Welcome to Music for Life, enhancing the Armstrong concert experience. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. In today's episode, we explore the Polish Wyniewski Philharmonic in the lead-up to its upcoming performance at Armstrong Auditorium Wednesday, March 2nd. The Polish Wyniewski Orchestra is the largest music institution in eastern Poland, and it presented the first post-World War II symphonic concert in Poland. They bring a varied program and incredible violin soloist, but today we will look specifically at two pieces on the program that really showcase the gamut of sound possible in a symphony orchestra.
So stick around as we spotlight this polished Polish orchestra and its symphonic program coming to Armstrong today on Music for Life. It has been a few years now since Armstrong Auditorium has been able to host a full-sized orchestra from overseas. This year, we are pleased to bring the Polish-Wenewski Philharmonic Orchestra to Edmond, Oklahoma. They are playing three major works on the program, the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, with soloist Sarah Dragan, first prize winner of the Henrik Wenewski International Violin Competition, which we'll talk about in our next episode, as well as the overture from The Silken Ladder by Rossini and the final complete symphony of Franz Schubert, nicknamed The Great.
We'll talk about the purely orchestral pieces, the Rossini and the Schubert, in today's episode, and I'll also give a brief profile on the orchestra itself, as well as its artistic director touring with the group. The Polish Wieniewski Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in December 1944. Its beginnings go back to numerous chamber and solo concerts given by musicians who, after World War II, established ties within Poland. The repertoire and artistic considerations, as well as the joy of making music together, led to a premier chamber music concert held on February 10, 1945, in the Hall of the Music Society. This concert gave the impulse to extend the orchestra, and the classical music gala was held a few months later, marking the first symphony concert in post-war Poland. The Polish Wieniewski Philharmonic stands as the largest music...
institution in eastern Poland. The name Wieniewski is an homage to the famous 19th century Polish composer Henrik Wieniewski, considered one of the greatest violinists in history and definitely a national hero of Poland. His portrait appeared on a Polish postage stamp in 1952 and later in 1957, and it even appeared on a commonly used coin in 1979. The Polish Wieniewski Philharmonic is under the artistic direction of its principal conductor, Wojciech Rodek, born in 1977 and one of the most prominent conductors of his generation. He has been associated with the orchestra as principal conductor since 2005. Maestro Rodek and the Polish Philharmonic are bringing a varied program to Armstrong. As mentioned earlier, we will save the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto for discussion in our next episode, and today we'll talk about the other two works they'll be presenting.
The concert will open with the overture from The Silken Ladder by Giacchino Rossini. The Silken Ladder is a comic opera that premiered in 1812. The overture of any opera is the one work that features just the orchestra, and these introductory movements have commonly been extracted from the operas and put on the programs and recordings of symphony orchestras. Rossini's William Tell overture is probably his most famous in that regard. But this overture is also a favorite among orchestras, since it highlights a variety of sections in the ensemble, so it will serve as a fitting opening number for the concert at Armstrong.
The piece has two main sections, a slow opening section, then a fast remainder of the work. The opening slow theme, what we'd call the A theme, is lyrical and slow, and it features the oboe. The fast section that follows is comprised of two themes, what we'd call the overtures B theme and C theme. The B theme features the violins at first, with rapid scales or stepwise passages.
The C theme is playful and features many repeated notes, and what musicians call grace notes, where a neighboring note is played just before the main note, giving it a very jovial and skipping-like quality. The C theme in this work features more of the wind side of the orchestra. After slowing this C theme down for a short transition, Rossini returns to both the B and C themes before closing the work out with a great deal of enthusiasm. Here's a recording of Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. recording of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Fritz Reiner, performing the overture to Rossini's The Silken Ladder. And that is how the Polish Vigniewski Philharmonic will open its program at Armstrong Auditorium on Wednesday, March 2nd. They will also finish their program with another purely orchestral work, and this will be a performance of the Great Symphony by Franz Schubert. Not that we're showing any bias, but that symphony is literally nicknamed the Great C Major Symphony, which contrasts an earlier symphony in C Major, which is nicknamed the Little C Major Symphony. So little and great are referring to the length of the works. The Great Symphony is just under an hour in runtime.
Schubert is considered one of the great composers of the early Romantic period, the Romantic period as a whole, covering about the last 85 years of the 19th century, plus some change. He lived a relatively short life, only 31 years, and this is the last complete symphony that he wrote. Our program insert will list this as symphony number nine, which is a really nice number since other famous composers composed nine symphonies, but there are some issues with that number. From the years 1813 to 1818, Schubert wrote six complete symphonies. Six. After that, he sketched about four more.
and then orchestrated two movements of another. Confusingly, this latter two-movement work took on the name of the Unfinished Symphony, not to be confused with his four previous unfinished symphonies, or a later final symphony, which he also left unfinished. Maybe we should call those symphonies the Unstarted Symphonies. So, of all the symphonies Schubert went to work on after his sixth, he only completed one, the Great C Major Symphony, which is what we'll be hearing on March 2nd. How it got dubbed number nine is a little befuddling, but basically, when the famous musicologist George Groh visited Vienna, he called one of the more fully sketched but unorchestrated symphonies the seventh.
assigned number eight to the Unfinished, and dubbed the Great Symphony as Symphony No. 9, which implies a standing on par with Beethoven's magnum opus of the same numbering. This is the order that most English-speaking scholars adhere to today, never mind that Grove's famous dictionary doesn't actually number it that way either, only adding to the confusion. Johannes Brahms left the unstarted or unorchestrated symphonies out, and he called the Great Symphony No. 7 and the Unfinished No. 8. So, though it was actually the seventh he truly completed, most musicologists number the Great Symphony as Symphony No. 9, which is how it'll be listed on our program.
