Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s dynamic Music Director Jaime Martin said he wanted to curate a program of a new composer with influences of the old master composers, and it was fabulous!
Martin opens with conducting Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin and the West Coast premiere of Dark with Excessive Bright for Double Bass and Strings by LACO Artist-in-Residence Missy Mazzoli. Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin was composed as a dedication to the memory of a friend lost in battle during World War I. Originally in six movements, Martin’s orchestra played four -- Prelude, Forland, Menuet and Rigaudon. The movements are based on popular Baroque dances. Mazzoli’s piece is a moving spiritual piece composed for the double bass and played with fervor by LACO’s Principal Bass David Grossman.
The second part of the concert the orchestra began with Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite -- a ballet written for the Ballets Russes. The influence was commedia dell’arte, an Italian improvisational theater. An interesting fact is that Pablo Picasso designed the original costumes and sets when the ballet premiered at the Paris Opera in 1920. It was a huge success and the music of the Pulcinella Suite is a pared-down version of the ballet.The Pulcinella Suite is a pared-down version of the ballet. The program closed with the genius of Prokofiev’s Symphoney No.1, “Classical” led magnificently by Martin.There was plenty of Martin’s customary finesse of conducting the orchestra from the ethereal paradisaical tones to the fortissimo. Amazing experience to be there live with this great conductor and orchestra.
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This concert was on November 17, 2019, at Royce Hall.