Overture to “La Forza del Destino”
Giuseppe Verdi (1770-1827)

Upon being offered an attractively lucrative contract with the Russian Imperial Opera in St. Petersburg to provide them with a new work, Verdi suggested Victor Hugo’s "Ruy Blas".    Since it depicted a royal house in a negative light that idea was, not surprisingly, rejected.   So Verdi turned to Don Alvaro, a Spanish play of 1835, a tale of lovers, Alvaro and Leonora, ending in vengeance and murder.   When the opera opened in 1962, the libretto with its violent deaths got mixed reviews, though the music was acclaimed.   Verdi then made extensive revisions in which a short Prelude was expanded to become the Overture that we hear today, one of Verdi’s best-known instrumental works.   Utilizing several themes from the opera, the overture reflects the strong emotions of the work, though it does not follow the progress of the story.    It opens with a stern summons of six unison notes, after which appears the agitated theme representing Fate.    The brief introduction is followed by an expressive, lyrical melody for woodwinds over pizzicato strings, under which is heard the Fate theme.   The violins then give an impassioned phrase from Leonora’s Act II prayer.   Another of Leonora’s themes, given by clarinet over a rustling harp background, is interrupted by a brass chorale then continues in the full orchestra.   The Overture closes with an energetic coda.

Concerto for Tuba
Clarence Barber (1951 -)

“The tuba concerto is absolute music, with no programmatic content or inspiration.    (Ron Bishop’s playing is all the inspiration a composer needs!)   Writing the first movement proved problematic, so I put the troublesome (and really bad) first movement aside, to write the third movement.    I had to rewrite the opening movement and get it right. I wanted the slow second movement to be something pretty for the tuba, and found a secondary theme becoming more important than the principal material.   This led to another rewrite. Obviously the composition process isn’t all esoteric.   It’s a lot of hard work that has to be done again and again." Clarence Barber

Clarence Barber is a composer and active performer whose music has been widely performed in the U.S. and abroad. His compositions include "A Lincolnshire Whimsy" for saxophone ensemble, "Kiribilli" for solo alto saxophone, “Vestiges of Sorrow” for alto saxophone, tuba and percussion, and "New York Concerto" for alto saxophone and band. He is a composer-friend to the International Tuba Euphonium Associations and has received eight consecutive ASCAP Performance Plus Awards.

Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

When Dvorák heard the Third Symphony of his friend and benefactor Johannes Brahms he considered it, quite simply, the greatest symphony of his time.   It served as one of the two emotional seeds from which his D minor symphony grew.   The other, which followed less than two weeks after the first presentation of the 3rd symphony, was the death of his mother.   With Brahms' Symphony as the inspiration, and his grief at his mother's passing as the soul, the idea of a new symphony grew within him.   The spark which ignited the actual composition of the 7th Symphony was struck the following summer.   As one of the stops on his busy conducting tours through northern Europe, he visited Britain for the first time in the spring of 1884, and on June 13th was elected an honorary member of the Philharmonic Society and requested to provide a new symphony for that organization.   It gave him the reason to put the gestating Symphony to paper.   Dvorák determined to compose a work that would be worthy of those who inspired it.  

The Symphony begins with an ominous rumble deep in the basses.   The haunting main theme is introduced by the violas and cellos, then echoed by the clarinets.   The music rapidly grows in intensity until the main theme bursts forth from the full orchestra.   The flute and clarinet present the lyrical second theme.   The development is woven from the thematic components of the exposition.   The recapitulation sweeps in on an enormous wave of sound that is capped by the reentry of the timpani. The main theme is quickly abandoned and the repeat of the flowing second theme is entrusted to two clarinets.  The main theme returns to form the coda to this magnificent movement.  

The second movement opens with a chorale of an almost otherworldly serenity.   A complementary thematic idea is heard from the strings.   The unusual form of the movement, part variations, part sonata, is perhaps best heard as the struggle between the beatific grace of the opening and the various states of musical and emotional tension that militate against it.  

The scherzo is the greatest dance movement among Dvorák's symphonies.   It is at once graceful and compelling, airy and forceful.   Its bounding syncopation give it an irresistible vivacity set in a glowing, burnished orchestral sonority.     Though the central Trio is more lyrical, a rhythmic background in the strings lends it an unsettled quality.  

The finale continues the brooding mood of the preceding movements.   It is large in scale and assured in expression, a moving climax to one of Dvorák's greatest creations.

Tonight’s Conductor

John Ferritto graduated with honors from The Cleveland Institute of Music in piano and violin and received his master’s degree in composition from the Yale School of Music.   He continued his studies at the American Academy in Rome and at Tanglewood with Gunther Schuller and Erich Leinsdorf, and has received numerous fellowships and awards as both composer and conductor.   Mr. Ferritto has served as Associate Conductor of the New Haven Symphony, Conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of the North Shore (Chicago), and Director of the Kent/Blossom Summer Music Program, and frequently appeared as guest conductor in the U.S. and abroad.   He is Conductor Laureate of the Springfield (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra where he served as Music Director since 1971. As an academic, he has served on composition faculties at the University of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin, and is Professor Emeritus of Composition at Kent State University.

Tonight’s Soloist

Ronald Bishop was Principal Tuba in The Cleveland Orchestra from 1967 until his retirement at the end of last season.   He teaches at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and is a member of the Severance Brass Quintet, Cleveland Low Brass Ensemble, and the Cleveland Symphonic Winds. He has been a soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra on numerous occasions, and has made many other appearances as clinician, soloist and recitalist. He is a former member of the American Wind Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera Orchestra. His recording “PDQ Bach: An Awful Lot of Wind and Percussion Instruments” won an Emmy Award

Notes by Ginger Kuper, adapted from notes of Richard Rodda