Violinist performs 'audience friendly' concerto
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
Published March 17, 2004
Pip Clarke,the soloist with the Florida Orchestra this week, is playing Korngold's Violin Concerto, which is drawn from composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold's film scores from the 1930s, including Anthony Adverse, Another Dawn, The Prince and the Pauper and Juarez.
"It's one of my very favorite works to perform," said Clarke, who has made the concerto something of a staple of hers since first playing it nine years ago. "It's just something that falls easily for me. It's very romantic, and you can express yourself in it, much more so than in the classical concertos of Beethoven, Mozart and things like that. It's audience friendly. It's very luscious."
Clarke, an Englishwoman who lives in Los Angeles, enjoys listening to historic recordings by golden-age violinists such as Jascha Heifetz, who premiered the Korngold in 1947. "It's his kind of work completely," she said. "You get all sorts of ideas from his recordings. You can throw caution to the winds and just get on with it. That's the kind of violin playing that I love."
Just because the Korngold is recycled movie music doesn't mean it's easy. "It's sort of improvisational, but with a structure," Clarke said. "That's what makes it difficult to put together, because it's got to sound not rehearsed. Otherwise, it would sound very boring and a bit corny, whereas if you just let it flow, then it becomes a real masterwork."
Also on the program is Beethoven's Fourth Symphony and Toch's Pinocchio, with Stefan Sanderling conducting. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday at Morsani Hall of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in Tampa, 8 p.m. Saturday at the Mahaffey Theater at Bayfront Center in St. Petersburg and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. $21 to $45. (813) 286-2403 or toll-free 1-800-662-7286.
An opera milestone
Victor DeRenzi is scheduled to conduct his 400th opera performance tonight with the Sarasota Opera. Fittingly, in his 22nd season as artistic director, DeRenzi will be in the pit for a Verdi opera, Il Corsaro. It's the 22nd opera by Verdi that he has conducted. The company is more than halfway through a Verdi cycle in which all the composer's works will be performed by 2013, the bicentennial of his birth.
Choir on tour
The Westminster Choir, conducted by Joseph Flummerfelt, is on tour in Florida with an eclectic program of works by Poulenc, Copland, Brahms, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams and others. The 40-voice chorus, made up of students at the Westminster Choir College of Rider University in New Jersey, has been featured since 1977 at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. in Charleston, S.C. Flummerfelt was named Conductor of the Year 2004 by Musical America. The choir performs at 8 p.m. Thursday at First Presbyterian Church in Lake Wales. Tuesday, the main seating was sold out, but about 100 tickets for side galleries with slightly restricted views were available at a discount price of $8. (863) 676-8426.
- John Fleming can be reached at 727 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com
[Last modified March 17, 2004, 01:20:38]
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