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The Kansas City Symphony's March 4–6 concerts feature two monumental works, Piano Concerto No. 1 by Johannes Brahms and the American Symphony by Adam Schoenberg, not to be confused with the late Arnold Schoenberg. Also on the schedule is the impressive Rienzi overture, an early masterpiece by Richard Wagner.

Schoenberg's American Symphony is a world premiere, the result of a special commission by the Kansas City Symphony. The 30-year-old Schoenberg was awarded first prize at the 2008 International Brass Chamber Music Festival and an ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Award. He won a Juilliard Prize for the most outstanding new composition, and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Schoenberg’s works have been presented by the Atlanta and New World Symphony orchestras, along with the Charleston Symphony and the Aspen Music Festival, among many others. The American Brass Quintet has released a recording of his music for brass ensemble. He is a graduate of Oberlin and Juilliard.

Schoenberg’s music is not unfamiliar to vocal audiences, because last October, Symphony associate conductor Steven Jarvi conducted Schoenberg’s Finding Rothko with the UMKC Conservatory Orchestra. In 2007 Michael Stern conducted the Kansas City Symphony in Schoenberg’s Transluscent Thoughts.

About his American Symphony, Schoenberg has written, “American Symphony was inspired by the 2008 presidential election, where both parties asked the people to embrace change and make a difference.  I was both excited and honored about ushering in this new era in our nation’s history, and for the first time, I truly understood what it meant to be American…

“While not a patriotic work, the symphony reflects a respect and responsibility for the great potential of our nation and a hunger to affect positive change.  It is about our collective ability to restore hope within ourselves and our neighbors, both here and around the world. “

The symphony features a fanfare theme in the opening and third movements, and progresses through many different themes, concluding in a finale, which the composer describes as representing “the culmination of the musical journey” which aims “to express further optimism and hope. The symphony ends suspended in mid air to remind us that even though we are making positive strides to being a better America, we are still searching. Although this American Symphony has come to an end, the journey that we take as human beings continues to move forward.”

The Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 had one of the most tortured compositional processes of any of Brahms’ works. Originally designed as a duo for two pianos, it was then recast to be a symphony. Eventually, after Brahms had a dream in which he imagined himself playing a piano concerto (a type of composition he had not previously attempted), he reworked it into the existing piano concerto. Some of the materials for this never-composed symphony were later reworked into his great Deutsches Requiem. The finale is perhaps inspired by the brilliant finale of Beethoven’s third Piano Concerto.

Astonishing as it seems to us today, the piano concerto was a failure at its first performance. The gracious Brahms calmly wrote to friends that a bit of failure is a good thing, although he jocularly added, “The hissing was too much of a good thing, wasn’t it?!”

What startled the audiences of Brahms’ day, but which we find quite natural today, was the manner in which he placed the solo pianist on an equal footing with the orchestra, imagining the two musical forces as equal partners. The opening of the piece finds the orchestra alone with dominant timpani while only later does the soloist enter. At various moments throughout the piece, the soloist is required to play with a power and virtuosity that challenges the dynamic power of the orchestra.

All of this means, of course, that the Brahms requires a courageous pianist, which the Symphony fortunately has in the person of Jonathan Biss. A young American virtuoso, who is coincidentally exactly the same age as Adam Schoenberg, Biss is famed for both his precise and elegant Mozart and Chopin, as well as for his Beethoven, Schubert, and contemporary composition interpretations.

The overture to Wagner’s opera Rienzi dates from an early period in the composer’s career when he was still following an Italianate style of composition, before his development of his uniquely German mode of opera. In later years, he renounced the opera, which as a result is rarely performed today. The overture, however, lives on as a concert piece, and the Symphony’s presentation of it will give you an opportunity to hear a young composer, already a master of compositional techniques, still trying to find his unique musical voice. Its dominant theme remains, to this listener’s ears, one of the most memorable in all of classical music.

PREVIEW:
Kansas City Symphony
Biss Plays Brahms
Friday and Saturday, March 4 and 5, at 8:00 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
11th St and Central Ave, Kansas City, MO
Sunday, March 6, at 2:00 p.m.
Lied Center, University of Kansas
1600 Stewart Dr, Lawrence, KS
For tickets call 816-471-0400, or visit online at www.kcsymphony.org.

Top Photo:  Jonathan Biss by Jillian Edelstein for EMI Classics

By Don Dagenais

City Classics Music and Dance Columnist; Classical Contributor

A lifelong classical music fan, Don Dagenais is a frequent preview speaker for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and has taught classical music and opera courses at several Kansas City venues. He has served on the boards of directors of a number of performing arts organizations including the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Lyric Opera Guild, UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, Opera Volunteers International, the Civic Opera Theater of Kansas City, Inspiration Point Fine Arts Colony, Octarium, and the Friends of the Symphony.  He has been the past president of most of these organizations and is current the president of the Friends of the Symphony. 

Dagenais co-authored a history of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, published on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (2007) and has written books on the histories of both the Lyric Opera Guild and Opera Volunteers International, as well as an introductory book for opera novices (Your Passport to the Opera).  He has received several local and national awards for outstanding volunteer work for the arts, including a lifetime achievement award from The Coterie Theatre in 2000, the Kansas City Musical Club's annual award in 2001, a Partners in Excellence Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2002, a Bravo Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2004 and a community service award from the Daughter of the American Revolution in 2008 honoring him for his community service to the arts.

In addition to his music interests, Don is president of the board of directors for the Metropolitan Ensemble Theater and has served on the boards of The Coterie Theatre and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, serving as president of each organization.  He publishes newsletters for seven arts organizations.  When not involved in the performing arts, Don is a senior real estate attorney with Lathrop & Gage LLP in Kansas City, Missouri, where he has practiced law since 1976 after graduating from the Cornell Law School.

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