The Cape Symphony Orchestra presents “A Salute to Service” at the Barnstable Performing Arts Center at 4:00 PM on November 15 and 3:00 PM on November 16, 2025.
Ticketholders are invited to a discussion of the concert program led by George Scharr one hour before each performance.

Download a printable version of these Program Notes.

THE CAPE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Guest Conductor
Guillaume Pirard

Guest Artist
Mark Paradis, Trumpet

CONCERT PROGRAM

Traditional
“Reveille”

DUDLEY BUCK (1839-1909)
Festival Overture on the American National Air (The Star Spangled Banner)

MORTON GOULD (1913-1996)
American Salute

Traditional, Arr. DANIEL BUTTERFIELD (1831-1901)
“Taps”

MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937)
Le Tombeau de Couperin
Prélude
Forlane
Menuet
Rigaudon

SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981)
Adagio for Strings

Intermission (20 minutes)

AARON COPLAND (1900-1990)
Symphony No. 3
Molto moderato
Allegro molto
Andantino quasi allegretto
Molto deliberato – Allegro risoluto

ABOUT TODAY’S PROGRAM

“A Salute to Service” traces a broad arc through American and European music, from the calls of military life to the quiet depths of remembrance, and finally to the triumph of a nation emerging from war. Opening with familiar bugle calls and patriotic works, we honor courage and service. Ravel and Barber then turn that remembrance inward, transforming grief into beauty. After intermission, Copland’s monumental Symphony No. 3 brings the concert to a close with a vision of strength and renewal, lifting private emotion into a shared affirmation of hope.

Mark Paradis of Taps for Veterans opens our concert with the brisk, ascending call of “Reveille.” Traditionally sounded to signal the start of a soldier’s day, this simple tune carries associations of discipline, vigilance, and renewal.

Composer and organist Dudley Buck (1839-1909) gained wide recognition in the late 19th century. His Festival Overture on the American National Air (1879) takes the familiar melody of “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the theme for a work of symphonic grandeur, full of flourish and fanfare. “Buck wrote this overture as a celebration,” says Concertmaster Jae Cosmos Lee. “It was around the time of the Centennial, with many festivals happening in major cities around the country.” While “The Star-Spangled Banner” did not become our national anthem until 1931 (Lee notes that before then, America the Beautiful was sung just as much) this overture celebrates both the anthem itself and the promise of American music taking its place on the world stage.

Morton Gould (1913-1996) composed American Salute in a single night in 1942, at the height of World War II. Drawing upon the Civil War tune “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” he created an orchestral showpiece brimming with rhythmic vitality and patriotic energy. Bright, brassy colors turn the old march into newly exhilarating music that honors the courage and perseverance of those serving abroad, and anticipates the celebration of their return.

Mark Paradis returns to the stage to sound “Taps.” Its haunting simplicity has made this one of the most deeply moving melodies in American history. Adapted from an earlier bugle call in 1862 by General Daniel Butterfield (1831-1901), the tune was originally intended as a lights-out signal for Union troops encamped at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia. Before long, it was used throughout the Union army and even by the Confederates. “Taps” was made an official bugle call after the war, and its 24 notes became a universal call of rest and remembrance.

French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) originally wrote Le Tombeau de Couperin (the tomb of Couperin) as a piano suite, and later rearranged four of its movements for a full orchestra. Ravel drove a munitions truck on the front lines of World War I. “He was already too ill to be a solder, having had dysentery during that time,” notes Jae Cosmos Lee. While the pieces were composed in remembrance of friends lost, “the irony is that they don’t sound solemn. They sound happy, even rather fussy… Ravel didn’t want to remember his friends in sadness, but as enjoying life.”

