LSO Pre-Concert Lecture

This season, Lakeside Chautauqua is partnering with the Conservatory of Music of Baldwin Wallace University and Oberlin College & Conservatory to provide a lecture prior to select Lakeside Symphony Orchestra (LSO) concerts. These talks prepare listeners to understand and enjoy the evening’s symphony concert more fully.

Join us at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, July 31 in the Fountain Inn Aigler Room for a Pre-Concert Lecture with Charles E. McGuire titled “Cinematic Soundscapes: Evocations by Beethoven, Schumann, and Sigfusdottir.”

Music in the hands of a skillful composer has the power to evoke moods, emotions and even abstract ideas. Each of the three works to be performed on July 31 presents us with a redolent sonic portrait.

María Hulm Markan Sigfúsdóttir’s Oceans (2018) uses shimmering orchestration to evoke the seascape on the coasts of Iceland.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3 in C major, op. 37 (1803), through strong harmonic contrasts, is a passionate drama that belies its simple major key setting.

Robert Schumann’s Spring Symphony in B-flat major (1840), is pervaded with an optimism that is as much about the growth and renewal of the vernal season as it is about Schumann’s marriage to Clara Wieck. We

will discuss all three works, examining how their composers shaped them to be more than just evocative music, but something almost cinematic.

McGuire, Professor of Musicology at Oberlin College & Conservatory, studies the music of Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams, sight-singing techniques and the intersection of choral singing and moral reform movements.

His publications include Music and Victorian Philanthropy: The Tonic Sol-fa Movement, Elgar’s Oratorios: The Creation of an Epic Narrative and The Historical Dictionary of English Music, which he co-authored with Oberlin colleague Professor Steven Plank.

He is currently writing a history of British musical festivals. His video course, The Great Works of Sacred Music, is available from The Teaching Company.

McGuire holds a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Music and PhD in music from Harvard University. He has taught in various capacities at Harvard University, Ball State University, the University of Maryland at College Park and James Madison University. He returned to Oberlin in 2001.