Symphony closes season with Romantics

On Apr. 13 the Symphony Orchestra performed their last concert of the ’22-’23 school year.

The ensemble presented Hector Berlioz’s “Le Carnaval Romain, Ouverture pour Orchestra” (Roman Carnival Overture), Opus 9, and Pytor Ilych Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique,” directed by graduate composer Rueff Frazao and Jeffery Grogan.

Frazao graduated from the University of Central Florida with a bachelor’s degree in music education and is now working for his master of music in orchestra conducting at OCU.

Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival Overture” was written as a response to his opera “Benvenuto Cellini” failing, and was originally just a prelude to another act but grew into fame as its own overture.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique” is a four-movement piece that premiered nine days before Tchaikovsky died of cholera.

Each movement strays from the traditional symphony, with the second and third movements following abnormal time signatures for a waltz and march, and the first and fourth movements displaying themes and emotions that would normally be frowned upon.

The piece is said to reflect Tchaikovsky’s struggle in life as a homosexual in a time where homosexuality was taboo, with Russian-American scholar Alexander Poznansky describing it as “a testimony to homosexual martyrdom.”

However, many believe that, while composing it, Tchaikovsky was not showing any signs of depression –with his brother even saying, “I had not seen him so bright in a long time past.”