Symphony Premiers Contemporary Works
The Peninsula Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Aaron Sten performed the
fourth and final concert of the 19th season on Friday, May 10, at San Mateo High
school Auditorium. The program featured three contemporary works, all of which
received their premiere on the West Coast.
The mournful strains of the "Passacaglia on a Bach Chorale" by the Canadian
composer Oskar Morawetz opened the concert. This work was dedicated to the
memory of the late President Kennedy and was first performed by the Toronto
Symphony in 1964. It is an unpretentious piece of music based on a chorale from
Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" and showed well-balanced orchestration throughout.
Although the composer abandoned his 20th Century idiom in order to maintain the
Baroque style of the original work, the rich brass chords often sounded as if
they had come from the pen of Giovanni Gabrieli who preceded Bach by a hundred
years. Since it is quite common to hear the development of Baroque music in the
manner of the classical composers who followed this period, it was fascinating
to hear Baroque music played in the style of the Renaissance which preceded it.
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