Pops in the Yukon
by Sedgwick Clark
Friday night I’ll be dog sledding with Sergeant Preston of the Yukon!
Gawd, does that date me. How many of my loyal readers have the vaguest notion of what I speak? The title music for this mid-’50s TV show was the Overture to Donna Diana by Emil Nikolaus von Rezniček. True, the Sarge couldn’t quite compete with the Lone Ranger, whose show was forever associated with Rossini’s William Tell Overture, but once heard, it was never forgotten.
Bramwell Tovey will open the final program of his New York Philharmonic post-subscription Summertime Classics series (July 8, 9, and 10) with Donna Diana, and I was delighted to read Steve Smith’s review of the Phil’s penultimate program in today’s Times, asking “why these works don’t play a bigger role in the Philharmonic’s standard routine.” Tovey has been putting together enjoyable programs since the series began in 2004—just as André Kostelanetz used to do for the orchestra’s Promenade concerts—and most of the pieces would be just what the doctor ordered to enliven the usual dour subscription offerings. Seriously, can anyone imagine a frothier opening to a concert than Chabrier’s España? In 2007, Franz Welser-Möst led the Cleveland Orchestra in Suppé’s Light Cavalry Overture at Carnegie Hall’s opening-night concert, and tomorrow night, Tovey will lead it in Avery Fisher Hall.
I can’t wait.