Simple Gifts - Masterworks IV

This concert of smaller orchestral works is a perfect intimate date night. It opens with Serenade, a tonal work for chamber orchestra, by American composer Karen Amrhein (b. 1970).

Aaron Copland created Appalachian Spring in 1944 as a ballet suite for Martha Graham. Celebrating the American pioneers, the dance borrows the “Simple Gifts” motif from a Shaker hymn. This all-American suite won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

For a fresh take on Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, Jeannette Hirasawa Moore, FSO’s Principal flutist joins concertmaster Louise Scott. One of Bach’s best-known works, this concerto exemplifies the music of the late Baroque period.

The first two chords of Beethoven’s First Symphony indicate that this composer was to be an innovator in classical music. While not performed as often as some of his other nine symphonies (and played here for the first time by the FSO), its four movements hearken to Beethoven’s teacher Joseph Haydn as well as Wolfgang Mozart. Its debut in 1800 launched Beethoven’s titanic symphonic career.