DuPage Symphony Orchestra starts its new concert season with Musical Milestones
“Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead,” said Nelson Mandela. The DuPage Symphony Orchestra, one of the most notable community orchestras in the Chicago area, is always headed forward preparing unforgettable concert programs and events. It goes from one milestone to another by choosing a great repertoire for its concert seasons, and the orchestra’s 65th season called “For the Love of Music” will be another impressive celebration of classical music with the orchestra presenting a great number of timeless masterpieces. Two of them, Beethoven’s exquisite Symphony No. 6 in F Major, the Pastoral, and Tchaikovsky’s exhilarating Symphony No. 5 in E minor, will be performed at the orchestra’s first concert of the season called “Musical Milestones.” It will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 13 at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville.
The DuPage Symphony Orchestra consists of musicians who spend all their free time volunteering at this great organization. The orchestra has been surrounding our community with beautiful classical music and has been creating touching memories since 1954, when it consisted of only forty five volunteer musicians. Under the dynamic leadership of Maestra Barbara Schubert, the orchestra has grown to more than one hundred volunteer musicians whose hard work and devotion to profession keep bringing happiness and joy to people. In 2013, the DuPage Symphony Orchestra was named Community Orchestra of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras.
“Musical Milestones” will present two giants of the world’s classical music repertoire that are frequently included in concert programs of leading orchestras around the world. This concert will start with Symphony No. 6 in F Major, the Pastoral, written by one of the most recognized and influential composers of all times, Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven loved nature and spent a lot of time taking walks in the countryside, inhaling fresh air and admiring beautiful views. He felt rested and inspired after these walks and included the sounds, moods, and feelings evoked by nature into his works. One of Beethoven’s unforgettable compositions inspired by nature is Symphony No. 6. It is said that in the program for its premiere in 1808 Beethoven noted that the Pastoral contained “more an expression of feeling than painting.”
Interestingly, Symphony No. 6 has five movements instead of four movements, which was typical for symphonies of the Classical era. Each movement has its own nature, tonality, mood and tempo. The programmatic titles that Beethoven wrote at the beginning of each movement demonstrate the nature of each of them. The first movement is called “Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside” in Allegro ma non troppo tempo, the second – “Scene by the brook” in Andante molto mosso tempo, the third – “Merry gathering of country folk” in Allegro tempo, the fourth – “Thunder. Storm” in Allegro tempo, and the fifth – “Shepherd’s song. Cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm” in Allegretto tempo.
After admiring the whole spectrum of emotions presented by Beethoven, the audience will have a chance to dissolve in Tchaikovsky’s exhilarating Symphony No. 5 in E minor that was written and first performed in 1888. Being a typical Russian person, Tchaikovsky didn’t show any half-hearted sentimentality in this piece. With all his expressionism, passion and deep inner thought combined with high professionalism and ability to use the orchestra in a delicate and sensitive manner, in his Fifth Symphony Tchaikovsky keeps musically deliberating about human fate and demonstrates all the colors of a hidden pain that lives in every human soul.
Tchaikovsky’s mastership in showing human nature through the means of music is reflected in four movements of the symphony. This powerful and well-known composition has a recurring main theme which makes it a cyclical symphony. The main theme is present in all four movements and declares “a complete resignation before fate, which is the same as the inscrutable predestination of fate.” However, its character keeps changing through the symphony and from sad and absolutely mournful it gradually transforms into triumphant and victorious. From darkness to light, from despair to hope and love –Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony demonstrates all the shades of the Russian soul.
If you want to experience the whole spectrum of human emotions in one night and to enjoy the sounds of immortal classical masterpieces, join the DuPage Symphony Orchestra at its “Musical Milestones” concert at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 13 at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville. Under the baton of acclaimed Maestra Barbara Schubert, the DuPage Symphony Orchestra will make your night unforgettable.
Purchase tickets online with the North Central College Box Office at https://northcentral.vbotickets.com/event/DuPage_Symphony_Orchestra_Musical_Milestones/27616 or call 630-637-SHOW. Pre-Concert Lecture will take place at 6:30 pm in room 138 at Wentz Concert Hall.
Natalia Dagenhart
Photo: Courtesy of Natalia Dagenhart