Photo Credit: Joseph A. Haertle
Sonic seascapes abound in classical music and oceanic imagery comprises the entire program of the next Festival City Symphony concert. Richard Wagner first found his idiomatic voice in the 1846 version of his opera, Der Fliegende Holländer ( The Flying Dutchman ), about a legendary cursed seafarer. Its evocative overture touches on the opera’s major themes.
In 1905, Claude Debussy gave the world one of the most famous non-symphonic orchestral works of all time, La Mer , a three-movement sketch culminating in a tumultuous finale with its grandiose, Cesar Franck-like central motif.
The influence of French Impressionists such as Debussy on British composer Frank Bridge can be heard in the themes, content and plush orchestral language of his 1911 suite, The Sea . The suite’s four movements (“Seascape,” “Sea-foam,” “Moonlight” and “Storm”) are, as Bridge wrote, imbued with “wind, rain and tempestuous seas.”
Festival City Symphony performs “Seascapes” with work by Wagner, Debussy and Bridge as part of its Symphony Sundays series at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb.15 at the Pabst Theater, 144 E. Wells St. For tickets visit festivalcitysymphony.org or call the Pabst box office at 414-286-3205.
