The Cal Poly Symphony will perform the final compositions of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky for their spring concert.
The “Famous Last Works” program will begin with the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances.” He composed it at Orchard’s Point, an estate on Long Island, while he recuperated from surgery and fatigue. Completed in 1940, it was his last major composition.
Guest artist Amy Goymerac, soprano, will join the orchestra for a performance of Strauss’ “Im Abendrot” (“At Sunset”), the last of his “Four Last Songs.” Stauss did not even live to see the premiere of this work which was written in 1948 when he was 84 years old. The song’s text, by Joseph von Eichendorff, uses soaring imagery to evoke sunset and the end of wanderings — and of life.
Goymerac teaches applied voice, vocal practicum and opera ensemble at Cal Poly. Her performance experience spans Baroque to contemporary, and she often debuts works by living composers. In the fall she will premiere Douglas Cuomo’s “La Cita,” with Pepe Romero’s renowned Romero Guitar Quartet at the historic Herbst Theater in San Francisco.
After intermission, the symphony will present Russian composer Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B Minor. He conducted the premiere of his last symphony in St. Petersburg on Oct. 28, 1893, nine days before he died from cholera. “The audience at the premiere was puzzled, no doubt, given its reserved enthusiasm as the last movement faded to silence over a dying pulse,” said David Arrivée, Cal Poly Symphony conductor. “When it was performed again after the composer’s death, with the hall draped in black cloth and a bust of Tchaikovsky looking on, the tragic end of this music took on new meaning. To this day, we hear this unconventional symphony through the lens of its composer’s death.”
The event is sponsored by Cal Poly’s Music Department, College of Liberal Arts and Instructionally Related Activities program.
