‘Voyage to Vienna’ a meaningful trek for two from Wichita Symphony
Wichita Symphony Orchestra’s “Voyage to Vienna” concert next weekend includes some notable ports of call for its principal cellist and its conductor.
Cellist Leonid Shukaev, who has been with the WSO since 2015, will be the featured soloist on Haydn’s “Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major,” his first featured WSO spot, although he was scheduled to play Strauss’ “Don Quixote” during a season canceled by the pandemic.
The concert will conclude with Brahms’ fourth symphony, a piece that conductor and music director Daniel Hege says propelled his love of music after hearing it as a child.
Shukaev has played the Haydn several times, in his native Russia and in Kazakhstan, where he toured.
“I probably have a slightly different vision how to play that because I think we all change, and I have slightly different ideas of how to create this style,” he said. “I enjoy that concerto very much, because it’s written so beautifully, and it demands a lot from the performer, especially the finale, which is very, very fast and has a lot of revolutionary height and time techniques, which even today is quite challenging.”
Shukaev, who is associate professor of cello and chamber music coach for Wichita State, said he enjoys the challenges of the Haydn.
“It gives you opportunity to demonstrate many different characters, which was kind of new for the young Haydn,” he said. “He developed and create absolutely different characters, and that was absolutely a new element in that period of music. … It makes it so fun to play, because you have different emotions, different characters, and you could find everything here, you know.”
Shukaev played with the Leningrad String Quartet and later the St. Petersburg Quartet, and “we changed the name of the city when we started to travel.”
The quartet frequently traveled, including a notable trip to South Korea, France and eventually the United States. Once through with the tour, he began work at Wichita State in 2010.
After several seasons, Shukaev became the principal cellist for the WSO.
“It seemed like a very logical choice to bring in the cello professor from Wichita State into the orchestra not only because we like to keep that relationship strong between the Wichita Symphony and Wichita State, but also because Leonid is so extremely well qualified to play as a leader in the orchestra,” Hege said. “I was very, very excited to have landed him. So, we welcomed him with open arms into the orchestra once that principal cello position opened and, it’s worked extremely well ever since he joined.”
The Vienna theme continues with Brahms’ fourth, which is close to Hege’s heart.
“The Fourth Symphony was actually the first one that I heard as a kid,” said Hege, a preteen at the time. “When I heard that, it just spoke to me immediately. I just was drawn into that sound, and It just pulled me in. I couldn’t understand why until I was much older and I studied the score, and I saw what Brahms was doing. Brahms is very brilliant at being able to create such lyrical beauty in such rhythmic interest and lush orchestral colors. He’s so good at that, that sometimes you don’t even appreciate the construction of the piece.
“When you see how Brahms is able to bring together the intellectual aspects of creating a great work like this out of small motifs, similar to what Leonid was talking about with Haydn. And of course, Beethoven also did that. But Brahms takes this almost on another level, where every motif is somehow connected to another motif,” he continued. “You’re holding onto one melody, and then it becomes another melody, but it’s really part of the former melody that’s changing. He does it so organically that it is almost difficult to appreciate just how much intellectual heft goes into it. And yet, an audience member wouldn’t have to know all of that to enjoy it.”
Hege says the Brahms is “such a beautiful piece, and it has all of the elements of music that make us respond to music like that because of its beauty and because it has rhythmic drive, it has a lot of intensity to it.”
This is the second time Hege has programmed Brahms’ Fourth for the WSO. The first was during his first season, in 2010-2011.
“We have now played all the four symphonies since I’ve been here,” he said. “Brahms kind of put a spell on me.”
WICHITA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 24
Where: Century II concert hall, 225 W. Douglas
Tickets: $29-$85, from wichitasymphony.org, 316-267-7658 or the Century II box office