From TOLEDO ALLIANCE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
Cellist Julian Schwarz will perform with the Toledo Symphony on Nov.22 and 23 at the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle Theater. Schwarz will perform Antonin Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B Minor, the last solo concerto every written by the composer. He will perform the piece on his Neapolitan cello made by famed Italian instrument maker Gennaro Gagliano in 1743.
“The instrument is actually older that the music, which was written in 1895,” says Felecia Kanney, Director of Marketing for the Toledo Symphony. “The sound has this old-soul charm to it that we don’t hear from instruments made today. It’s a testament to the craftsmanship of Gagliano. Combine that with Julian’s incredible interpretation of one of the most beloved concertos ever written for the cello, and you get music that can rip your heart out.”
The program opens with Smetana’s Moldau, the second movement of a six-movement suite titled Má vlast. The Moldau opens with a light, rippling music played by a pair of flutes, symbolizing two mountain springs. The springs ultimately combine to become a mighty river of the same name in the Czech Republic.
The second piece on the program is The Mississippi Suite composed in 1934 by Florence Price, the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major American orchestra. Like The Moldau, the listener travels on the Mississippi River, passing towns along the way. Quotations from the spirituals, like Get Down, Moses and Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, fade in and out as the travels continue. Last year, Florence Price once again made national news when her thought-to-have been lost scores were discovered in an abandoned home in Illinois.
“The first two pieces on the program are from different parts of the world: the Czech Republic and America,” says Merwin Siu, Artistic Administrator for the Toledo Symphony. “Dvořák’s Cello Concerto brings the worlds closer to one another as it was written by Dvořák, a Czech composer, while in New York City for his third term as the Director of the National Conservatory.”
“Concertgoers may remember Julian from the world premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s Cello Concerto with the Toledo Symphony back in 2017,” says Kanney. “We are thrilled to have him join the Toledo Symphony once again on the Peristyle stage.”
