Ojai Festival:
1979: Final Concert

The 33rd Annual Ojai Festival held it’s final concert on May 20, 1979. In the first half of the concert, Lukas Foss conducts the Ojai Festival Orchestra in a performance of his own “Salomon Rossi Suite” as well as Haydn’s “Symphony No. 60.” The Suite is a brief orchestral work that like Stravinsky’s “Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa” recasts a Renaissance composer's music for modern instruments. The second half of the program is given over to the West Coast premiere of “Lehrstück,” a work of musical theater by Paul Hindemith and Bertolt Brecht. Loosely inspired by Charles Lindbergh’s solo pan-Atlantic flight, this piece calls for an orchestra, chorus, solo vocalists, narrator, wind ensemble, and clown interlude. For this performance Werner Klemperer plays the role of narrator. Perhaps best known to American audiences as the actor who played the role of Colonel Klink in the 1960s’ sitcom, “Hogan’s Heroes,” Klemperer actually comes from a musical family and was trained as an opera singer. In addition, the clown interlude is ably handled by the famous Firesign Theater performance group. If that wasn’t enough, Hindemith’s and Brecht’s score also calls for the audience to get involved as a sort of second chorus, and after a very brief rehearsal during the intermission, the Festival-goers prove to be more then up to the task. The result is a magnificent and engaging performance, and a very fitting end to what must have been an absolutely delightful weekend of music in an appropriately bucolic setting.