NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, Oct. 11.
A musical masterpiece lost for two centuries — rediscovered in the early 1960s — will come alive in the Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s first concerts of the season tonight and Saturday.
It’s the Concerto in C for Cello and Orchestra, by Joseph Haydn, featuring guest soloist Mara Finkelstein of Seattle, a cellist who delights in describing her piece.
“Haydn’s music is accessible to everyone, and yet it is never so simple as to be boring. There’s humor, instrumental fireworks, lots of beautiful melodies,” Finkelstein said, adding that there’s “plenty to sweep you away from the routines of life.”
Finkelstein will join the chamber players for an all-Haydn concert at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 301 Lopez Ave., Port Angeles, tonight.
Then, the orchestra comes to the Sequim Worship Center, 640 N. Sequim Ave., on Saturday night.
Both performances will start at 7 p.m.
General admission is $12, while concert-goers age 16 and younger can attend free if accompanied by an adult.
The overture from Haydn’s “Orlando Paladino” Piano Sonata No. 46 in E and his Symphony No. 58 in F are also on the program, making this “a great chance,” Finkelstein noted, “to become more intimate with the music of a man who was a good friend of Mozart — they even played quartets together — and also was Beethoven’s teacher.”
Solo cello
Her concerto’s solo cello part is “full of very rapid passages,” she added, “and quickly alternating high and low notes, sounding at times like two cellos playing in counterpoint.
“Beyond all that, the slow movement is absolutely gorgeous and lyrical.”
This Haydn work, composed in the 1760s, was lost until 1961, when it was found in the archives of the Prague National Museum.
“It has been recorded by most of the major soloists,” Finkelstein noted, but “since there is no long tradition of how it should be interpreted, we cellists get to play it however we want — within the bounds of reason.”
Finkelstein, who studied at the Gnessin State College of Music and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow before coming to the United States in 1989, is principal cellist with Seattle’s Northwest Sinfonietta chamber orchestra.
Also an active freelance musician and teacher, she has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, the Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Fear No Music 20th-Century Ensemble, among others.
She is returning to Port Angeles, having played Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Port Angeles Symphony and conductor Adam Stern two years ago.
‘Outstanding orchestra’
“I was amazed that a city of the size of Port Angeles has such an outstanding orchestra,” she said, adding that Stern, whom she’s known for years, “is a man of wit and impeccable musical taste.”
Tickets to the all-Haydn concerts are available in Port Angeles at Port Book and News, 104 E. First St., and at the orchestra office via 360-457-5579; and in Sequim at The Good Book/Joyful Noise Music Center, 108 W. Washington St. and at Sequim Village Glass, 761 Carlsborg Road.
Remaining tickets will be sold at the door of both venues.
To find out more about the Port Angeles Symphony’s season of concerts and activities, visit www.PortAngelesSymphony.org.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
