Tucson Symphony Orchestra is back on the Music Hall stage this weekend for a concert whose title could be a little confusing.
“The Thrill of Tchaikovsky” might make you think that Music Director José Luis Gomez is presenting a bold Russian program.
Adjust your Google maps, with this one Gomez is taking us to Italy.
“I may be Venezuela-born with Spanish blood, but I also revel in all things Italian,” Gomez said in a note posted on the TSO website.
Gomez, who was guest-conducting in Belgium last week, anchored this weekend’s classics concert with Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio Italian,” which was inspired by a trip the Russian composer took to Rome in 1880 as he was trying to escape his marital problems.
The work is a fantasy for orchestra that incorporates the folk tunes and sounds Tchaikovsky heard on the Italian streets to create a soundscape of what Rome sounded like to a foreigner.
Gomez pairs that with Berlioz’s exhilarating “Roman Carnival” Overture, Respighi’s sweeping and dramatic “Roman Festivals” and Rossini’s classic “William Tell” Overture.
“With regard to ‘William Tell’,” Gomez said, “it’s always fun when people new to music hear passages made famous in television and cartoons.
Fun facts: Rossini’s overture has been widely and happily co-opted by Hollywood going as far back as the 1933 Marx Brothers’ film “Duck Soup.” Bugs Bunny has conducted the piece on cartoon and even the Stone Age crew of “The Flintstones” appreciated Rossini’s genius.
The orchestra will perform “The Thrill of Tchaikovsky” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, at Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are $17 to $83 through tucsonsymphony.org or by calling 520-882-8585.
The TSO has implemented COVID protocols that require masks in the hall and that ticketholders provide proof of a vaccination with ID or a negative COVID test taken within 72 hours of the performance.
