E-mail story

comment

Printer-friendly version

Bekker to play Korngold classic

PROVIDED

Charleston Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Yuriy Bekker will play the Violin Concerto in D Major by Erich Wolfgang Korngold on Saturday at Gaillard Auditorium.

When Charleston Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Yuriy Bekker, 26, performs cinematic composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violin Concerto in D Major on Saturday, he may be one of the youngest ever to perform this difficult masterpiece.

Also on the program, to be conducted by David Stahl, will be Hector Berlioz's psychedelic masterpiece "Symphonie Fantastique" and Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti's avant-garde "Lontano," which has been described as taking the audience through a musical landscape of many colors.

Berlioz composed "An Episode in the Life of the Artist" Op. 14, which later became known as "Symphonie Fantastique," in 1830 for a performance at the Paris Conservatoire, according to Robin Yeo, CSO director of public affairs.

It became an instant hit with audiences and continues to be a popular representation of the early Romantic period as it tells the story of an imaginative artist who has poisoned himself with opium and experiences a series of emotional highs and lows as he travels through a succession of dreams and hallucinations.

Yeo notes that Berlioz used an orchestra of grand proportion, including two sets of timpani drums, to bring his audience through a lush dance to a solemn funeral and on to a terrifying witch's cave. Born in Austria to Jewish parents, Erich Wolfgang Korngold began studying music at a young age, and in 1934 he moved to the United States and began writing film scores for Hollywood classics, such as "Deception," starring Bette Davis, and "Captain Blood," starring Errol Flynn. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for "The Adventures of Robin Hood."

Korngold's Concerto in D Major, which he composed in 1945, was one of his later works, according to Yeo. It premiered at the St. Louis Symphony to critical acclaim and quickly became Korngold's most popular piece, securing for him a place among the greatest composers of his time. Bekker, who was born in Minsk, Belarus, which borders on Poland and was formerly part of the Soviet Union, moved with his family to New York City in 1991. The violinist attended Indiana University and the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied under Herbert Greenberg. Later, he performed with the Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, Ballet Orchestras and the Louisville Orchestra.

Since his appointment as concertmaster of the CSO in 2006, Bekker has made a reputation for himself performing with the CSO and in recitals and chamber concerts around the city, says Yeo.

"It is a privilege for me to play Korngold's Violin Concerto, as it makes me feel as if I am in Hollywood and Vienna at the same time," says Bekker. "And to play it with the CSO and David Stahl is a dream that is becoming a reality."

< Previous month Next month >