By Randi Bjornstad
Two years ago, the Eugene Symphony presented a major work titled The Four Seasons of the McKenzie River, showing hundreds of photographs of the wild-and-scenic Oregon stream to the accompaniment of Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi’s homage to nature — The Four Seasons — in the form of a concerto for each of the seasons in the year.
Now, with the symphony’s regular season curtailed by the ongoing “sheltering in place” occasioned by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic known as Covid-19, the symphony offers a replay of this visual and aural work. It will be played online on Saturday, April 25 but will remain available for viewing through the Eugene Symphony’s website at eugenesymphony.org until June 9.
The Eugene Symphony first played this concert on Feb. 15, 2018, during artistic director and conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong’s first season with the orchestra.
By then, the project had been in the works for more than a year, gathering and editing the images of the river and its environs during to illustrate Vivaldi’s famous score.
Here’s how the original program notes described that performance:
I am especially delighted with tonight’s presentation of Vivaldi’s well-known The Four Seasons that culminates a year-long process to collect imagery of our glorious McKenzie River.
In partnership with McKenzie River Trust and Travel Lane County, the community (including some of you in the audience!) submitted more than 600 photos and videos, and I am thrilled to see the selections projected on stage tonight. My hope is that the imagery heightens our awareness to the sounds of nature Vivaldi so strikingly places in his concertos.
Spring begins with a movement that captures a typical crisp day with growing warmth, birdcalls, and cascading streams, followed by a sudden rainstorm, and then a country dance with people celebrating the end of winter.
Summer portrays an indolent day of heat that keeps both people and birds inactive until a sudden breeze arises, heralding the approach of a summer storm that includes cooling but pelting hail.
Autumn brings the culmination of the growing season as people bring in the crops and celebrate the harvest with food and wine, preparing to slow down with the approach of winter but also gathering for a hunt to procure meat to last through the cold months.
Winter brings the cold, as people bundle up against the season, hurrying to do errands before returning to the warmth of the fireplace to dispel the chill.
In order to participate in the April 25 event, viewers must log on to http://eugenesymphony.org/watch and enter an email address in order to receive a password.
The April 25 event includes a live, pre-concert talk by maestro Lecce-Chong as well as a Q&A session after the performance:
7 p.m. — Preconcert talk via Francesco Lecce-Chong’s Facebook page
7:30 p.m. — Performance of The Four Seasons of the McKenzie River
8:15 p.m. (approximate) — Live question-and-answer session with Lecce-Chong via his Facebook page
