Program Notes
VIVIAN FUNG (b. 1975 )
FANFARE
Duration: ca. 6 minutes
Designing a concert program, much less a full
season, is a test for any conductor. Do you match
pieces for their similarities or contrasts, challenge
listeners with the modern or rely on the familiar?
For Daniel Black, TFO’s associate conductor who
leads this weekend’s Masterworks concerts, it was
about a natural link connecting works by Fung,
Sibelius and Tchaikovsky.
“I think of each of these works as having something
of a landscape quality,’’ Black said. “There’s
something epic about all three, like a wide shot in
film.’’
The program opens with its first performance of a
work by a Canadian-born composer with a deep
interest in exploring cultures, minority music and
exotic sounds. Fung has immersed herself in the
music of China, North Vietnam, Spain and Indonesia,
and is currently writing a new opera based on her
time in Cambodia. Fung’s Violin Concerto earned
her the 2013 Juno Award for classical composition
of the year in Canada.
Fung’s sense of humor shines in the names she
gives her works, such as Earworms, Graffiti Mashup,
Dust Devils, and Gamelan Grunge. She writes with
apparent ease, having published 40 compositions in
the last decade, including a piece for full orchestra
called Fanfare, which she completed in 2014.
Originally called Fanfare for McElroy, it celebrates
the 40-year career of John McElroy, who at the time
was retiring as principal trumpet for the Alabama
Symphony Orchestra.
“Although the title is Fanfare, this piece is quite a
departure from what you might expect from such
a title,’’ Black said. “It’s contemplative and almost
introverted at times, and contains extensive,
expressive solos for the trumpet.’’
Fung describes Fanfare as more inward than
THE FLORIDA OR 3606 CHESTRA | 2019-2020
outward, with a fiery opening and a reserved close:
“After the opening orchestral burst of color, the
work settles on a brass chorale, decorated with
flourishes from strings and woodwinds. The chorale
is then transferred into the strings, and slowly
builds into a spectacular display from the solo brass
section and then the percussion section. Soft string
harmonics and piano interjections set the mood for
the final section, marked Majestic and Nostalgic,
which features a trumpet solo to end the work.’’
JEAN SIBELIUS (1865-1957)
VIOLIN CONCERTO
Duration: ca. 30 minutes
Sibelius covered a lot of musical ground. He was
born when the first ship passed through the Suez
Canal and died the year Elvis released Jail House
Rock. But given his long life, his absence from
the musical scene is something of a paradox,
considering that a composer of such genius would,
presumably, continue to evolve and engage
an admiring public. Instead, Sibelius retired in
1929 at the height of his powers, living another
three decades on a government stipend, without
composing or conducting. Some biographers
attribute the end of his creative energies to an
addiction he battled most of his life.
“My drinking has genuine roots that are both
dangerous and go deep,’’ he admitted. Still, Sibelius
was prolific during his best years: 130 piano pieces,
more than 100 songs, seven symphonies, tone
poems, chamber music, and ballet scores.
His Violin Concerto is a masterpiece and revered by
concert violinists for more than a century. Sibelius
composed this lushly romantic work between
serious bouts of darkness in his life, one reason for
its often-stalled progress and completion. Friends
literally had to drag Sibelius out of pubs so he could
work on the final movement and prepare for the
premiere in 1905, which fell flat at first performance,
in part because soloist and orchestra never found
an agreeable union in so many taxing passages. So
Sibelius worked on improving the score, cutting out