The 9th 3MBS Classically Melbourne Concert

Broadcast in Concert Hall from 1.30pm on Friday 8th August

Proudly presented by 3MBS, the Arts Centre & Orchestra Victoria
at Hamer Hall on Thursday 24 July

Program

Kurt Weill – Kleine Dreigroschenmusik (Suite from “Threepenny Opera”)
Béla Bartók – Piano Concerto No. 3
Loclan Mackenzie-Spencer – “Verwicklung”
Leonard Bernstein – West Side Story: Symphonic Dances
Silvestre Revueltas – Sensemayá (for Orchestra)

Kurt Weill – Kleine Dreigroschenmusik (Suite from “Threepenny Opera”)
Kurt Weill's Little Threepenny Music is one of the mainstays of the repertoire for symphonic winds. It is written in Weill's characteristic mixture of classical, popular, and dance music styles with an overlay of a rather seedy-sounding adaptation of European jazz styles. It contains one of the best-known of all popular songs, ‘The Ballad of Mack the Knife’.

Béla Bartók – Piano Concerto No. 3
Featuring piano soloist Daniel de Borah
The piece was composed in 1945 by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók during the final months of his career and life. It consists of three movements, and deviates noticeably from the composer's earlier works in that it contains tonal themes, and moves away from the dark colouring and complex rhythmic features common in earlier works.

Loclan Mackenzie-Spencer – Verwicklung
The winner of the 2008 Betty Amsden Award for Orchestral Composition as part of the 3MBS National Composer Awards.  Loclan says of the work, “The term Verwicklung, a German word for the process of becoming intricate or entangled, seeks to sum up the compositional intent at the heart of this piece, and increasingly, my entire output:  the idea of a brief motivic fragment that is expanded melodically, harmonically, rhythmically and structurally to create an entire work. In this case, a four-note motive in two forms is presented in a variety of quite different guises, from the anticipatory to the euphonious and, ultimately, the triumphant.”

Leonard Bernstein – West Side Story: Symphonic Dances
West Side Story is a musical written by Arthur Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics)
A modern-day, big-city adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, this "social music drama" moves the tragic tale of the lovers of Verona to the once-impoverished west side of Manhattan.  Bernstein later prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, entitled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.  The suite remains one of Bernstein's most popular works.

Silvestre Revueltas – Sensemayá (for Orchestra)
Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas wrote film music, chamber music, songs and a number of other works.  Among his orchestral works are a number of symphonic poems with Sensemayá: Chant for the Killing of a Snake (1938), based on a poem by Nicolás Guillén, the most famous. His musical language is often tonal but more often post-tonal, reflecting a modernist approach influenced by Bartók, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and others. His music is often vigorous, rhythmically vital, and frequently has a distinctly Mexican flavour.