Overture Magazine 2013-2014 January-February 2014

Concerts at Peabody Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2014 January 17 Catherine Cho, Violin, and Robert McDonald, Piano January 28 Faculty Chamber Music Concert February 1 Peabody Symphony Orchestra February 7 Peabody Concert Orchestra February 14 Peabody Wind Ensemble February 22 Peabody Symphony Orchestra Visit www.peabody.jhu.edu or call 410-234-4800 for tickets or more information. COMMUNITY CONCERTS AT SECOND 2013-2014 CONCERT SEASON E FRE TO ALL SUNDAYS AT 7:30PM CHAMBER MUSIC BY CANDLELIGHT Featuring members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra JAN 19 2014 FEB 09 2014 MAR 16 2014 APR 13 2014 JUN 01 2014 Rec A century before Strauss and Lehár, Mozart also tried his hand at the then-infant waltz form. But instead, we will hear three selections from his Viennese operas, the musical genre in which he perhaps excelled above all others. In 1782, soon after he had settled in the Austrian capital, he unveiled his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, which was one of the greatest successes of his career. Abduction follows the contemporary Viennese fashion for stories set in exotic Turkey and especially the titillating possibility that some innocent European lady might end up in an evil pasha’s harem. In this case, the Spanish noblewoman Constanze has been kidnapped by pirates and is languishing in the harem of Pasha Selim. Her fiancé, Belmonte, takes a ship to rescue her and eventually succeeds, but only because of the clemency of the noble Pasha. The Overture is a charmer that exploits the parallel 18thcentury fashion for “Turkish” music — actually a vivacious musical style from Hungary that uses a colorful ensemble of piccolo, triangle, cymbals, and kettle and bass drums. We hear this Turkish music ringing merrily in the Overture’s loud passages. This program’s two Mozart arias come from his great Italian-language comedies with Lorenzo da Ponte: Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro. In Don Giovanni, the peasant girl Zerlina has infuriated her fiancé, Masetto, by flirting with Giovanni. Trying to pacify him, she sings the charming aria, “Batti, batti o bel Masetto.” In the last act of Figaro, the maid Susannah, Figaro’s fiancée, is engaged in a sly plot to stop her employer, the philandering Count Almaviva, from exercising the “droit du seigneur” with her on her wedding night. At night in the palace garden, she sings one of Mozart’s most beautiful arias, “Deh vieni non tardar.” Not privy to the plot, the listening Figaro thinks she is singing this to the Count, but in fact, she is expressing her genuine love to him, as this wonderfully sincere and touching music reveals. eption Free Post-Concert Reception SUNDAYS AT 3:30PM JAN 26 2014 FEB 02 2014 MAR 30 APR 06 MAY 04 Gramercy Trio Emil Israel Chudnovsky, violin Stabat Mater: Peter Lee & Ah Young Hong Wonderlic Piano Competition Final Recital Jasper String Quartet 2014 2014 2014 Rec Mozart and Viennese Opera eption Free Post-Concert Reception For more information call 443.759.3309 • www.CommunityConcertsAtSecond.org All concerts take place at the Second Presbyterian Church, 4200 St. Paul St., Baltimore, MD January– February 2014 | O v ertur e 17

Overture Magazine 2013-2014 January-February 2014 | Page 19