PATRICIA C. SYAK | Symphony notes Orchestra and chorus head to high school

The Youngstown Symphony Orchestra and Chorus will perform with the Lakeview High School Chorus at Concert in the Suburbs at 8 p.m. March 31 in Cortland's Lakeview High School auditorium.
Although the orchestra and chorus have performed at various Mahoning Valley sites, this will be their first collaboration with a high school music ensemble and their first visit to this Trumbull County community.
Concert in the Suburbs was first performed at St. Charles Roman Catholic Church, Boardman, as part of the Choral Series on March 5, 1995. Although the Choral Series is no longer presented, Concert in the Suburbs continues as part of the society's out-migration effort.
Community sites: Along with Pops at the Ballpark and educational projects such as Storytyme, Tiny Tots and Fanfare, Concert in the Suburbs meets this challenge through specific performances to diverse audiences at community sites.
Bach's Cantata No. 4 will be performed by the combined choirs and orchestra. Orchestral selections include the Bach Suite No. 4 and Beethoven Symphony No. 2. The selection of Bach and Beethoven repertoire presents an interesting showcase of the Baroque and Romance periods.
The known history of the Bach tribe extends over seven generations, and members still flourish, although the direct line of Johann Sebastian Bach died out in the nineteenth century. Many members of the clan were musically gifted. The most gifted, J.S. Bach, is the supreme exemplification of the thesis that the greatest artists do not so much originate as fulfill.
Baroque style: Bach was neither at the head nor in the ranks of any contemporary "movement"; he originated no new form and was almost as completely without influence on the half-century that followed his death as if he had never been born. Yet in Bach's music one finds the culmination of most of the elements of the Baroque style in which counterpoint is organized and regulated by harmonic concerns.
Romanticism was foreshadowed by Bach, whose works display a strong emotional nature capable of expressing every phase of human emotion, and it was actively brought into being by Beethoven.
America had overturned British colonial rule, and the French citizenry revolted against their monarchy. Through revolutions and revolts at the close of the eighteenth century, man became aware of his own individuality and an exterior world in which he was inextricably connected.
In no earlier era could Beethoven have demonstrated his creativity so defiantly, broken so decisively with the past or struck out in new directions with such independence.
In the words of C.H.H. Parry, Beethoven "expresses the complete emancipation of human emotion and mind, and attempts to give expression to every kind of mood and inner sensibility ... which is capable of being brought into the circuit of an artistic scheme of design."
Adventurous: Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 is obviously a derivative of the departing style with simple and directly presented melodies. Yet there are some points of departure where Beethoven shows an adventurous spirit and forecast to come. For instance, in the third movement of the Second Symphony, he abandons even the name "minuet" and introduces a musical form of his own invention called the "scherzo," which literally means "a musical joke."
General admission tickets for the concert are $15 and available in advance by calling the Symphony Center box office at (330) 744-0264 or at the door the evening of the performance. Concert in the Suburbs is underwritten in part by the Youngstown Symphony Chorus, directed by Don Megahan. Director of the Lakeview High School Chorus is Jane Page.
XPatricia C. Syak is executive director of the Youngstown Symphony Society.