MSO V: Classics - MSO Turns 88

The Manila Symphony Orchestra

Featuring:

Jayson Pagtakhan, oboe

Randolf Lopez, clarinet

Ariel Perez, bassoon

Celso de Leon, horn

Manila Symphony Orchestra

Arturo Molina, conductor

Programme:

Franz Joseph Haydn Symphony No. 88 in G major, Hob. 1/88

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, and Bassoon, K. 297b

Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21

The Manila Symphony Orchestra’s concert at the Santiago Francisco Hall marking their 88^th year was a classical music overload. The orchestra’s music director and principal conductor Arturo Molina prepared an evening packed with classical era works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. The concert also gave the spotlight to four of the MSO’s musicians namely oboist Jasyon Pagtakhan, clarinetist Randolf Lopez, bassoonist Ariel Perez, and horn player Celso de Leon.

The concert started with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 in G major, Hob. 1/88. The 88^th year of the MSO played a huge part in the selection of this symphony among the 106 that Haydn composed. To make the audience appreciate the music in the concert more, the MSO’s executive director Jefrey Solares took to the stage and briefly introduced the pieces. Solares also mentioned that Haydn is credited to be the father of the symphony and that he somewhat cooked up the form and bunched up the movements that make up the symphony as we know it today. It may sound complicated at first but Haydn’s work, specifically this one, is anything but. The movements only featured a single theme, later developed before returning back to it, which can be recalled very easily.

Things did get more complicated with the next piece which was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, and Bassoon, K. 297b. First of all, this piece is still in question whether this was composed by Mozart at all. It sounds like a Mozart piece but there is no clear evidence that would refute all doubts as to who the real composer of this piece really was. Solares told the audience to listen carefully to the soloists, oboist Jasyon Pagtakhan, clarinetist Randolf Lopez, bassoonist Ariel Perez, and horn player Celso de Leon and take note of how the balance between the four was carefully crafted. And he also mentioned that in this piece, there would be a secondary theme which was a development during the classical period.

Jefrey Solares prior to raffling off an iPad Mini to one lucky MSO subscriber

Lastly, the orchestra performed Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21, a work that pushed the boundaries of music in the classical period before going into the romantic era. Solares then explained that one of the innovations that Beethoven introduced to the symphony was the speeding up of the third movement, traditionally a stately dance called the minuet, into what would later be the scherzo which is a joke in Italian. It is only fitting that the concert was capped with this piece since everything went full circle near the end. During the final movement of this symphony, Beethoven directly took the theme from the final movement of Haydn’s 88^th symphony, the same one that was performed by the orchestra at the start of the concert.

By the end of the Beethoven symphony, I already had my fill of music from the classical era but the audience certainly did not as they demanded more. The orchestra obliged with another Mozart piece, the Overture from The Marriage of Figaro. I admit that it was too much classical era music for me in one concert and that it made me want to listen to some romantic music afterwards. But this concert that marked the end of MSO’s Color Your World season did make me comprehend once again how music progressed during the classical era.