Concerti

Jaromír Weinberger’s Saxophone Concerto was nearly lost before it was ever heard: written in 1940 after he fled Europe for New York, the orchestral premiere was delayed for seven years by the war, and the full score wasn’t published until decades after his death. By the time Weinberger wrote the concerto, he’d already lost nearly everything – his homeland, his family, his royalties, and the career that had made him one of Europe’s most celebrated composers. Saxophonist Cecil Leeson approached him about writing a concerto for saxophone, and Weinberger delivered the solo part with piano accompaniment on December 30, 1940. The first movement opens unusually: not with a fast Allegro, but with a free, rhapsodic Andante filled with florid, lace-like passages.

It’s part of a  program that explores the concerto form through works that reimagine, transform, and fuse genres. The broadcast opens with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Cello Concerto – music so richly orchestral it was first written for a 1946 melodrama starring Bette Davis, then expanded into a concert work. Bach’s arrangement of a Vivaldi violin concerto gets reimagined again, this time for trumpet and strings, while Jose Flores’ Conflict: Concerto for Euphonium structures struggle into sound, with movements titled Man vs. Self and Man vs. Nature exploring cycles of peace and turmoil. The broadcast closes with Jonathan Russell’s Bass Clarinet Double Concerto, where Weber’s dancing virtuosity meets the heavy, driving grooves of heavy metal music.

Featured soloists include cellist Jennifer Son, winner of the 2019 ASU Concerto Competition, performing with the ASU Symphony Orchestra; trumpeter Joe Burgstaller with members of the Arizona Bach Festival at All Saints Episcopal Church; and euphoniumist Chasse Duplantis with pianist Andria Fennig from the 2023 International Tuba Euphonium Association Conference at ASU. ASU faculty members Christopher and Hannah Creviston perform the Weinberger Saxophone Concerto at Katzin Concert Hall, and the broadcast closes with composer Jonathan Russell and Jeff Anderle as the Sqwonk Bass Clarinet Duo.