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<\/a>Tonight I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a concert by the Carmel Symphony Orchestra. I didn\u2019t realize I would know several people in it, including my son\u2019s current violin teacher and the teacher of his first teacher.<\/p>\nI only found out about the concert yesterday, and quickly made plans to attend. The main reason was because the program included the Concerto for Horn and Orchestra by John Williams. I love Williams\u2019 music \u2013 and not only his film scores. The Horn Concerto was composed for Dale Clevenger, the principal horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and soloist on tonight\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
The concert opened with Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s spectacular and rousing Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op.36. This was followed by the Williams Horn Concerto, which consists of five movements (like his bassoon concerto), entitled Angelus, That Battle of the Trees, Pastorale, The Hunt, and Nocturne. The last movement was particularly beautiful, as was the Pastorale, which begins with a solo on the oboe (performed tonight by Andrea Gullickson of Butler University). The oboe is joined by the bassoon and eventually the horn (and of course the rest of the orchestra). The opening Angelus is reminiscent of the style and mood of the opening of TreeSong, and while the concerto, like most of Williams\u2019 concert works, eschews the sing-along melodies found in his film scores, the concerto nonetheless includes the beautiful, mood-creating timbres and modes of expression beloved of all fans of Williams\u2019 music. The concert concluded after an intermission with a performance of Dvorak\u2019s Symphony No.7 in D minor, Op.70.<\/p>\n
The title of this blog entry comes from a reply that John Williams gave to Dale Clevenger when the latter asked him to include a great horn melody of the sort we know and love from his film scores. Williams\u2019 reply was that he writes film music for 8 year olds.<\/p>\n