Evanston Symphony Orchestra

In 1839 the Theater Pension Fund asked Felix Mendelssohn to write an overture and a song for their production of Ruy Blas, a play by Victor Hugo. They hoped having Mendelssohn’s name attached to the production would bring in a larger audience. Mendelssohn did not care for the content of Ruy Blas (a rather violent and bloody play), but wanted to support the organization so he wrote the song.

Johannes Brahms is recognized as one of the great composers of the Romantic period. His career took flight in the early 1850s thanks in no small part to the mentorship of Robert Schumann, one of the leading composers and critics of the day. He and his wife, Clara, a prominent piano soloist and composer in her own right, played significant roles in shepherding the career of young Brahms.

Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor is the only piano concerto the composer ever wrote. Completed in 1845, it premiered later that same year; however, Schumann originally composed it as a one-movement piece for piano and orchestra. When he was unable to successfully sell the one-movement version to publishers, he revised it based on his wife Clara Schumann’s suggestion, eventually expanding it into a full three-movement concerto. In fact, Clara was the piano soloist when the piece premiered.

It’s easy to draw parallels between Emmanuel Chabrier’s Espana and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol, pieces that the Evanston Symphony Orchestra will perform on February 4 at 2:30 p.m. Both were written about the same time in the 1880s and draw on the music and culture of Spain. But there is another similarity: Neither composer was actually Spanish.

Huapango remains the most famous work of José Pablo Moncayo, the Guadalajara native and a pupil of Aaron Copland. While visiting Alvarado in Veracruz, Moncayo was inspired by the folk music he heard. The melodies and rhythms proved difficult for him to capture, as the musicians never performed the folk dance the same way twice. He still managed to complete the composition, which was met with great acclaim; it served as the foundation of a new movement of Mexican nationalism in music, and is considered by some as the unofficial second national anthem of Mexico.

Joaquin Rodrigo, blind since the age of 3 due to diphtheria, moved to Paris at 26 to study with Paul Dukas in 1927. After marrying Turkish pianist Victoria Kamhi in 1933, Rodrigo returned to Paris to study at the Conservatory and the Sorbonne. He came back to Spain only after the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.

Born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw, Frederic Chopin was playing the piano and writing tunes by the age of 6. At age 8, he was performing in elegant salons and writing his own compositions including the Polonaise in G Minor.