Event

Reading is Fundamental

Saturday, April 12, 2014
2:00 pm
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
4525 Oak St., Kansas City, MO

The library is open! Put on your reading glasses, crack open a good book, and hear how composers through the ages have transformed amazing stories into music.

Robert W. Smith's "Inferno," from the Divine Comedy, draws inspiration from Dante's 14th-century epic. Suitably fiery with its blazing brass and demonic percussion, the work is made complete by a part for chains! On the opposite end of the spectrum, Tchaikovsky draws from the themes of love and sorrow in Shakespeare's immortal tale of star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, with a score that is romantic to the extreme.

Paul Creston's Kalevala uses the Finnish epic poemand its off-kilter 5/4 meteras his source of inspiration. J.R.R. Tolkien was also captivated by the Kalevala stories, especially by the mysterious and all-powerful Sampo, which can be seen as direct inspiration for the One Ring in his monumental Lord of the Rings trilogy. Gandalf is a central figure to Tolkien's stories, and Johan de Meij encapsulated the great wizard's spirit and that of his horse, Shadowfax, in "Gandalf" from his Lord of the Rings Symphony.

Popular tunes from Les Misérables (based on Victor Hugo's 1862 novel) and the Wizard of Oz from Frank L. Baum's immortal series take center stage in medley format; along with William Schuman's seminalWhen Jesus Wept, David Del Tredici's tender "Acrostic Song" from Final Alice, and John Williams's epic score to Jurassic Park.