Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture
  —Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor
  —Symphony No. 5 in E minor

7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium

TICKETS

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The Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) will present their current artist-in-residence, pianist Hsing-Ay Hsu, in a program of piano trios, played with members of the orchestra.

The concert, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. (Feb. 17; details below), is the third in the BCO’s series of mini-chamber concerts of the 2023–24 concert season. The fourth mini-chamber concert, featuring works including trios for clarinet, cello and piano, will be at 7:30 pm. April 6. (See the BCO Web Page for details.)

Born in China, Hsu has studied at Juilliard, the Yale School of Music, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, and the Aspen and Tanglewood festivals. A Steinway artist, she won the silver medal of the William Kapell International Piano Competition and first prize of the Ima Hogg National Competition, as well as several artist grants and fellowships. She taught at the CU College of Music, where she was artistic director of the Pendulum New Music Series.

The piano trio emerged as a distinct genre out of domestic music-making in the early classical era, when it was known as an “accompanied piano sonata.” Originally, the piano part was written for women, who were thought to have time for practice, with men—who were not expected to master instruments—playing violin and cello parts to reinforce the melody and bass line of the piano part. 

It was Mozart who first created piano trios with three equal parts, starting around 1780, followed by Beethoven. By the time that Brahms wrote his second and third piano trios, in the late 19th century, it had become a recognized chamber music genre.

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Mini-Chamber Concert 3: Triptych of Trios
Hsing-Ay Hsu, piano, and members of the BCO

• J.S. Bach: Trio Sonata in G major, S1039 (arr. from trio sonata for two flutes and continuo)
• Mozart: Piano Trio in G major, K564
• Brahms: Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, op. 101

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17
Boulder Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 345 Mapleton Avenue

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NOTE: Corrections were made on Feb. 13, clarifying details of the performances and correcting typos in the original story.