Boston Conservatory Orchestra Celebrates Valentine’s Day at Sanders Theatre
Boston Conservatory Orchestra members perform at Sanders Theatre
Dave Green
On February 14, Boston Conservatory Orchestra celebrates Valentine’s Day at the Sanders Theatre with a concert of repertoire drawn from classic love stories, including Richard Wagner’s famously tragic Tristan und Isolde, George Gershwin’s redemptive tale of Porgy and Bess, and Maurice Ravel’s pastoral fantasy Daphnis et Chloé. Professor Bruce Hangen conducts the performance, which also features Fandangos, Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra’s contemporary interpretation of a romantic dance tradition.
Tickets to Romance pour deux are available through the Harvard University Box Office. For a preview of the performance, check out the recordings below:
Richard Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, Prelude and Liebestod
Taken from Richard Wagner’s hugely influential opera, which premiered in 1865, the opening Prelude and climactic Liebestod bookend the tragic love story of Tristan und Isolde. The Prelude’s opening phrase—with its famed Tristan chord—establishes a harmonic tension that remains achingly unresolved until the opera’s final moment, when Isolde collapses beside her dead lover, and the two are united in liebestod (“love death”).
Tristan und Isolde forever changed the art of opera, not only with its innovative composition but also with its philosophical depth. Wagner had been inspired by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s writings on human will and unfulfilled desire; and in this seminal work, the composer gives fiery life to the philosopher’s complex ideology.
Hear the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, perform the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
George Gershwin (arr. Robert Russell Bennett): Porgy and Bess—A Symphonic Picture
Composer George Gershwin worked closely with novelist Dubose Heyward to adapt Heyward’s popular book into the landmark “folk opera” Porgy and Bess, which made its world premiere in Boston, 90 years ago this fall. The love story between its titular characters, as they struggle to save themselves—and each other—from hardship, gave rise to beloved standards of the Great American Songbook, most notably “Summertime,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” and “I Loves You, Porgy.”
The composer and orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett arranged Porgy and Bess into a symphonic medley in 1942, retaining the original opera’s best known melodies and encapsulating its themes of resilience, redemption, and unconditional love.
Listen to the London Symphony Orchestra, directed by Andre Previn, perform Bennett’s symphonic arrangement of Porgy and Bess.
Maurice Ravel: Suite from Daphnis et Chloé
In the early twentieth century, Ballet Russes breathed new life into the dance world with productions that brought together leading choreographers, composers, dancers, and designers. Its founder, Sergei Diaghilev, commissioned Maurice Ravel to compose music for Daphnis et Chloé, retelling the second-century tale of a young goatherd and shepherdess who grow up together—and fall in love—in the idyllic Greek countryside. The work was first staged in Paris in 1912, with the great Vaslav Nijinsky dancing the role of Daphnis and Tamara Karsavina as Chloé.
No less a critic than Igor Stravinsky (who composed The Firebird for Ballet Russes) lavished praise on Daphnis et Chloé, calling it “not only Ravel’s best work, but also one of the most beautiful products of all French music.”
Watch Sir Simon Rattle conduct the London Symphony Orchestra in this performance of the suite from Daphnis et Chloé.
Roberto Sierra: Fandangos
The courtship dance known as fandango originated in eighteenth-century Spain, and over its long history became deeply interwoven with folkloric dance traditions from Latin America. Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra (b. 1953) drew inspiration from the restrained passion of the dance—the way its partners pursue, resist, and ultimately connect—as well as from classical music of the 1700s, when European composers began adapting fandango folk music into formally composed instrumental works. Sierra modeled his Fandangos after compositions for solo harpsichord by Antonio Soler and for guitar quintet by Luigi Boccherini, to compose what he dubbed a “super-fandango.”
Fandangos was commissioned for the National Symphony Orchestra in 2000 and since then has been performed by many prominent orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2012 and 2023, and the BBC Orchestra at The Proms in 2002.
Listen to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Fandangos, released in 2013.