A new overture

Slava!; Leonard Bernstein, composer; Dallas Wind Symphony; Frederick Fennell, conducting

In February of 1981, when Mom, Dad and I attended our first SDSU Symphonic Band Concert at Donor Auditorium, the band opened their concert with one of the most memorable pieces I have ever heard called “Slava!”.

The National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., formed in 1931. Over the course of forty-six years, Hans Kindler, Howard Mitchell, and then Antal Dorati served as Music Directors of the NSO. In 1977, the National Symphony Orchestra extended a call to master cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, asking him to take the baton as the fourth Music Director of the NSO, a position that he held until 1994.

For his inaugural season with the NSO, none other than the great composer Leonard Bernstein penned an overture, a real zippy number, by the way, to commemorate the auspicious occasion. The legendary American band composer and arranger Clare Grundmand transcribed the piece for symphonic band. Mr. Rostropovich was known to his friends as Slava, nickname, I would guess, for Mstislav; hence the name of the overture.

In performance, if the audience doesn’t remember the name of the overture before the ensemble gets to the end, well, Mr. Bernstein’s got your back.Three seconds before the end of the piece the players shout “SLAVA!” right before they play their last two notes. I think that this makes a lot of sense and I would like to encourage this to happen more often. Toward the end of my life, when I turn forgetful and senile, I wouldn’t mind, in fact I would probably be forever grateful, if, right before Mr. Beethoven’s final loud, bombastic, fist-in-the-air, fate-filled C minor chord, the orchestra members would yell out “BEETHOVEN’S SYMPHONY NO. FIVE IN C MINOR, OPUS 67!”

J., a friend of mine from college, reminded me recently of “Slava!” when she found a performance of the piece on YouTube by an elementary band in Japan. The young musicians played the work flawlessly and … with no music in front of them. As we say in the upper Midwest: Uffda!

Credits: To the National Symphony Orchestra, for almost eighty years of stellar performances of classical music's finest works for the people of Washington, D.C., and their guests. Thank you.