Program Notes: Jackson Symphony Orchestra Concert #4

March 17, 2007 "Maize and Blue"

By Composer in Residence Bruce Brown

Tonight, the JSO completes its celebration of area colleges and universities with “Maize and Blue,” a tribute to the University of Michigan. U of M opened in 1817, twenty years before Michigan achieved statehood. Today, it is unquestionably one of the finest and most prestigious universities in the world, with an endowment of over 5.5 billion dollars, and a student body of more than 40,000. Its distinguished list of alumnae includes President Gerald R. Ford, 25 Rhodes Scholars, 116 Olympic Medalists and 7 Nobel Prize winners.

For over forty years, the conductors of the JSO have had a U of M connection. Maestro Osmond came to Jackson after teaching at U of M, and previous conductors Jerry Bilik and Theo Alcantara were U of M musicians. Many guest artists from U of M, including pianists Arthur Green, Gyorgy Sandor and Anton Nel, have provided memorable solo performances with the orchestra.

Our guest conductor, Leo Najar, is well known to Jackson audiences through his guest appearances with the JSO and the highly enjoyable concerts of his Bijou Orchestra. Najar and the Saginaw symphony had a significant role in the commissioning of the saxophone concerto we will hear tonight.

El Grande Michigan Symphonic Overture Rhapsody Thingie

This tongue-in-cheek title lets us know we are in for a rollicking treat. Albert Ahronheim was born in Jackson in 1953. He attended Parkside High School, where he was the drum major of the marching band. He went to U of M in 1971, graduated with his master’s degree in 1977, and was the drum major of Michigan’s marching band from 1972 through 1977. Among his many claims to fame, he co-wrote (with tuba player Joe Carl) the famous “Let’s Go Blue!” cheer heard in countless stadiums on any football Saturday. Since his Michigan days, Ahronheim has worked in New York and across the country as a theater composer, arranger, conductor and performing musician. His credits include several off Broadway hits including The Big Bang, Eating Raoul, Pets!, and Kiss Me Quick Before the Lava Reaches the Village.

The music we will hear tonight is a special arrangement of pieces that have echoed through Michigan Stadium and across the campus, and Ahronheim had a hand in the origin of several of them. If you listen closely, you will recognize Rocky and His Friends, Temptation, a jazzy version of The Victors called That Hoover Street Rag, The Yellow and Blue ( Michigan’s Alma Mater), Let’s Go Blue and The Victors, which John Philip Sousa considered the greatest college fight song ever written.

Symphonic Rhapsodyfor Alto Saxophone and Orchestra
John Anthony Lennon is a professor of composition and the director of graduate studies at Emory University in Atlanta. He received his master’s degree and doctorate at the University of Michigan after growing up in Mill Valley, California and earning a liberal arts degree at the University of San Francisco. He has received commissions from the John F. Kennedy Theatre Chamber Players, the Library of Congress, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, The National Endowment for the Arts Orchestral Consortium, The Fromm Foundation and many others. His distinguished career includes the Prix de Rome, Guggenheim and Friedheim fellowships and The Charles Ives Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He has also been a fellow at Tanglewood, the Rockefeller Center at Bellagio, the Camargo Foundation, Villa Montalvo, Yaddo, the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the MacDowell Colony.

Lennon’s Symphonic Rhapsody was commissioned by the distinguished U of M saxophonist Donald Sinta, and was premiered by the Saginaw Symphony in 1985.

Dr. Lennon describes the music this way in his own program notes: “The integration of the form is reflected in the aesthetic of integrating the often virtuosic saxophone line into the orchestral textures – rather than in contrast – where its unique color allows it to be followed by the ear as it weaves through the sound.”

Symphony #3 in A Minor, Opus 56, The “Scottish”

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) took many trips during his lifetime, but when he was twenty years old, he took one of the most memorable. The destination was Scotland. The rugged landscape and colorful history of Scotland inspired countless works of art and literature during the Romantic era, and Mendelssohn’s tour of Bonny Scotland led to the creation of two great works, his Hebrides (or Fingal’s Cave) Overture and this masterpiece of a symphony, one of his crowning achievements.

The moment of the symphony’s conception is well documented. On July 30, 1829, Mendelssohn wrote a letter to his family about his visit to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. “In the evening twilight” he wrote, “we went today to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved … The chapel … is now roofless, grass and ivy grow there, and at that broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything ‘round is broken and moldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I have found today in that old chapel the beginning of my Scottish Symphony.”

Mendelssohn quickly wrote sixteen measures of music that he eventually refined into the opening Andante of the symphony. He dabbled with the composition over the years, but in late 1840 he started working on it in earnest while he was conductor in Berlin. He finished the work on January 20, 1842, and the premiere performance took place on March 3, 1842, with Mendelssohn conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Three months later, on another visit to London, Mendelssohn met Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. He dedicated the symphony to her.

Mendelssohn himself did not refer to the piece as the “Scottish Symphony.” He preferred to present it as absolute music, but over the years, the name stuck. There are clearly Scottish elements in the piece, including the “Scotch snap” (a short-long, short-long rhythmic pattern), melodies that sound like Scottish folk tunes, and occasional drones reminiscent of bagpipes.