Library's Popular "Musical Conversations" Series Resumes

By Susan Stanton, Technical Services Coordinator

February 8 , 2006

One of the wonderful things about classical music – like all great art – is that the more you give to it, the more shades of meaning it gives back to you.

You don’t have to read library books, take music appreciation classes or go to pre-concert talks to fully enjoy classical music concerts – but such activities, besides being fun in themselves, offer a deeply pleasurable and rewarding understanding of what is being expressed in music and how it connects to other aspects of life and art in the composer’s era and in our own time.

The Natrona County Public Library provides a friendly, informal setting to learn more about classical music in its popular “Musical Conversations” series of talks with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra conductor Jonathan Shames. The series, co-sponsored by the library and the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, is held each Thursday afternoon before the symphony’s Saturday evening concert series and discusses music to be performed at the concert.

All sessions, which are free and open to the public, run from 5:30 to 6:30 pm in the library’s Crawford room and include light refreshments. The spirited conversations offer opportunities for questions and discussions, and include illustrative CD recordings and examples performed by Shames on the piano. Library materials that relate to the discussions are also on display and available for check-out.

The series begins Feb. 9 with a conversation about concertos, friendship and the relationship between artistic forms, focusing on Haydn’s Concerto No. 1 for Horn, Dragonetti’s Concerto for Double Bass, and Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (written in honor of the composer’s painter friend Victor Hartmann).

The conversations continue March 16 with a talk about torment and tenderness in Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, and the fiery passion of two modern works – a newly written overture by Casper College instructor Jianjun He, and Christopher Rouse’s Flute Concerto. This conversation will be moved to Casper College due to the library’s annual book sale.

The series concludes April 20 with a talk about the world’s of love and emotion in a child’s toybox as expressed in Debussy’s La Boite a Joujoux; a poetic expression of the death of love in Chausson’s Poeme de L’amour et de la Mer; and the fond tribute to Italy expressed in Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien.

If you do want to read library books about classical music, some of Natrona County Public Library’s newest additions include “Mozart’s Women” about influences in the composer’s life; “Visual Music,” which teases out connections between music and visual art; and “Mozart in the Jungle,” the tragicomic story of a professional musician’s struggles to make it in New York. And remember to check out the extensive classical music holdings in the library’s CD section.

We hope you’ll enjoy these materials and “join the conversation!” For further information, please contact the library at 237-4935 x120.

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