More room for more fun! Join the Richmond Symphony for an exciting concert at Hardywood West Creek. The Richmond Symphony will be collecting donations in support of our music education programs in Goochland County Public Schools.This concert features works by Copland, Schubert, and Spohr, with soloist David Lemelin, Clarinet.

Copland paved the way for a truly American “classical” music, beginning with his work Music for the Theatre. Despite its title the composer admitted he “had no play or literary idea in mind. The title simply implies that at times this music has a quality which is suggestive of the theatre.” The budding nationalism that comes to fruition in Copland’s later works is evident in this piece. Copland turned to jazz to represent the American identity: “I was preoccupied with the idea of adding to the great history of serious music something with an American accent… [Jazz] was an easy way to be American.”

“Party Animal” isn’t quite the term that should be used to characterize Franz Schubert, but it is close. In his twenties, producing prodigious amounts of music, he lived the life of a “bohemian,” couch-hopping from friend’s houses and throwing the nineteenth century version of a jam session, called “Schubertiades.” The music of Gioacchino Rossini was currently the rage in Vienna and it seems that Schubert modeled much of this Symphony in C major on the light-hearted style of that Italian composer. The only performance this symphony received during Schubert’s lifetime was during one of those private house parties.

When Louis Spohr wrote his first concerto for clarinet, the instrument had only five keys, compared to the seventeen of a modern clarinet. He confessed that he really didn’t know what he was doing. Aside from the obvious virtuosic aspects of Spohr’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1, the piece contains some unusual elements. It is in a minor key, and the orchestra plays a slow introduction before fingerwork begins. The slow movement confines the accompaniment to just violins and cellos. In spite of the minor key, the third movement has a jaunty quality to it. Instead of ending with a technical flourish, there is a surprising and sudden fade to nothing.

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