Water in all its forms has never ceased to be an inspiration to composers. From the vast aquatic reaches of the ocean to the most intimate sidewalk puddle, water tells the musical stories many of us long to hear.
The upcoming program by the California Symphony and Music Director Donato Cabrera makes the point with admirable expansiveness. It features the world premiere of “Chance of Rain,” a new curtain-raiser by Vietnamese American composer Viet Cuong, who is in his third and final year as the orchestra’s Young American Composer in Residence.
The rest of the program draws from the distinctive fluency and character of rivers. Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, the “Rhenish,” evokes memories of the composer’s trip with his wife, Clara, down the Rhine River — a rare period of contentment in his later years. And in Handel’s “Water Music,” the title character, as it were, is the Thames, where the piece was first performed for the delectation of King George I.