Symphonic Dances: Rachmaninoff, Bernstein and Salonen

Rafael Payare, conductor
Ricardo Morales, clarinet

ESTÉVEZ: Midday on the Plains (Mediodía en el llano)
SALONEN: kínēma
BERNSTEIN: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
RACHMANINOFF: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45

This program unites a beloved Venezuelan tone poem with three works by composer conductors who shaped modern music.

Antonio Estévez’s Mediodía en el llano (1942) captures the heat and stillness of Venezuela’s central plains, Los Llanos. Originally part of a three movement suite portraying dawn, midday, and evening, it evokes the bright intensity of noon on the expansive grasslands, suffused with lyrical beauty and local color.

Finnish composer Esa Pekka Salonen’s kínēma, written in 2021, is a gentle clarinet concerto drawn from film music created during the pandemic. Its five movements – Dawn, Theme and Variations, Pérotin Dream, J.D. in memoriam, and Return – move from shimmering light to reflective lyricism and renewal.

Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story transforms his landmark Broadway score into a symphonic suite that distills the story’s passion, violence, and reconciliation, brimming with rhythm and theatrical brilliance.

Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances (1940), his final composition, reflects on a lifetime of memory and exile. Written in America yet steeped in nostalgia for Russia, its sweeping melodies and radiant conclusion – echoing his All Night Vespers – proclaim a final “Hallelujah.”

Together, these four works create a journey across lands and eras, celebrating color, movement, and the enduring human voice in music.