The Lubbock Symphony Orchestra is performing concerts this weekend. Joining the Front Row to talk about the show, “The Impressionists,” are Galen Wixson and David Cho.
The Title is “The Impressionists.” For people who might now know, Galen, what does that mean and who are they?
There was an art movement in the 1870s, where artists in the Paris area started rejecting the notion that all art should be recognizable, in your face. So they started this movement that gave the impression of a scene. If you get up really close to that, you might see odd brush strokes, dots, but you can’t really make out anything unless you step away. Even then, it’s still sort of fuzzy and hazy, the atmosphere is very important.
Another important thing about the impressionists is that they love water. They loved the way that light danced off water, so that was a huge theme. And so, appropriately, in this concert, we will hear work title “The Sea.” The person who wrote that song does an amazing job of giving us the impression of the sea and how it swells and churns and all the different sounds that we recognize immediately as water.
David Cho, walk us through the program.
The first piece we will play, premiered with the musicians knowing that the composer used very different instruments, it’s not typical in a way that he uses the four horns and two harps and various percussion instruments, one of them being the antique symbol. The piece starts off very atmospherically and takes us through the impression, or the story inspired by a poem…the piece takes us a different world of ecstasy and eroticism.
Listen to the whole interview at the top of the article.
