The world premiere of "Double Concerto for Violin and Viola," written expressly for Igor and Vesna Stefanovich-Gruppman, headlined the concert of the Orchestra at Temple Square March 18-19 in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Brother Gruppman is the orchestra's conductor, and his wife, Sister Stefanovich-Gruppman, a soloist of international renown, has appeared many times with the orchestra, often performing with her husband.
Paul M. van Brugge, a native of the Netherlands, composed the single-movement concerto. Known primarily as a composer of film music, with more than 75 feature-length movies and documentaries to his credit, he has also written operas, chamber pieces and orchestral works.
While the Gruppmans performed, the orchestra was led by Mark Emile, music director and conductor of the Northern Utah Symphony in Cache Valley. Brother Gruppman then assumed the baton for the two other pieces on the program, Tchaikovksy's "Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy" and a suite of symphonic dances by Leonard Bernstein from the Broadway classic "West Side Story."
The three compositions "have enormous differences in musical language, in character, in the time they were written," Brother Gruppman noted in introductory remarks, "but they are united by the same theme: the theme of the relationship of two beings ... capable of loving each other, and the theme of the concert is the complexity of that relationship," including love, pain and, most of all, hope.
He briefly recounted the origin of the new piece. The Gruppmans and the composer applied to the Dutch performing arts foundation Fonds Podium Kunsten. "We were humbled and honored that they gave us the commission and Paul the opportunity to write a piece and for us to perform it.
He said the piece employs a huge orchestra and is highly complex. "Because it is complex, it presents all kinds of challenges for the orchestra and the soloists for coordination."
The artists had a choice of locale to present the premiere, be it in Holland or the Gruppman's homeland of Russia. "I felt very strongly that I wanted to bring this piece here to Salt Lake City, to my orchestra and to you, the audience that we so love," Brother Gruppman said.
"The music is not easy to listen to, I will tell you right away," he remarked. "It is written in the modern musical language which employs different genres: jazz, music of the East, and also great influences of contemporary western music." Rather than give a technical explanation of tonality and musical form, he expressed his and his wife's emotional feeling about the music.
"You hear two statements from the violin solo and the viola solo. These are statements of loneliness and longing to belong somewhere. ... And then, you hear the two individuals coming together. ... One of my favorite pieces of this music is the portion in the middle, where all the voices of the orchestra and the soloists, like branches of a tree, surge up, as if to heaven looking for an answer of inspiration."
For him, the piece is all about longing to find true spiritual companionship and equilibrium, he said. "Throughout this piece, there is a great hope that we hear at the end, a hope that these tensions and these questions are going to be resolved."
Composer van Brugge addressed the audience briefly, saying, "The only thing to be diffused from this stage is trembling air, which is reaching your ears, and I sincerely hope this trembling air will also reach your hearts and souls."