Still yet, like most symphonies, it has four movements. The first movement starts moderately slowly, then picks up in tempo. The next three movements follow the typical expectation of a symphony of that day. A slow second movement, a quick triple meter scherzo movement, and then a lively finale. One thing that makes this symphony stand out among other symphonies is the sizable amount of monophony. Monophony is what happens when every instrument plays the exact same pitch at the exact same time, meaning there's no harmony.
a term you might know as unison, which is a rarely used effect in symphonic music. Schubert's great symphony even begins with monophony, two French horns playing a triumphant melody in unison. In fact, three of the four movements start with the melody being stated monophonically, or in unison. Here are a few other moments we'll hear in the opening of the first movement. Here's moments of unison in the strings and brass, answered by chords in the wind section. And then this is the A theme after the slow introduction, played in unison by the strings and horns, interrupted by chords from the wind section.
So let's hear this introduction and exposition of the first movement. We're going to be hearing a recording of Wolfgang Savalisch conducting the Stadtskapelle Dresden. You are listening to Music for Life. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. This is KPCG. In today's episode, we are exploring the Polish Wieniawski Philharmonic in the lead-up to its March 2nd performance at Armstrong. It's a program featuring the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with soloist Sarah Dragan, but we're discussing the two other works on the program today, the ones featuring the orchestra with no soloist.
These works being Rossini's Overture to the Silken Ladder, which we've already heard, and Schubert's Symphony in C Major, nicknamed the Great, as mentioned earlier, after its length. We just heard a bit of the first movement, its moderately slow introduction, and then a lively exposition where we're introduced to the main themes for this movement. The second movement is the typical slow movement, in this case in a minor key, but with a steady, stately pulse from the strings, while the oboe presents this graceful yet melancholy theme. For the sake of time, I'll skip toward the last two and a half minutes or so of this movement, where that theme is presented a final time. Again, we're hearing a recording of Wolfgang Savalisch conducting the Stadtskapelle Dresden. That was a portion of the slow second movement from Franz Schubert's Symphony in C, nicknamed the Great due to its length, and sometimes referred to as his Ninth Symphony, though there is some confusion regarding that, which I won't get into again. We're hearing a recording of the Stadtskapelle Dresden under the baton of Wolfgang Savalisch, though we're going to hear it on Wednesday, March 2nd, from the Polish Wyniewski Philharmonic, which we're discussing in today's episode.
The third movement of the symphony has the typical triple meter lilt of third movements. The opening bars start with a melody in unison from the strings. Again, what we call a monophonic texture. The strings commonly play in unison within their own section throughout this movement. Let's hear this delightful movement in its entirety.
You are listening to Music for Life. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. This is KPCG. In today's episode, we have explored the Polish Wyniewski Philharmonic in the lead up to its March 2nd performance at Armstrong Auditorium with repertoire from Rossini, Tchaikovsky, and Schubert. More information about this and all our Armstrong Auditorium events can be found at armstrongauditorium.org. We just heard the third movement of Schubert's great symphony in C, great, referring to the length of the work in contrast to an earlier little symphony in C.
Today we heard a recording of Wolfgang Zawalisch conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden. We have time to play some of the fourth and final movement, the typically quick and powerful finale to symphonies of the Romantic era, the time period in which Schubert lived and composed. This will be an exciting conclusion to this event, this concert as well. This movement has a few more interesting instances of monophony, the effect where the entire orchestra or an entire section plays in unison rather than multiple pitches that create a chord. The opening bars of this movement are all monophonic.
Then in the final moments of the symphony, Schubert has the orchestra play more unison. This is a really striking effect and signals a dramatic ending. Even the final note is not a chord, but one note. See, typically a symphony in C would end with the orchestra playing one of three notes, the prominent note being a C, but the other notes forming the chord that is a C chord. It's quite dramatic just to hear the orchestra on one pitch.
which is again how this piece will end. Be sure to tune in for our next episode when we discuss a work from the first half of the program, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. This will feature the violinist Sarah Dragan, whom we'll talk more about next time. And in the meantime, enjoy the last few minutes of Schubert's Symphony in C, the quote-unquote great, and the quote-unquote ninth. I hope you enjoy, and I hope to see you soon at Armstrong. You have been listening to Music for Life, a production of KPCG 101.3 on the FM dial in Edmond, Oklahoma. From the Herbert W. Armstrong College campus, I'm Ryan Malone. Thanks for joining me.