Anchorage Symphony Presents HIDDEN TREASURES

A favorite piece of music is like an old friend. Always there for you, brings you comfort, and lifts your spirits. On Saturday, February 25th, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra is rediscovering some old friends and making new ones at their classic concert, Hidden Treasures. Audiences will get reacquainted with old favorites, including Mendelssohn's magical overture to The Fair Melusina and Beethoven's iconic Symphony No. 7, and may discover a new favorite in Louise Farrenc's bold and energetic Symphony No. 3.

Opening this special evening is an old friend, Felix Mendelssohn, yet a piece audiences might not be as familiar with, his Overture to The Fair Melusina. Mendelssohn was a composer, pianist, and organist in the early Romantic period who wrote several symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and pieces for piano and organ. He may be best known for his incidental music for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, including his famous Wedding March.

Composed in 1834, Mendelssohn wrote this concerto based on a legend of medieval folklore called The Fair Melusina as a birthday gift for his sister Fanny and a commission for the London Philharmonic. In this folktale, the beautiful half-water sprite, half-human, Melusina, is cursed to turn into a mermaid one day each week. She falls in love and marries a knight, but he must first agree not to see her on her "serpent day." He breaks that promise, and Melusina returns to the sea, a mermaid for all eternity.

While this isn't one of Mendelssohn's better-known works, it was one of his favorites. He didn't so much "tell" the story but rather reflected the story's themes, from the gentle opening with rippling notes suggesting a blissful serenity to the stormy passion giving a sense of the two worlds colliding. Finally, the nostalgic lament as it fades into the watery depths.

The premiere received a lukewarm reception, leaving Mendelssohn's sister Fanny (an accomplished musician and composer in her own right), to offer some suggestions. Mendelssohn made revisions, premiering the new version in 1835 to better reviews. This is the version widely performed today.

In November, the ASO introduced Anchorage audiences to a new friend, Louise Farrenc, at its chamber series, Kaleidoscope. A respected teacher, composer, and scholar, Farrenc was at the center of musical activity in 1800s Paris. She became the only female professor at the renowned Paris Conservatory until the 20th century. An early feminist, Farrenc was paid less than her male counterparts for the first seven years of her 30-year tenure until she stood up to the dean, demanding equality (and receiving it). Farrenc's music was well-received and often performed during her lifetime. After her death, there wasn't anyone to promote her works, and they disappeared from concert halls and academia. With the recent trend of focusing on forgotten and underrepresented voices, Louise Farrenc's work is being introduced to new audiences around the world.

On February 25th, the ASO brings to life Farrenc's third symphony. Composed in 1847, this bold and energetic symphony is thought of as a departure from her piano-centered compositions. Musical annotator William E. Runyan wrote, "It's an intense, darkly dancing affair that is redolent of Mozart's serioso G minor works." He also wrote, "The Scherzo out Mendelssohn's Mendelssohn himself with its flighty, haunted gossamer of trills and pianissimo figuration." While referencing the works of other great composers, the result is uniquely expressive and distinctively all her own. British newspaper The Guardian lists Farrenc's Symphony No. 3 as one of the 50 Greatest Symphonies of all time.

Closing this concert of treasured friends is Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. There are few composers as well-known and beloved as Ludwig van Beethoven, whose symphonies are renowned for lifting one's spirit. Capping off the classical period and beginning the Romantic musical era, his work can be heard in any number of films, on TV, and in concert halls around the world.

Ever the workaholic, Beethoven began sketching his ideas for a new symphony right after completing his 6th. Among the most high-spirited works of Beethoven, it was immediately a hit and has been popular ever since. Beethoven called it his "most excellent symphony," and one music critic wrote, "this symphony is the richest melodically and most pleasing and comprehensible of all Beethoven symphonies."

Written during a time of great personal challenges, including losing his hearing, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 is one of his most optimistic pieces, showing the ebullient side of his personality. Upon hearing it, Richard Wagner wrote, "if anyone plays the Seventh, tables and benches, cans and cups, the grandmother, the blind and the lame, aye, the children of the cradle - fall to dancing." To prove his point, Wagner danced to it with his colleague and father-in-law Franz Liszt (that must have been quite the site!)

Click Here to Buy Tickets