Special concert set for next week at USCA

Next week the USC Symphony Orchestra will be making a rare appearance in Aiken.

Under the direction of Dr. Donald Portnoy, the nearly 100 student musicians who make up this fine musical ensemble will be joined by guest pianist Arthur Tollefson in a program that features masterworks of the 19th-century orchestral repertoire.

The concert will begin with Edvard Grieg's only piano concerto. Composed in 1868 while he was vacationing in Denmark, whose climate was considered more salubrious to his health than that of his native Norway, the concerto has become, over time, one of the most popular works of its kind. Its abiding status may be attributed in part to its overall lyricism and to its dramatic opening cadenza, which has been featured often in movies, television programs, and commercials.

Grieg is one of those composers who is labeled as nationalist because his music is infused with the spirit of his homeland - the first and third movements of his piano concerto, in particular, are linked to Norwegian folk melodies. Into this same category, one can place Antonin Dvorak, whose work is next on the program.

For this special concert, Portnoy chose the first eight of 16 of the composer's "Slavonic Dances." A native of Bohemia in what is now the western part of the Czech Republic - the word for Bohemia in Polish is "Czechy" - Dvorak followed in the footsteps of his immediate musical predecessor, Bedrich Smetana, in composing original music inspired by the folk songs and dances of his homeland. Both men were drawn to this music not just out of nostalgia for the place of their birth but also because such tunes captured some essential part of the national identity.

In the 19th century, Bohemia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Bohemian or Czech nationalists struggled throughout that period to administer their own affairs as the citizens of a semi-autonomous region and to gain official recognition of their own language. All 16 of Dvorak s "Slavonic Dances" - the first set composed in 1878 and the second in 1889 - were an ardent expression of cultural identity in the face of enforced conformity to an externally imposed authority.

The final work in the program is a musical landmark, the first symphony by Johannes Brahms. Many historians have theories as to why Brahms waited so long to compose this work - Brahms finished his first symphony in 1876 when he was 43 - but this notoriously slow and self-critical composer provided his own answer regarding his procrastination.

Brahms admitted that he dreaded having to follow in the footsteps of Ludwig van Beethoven, the consummate master of this particular musical form. He finally overcame his reticence in this regard by paying conscious homage to Beethoven in his "Symphony No. 1," which echoes elements of the earlier composer's fifth and ninth symphonies.

Under the auspices of the Aiken Performing Arts Group and USC Aiken, the concert is scheduled for 8 p.m., Wednesday, March 17, at USCA's Etherredge Center. Tickets are $30 for the general public and $20 for students. For more information, call the box office at 641-3305.

A Carolina Trustee Professor, Dr. Mack holds the G.L. Toole Chair at USC Aiken.