ASO sets sights on ‘glorious melodies and harmonies’

When David Alan Miller, music director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, was putting together the 2023-2024 season last year, he considered what he wanted for this weekend at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.

“I wanted a warm, delicious concert chock full of glorious melodies and harmonies before the holidays,” Miller said.

One of the pieces he was thinking of was Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2. In talking with his management, he discovered that pianist Yefim Bronfman was also on its roster. When Miller contacted Bronfman, the pianist told him he’d be happy to do the concerto this December.

“The concerto is a big piece with a dense, complex form,” Miller said. “It has four movements including a demonic scherzo that only adds to the bigness of the piece.”

It also has a hugely formidable piano part that requires a pianist with fabulous technique — but with the soul of a poet.

“Bronfman is that kind of pianist,” Miller said. “He’s an amazing muscular player, yet has the delicacy of touch. He’s the best. It’s a privilege to build the program around him.”

Miller began working on the score immediately, he said, as it had been several years since he’d conducted the work, perhaps with Andre Watts as pianist.

“It’s one of the top three of piano concertos. The longest, challenging, romantic — it’s a mighty, mighty piece,” Miller said. “For me, I must know the piano part intimately. It’s very involved. Brahms plays with rhythm and pulse. There are so many things at the same time — deep but voluptuous.

Staying with the pianist is critical, as there are four movements that are connected without stop.

They’re integrated and share thematic material. The work was also a hymn of love for Clara Schumann. It’s a thrilling piece with its famous horn and cello solos, soaring melodies.”

Because of Brahms’ connection to the Schumanns, Miller immediately decided to schedule Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 4.

“It’s one of my favorites,” he said. “And Schumann was Brahms’ spiritual father. He was also a pioneering dreamer of the Romantic period. It really began with him with his love of nature to be authentic, beautiful and genuine with purity.”

But to open the show, Miller turned to composer Loren Loiacono for a new piece.

“We’ve used Loren many times ever since her Yale days. She’s now a professor of music at Syracuse University,” Miller said. “She’s an interesting and compelling composer — a deep thinker and a brilliant person. Her music is always structured and worked out. She loves rhythm, melody, and her music is approachable but quirky. The more you hear the more you find in it. That’s rare today. It’s fascinating to work on her music and to hear it. She’s a formidable composer.”

Loiacono’s piece is called “Beanie’s Chapbook.” Her inspiration is her 3-year old tuxedo cat that she found as a stray in Utica.

“I had been writing a large, really big piece, but [for this concert] I knew I had to open the program. So I wanted a whimsical and fun piece.”

She turned to Beanie — “a tiny, little cat” — and decided to create about a 10-minute work that looked at “her little perspective in her daily life and doesn’t know what it is.”

Loiacono — who always carries a notebook to jot down ideas — already had some piano sketches, so she knew what she wanted to do, she said. There are three movements: “Beanie and the Mirror Cat” about the cat looking at her reflection in a mirror and trying to figure out if it’s another cat or not; “Lullaby for Puffies,” which is about Beanie’s tiny, soft toys that she loves to cradle; and “Outside Friend with Very Long Ears” about a rabbit she sees out her window, wondering what the animal is.

“The three movements each have different themes told by the cat and are charming and sweet,” Miller said. “These are miniatures with many rhythmic devices that Loren loves to use.”

Geraldine Freedman is a Nippertown contributor.

Albany Symphony Orchestra
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: Troy Savings Bank Music Hall
HOW MUCH: $41-$68
MORE INFO: albanysymphony.com; 518-694-3300