Opera Laurier and Laurier Symphony Orchestra: Program Notes

Nov. 19, 2025

Piano Concerto No.2 in F minor

In July 1829, the nineteen-year-old Chopin spent three weeks in Vienna. The publisher Haslinger encouraged him to give a recital, which was so well received that a second was quickly arranged, and proved equally successful. Upon returning to Poland, Chopin realized that if he were going to pursue a career as a concert pianist (a career move he soon abandoned), he would need some major display pieces of his own in his repertoire. To this end he soon set about writing the F-minor concerto, which he premiered in Warsaw on March 17, 1830 to great acclaim. Hence, Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor, the so-called No. 2, was actually his first, preceding the E-minor concerto by about a year. The reversal in numbering came about because the orchestral parts of the F-minor concerto were lost before it was published, and by the time they were recopied, the E-minor concerto had been published.
The enduring appeal of a Chopin concerto lies in the piano writing – sweetly lyrical melodies, a quality of intimacy, the expressive nuances of colour and dynamics, the improvisatory character provided by such techniques as rubato, arpeggios and delicate ornamentation of the melodic lines. The first movement’s two main themes are stated in the opening orchestral exposition – a strongly rhythmic idea with a quasi-military flavour (a rhythm also found in so many Italian operas of the period) and a more lyrical, bel canto subject announced by the woodwind choir, the first of several felicitous uses of woodwind colour in this concerto.

- Program notes by Robert Markow for the National Arts Centre Orchestra program, February 5, 2019.

Concertino for Tuba and String Orchestra, Op.77

Born August 14, 1911, in Amsterdam, Jan Koetsier was composer of the 20th century renowned for his compositions for solo brass. He received his education from the Musikhochschule in Berlin. Koetsier spent the first decades of his musical career as a conductor in Berlin and then in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. After this he conducted for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for sixteen years. Returning to composition in his later years, Koetsier greatly contributed to brass instruments, including bass trombone, euphonium and tuba. His composition style if often influenced by Hindemith and Stravinsky’s Neoclassical style. Koetsier was a prolific composer, and his large-scale works, such as his Third Symphony, are performed regularly by major orchestras. His ability and affinity for brass instruments resulted in many popular solo works for brass instruments, including a Symphony for Brass, and many concertos and chamber pieces. Koetsier passed on April 28, 2006, in Munich.

Opening this performance of Concertino for Tuba and String Orchestra, Op.77 with the lush Romanza, the character quickly shifts from sweeping and gentle, to a more impish character, cavorting through the upper range of the tuba. The third movement is characterized by its shifts between 2/4 and 5/8 time, pulling in the listener with surprises and cheeky humour as other tunes are quoted in a whirling spin of the energy and lyrical power.

Violin Concerto No.2 in D minor, Op.22

Henryk Wieniawski was a great violin virtuoso, who like so many of his predecessors and contemporaries—Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Sarasate, Paganini, and many, many others—composed music for his own performances to emphasize his technical prowess, ability to write beautiful melodies, and of course attract paying concert audiences to make a living. The young Henri (French spelling of his name, which he preferred) Wieniawski was a child prodigy. He was taken to Paris from his native Poland at age eight and graduated with the first prize in violin from the Paris Conservatory at the age of eleven. He was friends and worked with some of the greatest and most famous musicians of his day and toured extensively with several of them. In 1859, the famed pianist and conductor Anton Rubenstein convinced Henri to come to Moscow, where he was soon appointed personal violinist to the Tsar, and the two continued to work together through tours of the United States, and then Wieniawski continued to teach in the Brussels’ Royal Conservatory and give concerts across Europe until his death. The second violin concerto is known for beautiful melodies – especially the second movement, which was described by master violinist Leopold Auer as “a song to be sung in a way to make us forget the instrument”. The last movement, “with fire,” is unequivocally that, beginning as a kind of cadenza for the soloist, at breakneck speed. After dashing along madly for a while, the mood suddenly shifts to the charm of a village celebration in the style of a “Zingara” dance of Roma musical traditions.

- Program notes by Jay Fishman for the Minnesota Sinfonia