OLD DEAD WHITE GUYS
Sunday, September 22, 2024
5:00pm, St. Luke's Chapel
Rebecca Van de Ven and Bernadette Lo will return to the stage of St. Luke’s chapel on September 22, 2024 at 5 pm. Joined by fellow University of the South faculty member Greg Danner, they will perform selections composed by two, dead white guys. While our musical world has expanded to include and now promote female and minority composers, this concert will pay homage to two lesser known white male composers from the past. An organist and composer from England, Herbert Howells was born in 1892. He is most famous for his contributions to Anglican church music. In his music, you can hear the influence of both Thomas Tallis, and Ralph Vaughn Williams. Van de Ven and Lo will perform the Sonata for Oboe and Piano in A minor in which Howell utilizes dissonance, complicated rhythms, changing meter, and contrapuntal texture to express the grief he experienced during much of his life. Given the intricacies of the music, the rich harmonic language and the stream of melodic figures, the listener is transported to a world in which one feels part of the composer’s journey through illness, death, and multiple world wars. The final movement allows for some resolution with glimmers of hope for a peaceful future.
The second piece featured on the program is Carl Reinecke’s Trio for Oboe, Horn, and Piano. It is of similar length and harmony to the Howells and yet the setting is completely different, leaving the listener in an entirely different place emotionally following the performance. Carl Reinecke was a German composer and pianist who lived in the mid to late 1800’s. He lived at the same time as Brahms and Schumann and just past his 200th birthday this June. In 1871 a concert of his music was reviewed and the critic pronounced it above that of Brahms. Reinecke was deeply drawn to the music of Schumann and you can hear the melodic influence throughout much of his music and in this piece. Schumann has been quoted saying “Reinecke understands me, like few others.” In 1860 he became director of the Leipzig Conservatory and instructed students such as Grieg, and Bruch. His works continue to be celebrated for their melodic beauty and depth. This particular piece is full of rich melody that is woven between the instruments. After an intensely romantic first movement, a bouncy scherzo takes the listener into an altogether different mood. The horn warms the listener with a lovely melody in the third movement that returns to interrupt the more playful sounds of the fourth movement. Reinecke intertwines the material leaving the listener feeling settled and relaxed.
Please come out to enjoy this concert of music for about 45 min. We have enjoyed preparing the program for the community. Come be healed through music on September 22, 2024 at St. Luke’s Chapel on the campus of the University of the South, beginning at 5 pm.
