Sunday, 2 November: Sooke Philharmonic
Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a nice fall. I’ve been harvesting apples and playing orchestra music, which is how I know summer is really, truly over.
My next concert is in a couple weeks, with the Sooke Philharmonic. Here’s what we’ll be playing for you:
VERDI Nabucco: Overture
I have played the overture to Nabucco before, but I played second violin on it, and it was over thirty years ago, so I was pleasantly surprised to remember it well. The opera itself is about Nebuchadnezzar II, but that seems cumbersome to build a libretto around, so he’s called Nabucco for dramatic purposes. Creative license was different in the 1830s, maybe.
SCRIABIN Piano Concerto No. 1
Leah MacFarlane, Piano Winner of the 2025 Jenny & Norman Nelson Concerto Competition
I don’t play all that much Scriabin, simply because he was a pianist who mostly wrote music for the piano; like Chopin, the piano was his world and he was content to live there. I’m really enjoying my little vacation in it, though, even though half of this piece is in the eye-watering key of F♯ Major (that’s six sharps for those of you playing along at home; for most violinists, five sharps is considered a bit rude, and six crosses the line into egregious; Shostakovich wrote a string quartet in it because of COURSE he did). It is definitely a key that only a pianist or a singer could feel entirely comfortable in.
Sharps notwithstanding, this piece is gorgeous, and our soloist is fabulous, a really nice person, and also my usual stand partner in the Civic Orchestra of Victoria, on the violin, which turns out to be her second instrument. I’m excited to play in her backing band on this one.
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5
You know this one! Yes you do. Here, I’ll hum the first couple bars for you.
ba ba ba BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM.
There, see? You do.
The interesting thing here is that when most pieces of Western classical music have a really famous bit, it isn’t usually the part right at the very beginning. You might think that you could get the satisfaction of hearing that part and then zone out for the rest of it, but the thing about Beethoven’s 5th is that it starts like that and then gets more interesting from there. It starts all angry and fatalistic, and turns dreamy and introspective in the second movement. The third movement is questing and mysterious, until it erupts directly into the fourth movement, which is boisterous as hell if you play it right. Here’s hoping that we do.
The concert is at 2:30 PM, at the Sooke Community Hall. You can get your advance tickets here.
Next up will be a concert with the Civic Orchestra of Victoria, on November 15th. I’ll write more about it soon, but if you’re curious to learn more now, have a look at this page.
As always, say hi if you attend, and thanks for listening!