Waterbury Symphony Orchestra

Leif Bjaland
Music Director & Conductor

Brilliant Concerti: Bartok & Beethoven with the Waterbury Symphony

The final concert of the Waterbury Symphony’s Classical Masterworks Series is this Saturday, March 8. The concert, Brilliant Concerti, features two great concerti: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with violinist Jennifer Frautschi, and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra. The concert begins at 8:00 PM at the Naugatuck Valley Community College Fine Arts Center, and there will be a Pre-Concert Lecture at 7:15 PM in the concert hall. Following the concert, there will be a post-concert discussion and reception in the Play Box Theater with Maestro Bjaland.

Jennifer Frautschi opens the concert with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. This piece was rarely performed after its premiere in 1806 with Violinist Franz Clement. The piece was not very well received

Violinist Jennifer Frautschi is featured during the WSO's March 8th concert.

during this performance. Although this could have been due to the lateness that Beethoven had gotten the music to Clement – it was said that Clement had to sight read the performance because there was no time to practice. In fact, Clement inserted his own solo composition in between the first two movements that was performed on a single string of the violin and while he was holding the violin upside down.

The concerto was revived nearly 40 years later when composer/conductor Felix Mendelssohn performed the work with violinist Joseph Joachim. After this revival, the piece has become one of the most well-known violin concerti and a staple within the violin repertoire.

The piece showcases Ms. Jennifer Frautschi’s youthful exuberance on the violin and her superb technical command of the passages. Her playing was once described by the Chicago Times as sporting “a vibrant, steely tone, dressed with an intense vibrato that sometimes narrows to a tense quiver.”

The second half of the concert features Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra. This piece is not a standard concerto, which normally contains a solo instrument accompanied by the orchestra. Bartok treats all instruments of the orchestra as soloists throughout the piece, giving it the title Concerto for Orchestra. See this month’s Educational Corner for more information on this piece.

Tickets to this concert are $40, $30, $15, & $5 for students. You can order the tickets by calling 203-574-4283 or online by clicking here.

Thank you to the American Savings Foundation and the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism for their support of this concert.