Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 2 Left
(Seat CC5, $40.)
Program
Last Round (1991/96) by Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960).
Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 64
(1844) by Mendelssohn (1809-47).
Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88 (1889) by Dvorak
(1841-1904).
The youth shall take over the world. That was the thought that came to my mind
when I found out who the conductor and the soloist were going to be. Joshua Weilerstein was born in 1987, making
him 25 or 26. I don’t know how old
Arabella Steinbacher is (and can’t find out as I am again sitting inside a
plane,) but remember her as being very young when she performed with the
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra a couple of years ago.
The program has a “war horse” violin concerto sandwiched
between two pieces I had never heard before.
When we were in Italy last summer (Florence in particular,) we had a
chance to hear a concert devoted to Piazzolla’s music, but decided to pass
since we did not count tango nor jazz as a favorite. Today’s program started with a short piece by
one of Piazzolla’s admirers, Osvaldo Golijov.
According to the Playbill, Golijov is considered one of the great
composers of our generation, being inundated by commissions from various
prestigious organizations. This work was
written as a tribute to Piazzolla, “Last Round” was an imaginary chance for
Piazzolla to fight once more. The
Program Notes contains the composer’s description of the two movements: Movido,
urgent – Macho cool and dangerous; and Muertes dei angel (Deaths of the Angel),
Lentisimo.
I have some rough idea what tango sounds like, and can’t
begin to understand the appeal of jazz.
Alas, the combination of the two genres didn’t make it any more
accessible for me. Indeed it didn’t
evoke any images of a tango in my mind, although there is a strong jazz flavor
to the music. Evidently the composer
allows for different ways the piece can be performed, for tonight a reduced
string orchestra was used. However,
there are multiple parts for the strings, and the first and second violin players
were divided up and sat on both sides of the stage. The music, however, didn’t sound as
complicated as the Program Notes would indicate. From the tepid applause at the conclusion, I
suspect many in the audience didn’t get it.
We last heard the Mendelssohn violin concerto played by
Itzhak Perlman, and I recall being quite disappointed by the performance. Again working from my memory, Perlman messed
up the first movement, with many misplaced notes, but the third movement was
played with his characteristic light touch.
Steinbacher certainly got a better grip on the intonation, but the
entire performance was quite flat. She
played the cadenza written by the composer.
That is the one familiar to me.
The annotator seems to think the one written by Ferdinand David is heard
more often – right now I don’t remember what it sounds like.
The Mendelssohn concerto is a showpiece of moderate
difficulty, and considered light-weight musically by many critics. I can agree with the assessment in that the
listener may admire the skill of the musician and tap along with the rhythm,
but they would seldom feel emotionally drained or intellectually challenged. While Steinbacher had no trouble with the difficult
passages, she didn’t have enough flourish (other than exaggerated arm movements
at the end of a phrase that reminded me of Sarah Chang) to give a virtuoso
impression. This despite the good sound
of her violin, a 1716 “Booth” Stradivarius.
The audience gave her a prolonged standing ovation. That made me wonder if my assessment was
wrong. Earlier today CS came by to give
us a ride to the airport, and he relayed the comment of an orchestra member
about the performance that wasn’t complimentary. That may be one person’s view, but I felt
quite a bit of relief. [Note: this review was completed over the course of
several days, for this paragraph “today” was October 17.]
I don’t know how many of Dvorak’s symphonies I have heard
(he wrote at least nine,) and the eighth is not one of them. The Playbill lists a phrase (The Birdcall)
that is used quite extensively, and I certainly was familiar with that. However, there are not that many tunes I
remember, a surprise for a work by this particular composer. The symphony consists of the following
movements: Allegro con brio, Adagio, Allegro grazioso and Allegro ma non
troppo.
This is a good time to say something about the conductor. He has dual master’s degrees in violin
performance and conducting from The New England Conservatory, and evidently is
a great violinist as he was the first American to be invited to join the Simon
Bolivar Youth Orchestra (by Dudamel, no less.)
His energy level reminds me of a former New York Philharmonic assistant
conductor – Zhang Xuan. He is perhaps 18
inches taller though. (CS thinks he is
at least 6’ 5”, I just know Zhang is short.)
The orchestra reacted to the range of dynamics he asked for, and was
quite precise in the phrasing.
But was there a lot of musicianship in the
performance. I didn’t think so right
after I heard it, and continue to not think so a couple of days later (as well
as on October 23, sitting inside an airplane reviewing my writeup.) Good story telling is not simply making sure
we play loudly or softly as the music score requires, but in how we string the
elements into a coherent piece. In this
I don’t think Weilerstein succeeded.
Yes, the youth will take over the world. Perhaps the old(er) needn’t be that worried
about these two for now: they need to development their musicianship a
bit. I am sure they will get there. Also, to become an assistant conductor at the
New York Philharmonic, or to be a feature soloist, at this young age is nothing
short of a great accomplishment. For
that the two should be congratulated.
We drove up today, and found street parking a couple of
blocks from Lincoln Center. It must have
been garbage day as there were these huge mounds of filled up garbage bags on
the curb. We parked next to one of the
piles and worried if it was okay to do so – it was.
Another piece of sad news: China Fun is closed. From the outside it looks like it is closed
for good, so we lost another place to grab a quick and inexpensive meal in the
area.
The concert ended at around 9:30 pm (it started at 7:30)
and we were home by 10:45 pm.
The New York Times Review had a lot of good things to say about Steinbacher, it was more mixed about Weilerstein. Interestingly, this reviewer (Zachary Woolfe) made in passing a rather disparaging remark about the recent Gilbert-led performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Not only was he not the reviewer of record (Anthony Tommasini), his view is diametrically opposite to that of the published review also ("loud and wan" versus "vibrant, lucid, and intriguing.") For those of us who are not "in," what is going on?
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