The Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra presents "Little Symphonies" on the afternoon of February 1 at 3:30pm in the Forum in downtown Binghamton. Music Director Daniel Hege joins us to talk about the program and, in particular, about the young composer Quinn Mason, whose music opens the second half. See the transcript below.
Bill Snyder
This is arts in depth on WSKG. I'm Bill Snyder. The Binghamton Philharmonic is presenting a concert called Little Symphonies on Saturday, February 1, at 3:30 in the afternoon in the Forum in Downtown Binghamton. And I'm pleased to welcome the music director, Daniel Hege, Tell us about these "little symphonies".
Daniel Hege
Yeah, Yeah, well, this is Hi Bill. It's great to be here. And I just think we have the most wonderfully balanced program coming up on Saturday, February 1, at 3:30pm at the Forum Theater. These little symphonies, you could say almost, well, three out of the four works are actually like symphonies. We start off with Bartok Romanian Folk Dances, which is a wonderful
curtain raiser. And then we go to Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, which is really kind of a hybrid between a symphony and a concerto, but we have two soloists on that piece. Our concert master at Uli Speth and our principal violist, Victoria Miskolczy. And then on the second half of the program, we have a piece by Quinn Mason, living American composer, African American
composer, and he wrote a piece called Petite Symphonie. It's really like a little Chamber Symphony. It's for just for strings. And then we end with Schubert's Symphony No. 5. So we have symphony in the titles of both of the second works on the second half, and then the Sinfonia Concerte on the first half is really a hybrid between a symphony and a concerto. So you've really got your little symphonies there. And of course, the orchestration and
instrumentation of the orchestras is on the smaller side. It's more like a chamber orchestra for this concert.
Bill Snyder
Let's go back to the beginning. I know people who find some of Bartok's music a little challenging, but this is a great set of dances that well you may have to keep people from dancing in the the aisles. Can you tell us a little bit about the Romanian dances?
Daniel Hege
Sure, yes. First of all, I just want to echo what you just said about Bartok, and that is that a lot of times people, when they hear the name Bartok, they think, uh oh, dissonance. And it's going to be going to make me feel uncomfortable. These Romanian folk dances are actually taken right from the land this. These are folk dances that that Bartok heard in Romania actually part of Transylvania until that became part of Romania. That's when he changed the title to Romanian folk dances. But he literally just listened to what people were playing and singing in the street, and he was able to write that down, so you're not going to hear those kind of
dissonances that you hear in some of his later works and works that are of absolute music. Even though this is six dances, the whole piece is about five or six minutes long. That's it. They're very, very, very short, and they were originally played on violin or shepherd's flute. He wrote them in 1915 for piano, that was it. And then later, just two years later, in 1917 he wrote
them for a very small orchestra. Each of the dances are very different, one from another. Sometimes they're kind of slow and brooding, and then toward the end, especially the very last of the of the six, is very, very fast and very bracing. And like you said, people might be up in the aisles dancing at the end of that, that sixth dance.
Bill Snyder
And tell us about the Mozart piece.
Daniel Hege
The Mozart Sinfonia Concertante is what, from the 19th century on, people would have called a Double Concerto for violin and viola. Violin and viola are really the soloists. It's like a violin concerto and a viola concerto put into one. And the beautiful thing is, I think the dialog between the first violin and the violist, the two soloists, they'll be standing out in front of the
orchestra, and the way they communicate with each other is very human, very much like Mozart's opera writing. And as I had already mentioned, Mozart was experimenting with the form of blending a concerto. A concerto is when one person is playing in front of the orchestra as a soloist. In this case, two people are playing, and he's blending that with the form of the
symphony. It's still just in three movements, fast, so fast, and is just has such a beautiful opening to it. It's Allegro. It's, it's, it's very jaunty in a way. The second movement, though, is the emotional centerpiece of the Sinfonia Concertante. It is plaintive. It is grieving in a way. It's very melancholy, but it will not pull you until the doldrums. It somehow is. So refreshing and it's very profound. And in the cadenza, I don't know if there's music that exists other than this piece, where people are just communicating so deeply through just notes, notes that they're playing on the violin and the viola. It's, it's just, it's just incredible music. And then we go to the third movement, which is just kind of raucously joyful, and goes like that right to the end. So I think it's a masterpiece. It was written when Mozart was 23 years old, and really, we don't find any commission for it. It's it's simply something that he was experimenting with because he saw that form was being used by Haydn and so on. So he wanted to to write one
himself. And then he became, almost, it almost becomes the standard bearer for for great symphony writing.
