David Geffen
Hall at Lincoln Center. Orchestra (Seat
X103, $66.25).
Program – Bernstein’s Philharmonic, A
Centennial Festival
Boundless (Homage to L.B.) by Roukens (b. 1982).
Serenade (after
Plato’s Symposium) for Violin, String
Orchestra, Harp, and Percussion (1953-54) by Berstein (1918-1990).
Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah (1942) by Bernstein.
We have been in
the Boston area since mid-October. I
needed to take care of a few things back home and took advantage of the
reduced-price offer for this concert.
This is a multi-week event celebrating Bernstein’s centennial (one could
argue the celebration should be held next year, as Bernstein was born in
1918.) We hadn’t planned on any of these
concerts, our plans to be out of town was one factor, but my general lack of interest
in Bernstein’s music was another. This
concert – or rather the Program Notes – certainly added quite a bit to my
knowledge of Bernstein as a composer.
The other thing
I didn’t expect was Gilbert was to be the conductor. He came out to tremendous applause from the
audience. He asked the audience to
observe a moment of silence for the victims of the morning’s terrorist attack.
Joey Roukens is
a young Dutch composer who wrote this piece on commission from the
Concertgebouw Orchestra, and its premiere was conducted by Gilbert. The piece consists of three movements - manically,
glacially, propulsively – played without break.
The changes in tempo was so obvious that not much guesswork was
required. Between the annotator’s notes
and the “composer’s words” segment one could get a pretty good picture of what
Roukens is trying to say. To me the
first movement has a strong dose of jazz, the second reasonably successfully
evoked Bernstein conducting Mahler’s Adagietto, and the last movement was a
free for all. The composition probably
is more nuanced than that, but the highest compliment I can give it would be that
it can be passed off as a Bernstein piece to folks that are not Bernstein
scholars.
Also, the piece
was designed as a companion piece to the Serenade, with very similar
instrumentation. There are a few major
differences though: no solo violin, a larger set of percussion instruments, and
the use of a keyboard.
The Serenade was
modeled after Plato’s Symposium with dialogs from different characters: (i)
Phaedrus: Pausanias (Lento – Allegro marcato); (ii) Aristophanes (Allegretto);
(iii) Eryximachus (Presto); (iv) Agathon (Adagio); and (v) Socrates: Alcibiades
(Molto tenuto – Allegro molto vivace – Presto vivace). The work was commissioned by the Koussevitzky
Music Foundation in memory of the deceased conductor. There is a lot of discussion whether Bernstein
tried to fit his music into the titles, or the inspiration did come of the
speeches made by the individuals. Since
I also know little about Plato, I didn’t try to find out which argument was
correct.
I remember
having trouble with Joshua Bell’s playing on several occasions, most on
intonation issues with familiar pieces. Today I had no reservations at all that
he did a great job. The piece is not
overtly difficult, but calls for many double stops and high notes. Bell did them well. There was a movement (iv, I believe) that was
essentially a duet with the cello, and Bell went to Carter Brey to thank him at
the end, well and good. I noticed that
he ignored Huang, wonder if that was an oversight or on purpose.
Carter Brey being acknowledged at the conclusion of Bernstein's Serenade.
Bernstein’s
Symphony No. 1 is based loosely on the story of Jeremiah and his
Lamentations. Indeed the first sketches
Bernstein made was a “lamentation” for soprano and orchestra while he was still
at Harvard. When the work was premiered,
Bernstein provided some notes for it. “Prophecy”
is to parallel the intensity of the prophet’s pleas with his people, “profanation”
is a scherzo describing the destruction and chaos brought on by the pagan
corruption within the priesthood and the people, and “lamentation,” set to
Hebrew poetic text, is a more literary conception of the cry of Jeremiah.
The Playbill
says the piece lasts about 27 minutes; it lasted perhaps 22. I didn’t hear a break between the first and
second movements, and was wondering why the soloist would come out for the
second movement – and I was sure I didn’t doze off. O’Connor generally did well, although the
full orchestra drowned her out on occasion.
Kelly O'Connor taking a bow.
Most people who
know anything about Bernstein know he shot onto the conducting scene by
substituting for Bruno Walter on short notice in a nationally broadcast
concert. So people paid a lot of
attention when this Symphony was premiered a couple of months later, with the
Pittsburgh Symphony, in its hometown. The
performance got uniformly great review, and Bernstein became an instant
composing conductor (or the other way around, as Salonen often debates.)
I guess the life
lesson here is one should always try to be well prepared as there is no telling
what opportunities would come along.
Attendance at
this concert (last of five in this series) was quite good; I am sure the
discount helped. The people next to me
didn’t stay for the second half, so I moved one over, which gave me an
excellent view of the stage.
The New YorkTimes reviewer loved the concert. The
review also contains some useful details of the pieces.
I took the train
in. The concert ended early enough that
I made the 9:38 pm train back, so I was home a little after 11 pm.
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