A Look Inside the Repertoire of "Opening Remarks"

Allegro’s Summer Series and Season Finale is next weekend! We have an exciting selection of repertoire, an allstar soloist (Allegro’s own concertmaster, Melody Cliff), and a bit of soft symbolism. We’re closing our 2024-2025 Season with “Opening Remarks: An Evening of Overtures” ending this year’s concert series with a nod to new beginnings for Allegro. Let’s take a closer look at the pieces that you could enjoy on August 9th at Franklin & Marshall’s Barshinger Center. 

Prairie Portraits, Concertino for Fiddle and Orchestra (1996/2023) 

- Linda Robbins Coleman (Composer biography and notes sourced from www.lindarobbinscoleman.com)

Linda Robbins Coleman is a composer, pianist, writer, and arts ambassador whose music is regularly performed and broadcast throughout the world. She became the first Iowa woman to have music performed by a major symphony orchestra and to serve as Composer-in-Residence with any orchestra. Her residencies include Drake Theatre, the Wartburg Community Symphony, and Orchestra Iowa. Career highlights include more than 75 commissions, and honors from The American Prize, Drake University, Sigma Alpha Iota, the ACTF at the Kennedy Center, and the Houston International Film Festival. Her music is listed in Daniels' Orchestral Music, published by Rowman & Littlefield.

     In 1981, Coleman and her husband founded the Friends of Drake Arts. In 1987, she co-founded the Iowa Composers Forum and was its chief administrator for ten years. She spent fifteen years on the Iowa Arts Council performing artist and education rosters. For four decades she was a collaborator and research partner with Professor William S. E. Coleman. Their book, Boyhood’s End, Memoires and a Memoir was published in 2023. She has owned Coleman Creative Services since 1976. 

Prairie Portraits is a fun and spirited, three movement concertino for violin (fiddle) and small orchestra. It was commissioned and premiered by the Wartburg Symphony as part of the Iowa Sesquicentennial Celebration. Music director Janice Wade said that she thought it might be fun to have a piece that would reflect a historical aspect of our history and asked me to write something that would sound like old Iowa dances featuring a folk instrument played by an Iowan. Each of the three movements are named after a small town in Iowa: “Pleasant Mount Pleasant,” “The Waverly Waltz,” and “Yee Haw Hoedown in What Cheer!” 

The original version was written for another instrument and premiered with noted University of Iowa Emeritus Professor of Musicology, Frederick Crane, performing on the trump (a.k.a. mouth harp, jaw harp, or juice harp). Amazingly enough, it was wonderfully received and ended up having many performances throughout Iowa with Professor Crane appearing onstage in bib overalls! 

Of course from the beginning we all knew that the pool of classical music mouth harp soloists is very small, so it was always my intention to create another edition to provide more performance opportunities. In 1998, Prairie Portraits, now for violin/fiddle and small orchestra, was born. I might note that the term “fiddle” is used more to convey a “classical meets country” flavor of the music rather than requiring specific fiddle techniques to perform it. It doesn’t have long improvised sections like one would find in true fiddle music, and the interplay between the orchestra and the soloist is what you would find in most classical concertinos. 

For more information, visit www.lindarobbinscoleman.com, and to listen to examples of her music please visit her YouTube channel: youtube.com/@Linda Robbins Coleman

Opening Remarks (2010)

-Lee Actor

Composer and conductor Lee Actor (b. 1952 in Denver, Colorado) was one of five composers selected in November 2014 as an "Honored Artist of the American Prize", the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed. A former violinist with the Albany (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra, Actor has advanced degrees in both engineering, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and music composition, from San Jose State University. He has studied composition with Donald Sur, Brent Heisinger, Charles Jones, and Andrew Imbrie, and conducting with Angelo Frascarelli, David Epstein and Higo Harada. Praised by critics and fellow musicians for his dramatic and emotionally expressive style, Actor's orchestral music is characterized by its dramatic impact and emotional expressivity, featuring a striking use of harmony, counterpoint, motivic development, and lyricism with a fresh, modern flavor. His work has been characterized as "of the highest quality in craftsmanship, inventiveness, and imagination." His works have been performed by more than 90 orchestras and bands in the U.S. and around the world. 

