New Jersey Symphony – Xian Zhang, conductor; Sara Daneshpour, piano. March 10, 2018.

Count Basie Theater, Red Bank, NJ.  Balcony (Seat E111, $38).

Program

Selections from the Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66a (1888-89) by Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

Carnival of the Ancients for Piano and Orchestra (2016) by Danielpour (b. 1956).

Sifonia concertante in B-flat Major, H. I:105 (1792) by Haydn (1732-1809).

Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32 (1876) by Tchaikovsky.

Musicians for the Sinfonia concertante: Eric Wyrick, violin; Jonathan Spitz, cello; Robert Igliss, oboe; Robert Wagner, bassoon.

This was a concert in the NJSO’s Red Bank series, so I got the tickets without really examining the program. This turns out to be an interesting and diverse program; I enjoyed it very much.

Sleeping Beauty is of course a well-known piece of ballet music.  It set the mood that tonight’s program was of the “sit back and relax” variety.  Which would be fine by me.

Both Richard Danielpour and Sara Daneshpour are born in the US from parents of Iranian descent.  Zhang had a short interview with Danielpour before the start of his piece.  He mentioned that “Ancients” was a reference to the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) which was an important piece of literature to Persians, akin to how Dante’s Divine Comedy is to Italians.  The last of the four movements was Danielpour’s own invention where the spirits of the great Persian poets dance in paradise.  In addition to heaping praises on Zhang, the NJSO, and Daneshpour, he also mentioned his composition “idols” of Mozart, Bartok, and Debussy.  Thrown in the mix was him learning how to compose under Leonard Bernstein.  This piece was commissioned by the NJSO and these performances are the world premiere.

It was easy to notice the large array of percussion instruments used in the orchestra.  Copying from the Program Notes: an extensive percussion battery (glockenspiel, crotales, two chimes, vibraphone, marimba xylophone, wood block, guir, slapstick, snare drum, triangle, two sets of tom toms, tam tam, two bass drums, cymbals, nipple gongs, Almglocken, two water gongs.)  For good measure a harp was thrown in.

The amazing thing is the piano was never overwhelmed by this huge array of percussion instruments.  My first impression of the piece is it is like a Philip Glass composition, but on steroids.  The themes are pounded out with more vigor, and there was more overall contrast from segment to segment, but the themes get repeated over and over again, and there were few abrupt changes of pace.  My lament is again there are so few opportunities to listen to these contemporary compositions that one can’t dig deeper into the music.  It was a pleasant enough 20 minutes, though.  The movements are Simurgh; Rostam Fights the Dragon; Sohrab and Rostam; The Poet’s Celebration.

Zhang, Daneshpour, and Danielpour on stage after Carnival of the Ancients. 

Haydn’s Sinfonia concertante is a delightful piece that placed the listener in a calm and collected mode.  The soloists, principals of the different orchestra sections, produced clear and well-coordinated lines.  The string instruments had to reach very high notes, and there were occasional intonation problems.  Overall it was well-performed.  As it usually is with Haydn, there were little surprised interspersed in the work which would often brought a chuckle from me. The three movements are Allegro, Andante, and Allegro con spirito.

Wyrick, Spitz, Ingliss, and Wagner after performing Haydn's Sinfonia concertante.

Francesca da Rimini finds its origin in Dante’s Inferno.  She was in love with Paolo but was forced into marry with his brother Giovanni.  When the latter discovered the two lover in an embrace, he kills them both.  Dante encounters Francesca in the second circle of hell (Canto V).  Tchaikovsky quotes 22 lines of the poem in his score, and the Program Notes has a good description of the music.  For me the most memorable was the ascending and descending passage, although I can’t tell what “incident” it refers to. I wish I had done more preparation for this.

We plan to see the opera (by Zandonai) in Milan in May – if we can get tickets – during our trip to Europe.  I look forward to it.

Again, I found this concert quite enjoyable, even though there were problems here and there.

We went to Hoboken in the afternoon and drove straight down to Red Bank.  We didn’t have time for a proper dinner, so we grabbed something quick at the Dunkin Donuts in town.