Bill Snyder
And speaking of young composers, Quinn Mason has sort of come out of nowhere, and suddenly he's everywhere, right?
Daniel Hege
Right. He's had a meteoric rise in his career. This man is only 28 years old, but he started
composing when he was quite young, and he just somehow was able to find his voice so
immediately, and was able to write so quickly and so and with such an individual kind of sound,
he's being commissioned all over the world. And I'm not just saying that, especially in America, by very large orchestras, they're commissioning him to write works for them. And in fact, the piece that we're going to play this petite symphonies just for strings, was actually a commission by the Lowell chamber orchestra, and this was during COVID. So in 2021 is when he wrote this. It's very short. It's it's a little symphony in six minutes, kind of like the Bartok Romanian Folk Dances, in that sense that you've got three movements, but the entire work takes six minutes, so about two minutes per movement, and he just writes in such a way that is relatable, and immediately you're drawn in by his music at the Binghamton Philharmonic, we've been playing some of his works for years, and we are going to play music of his at the end of the month, at the end of February, on an educational program. And he's actually coming out to speak to BU
students, and he's also going to go out into schools, and he's going to be at our concert, where we play his music. He believes very much in education and reaching out to young people, but his music will grab you right from the beginning, and I'm so happy that we have his piece on this program.
Bill Snyder
We go there to Schubert. And the Schubert symphonies are are an odd bunch because he didn't get to hear some of them.
Daniel Hege
That's right. He didn't always get to hear his symphonies, and yet he could write so quickly and with so much quality. You know, the Fifth Symphony is the only symphony that he wrote, really, that doesn't have clarinets and trumpets and timpani in it, and yet it is so filled with joy. It is, is a masterpiece. And the connection to Mozart actually, with Schubert, Schubert came just, you know, slightly after Mozart and but he was so infatuated, impassioned with with Mozart's music, that you can almost hear the modeling of the Schubert Symphony sounding similar, in some ways, to to Mozart's even the instrumentation of it is, is very similar to Mozart's 40th
symphony, the version without clarinets, that is. It's, it's just remarkable music. I mean, it's just poetic from beginning to end. B
Bill Snyder
The Binghamton Philharmonic is really invested in getting young people to the concerts. Would you tell us about that program? ,
Daniel Hege
Sure. Well, we have all kinds of educational programs, if people would visit our website at Binghamton philharmonic.org but one thing we're doing is we are welcoming young people, ages 17 and younger, for free. We've been doing this for a while, but it's worth repeating that young people should be coming in to hear these concerts, and I think they would really, really
enjoy what this orchestra has to offer, because we're pop notch group playing wonderful music, very diverse programming from underrepresented composers, but also the backbone of the orchestral canon. And young people take advantage of this opportunity. 17 and younger come in for free.
Bill Snyder
Oh, and I just remembered, I can't let you get away without ... the Philharmonic has gotten national recognition recently,
Daniel Hege
Yes, in our category, we were named orchestra of the year. So we're we're very happy. We're very happy for that recognition.
Bill Snyder
Once again, the Binghamton Philharmonic is presenting "Little Symphonies" on Saturday, February 1. And this is a change. It will be at 3:30 in the afternoon on February 1. There's also a pre concert chat at 2:30 all this takes place in the Forum on Washington Street in Downtown Binghamton, on the program music of Bela Bartok, Wolfgang Mozart, Franz Schubert and Quinn Mason. If you'd like more information, you can simply go online to Binghamtonphilharmonic.org and my guest has been music director Daniel Hege. Thanks for joining us.
Daniel Hege
Thank you, Bill. See you all at the concert.