Details

Matthias Pintscher, music director and conductor

Sophia Burgos, soprano

Kansas City Symphony Chorus, Charles Bruffy, chorus director

GABRIEL FAURÉ Masques et bergamasques         
FRANCIS POULENC Gloria
CLAUDE DEBUSSY Nocturnes

 

Matthias Pintscher leads your Kansas City Symphony in Gabriel Fauré’s Masques et bergamasques, a thoroughly enchanting suite drawn from incidental music for a divertissement staged in Monte Carlo. Fauré’s music readily captures the essence of the masked balls and rustic dances alluded to in the title, offering refined accompaniment to the glamourous mystique of the event.

 

Soprano Sophia Burgos is featured in Francis Poulenc’s Gloria, one of his signature works. The Symphony Chorus shines in this music, filled with rhythmic verve and suave syncopations. Lush and inviting dissonances paired with sensuous chord progressions are part of his glittering harmonic palette. Lyrical phrases encounter angular counterpoint, much like Poulenc’s paradoxical personality. This radiant and often playful music is a perfect juxtaposition of sacred and secular.

 

French composer Claude Debussy’s Nocturnes are dreamy examples of his impressionist style. He said he chose the title “Nocturnes” for “all the various impressions and the special effects of light that the word suggests.” The first movement paints a picture of floating clouds with wistful parallel chords, while the second celebrates a festival atmosphere, complete with a parade passing by. The final movement depicts the sea and its countless rhythms, with the song of the mythical Sirens (sung by a wordless women’s chorus) woven throughout.