ELIM CHAN CONDUCTS TCHAIKOVSKY

Elizabeth Ogonek composed Moondog as a work that could be played either as a standalone piece (as here) or as the last in a triptych of orchestral pieces inspired by forms found in nature. A moondog is a meteorological phenomenon where, as she explains, “ice crystals reflect light to create two symmetrical orbs that appear on either side of the moon.” This suggested a musical structure in which the opening and closing sections are symmetrical reflections surrounding a lyrical central expanse, the whole “creating an orchestral atmosphere that evokes the mysteriousness of nighttime.”

Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 was written around the time he ended his touring career in the West to return to Russia, which he had left two decades earlier following the Revolution (he first arrived in America through Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco). The piece unites all four streams in his compositional style: classical, modern, motoric, and lyrical.

Although Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was far less of a musical nationalist than his contemporaries known as the “Mighty Handful” or “Russian Five,” he did entertain an ongoing interest in Slavic folk music, which reached a high-point in his Symphony No. 2. Tchaikovsky would ultimately travel a path more beholden to Germanic symphonic traditions, but this energetic score suggests fleetingly that the Russian Five could have become the Russian Six.