THE PLANETS IN HI-DEF

Tuesday, March 15, 2022 – 7:30pm
Meyerson Symphony Center + Livestream

Program

Sunrise from Also Sprach Zarathustra [1:45]
Richard Strauss

Close Encounters of the Third Kind [7:55]
John Willliams, arr. Stephen Bulla

Polka and Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper [7:50]
Jaromir Weinberger

– INTERMISSION –

The Planets [50:00]
Gustav Holst, arr. Merlin Patterson

• Mars, The Bringer of War [7:56]
• Venus, The Bringer of Peace [8:20]
• Mercury, The Winged Messenger [4:18]
• Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity [8:00]
• Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age [9:23]
• Uranus, The Magician [5:19]
• Neptune, The Mystic [6:53]

Dallas Winds Personnel

STRING BASS
Andrew Goins
Ben Mitchell

PIANO
Brian Allison

HARP
Naoko Nakamura
Mallory McHenry

ORGAN
Jordan Smith

TIMPANI
Steve Kimple

PERCUSSION
Roland Muzquiz, Principal
Lane Harder
Brandon Kelly
Bill Klymus
Jon Lee
Steve McDonald
Michael McNicholas

PERSONNEL MANAGER
Gigi Sherrell Norwood

MUSIC LIBRARIAN
Chrystal Stevens

EQUIPMENT MANAGER
Roland Muzquiz
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
Ramon Musquiz
STAGE MANAGER
Michael McNicholas

FOUNDER / EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Kim Campbell
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
Grace Lovrien
DIRECTOR OF CONCERT OPERATIONS
Gigi Sherrell Norwood
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION
Todd Toney
BOOKKEEPER
Lenore Ladwig Scott

Program Notes

Richard Georg Strauss

(June 11, 1864-September 8, 1949)

Strauss was a musical prodigy whose career spanned the late romantic and early modern eras of classical music.  He grew up in a musical family, and got his earliest musical training from his father, who was principal horn for Court Opera in Munich.  Strauss wrote his first composition at age six, and by his early teens he was composing piano and chamber ensemble pieces, most of which have been lost to history.  He didn’t begin to find his mature musical style until 1885, at age 21.  A spate of his best-known works followed over the next eleven years: the tone poem Don Juan in 1888; Death and Transfiguration in 1889; Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks in 1895; and Also Sprach Zarathustra in 1896.  Over the course of his career, he wrote operas, lieder, tone poems, and works for special occasions.

Although Also Sprach Zarathustra has been a staple of the orchestral repertoire since its premiere in November 1896, the opening fanfare, which Strauss called “Sunrise” became widely popular when filmmaker Stanley Kubrick used it in the soundtrack of his 1968 film 2001: A Space Oddyssey.  Throughout the following decade, Elvis Presley used it to open his live concerts.

John Towner Williams

(b. February 8, 1932)

 One of the most popular and successful composers of the modern age, John Williams has won five Academy Awards, 17 Grammy Awards, three Golden Globes, two Emmys and five awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, among others.  Best known for his film scores and ceremonial music, Williams is also a noted composer of concert works, and a renowned conductor.

 IMDb lists Williams as the composer for 146 films, with three more in various stages of productions.  His credits include Saving Private Ryan, Lincoln, Amistad, Seven Years in Tibet, The Lost World, Rosewood, Sleepers, Nixon, Sabrina, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Home Alone, Far and Away, JFK, Hook, Presumed Innocent, Always, Born on the Fourth of July, the Indiana Jones series, The Accidental Tourist, Empire of the Sun, The Witches of Eastwick, the Star Wars series, E. T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Superman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, and Goodbye Mr. Chips among many others. 

 In Stephen Spielberg’s second feature film, Jaws, Williams took two notes, and created an identifiable villain long before the actual shark ever appeared onscreen.  With Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Williams expanded his theme to five notes, and created a new language the film’s scientists could use to communicate with the aliens of the film’s giant Mother Ship.  Williams also used the five-note theme throughout the score, making it an instantly recognizable musical motif and an icon of popular culture.  The movie’s soundtrack was released on vinyl, 8-track tape, and audiocassette, and peaked at #17 on U.S. Billboard album chart.  Although the music lost the Oscar for best film score to Star Wars, released the same year, it won two Grammy Awards, for film score and instrumental composition.

Jaromir Weinberger

(January 8, 1896 – August 8, 1967)

Jaromir Weinberger was born in Czechoslovakia and grew up on his grandparent’s farm, where he eagerly absorbed Czech folksongs and folklore.  He began playing the piano at age five and was composing by the age of ten. He studied at the Prague Conservatory and later in Leipzig.

As the director of the Czechoslovakian National Theatre in 1926, he completed Schwanda the Bagpiper, a two-act opera that has been performed in seventeen languages and in some of the world’s finest venues. Two separate musical themes from the opera were joined to form a concert work, the “Polka and Fugue,” that is now heard more often than the opera itself.

Weinberger left Czechoslovakia in 1939, one step ahead of the Nazis.  He continued to teach and compose in the United States, moving from New York to Ohio, and later Florida.  He died in 1967.

Gustav Holst

(September 21, 1874-May 25, 1934)

Despite his German name, Gustav Holst was an English-born composer who is best known for his orchestral work, The Planets.  Holst grew up learning piano, organ, and trombone, and began writing music when he was twelve, although his father tried to discourage his interest. Young Gustav eventually convinced his father to let him study at the Royal College of Music, where he immersed himself in the music of everyone from Henry Purcell (1659-1695) to Richard Wagner (1813-1883).  Holst also soaked up philosophy from William Morris and George Bernard Shaw, and made a life-long friend of fellow composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. 

Holst and Vaughan Williams became critique partners, playing their unfinished works for each other and arguing philosophy late into the night.  In the early 1900s, when a resurgent interest in British folk music swept musical circles, Vaughan Williams would coerce Holst into song-collecting expeditions—a pursuit Holst did not enjoy nearly as much as Vaughan Williams did.  This same passion for song collecting influenced the young Australian composer, Percy Grainger. 

Although Holst was deeply respected as a music teacher, his reputation as a composer languished.  His operas did not win the prestigious awards he anticipated, and his choral works got only a lukewarm reception.  With each professional setback, Holst would take off on a hiking trip to nurse his wounds, hoping to discover a new source of inspiration.  On one such trip Holst discovered astrology, with two results: he would happily cast his friends’ horoscopes for the rest of his life, and he found the inspiration to write a suite in seven movements called The Planets.  It premiered in 1918 and remains Holst’s best-known and most beloved work. 

–Program notes written by Gigi Sherrell Norwood