Photo by Randy Beach Nicholas McGegan will guest conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra when it performs at the Weinberg Center for the Arts on Friday.

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Photo by Christian Colberg The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s principal trumpet player, Andrew Balio, will perform Franz Joseph Haydn's “Trumpet Concerto” when the orchestra performs at the Weinberg Center for the Arts on Friday.

Photo by Randy Beach Nicholas McGegan will guest conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra when it performs at the Weinberg Center for the Arts on Friday.

 

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Those 18th-century composers must have had a gas.

As revered as Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are for their musical legacy, the San Francisco Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s Nicholas McGegan say the master and student were not above a simple joke.

“[Haydn] was quite earthy. Mozart and Haydn didn’t mind flatulence and things like that,” McGegan says. “It’s very much part of 18th-century Austria to talk about farting and belching. It’s particularly less polite than Victorian people.”

While bodily functions will likely not be part of the program when McGegan guest conducts the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Weinberg Center for the Arts on Friday, he does plan to channel some 18th-century antics. The night’s program includes classics such as Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 1” and Mozart’s “Symphony No. 39,” but it is Haydn’s “Trumpet Concerto” that features cadenzas moments in which the player can improvise.

That piece will be performed by Andrew Balio, the BSO’s principal trumpet player. When McGegan arranged the cadenza and sent notes for Balio to review, the duo added some humor of their own, including one thematic sound that reminded McGegan of a particular barnyard animal.

“In the last movement, I imitate the sound of a donkey,” Balio says.

Written in 1803, the “Trumpet Concerto” is the first piece composed specifically for the chromatic trumpet. As such, Haydn did not miss the opportunity to toy with the audience, offering familiar long notes in the beginning before delving into what the new instrument had to offer.

“The third time the trumpet comes in, it plays a beautiful melody that’s chromatic and then [Haydn] keeps throwing in more fanfare ... making fun of the traditional role of the trumpet,” Balio says.

Balio has been with the orchestra since 2001 after leaving the Israel Philharmonic. The Wisconsin native says he joined the BSO because of the risks it takes.

“They’re very experimental,” he says. “More than many other orchestras. So many of the world’s greatest soloists got their start when they were kids with the BSO. They were the crash test dummies. We test out young talent that nobody’s heard of.”

Jokes aside, McGegan’s career is nothing to laugh to about. The conductor has held positions with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Sweden’s Drottningholm Court Theatre, among others. He has been with the San Francisco Philharmonia for the last 25 years.

McGegan also is no stranger to awards. The Philharmonia’s “Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 88, 101, 104” is up for a Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance. While he says it would be nice to win, McGegan will be on the road when the ceremony takes place. He leads two-thirds of the orchestra’s 30 performances throughout the year and travels in between. When the winners are named, McGegan will be in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, conducting the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. For McGegan, the recognition is enough.

“The funny thing about being nominated is that it’s something that no one has any control over, sort of like the election of the pope,” McGegan says. “You just wait for the white smoke.”

Just like the composers they will pay homage to in Friday’s performance, McGegan and Balio are two music aficionadas who enjoy a good evening.

“They wore wigs and all the rest of it, but they were real people and they were great fun and I hope that fun comes across in the music,” McGegan says.

tforhecz@gazette.net

ny Orchestra

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Where: Weinberg Center for the Arts, 20 West Patrick St., Frederick

Tickets: $40 for orchestra, $35 for rear orchestra, $30 for balcony and mezzanine

For information: 301-600-2828 or www.weinbergcenter.org