The Peterborough Symphony Orchestra (PSO) will be sending audiences to the moon at 7 p.m. this Friday (March 7) with an intimate chamber concert at All Saints’ Anglican Church at 235 Rubidge Street in Peterborough in celebration of the church’s 150th anniversary.
For “Mozart to the Moon,” the PSO’s music director Michael Newnham will take a rest from the conductor’s podium to emcee the concert, where the orchestra’s principal string players Jennifer Burford (violin), Nora Pellerin (violin), Adriana Arcila Tascón (viola), and Zuzanna Chomicka-Newnham (cello) will delight audiences with a combination of popular and classic music for string quartet, all with a lunar theme.
The orchestra’s principal clarinetist Scott Wight will then join the string players for a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s groundbreaking quintet for clarinet and strings which, to this day, remains one of the most admired of the composer’s works.
VIDEO: “Larghetto” from Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet – Norwegian Chamber Orchestra
“Composers tended to use the vehicle of chamber music as a way of expressing more intimate feelings or a more intimate expression,” says Newnham. “It also provides context because, when we play a Mozart symphony, it’s the public Mozart — the big Mozart. But the clarinet quintet really shows us this inward side of the person. You feel you get to know the rest of Mozart’s music better when you hear that music.”
Given that the clarinet was only invented around 1700, it was a relative newcomer to the orchestra when Mozart wrote his clarinet quintet in 1789 — just two years before his death. Composed for Austrian clarinetist Anton Stadler, the piece is Mozart’s only completed clarinet quintet and Mozart is believed to be the first composer to use the instrument as part of an extended string quartet.
“It was a completely new instrument and was seen as not being perfected yet,” says Newnham. “He was so taken by this sound of this instrument that he started to write some music, but by that point he only had years left of his life.”
Newnham notes that it’s “really special” when audiences have the opportunity to hear a clarinet complementing a string quartet, because it does not happen often.
“Putting a wind instrument with a string instrument is always interesting because it’s a different way of approaching music,” he says.
“String players usually work with each other on different projects outside of the orchestra, and wind players often work with other wind players, but there aren’t many opportunities where you have a string quartet and a wind player and a great, iconic piece of music.”
To build up to the performance of Mozart’s clarinet quintet, the concert will open with several songs that were inspired by or about the moon in one way or another, such as a piece by Giacomo Puccini featured in the 1987 film Moonstruck and “Song to the Moon” from Antonín Dvorák’s opera Rusalka.
“It’s a real mixed bag of different classical and popular music to start things,” says Newnham, who adds that he’s looking forward to sharing more about the music as the emcee for the concert. “I’ve done it before many times and it’s always fun for me to step out of being the person who is leading the music. I love talking about music.”
“Mozart to the Moon” is one of the PSO’s outreach efforts to bring more music out to the community outside of the orchestra concerts throughout the season.
“It’s important because it allows the small groups of musicians, in this case the PSO string quartet and clarinetist Scott Wight, to really be focused and to take complete control over a concert,” he says.
“It develops the orchestra that way because it makes their own connection stronger, but it’s also really important for us to get out into smaller places and play in different settings.”
General admission tickets are priced at $40, with an additional $1 service fee. Tickets can be purchased at www.allsaintspeterborough.org/event-details/ptbo-symphony. The concert is a fundraiser for the church’s 150th anniversary.
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