On opening night of its 2026-27 season on the theme of “New Worlds, Timeless Wonders,” the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra performed a concert double-header. Game 1, Act 1 was an all-strings orchestral serenade. Game 2, Act 2 was an all-instruments-on-deck performance of the last hurrah by the world champion record-holding composer of symphonies, sandwiched around a between-games sweet snack of strings, brass and woodwinds.
After a stand-up orchestra rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the MSO’s season-launching concert series, “From London to America,” opened with Dvorak’s 1875 symphonic “Serenade for Strings” in five movements, the first of which is popular on classical music radio — enchanting with its lush melodic theme introduced on cellos, here by Katie McCarthy leading the cellists and violinists by concertmaster Kimberly McCollum. The opening theme is traded in call-and-response form underpinned by the viola section led by Yuri Tomenko before a soaring all-strings reprise.
The second movement switches to a lilting waltz melody with violins and violas alternately leading, while the third movement scherzo is almost hyperactive in its varying temperament and tempos with a finishing coda drawn from each mood and modulation. The Larghetto fourth movement slows down the pace with a wistful return to the tranquil waltz theme. The lively finale, in the spirit of a Bohemian dance party, not atypical for the Czech composer, features a staccato exchange of melodic themes between high and low strings competing for attention and winning ours to the Allegro Vivace finish.
Act I of the concert closes with the lone 20th-century piece of the evening, composed by Florence Price, the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra. She wrote “Adoration” late in her career, largely unheralded due to her gender and race until her extensive lost canon of works was rediscovered posthumously. In three parts without pause, the four-minute gem goes from light to dark and back again, expressively performed by strings and beautifully enhanced on horn (Michael Hall and Anne Nye) and bassoon (Terry Ewell and Ian Newton).
Following intermission, MSO music director Michael Repper informed the large turnout for opening night why Joseph Haydn was known as “The Father of the Symphony.” Aside from mentoring Beethoven and Mozart, he wrote more symphonies than anyone alive then or now, Symphony No. 104, better known as the “London Symphony,” being his finale. It was also the last of 12 symphonies he wrote in London.
By 1795, when Haydn’s 104th was written and conducted by him in the same year, he was healthy and wealthy enough never to work again, though he lived to see the ninth year of the 19th century. Not even considering that it was composed late in life at a time when most humans never made it to age 77, it remains an impressively robust symphony.
Its authoritatively decisive Adagio Allegro opening movement performed in London could be interpreted here and now — to Barry Dove’s percussive beat — as a salute to King George III, who still ruled despite losing his mind as well as 13 American colonies, including Maryland.
The second movement Andante retreats into competition between major and minor keys that is thematically compelling in that you don’t know whose side will dominate, much like a game of American baseball or interminable English cricket. Musically speaking, it seems like a cliff-hanging tie in just the second inning.
The third movement Menuetto and Trio gets listeners and, I suspect, players back on the dance card with bassoon and oboe support — led on the latter by Dana Newcomb — and luring listeners and players alike back to the main theme that grows more compelling, note for note. Except when Haydn seems to skip them.
Unexpected pauses in momentum as written by the master could be misinterpreted as errors except for the purposeful trickery of the composer playing a joke on us, but not on the skilled musicians and conductor who get it right as written. Hey, in Haydn’s 104th and final symphony, why not have some fun?
The youthfully exuberant finale opens in sonata form to the central European folk roots of Haydn’s birth and to an inevitably spirited finish. Maybe that’s why he chose to call the last movement of his 104th and final symphony “Spiritoso.
FROM LONDON TO AMERICA
Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s season-opening concert, Thursday night at the Church of God, Easton.
Upcoming performances: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, Cape Henlopen High School, Lewes, DE, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, Community Church, Ocean Pines, MD.
