The National Chorale & Orchestra – Martin Josman, Music Director. April 24, 2009.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Third Tier Left (Seat BB108, $53).

Program
At the River (1954) by Aaron Copland, arr. By R. Wilding White
Las Agachadas (1942) by Copland
Psalm 121 (1953) by Henry Cowel.
Trois Chansons (1916) by Maurice Ravel
Closing Hymn: Israfel from Songfest (1977) by Leonard Bernstein
Carmina Burana (1935) by Carl Orff

Chung Shu, Shirley & I drove up again. We wanted to go through Jersey City so it would have a chance to redeem its reputation - our having suffered horrendous delays on our last trip. Traffic on a nice late Friday afternoon was bad, but we made it in about 90 minutes, and managed to find (free) off-street parking close to Lincoln Center. We met up with Anne at Ollie's and had a quick dinner.

Many people know the tune “O Fortuna”. It is used a lot in advertisements and as introduction to many classical radio broadcasts. The song has a haunting quality to it, and it is because of our interest to hear it live that we got tickets for this concert.

Given that the work consists of 24 poems from medieval times, we expected it would be the entire concert. We were a bit surprised that it was to be preceded by a first half of five different works. Instead of suffering through them, I found I enjoyed them. As I said in an earlier blog, the National Chorale suffers from lack of projected (or printed, for that matter) words, so I had to go with just the titles of the works. This task was made a bit more difficult since the songs were not performed in the order listed in the program! Some singers in the Chorale sang the solo parts, and they were quite good. The Chorale as a whole still needs some work, especially in being together.

Per the program notes, there are two versions of Carmina Burana, one with a full orchestra and a large choir, the other with two pianos, timpani, and various percussion instruments. We were hoping for the large orchestra version but didn’t get it. I have to say the small ensemble worked quite well with the 46-person chorale (and three soloist), though.

The conductor Martin Josman was much more energetic than what I remember from the last two performances. The invited soloists were however not all that good. Perhaps partially due to the falsetto parts written for the male soloists – not exactly my cup of tea. There is a bit of “acting” involved - walking, holding hands, embracing – but not quite a story. Given the premise of a priest, a young man, and a young woman, one could easily spin a story together, even it might not have been the composer’s original intention. Just to illustrate, the five parts are (i) Fortune, Empress of the World, (ii) In Springtime, (iii) In the tavern, (iv) the court of love, and (v) untitled, but consists of songs like “Should I choose love or chastity?”.

Orff considered this work his real first composition and had all his prior work destroyed. It is ironic that most people know only this work of his.

The entire concert was a bit long, ending at about 10:10 pm. Because of where we parked, we made it home in good time.

I wouldn’t have guessed I would end up enjoying a bunch of songs from the 20th century (1916 to 1977); let’s be frank, from any century, since I am not a song person. I ended up enjoying the evening, perhaps the show exceeded my modest expectations.