“I find Le Tombeau de Couperin fascinating on multiple levels,” says conductor Guillaume Pirard. “It is an homage in two directions at once. Each movement honors a friend who fell during the Great War, as it was called then, yet the work also salutes the luminous legacy of the French Baroque master François Couperin. In doing so, Ravel brings the elegance of the past and the heroism of the present together: Couperin represents what was being defended—France’s cultural identity—while the dedication to fallen comrades acknowledges the courage and sacrifice that preserved it. It is also a fascinating piece for the orchestra. It is originally for the piano and furthermore references the music of Couperin, a harpsichordist. The orchestra musicians must make sense of the text while contending with the variety of timbers and articulations that are particular to their own instrument. It’s a great challenge to represent such intricate ‘lacing’ with our orchestral instruments.”

“Barber’s Adagio needs no introduction,” says Jae Cosmos Lee. “It is one of the most mournful, solemn, achingly beautiful pieces in the orchestral repertoire.” Adagio for Strings was originally the slow movement of Samuel Barber’s 1936 String Quartet. It was embellished in 1938 and first performed that year by Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra for radio broadcast from New York’s Rockefeller Center. The original recording is permanently preserved at the Library of Congress. Adagio for Strings is performed frequently in times of national mourning, including for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, President John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. It has been used in many film and television soundtracks, including to great effect in Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986). Barber (1910-1981) was himself a veteran, having been drafted into the Army in 1942 and transferred to the Army Air Force where he was put into special service to write music.

Intermission

Your Cape Symphony Orchestra will now perform Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3, which premiered in 1946. Written at the close of World War II, it is “bombastic, celebratory, and hopeful – a celebration of the end of the war,” says Jae Cosmos Lee. It reflects both the anguish and the triumph of the times.

“While there are many American sounds,” reflects Guillaume Pirard, “the American sound in classical music was pioneered by Aaron Copland. Amazingly, it is a task he set out to do deliberately and he succeeded! I would say that when people talk of American sound in classical music, it is Copland’s sound they imagine. It is a mixture of dance rhythms found in jazz, Latino and folk music, and the use of open intervals. By open intervals, I mean the prevalence of fourth and fifth over thirds. So, do-fa or do-sol, instead of do-mi. The note thus seemingly skipped leaves a gap where images of vast expanses suddenly come to us. So in his music there are bustling streets, rumbas danced in a cafe, the immense sky and the prairie. He really captured America like no others before or since.”

The first movement of Symphony No. 3 opens with broad, spacious sonorities that evoke the open landscape of America. The second brims with energy, with sharp rhythms and brassy bursts suggesting determination and forward drive. The third movement offers respite: an introspective, lyrical interlude, tender and searching. The finale, incorporating Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, gathers the symphony’s themes into a radiant affirmation of hope and renewal. In its final pages, the Fanfare theme rises with majesty and force, as if summoning the collective strength of ordinary people.

Thank you for attending “A Salute to Service.” We hope you enjoyed the concert and that we’ll see you again soon!

BEHIND THE SCENES

PRODUCTION TEAM

Director of Concert Operations
Patrick Gallagher

Stage Manager
Kimberly Monteiro

Assistant Stage Manager
Brendan Gallagher

Lighting Designer
Kendra Murphy

Stage Crew
Jay Ivanof
John Bishop

HOSPITALITY & ACCOMMODATIONS COORDINATOR
Charlotte Baxter

LIBRARIAN
Victoria Krukowski

MANAGING ARTISTIC PRINCIPAL
Jae Cosmos Lee

PERSONNEL MANAGER
Wes Hopper

Cape Symphony Staff and Board of Trustees

The Cape Symphony Orchestra’s Masterpiece series concerts are sponsored by Cape Cod 5.

SUPPORT YOUR CAPE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Concert ticket sales cover only part of the cost to maintain a professional orchestra on Cape Cod. Generous donations and community support make the difference.

Donating is easy, online at www.capesymphony.org/donations or by mail to Cape Symphony, 2235 Iyannough Road, West Barnstable, MA 02668. For more information about ways to support Cape Symphony, please contact Director of Advancement Paul Mastrodonato atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 774-470-2282 ext. 101. Thank you!

Program Notes by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. References include: ausa.org, arlingtoncemetery.mil; music.af.mil; starspangledmusic.org; windrep.org; Classical Music, The Rough Guide.