McPhee says ‘goodbye’ to Symphony by the Sea

After seven years of great music and community involvement, Jonathan McPhee is saying "goodbye" to Symphony by the Sea at the conclusion of its 27th season. McPhee will conduct two performances featuring cellist Wendy Law. Each concert will be followed by a champagne reception for audiences to extend best wishes to McPhee. All audience members invited.

The concerts and receptions will take place Saturday, April 26, 8 p.m. at the Old North Church in Marblehead, and again at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 27 at the Governor's Academy in Byfield. Tickets for both performances are available online, by calling Symphony by the Sea at 978-745-4955, or at the following ticket locations: Arnould Gallery, 111 Washington St., and Comina, 12 Atlantic Ave. in Marblehead; Ted Cole's Music, 30 Church St. in Salem; Borders Books, Route 114, Peabody; The Book Rack, 52 State St., Newburyport. Tickets are $30.

Cellist Law has appeared as soloist with renowned orchestra including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Russian Philharmonic and Juilliard Orchestra. She has performed throughout North America, appearing in such venues as Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and Jordan Hall, Boston.

The opening work will be the overture to Mendelssohn's "Son and Stranger," a work written to mark the silver wedding anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn's parents. To brighten the occasion, 20-year-old Felix decided to write a piece of music in their honor, a one-act "liederspiel" (a musical skit mingling spoken lines with songs).

The concert's second piece is Mozart's "Linz Symphony." On the morning of Oct. 31, 1783, Mozart and his wife Constanze arrived in Linz on their way back to Vienna from Salzburg, where they had just spent three months with Leopold, Mozart's father, trying with little success to soften his disapproval of their marriage. Passing through Linz, they were hosted by a certain Count Thun, an ardent lover of Mozart's music. The count invited the couple to stay at his castle, extracting from Mozart the promise that in four days he would conduct the count's orchestra in an all-Mozart concert.

On the evening of the 31st, Mozart wrote to his father, "Because I have not a single symphony with me, I am working at breakneck speed on a new one, which must be ready by Nov. 4." Mozart made his deadline, and the performance came off on schedule.

The concert's third selection is Béla Bartók's "Romanian Folk Dances." Béla Bartók was considered by many to be a musical ethnologist. Béla Bartók was passionately interested in the folk music not only of his native Hungary but of all the Balkan countries as well. The six short "Romanian Folk Dances" were published in 1915.

The concert's final piece features Law in Tchaikovsky's "Rococo Variations." Composed in 1876, a few months before the "Fourth Symphony," Tchaikovsky's "Opus 33" is an attractive, melodic virtuoso piece that stands today as a staple of the cello repertoire.