San Diego Symphony

Rafael Payare conducts. No concerns here.

As I continue to slog my way through the dog days of summer, I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. The hills are October and the help is the start of the Jacobs Masterworks Series at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park.

The autumn begins with Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem on Friday and Saturday, October 1 and 2. While Verdi’s masterpiece is one of my favorites, I do have some concerns about this concert. Actually, I have just one concern—the chorus. Rafael Payare will conduct. I’m wondering how the antiphonal brass sections during the “Dies Irae” will be handled at the outdoor venue.

October 7 and 8 bring tidings of Carl Maria von Weber and his spooky Freischutz Overture, Sergei Prokofiev’s romantic Sinfonia Concertante for Cello and Orchestra, and none other than Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.

I have zero concerns here. The October 8 concert will be performed at the California Center for the Arts Escondido. Payare also conducts these concerts. I find the Prokofiev to be particularly interesting. Of course, I like pretty much everything he wrote.

Edo de Waart takes over conductor duties for concerts on October 15 and 16. So far as repertoire goes, these are my favorite concerts of October. They feature three absolute masterpieces: Aaron Copland’s atmospheric Appalachian Spring, Erich Korngold’s brilliant Violin Concerto, and Antonin Dvorak’s dramatic Symphony No. 8. It feels as though we’ve had at least three performances of Dvorak's Eighth since we last heard his Symphony No. 9: From the New World.

Each of these three pieces is a delight in and of itself. Getting all three of them in one concert feels like an indulgence but one I will gladly embrace.

The final two concerts of October, on the 19th and 21st, are variations of each other. The core repertoire for these concerts is Samuel Barber’s *First Essay for Orchestra and Violin Concerto, Lei Liang’s Bamboo Lights, and Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements. Besides the violin concerto, this is my least anticipated concert.

I was not familiar with Lei Liang so I listened to parts of Bamboo Lights. I’m not a fan of this type of music. Neither do I know anyone who is a fan of this type of music. If fans of this music do exist they must be at UCSD where the concert on October 21, takes place.

Barber’s Violin Concerto is a sneaky masterpiece. Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements comes from his days in Los Angeles and includes material that was originally intended for the silver screen.

More information on these concerts can be found at www.sandiegosymphony.org