SOSL’s ‘Romantic Masterworks’ concert

In the early days of western music, from the folk songs of European villages to the liturgical music of the Christian church, instruments were meant for accompanying voices. But by 18th century, instrumental music had developed into its own genre of musical expression, and composers began writing music for particular combinations of instruments. By the 19th century, orchestras had become standardized to include multiple string, wind, brass and percussion instruments, and by the early 20th century, every major western city could boast of having a resident orchestra that regularly performed music from the western classical repertoire.

While the modern era has seen many countries rushing to create orchestras as a status symbol of rising economic and cultural prosperity, the Symphony Orchestra of Ceylon seems to have arisen out of a more modest intent: that of friends simply wanting to make music together. Formed in the 1930s, formalized in the 1950s, and rebranded as the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka in the 1990s, SOSL is today proud to be a full symphonic orchestra which performs 4 concerts a year, and which also runs a Junior orchestra and several outreach programmes that take live western classical music out of Colombo.

SOSL’s first Sri Lankan female conductor, Dushyanthi Perera, takes the baton for the upcoming orchestra concert which features Suppe’s Overture to Poet and Peasant, Dvorak’s Seranade for Strings in E Major, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3.

All three compositions hail from the 19th century Romantic era, and represent the many facets of Romanticism in music.

Austrian composer Franz von Suppe’s Overture from the operetta ‘The Poet and the Peasant’ opens the concert on a light note, providing us with a glimpse of how popular taste in music ran back in the day.

The Czech composer Antonín Dvo?ák’s Serenade for Strings is a more serious piece of music, with folk-song-like melodies dressed up in rich orchestral textures. German composer Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 (nick-named ‘Scottish Symphony’) was inspired by the composer’s impression of a ruined church in Edinburgh, Scotland, and while it does not source any actual Scottish music, the music does seek to evoke the atmosphere of the cold ruins and misty natural surroundings of the region, possibly giving the listener some insight into the composer’s own feelings towards the Scottish landscape.

These three compositions can be heard at SOSL’s ‘Romantic Masterworks’ concert, to be held on Saturday, May 19, 7pm at Ladies College Hall. Tickets are available at the Lionel Wendt Box Office