In Friday’s (2/8) Canton Repository (Ohio), Dan Kane writes, “Repository writer Walter Tremain was plenty impressed by the Canton Symphony Orchestra’s sold-out concert debut on Feb. 16, 1938, at the city auditorium downtown. ‘Throbbing beats of thundering kettle drums, dominating their way through the sustained climax of Tchaikovsky’s “Marche Slave,” were echoed in the (crowd) response of 3,300 persons,’ Tremain wrote in a front-page story the next day. … On Feb. 16—75 years to the day after the orchestra’s successful debut—the Canton Symphony will re-create the original musical program at 8 p.m. at Umstattd Hall, with Maestro Gerhardt Zimmermann on the podium. The orchestra will perform Beethoven’s ‘Egmont Overture,’ Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 in G Major, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Scheherazade.’ The orchestra will not be performing Tchaikovsky’s aforementioned ‘Marche Slave’ because, as Zimmermann said, ‘it would make for a very, very long concert.’ The 1938 concert was a notably challenging program for a new civic orchestra. ‘There’s not really a theme to it, other than in those days, as well as today, all the works would be known and recognizable and liked by classical listeners,’ Zimmermann said.”
Posted February 8, 2013
