Seizing on the opportunity of November 11th and Veterans Day coinciding with its Masterworks concert schedule for November, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Aram Demirjian chose to honor the occasion with a program entitled “Service and Spirit: A Salute to Veterans.” The first half of the evening carried a veterans-related theme supported by a narration delivered by WBIR-TV’s John Becker that was woven in with five musical works that loosely communicated the spirit of patriotic conflict and resolution.
Interestingly, four of those works would have been welcome on any concert at any time, even without a special theme—and three of those were intriguing, seldom-heard gems of the American orchestral repertoire. Demirjian opened with William Grant Still’s Festive Overture, a work that won a “Best Overture” prize for its composer in a 1944 competition sponsored by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Demirjian and the orchestra then followed with the Samuel Barber tone poem, Night Flight, a work that was a revised version of the second movement of the composer’s Symphony No. 2, premiered in 1944 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That quirky symphony and its second movement had an interesting addition, the use of a tone-generator to suggest a radio beam in WWII bombers on night duty. Barber later revised the work, replacing the electronic device with an E-flat clarinet.
The film music of John Williams has touched every category of cinematic genre, and every time period and subject matter. Included here was music from the 1976 Pacific war epic Midway—“The Men of the Yorktown.”
After the obligatory “Armed Forces Salute,” Demirjian and the KSO wrapped up the first half with Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait that featured Knoxville author, historian, and military veteran Robert J. Booker performing the narration.
For the second half of the concert, Demirjian made a loose connection to the first half with a performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony. That symphony got its premiere in 1945 by the Moscow State Philharmonic Orchestra at a time when the tide was turning on the eastern front of WWII and optimism accompanied the fact that the Soviet armies were pushing the invading Germans back. The symphony was broadly heralded at the premiere and brought its composer a resurgent popularity that he would never really experience again.
Part of that popularity is the masterfully created variety of emotions that Prokofiev was able to capture and finesse, all without shunning the dictates of his symphonic forbears. Within an arrangement that varies the movements in alternating tempo and breadth, moments of musical violence are eventually tempered with softness while bleak grimness is overcome by joy and exuberance. As such, the work is a wild roller coaster ride of breathless agitation, lyrical optimism, and pensiveness—followed by a joyful and explosive final chord. Despite the work’s harmonic complexity and blend of lyricism and ferocity, Demirjian and the orchestra turned in an excellent performance that was equal parts enthusiasm and a focused attention to instrumental balance and color. And, kudos go to the percussion section for their huge contribution—and to the cellos and basses.
Strangely—or perhaps not—a noticeable number of the KSO’s regular concertgoers and subscribers chose to sit this Masterworks pair out. In this case, those missing the concert missed an opportunity to hear music that simply doesn’t get performed often. Certainly, that applies to the William Grant Still Festive Overture as well as the Prokofiev Symphony No. 5. Of course, people are free to make up their own minds. In a sense, that’s one of the freedoms that Veterans Day celebrates.
