I attended the UBC Symphony Orchestra performance on April 6, 2019. The whole performance consisted of three musical pieces:
1) Igor Stravinsky – “Funeral Song”, Op. 5
2) Benjamin Britten – “Les Illuminations” featuring a member of the UBC Opera Ensemble, D’Arcy Blunston
3) Hector Berlioz – “Symphonie Fantastique” (until Songe d’une nuit du sabbat)
Igor Stravinsky wrote “Funeral Song” in 1908 before his famous “The Rite of Spring” piece. Johnathan Girard (conductor) provided a quick introduction to the concert and explained some interesting details about this piece. Stravinsky wrote this piece before his other famous compositions and himself considered “Funeral Song” as the best of his works before “The Firebird”. The piece was lost during the Russian Revolution and was found in 2015. I can understand why Stravinsky considered this piece as one of his best works. It kept me focused throughout the performance with its interesting transitions and enjoyable sound. The composition starts off with upbeat string accompaniment, where the performers quickly moved their bows in a special manner to sound more distant than the other instruments. The sound of the strings is similar to the one in Harry Potter’s theme soundtrack. After a few seconds, the wind instruments entered and played the chords in a descending order to suit the line of the string instruments. Later on, the instruments changed the way they played and moved to ascending chord progression, where the sound increased in its intensity and the pitch. As the title suggests, this piece was written to represent the funeral procession, where the performers on the stage paid tribute to the composer. The tempo of the piece and its intensity varied throughout the performance to imitate the agony and pain of the people mourning the death of the composer. The ending of this piece was quite similar to its introduction, but in this case, the string and wind instruments changed their order and the wind instruments ended the performance with one chord played five times.
“Les Illuminations” by Benjamin Britten is an exciting piece describing the artist’s observation about human life. It is structured as a song cycle and has 9 separate pieces following one after the other. The performance started with a single sentence “I alone have the key to this save parade”. According to the author’s idea, the “savage parade” describes human life. The performance was accompanied by a string quartet. The position of the instruments was reallocated specifically for this performance. D’Arcy Blunston performed this piece very well and showed a wide range of her voice and emotions throughout the performance. This piece is quite emotional and depicts the best and worst features of humanity.
“Symphonie Fantastique” by Hector Berlioz concluded the concert. It is widely thought that Berlioz wrote this piece under the influence of opium. The fifth movement describes his nightmare about the witches’ sabbath, where the main character is in the middle of this chaotic and vulgar event. The beginning is similar to the one in Stravinsky’s “Funeral Song” with quick string bow movements. You can even imagine the witches flying around during this introduction.
Overall, the concert was very well performed, and the audience was very pleased with it, shouting “Bravo” at the end of the performance.