The Hope College Symphonette, under the
direction of Richard Piippo, will present its opening
concert of the 2000-01 season on Saturday, Sept. 30, at 8
p.m. in Dimnent Memorial Chapel.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The program will include works by Haydn, Bach,
Stravinsky and Mozart.
To open the program, the Symphonette will perform
Haydn's Symphony No. 60. "This symphony comes from a period
of Haydn's development that is marked by a new richness in
tonal language and a bigger palette of sounds and effects,"
noted Piippo, who is an associate professor of music at
Hope. "Stemming from Haydn's forays into the composition of
dramatic music, this work, with its agitated tremolandi,
syncopations, dynamic extremes and disjunct melodies, is
grouped into the Enlightenment-Classical period."
The second work on the program will feature the
strings of the Symphonette in a performance of the
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major. Bach wrote six of
the concertos, which were dedicated to His Royal Highness
Monseigneur Christian Ludwig Margrave of Brandenburg, who
Bach served as Kapellmeister.
Third on the program will be the Suites No. 1 and
2 by Igor Stravinsky. "All through his life, Stravinsky
wrote for small orchestras, prompted by his liking for wind
instruments, his taste for Baroque-style strings, his
appreciation for jazz, and his endless fascination with
making instruments play together," Piippo noted. According
to Piippo, dances fill the suites, based on easy piano duets
that the composer wrote during 1914-17 partly for his
children and partly to try out the use of musical models.
The second suite includes portraits of Diaghilev,
the Italian composer Alfredo Casella and Satie. "But the
real subjects of both suites are their dance patterns,"
Piippo said.
To conclude the program, the Symphonette will
perform Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor. Mozart wrote
the symphony in Salzburg when he was 17, after he and his
father, Leopold, had come back from a two-and-a-half-month
stay in Vienna.
"This symphony represents great strides forward
for Mozart in technique and expression," Piippo noted.
"There is much imitative writing, and far more writing of
interest in the inner parts than had been his custom. The
symphony is darkly dramatic in nature. The influence of
Haydn, whose part writing had become quite rich, is
evident."