Piano music to celebrate Portland Rose Festival
As a continuation of our gardens e-blast two weeks ago, we turn our attention to the beauty of the rose and its connection to music. Portland, also known as Rose City, is ideal for growing roses outdoors due to its location within the marine West Coast climate region, its warm, dry summers and rainy but mild winters, and its heavy clay soil. This May, the Portland Rose Festival is #ParadingInPlace, and is asking members of the community to celebrate their Rose Festival spirit by choosing a theme, decorating porches and sharing joy to neighborhoods across the city. We would love to see the porch decorations that you create, our dear community, and we hope that these musical works provide a soundtrack for your celebrations this month.
It doesn’t get much more flowery than Strauss’ 1880 waltz, Roses from the South. Fans of Star Trek will recognize Roses from the South as the waltz Trelane has Uhura play in "The Squire of Gothos"! The tune is uplifting, joyous and light. It is bound to be the perfect track for your own personal garden party.
From the symphonic waltz, we move to the art song. This Schumann song, "Die Rose, die Lilie", is brief but lovely like the flowering rose. Schumann wrote almost exclusively for the piano until 1840, when he burst into song composition around the time of his marriage to Clara Wieck. He wrote extensively for piano and song alike, and we are grateful for it!
Schumann and Fauré’s piano quintets are often programmed together and we would like to see their songs about roses featured on the same programs in the future too! Fauré’s Les Roses d’Ispahan is from his Quatre mélodies, which also includes another flowery piece, Fleur jetée. The vocal part in Les Roses d’Ispahan soars beautifully above the thoughtful piano part, there are no thorns here.
Each year, we look forward to celebrating the beloved Portland Rose Festival and this year is no different. We look forward to decorating our own porches with roses while listening to this soundtrack of Strauss, Schumann, and Fauré...we hope that you’ll do the same. As always, we would love to hear how you are doing and treasure the photos that you send us. We hope that you enjoy #ParadingInPlace!