The South Carolina Philharmonic presents Beethoven & Blue Jeans January 15, 2022 at 7:30 PM at the Koger Center for the Arts. This annual event is often the highest-attended concert for the orchestra each season, and this year’s installment features a blockbuster lineup of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Barber’s Violin Concerto, op. 14 and Carlos Simon’s contemporary composition Fate Now Conquers. The Barber will feature critically-acclaimed and internationally-known guest soloist Rachel Lee Priday on violin. All concerts this season are presented in person and livestreamed.
Barber’s Violin Concerto and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 were originally slated to be performed in January of 2021, but due to the orchestra’s need to pivot programming due to the pandemic, these pieces were postponed and programmed for this season’s Beethoven & Blue Jeans. Music Director Morihiko Nakahara was drawn to the exuberance and excitement of the Beethoven symphony paired with the lyricism and melancholy of the first two movements of the Barber concerto.
Guest violinist Rachel Lee Priday will be performing the Barber concerto with the SC Phil. As an artist who has toured internationally, she has been profiled in The New Yorker, The Strad, Los Angeles Times and Family Circle. Priday previously performed the Barber concerto with the SC Phil during the organization’s music director search which began in 2007. When Nakahara met Priday in Maine last season, he was enthusiastic to bring her back to Columbia for this season’s Beethoven & Blue Jeans.
The concert will open with Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers. Commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2020, Simon composed this piece as a direct response to Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, utilizing Beethoven's harmonic gestures in the 2nd movement of the symphony. The title, a quotation from Iliad, was found in one of Beethoven's journal entries. “Simon's piece is brief - around 5 minutes,” said Nakahara, “yet it packs so much power and drama. It is going to provide a perfect opener for this program.”
Jasper had the opportunity to chat with Priday about her upcoming show, which will be the third time the musician has performed with the SC Philharmonic. The first time was in 2005 when she performed the Bach Concerto with Nicholas Smith. In 2008 Priday performed the same piece she will be bringing back to SC for Beethoven and Blue Jeans on the 15th: the Barber violin concerto. Priday says that she is excited to be working with SC Philharmonic music director, Morihiko Nakahara, for the first time.
Priday studied with world famous violinist Itzhtak Perlman as a child and young adult, and continues a relationship with the conductor today. “He is an amazing human being,” she says of Perlman. “He is my favorite violinist, a huge mentor to me, and part of my life.”
Priday attended Perlman’s summer camp at Shelter Island on Long Island from age 13 to 18, and has continued to work and meet with artist as often as possible since her youth. “He has had a huge impact on my life,” she says.
Now the mother of a 4-year-old and a 10-month-old, Priday moved to Seattle in 2019 where she frequently performs locally , as well as traveling to perform in non-pandemic times.
She is looking forward to performing Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in C minor, op. 35 because it is “such a poetic work – the 3rd movement is a bit crazy – the orchestral part is quite challenging as well, both musically and artistically. The challenge is in capturing the beauty and color of this work. Every phrase is shaped in a really subtle nuanced fashion.”
“When I’m playing my mind and heart are all about showcasing the musical quality of this piece.”
The concert is Saturday, January 15th at 7:30 pm at the Koger Center for the Arts
Tickets are available from the SC Philharmonic.
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More About Samuel Barber
from the SC Phil
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14 Samuel Barber 1910-1981
In early 1939, Samuel Fels, a wealthy Philadelphia soap manufacturer, commissioned Samuel Barber to write a violin concerto for his protégé, the young violinist Isaak (changed to Iso) Briselli. Barber’s commission was a hefty $1000 and he received half of it in advance.
This was Barber’s first major commission, and he immediately set out to fulfill it. But commissions, while usually sought after by composers, clearly carry their own conditions and risks. Things did not go according to plan, and what actually happened became a Cause célèbre. Since all the protagonists have died, it remained for a paper trail to ascertain whose version was the true one. In the process, a lot of egos got nicked.
According to Barber’s biographer Nathan Broder, by the end of the summer of 1939 the composer sent Briselli the first two movements, written in a conservative lyrical and romantic style. Briselli, however, considered them “too simple and not brilliant enough” and refused to accept them. Barber supposedly took his revenge by making the third movement fiendishly difficult. When he resubmitted it, Briselli declared it unplayable, and Fels wanted his advance commission back. At that point in the story, Barber summoned Herbert Baumel, a young violin student from the Curtis Institute of Music and an excellent sight-reader, and gave him the manuscript and two hours to prepare. Accompanied by a piano, the student supposedly demonstrated that the movement was indeed playable. The unanimous verdict was that Fels had to pay the rest of the commission. Barber, however, forfeited the second half and, in exchange, Briselli relinquished his right to the first public performance and never performed the concert in public.
Briselli, some 40 years later, told a different story, and a paper trail collected by his friends and supporters has essentially corroborated his account. According to Briselli, he was enthusiastic about the first two movements but his violin coach, Albert Mieff, was not and even wanted to rewrite the violin part so that it would be more in keeping with the technical expectations for a concerto, citing Brahms collaboration with Joachim as a precedent. Moreover, Briselli found the third movement too lightweight – rather than too difficult – and suggested that Barber expand it. The composer refused and he and Briselli mutually decided to abandon the project with no hard feelings on either side. For a while there was even talk of Briselli suing Barber for defamation of character over the composer's version of the controversy. (A full account of Briselli's side can be found on his website www.Iso Briselli.com.)
The Concerto was finally premiered by Albert Spaulding with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1941 and was a popular success from the start. The first movement, Allegro, opens with an expansive, lyrical theme on the violin alone. The second theme, introduced by the woodwinds, continues the romantic mood although it is syncopated and more rhythmic. The whole tone of the movement is that of a quiet discussion, with only occasionally raised voices in the middle, and ending in a tranquil whisper.
An extended cantabile oboe solo over muted strings opens the aria-like second movement. The violin eventually enters with a second theme that develops the mood introduced by the oboe. The violin then returns to the opening melody, rising to a climax, after which the quiet mood of the beginning returns.
The terse and fiery rondo Finale, Presto in moto perpetuo, creates a stunning contrast, placing tremendous demands on the soloist, who has to play at a breathless tempo for 110 measures without interruption. Throughout the perpetual motion, Barber subtly changes the meter and every so often inserts a jazzy syncopated refrain.
