Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Review Essay

On April 29, 2018 I saw the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra perform songs featuring works from Prokofiev, Mozart and Beethoven. These pieces were conducted by Carlo Rizzi and featured Elizabeth Koch Tiscione on the oboe. The orchestra consisted of violins, violas, cello, and bass for strings, and flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, and trumpet for the winds. The first selection was four movement work “Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Opus 25, ‘Classical’” composed by Sergei Prokofiev. This first movement, Allegro, had a moderate tempo and featured the melody mostly in the violins, which is a trend I noticed in a lot of pieces during this concert. It starts out in major mode, but switches to its relative minor without changing the key signature.

Again, the violins have the melody in the beginning, but soon the flutes join in. What I noticed was reoccurring in this movement, is that there would be this intricate, towering line with the violins as the melody, violas with a counter melody, and the rest of the ensemble as accompaniment, but it would suddenly cut to a piano moment where it would just be bassoons with a growly melodic line with the strings plucking a pizzicato accompanying line in an ABA format. The third movement, Gavotta. Non troppo allegro, was a moderately fast tempo with a forte dynamic, but suddenly it would at moments go mezzo piano for the clarinet and oboe melody, as well as flute features accompanied by pizzicato strings. The final movement of this piece, Finale. Molto vivace, was a very fast tempo with the melody being in the violins again, and the counter melody in the oboes and clarinets with flutes playing repeated sixteenth notes lines. There were multiple woodwind features, but there were many flute features in particular. Near the end, there was call and response, with it being the violins versus the cellos and bassoon. This movement also featured moments of mezzo piano, but would steadily crescendo into a climatic fortissimo