Opening Remarks is a brisk, upbeat, 6-minute work for orchestra designed as a concert opener. It calls for a modestly sized orchestra of two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. Literally all of the musical material in Opening Remarks is generated from the opening few measures. The initial motif of three sharply punctuated chords interspersed with a rising scale figure can be found in various guises throughout the piece, to the extent that the work can truly be called monothematic. Nevertheless, there are several distinct sections of roughly equal size, contrasting in style and mood. Following the energetic initial presentation of the basic thematic material, the second section showcases a pair of trumpets in lyrical rumination against an unrelenting ostinato in the strings. The center of the piece features a woodwind chorale that starts quietly, but becomes increasingly more urgent. The first two sections are then reprised in reverse order, forming an arch-like structure. A brief coda winds down the action to a near standstill, before an accelerating ostinato gradually pulls in the entire orchestra and drives to a final flourish. Opening Remarks was commissioned by the Saratoga Symphony, and was composed between August 2008 and February 2009. 

— Lee Actor

Overture to Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 (1801)

-Ludwig van Beethoven

The Creatures of Prometheus (German: Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus), Op. 43, is a ballet composed in 1801 by Ludwig van Beethoven following the libretto of Salvatore Viganò. The ballet premiered on March 28, 1801 at the Burgtheater in Vienna and was given 28 performances. It was then premiered in New York at the Park Theatre on June 14, 1808 being one of the first full length works by Beethoven to be performed in the United States. It is the only full length ballet by Beethoven. The ballet is an allegory based on the mythical story of Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus in order to create mankind from clay. In the ballet, Prometheus finds mankind in a state of ignorance and decides to introduce the ideas of science and art to them, largely based on Beethoven's own support of the Enlightenment movement. 

The Overture to this ballet opens slowly, the musical equivalent of a sunrise, with steadily increasing, poignant bursts of sound from the string section. We hear the other sections wake up slowly and soon the first theme, full of lively rushing scales and vibrant rhythm, begins. The second theme contrasts with a more delicate melody, carried expertly by the gentle piping of duel flutes.  

“The Creatures of Prometheus, standing on the threshold of Beethoven's second creative period, points forward to the substance of his later works. Of this prophetic quality, Marion M. Scott wrote, ‘In [Prometheus], Beethoven occupied himself with the theme of the beneficent saviour of mankind. It was a turning point in his career. His old style no longer contented him. Of conventional religion, Beethoven had none, but his mind was beginning to search into the deepest mysteries of the universe at the same time that he recognized the mission within himself that he must fulfill. The musician must be the liberator of mankind from sorrow.’” - Dr. Richard E. Rodda, program note excerpt from the National Symphony Orchestra’s Season Opening Ball Concert: Christoph Eschenbach, conductor / Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin Sun., Sep. 30, 2012

Hebrides Overture, Op. 26 (1832)

-Felix Mendelssohn 

The Hebrides Overture, Op. 26, was inspired by one of Felix Mendelssohn’s visits to the British Isles, specifically the Scottish island of Staffa with its basalt sea cave known as Fingal's Cave, that is said to have immediately prompted the composer to write the main theme. The music, though labelled as an overture, is intended to stand as a complete work. The piece depicts a mood and "sets a scene", making it an early example of such musical tone poems. The overture consists of two primary themes; the opening notes of the overture state the theme Mendelssohn wrote while visiting the cave, and is played initially by the violas, cellos, and bassoons. This lyrical theme, suggestive of the power and stunning beauty of the cave, is intended to develop feelings of loneliness and solitude. The second theme, meanwhile, depicts movement at sea and "rolling waves".

As an indication of the esteem in which it is held by musicians, Johannes Brahms once said "I would gladly give all I have written, to have composed something like the Hebrides Overture". A further indication of the work’s success and longevity in the canon is its use in popular culture. It has been featured in film (L’Age d’Or (1930), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1942) and The Marching Band (2024), radio (The Lone Ranger), cartoons (Warner Bros.’ Loony Toons and Inki), even video games and a 1949 CISRO video titled “Division of radiophysics.”

Symphony No. 1 (1853-1854)

-Charles Gonoud

Although primarily celebrated as a composer of opera, Charles Gounod (1818-1893) was also a prolific composer of sacred music, songs, and instrumental works. His Symphony No. 1 in D major, completed in 1855, stands as a charming example of his non-operatic output. Written during a period when the symphony was largely dominated by the works of Beethoven, Gounod’s symphony offers a return to an earlier, more classical style. It is often compared to the symphonies of Schubert and Mendelssohn, possessing a similar sense of lyrical grace, clarity, and elegance.

The symphony is a youthful and optimistic work, full of bright melodies and elegant orchestration. Containing four movements – Allegro molto, Allegro moderato, Scherzo, no troppo presto, and Finale, Adagio, Allegro vivace – Gounod’s Symphony No. 1 offers a wonderful glimpse into the composer's talent and range. The symphony's popularity has seen a resurgence in recent years, proving that Gounod's symphonic voice, though overshadowed by his operatic fame, is nonetheless a significant and appealing one.

You can get your tickets to Opening Remarks here.