Newport Symphony’s second program this weekend highlights composer Higdon and violinist Gandelsman

By Oregon Coast TODAY

The Newport Symphony Orchestra’s second program of the season Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 8-9 is a concert that will introduce local audiences to renowned contemporary American composer Jennifer Higdon.

Written in 1999, Higdon’s “Blue Cathedral” was commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the Curtis Institute. It is a single short movement of lush, soothing cascades of shimmering orchestral soundscapes resulting from imaginative scoring for strings and delicate percussion instruments such as exotic bells and water glasses.

Next, the symphony celebrates the return of Johnny Gandelsman, Newport’s local celebrity and MacArthur Genius Fellow. He will perform Mendelssohn’s “Concerto for Violin in E Minor,” one of the most beloved concertos of the 19th Century.

Finished in the fall of 1844 after many years of work, the concerto is the product of a man at the height of his artistic powers. At the time, Mendelssohn was the toast of Europe, composing fervidly and constantly appearing as guest conductor and composer and serving as music administrator of a new conservatory in Leipzig. He was working himself to death, and his life only lasted a few more years.

The concerto premièred in 1845 in Leipzig by Mendelssohn’s friend, the great violinist Ferdinand David, himself a noted composer.

The program concludes with Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 6.” Maestro Adam Flatt and the orchestra will take you on a powerful journey into the depths of the composer’s very soul. This symphony is Tchaikovsky’s last work as he died of cholera only nine days after its première and it is universally hailed as one of his finest.

The symphony exhibits all of the characteristic passion and melodic beauty for which the composer is known. The most notable feature of the work is how Tchaikovsky built the music up to a rousing, bombastic, thrilling end to the third movement, followed immediately by dark music that winds down to a dramatically quiet ending.

Tchaikovsky struggled all of his life with his identity, fears of social rejection and frustrated relationships with others.  By the end of his life these issues had surely come to a head, and the composer freely spoke with his brother of the reflection of his suffering in this final, gripping composition. There has been speculation that he poisoned himself deliberately by drinking an un-boiled glass of water during an epidemic and that his state of mind is manifest in this beautiful and moving work.

Tchaikovsky titled the symphony “Tragic,” and the French translation “Pathétique,” has become the evocative descriptor by which it is now known.

Saturday’s program begins at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday’s at 2 p.m. at the Newport Performing Arts Center. Ticket prices begin at $45 for adults and $16 for students. For more information, go to www.coastarts.com or call 541-265-2787.