Orion Weise and friend. Courtesy/LACA
Classical Music WorldWhen you go to a classical concert, you are usually handed a printed program that includes some information about the music that you will hear.
But reading about music never comes close to the pleasure of just listening to it and program notes rarely give you any idea of how the artists up on the stage feel about the music they are playing.
That is why I want to share something really special with you.
The next Los Alamos Concert Association event features a wonderful pianist, Orion Weiss and the world-renowned Salzburg Marionette Theater. Orion sent us program notes about the pieces that he and the Marionettes will perform. The notes are so personal, so lovely, that we thought you (and maybe your children or grandchildren) would enjoy reading them before the concert.
The concert starts at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1 in the Duane Smith Auditorium. Click here for ticket information and other details: www.losalamosconcert.org
Program Notes by Orion Weiss:
In my childhood, bedtime was story time. My father was our imaginative storyteller, and my brother and I his captive, half-dreaming audience. We listened until we fell asleep as he recounted episodes from an ongoing serial featuring a family very similar to ours. They took wild adventures in exotic locales, and their two boys got into all kinds of trouble!
Stories like these awakened my awareness of all the unknown magical choices possible at every moment. I still have never walked in the Everglades at midnight, but I’ve been there half-asleep, shining my dimming flashlight at the moon, stepping on a crocodile’s back, dreaming.
Now I have a little daughter, and though she’s still too young to follow a plot, she’s getting close. Her life is already filled with music and books, and there are so many stories I can’t wait to share with her.
One of my favorite parts of being a pianist is the joy of telling stories through music. As the music describes events and emotions that can’t be expressed in words, it is my chance to be storyteller, actor, and listener all at once. While performing I feel I am not only the narrator, but a character in my own story.
I’ll have some help on this program to tell these stories. The master storytellers from the Salzburg Marionette Theatre will guide us through the pieces that open and close the program, performing on instruments that are, as mine, made of wood, cloth, metal and strings.
The program opens with three works by Schumann, a composer who knows how to tell especially evocative stories. Papillons, Op. 2 is a series of short dances depicting a parade of characters at a masked ball. Each miniature piece represents, in witty and observant detail, the various revelers at the party. In the last movement, the clock strikes six (in the morning!), and the guests depart in their carriages. With the marionettes, it is a rare opportunity to see a ballroom come to life on stage.
The first half closes with two shorter works that I’ll perform on my own. Blumenstück, Op. 19 (“Flower Piece”) was written in the year before Schumann’s marriage to Clara Wieck and is a little vignette of their love. The Novelette No. 8, Op. 21, is an episodic yet interconnected extended work, with a complex narrative flow. I don’t really know what happens in the story, and yet, I know it very well! That’s that wonderful thing about a story without words!
The Marionette Theater joins me on stage again for Debussy’s La Boîte à Joujoux (“The Toy Box”). Discovering this rarely performed masterpiece has been a thrill for me. I was knocked off my feet when I first read through it: the colors, the characterization, the storytelling – everything is so right, so touching! Sometimes the music creates the story, other times the story creates the music, but they are always seamless – and go straight to the heart. The piano writing is clear and uncomplicated, painting large canvasses with an utmost economy of brush strokes. I won’t give away the story, but I will say that it has a marvelously happy ending with a bittersweet twist. I will try to be as wrapped up as possible without shedding a tear! I love this piece very much.
I hope you enjoy this concert of musical stories. Maybe you’ll feel as if you’ve lived a few extra lifetimes, had a few unexpected adventures, and let your imagination run wild.
