State Theatre New Jersey, New Brunswick. Orchestra (Seat G104, $49).
Program
Overture to the Magic Flute, K. 620 (1791) by
Mozart (1756-1791).
Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 (1844, rev. 1845) by
Mendelssohn (1809-1847).
Symphony No. 6 in A Major (1879-1881) by Bruckner
(1824-1896).
This is the last of five entries I end up writing in the
span of two days. Didn’t quite get to
finish all five in one day.
To those eagerly awaiting to hear if we saw the NJSO
cellist tonight. No, we didn’t. Therefore the intrigue continues. With Bruckner
on the program, it’s not like the NJSO could do with one fewer musician; I
suppose there are many qualified extras who could fill the role.
The program started with a light-hearted and delightful
overture from the Magic Flute. This
opera was Mozart’s last. Mozart
conducted the premiere in September 1791 and died in December of the same year.
Neither the opera nor the overture would
give any foreboding of Mozart’s looming demise.
For me, the Mendelssohn violin concerto is so familiar
that I have problems with any performance that deviates from how I think it
should be played (probably influenced by my first exposure to the piece when I
was very young). By all indications
Simone Porter is a promising new star: solo performance with the Seattle
Symphony at age 10, with the Royal Philharmonic at age 13, and recipient of the
Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2015. She was
born in 1996.
She met most of the myriad technical challenges the
concerto throws at the violinist, including the flying arpeggio section
(technically spiccato bariolage) in the cadenza. However, her right hand sometimes gets
sloppy, and the double-stopped thirds sound muddled. Make no mistake, it was a performance any
soloist would be happy with, but it will still take some time for her to get to
the “superstar” level (Joshua Bell’s performance and Itzhak Perlman of old come
to mind).
Simone Porter after the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.
Konig talked a bit about Bruckner and how one should approach
it: patience and faith. (There is one
more aspect, I forget.) Patience because
even the sixth is his shortest, it still lasts about an hour. Faith in that it will be a rewarding
experience. The Program Notes also calls this the least performed of Bruckner's symphonies, a search of my blogs returned I have heard both the 6th and the 9th three times before tonight. With the concert the sixth wins.
If I am not mistaken, tonight was the first time we heard
NJSO perform Bruckner. They did
great. Not yet world-class great, but
impressive nonetheless. We saw Konig a
few years back, and I also remarked that he did a good job with the orchestra. Tonight he brought out a great, serious sound from the ensemble.
Our seats in the front orchestra section didn’t offer a
good view beyond the musicians sitting in the front, so we didn’t get to
appreciate the work put in by the woodwinds and brass. We did see how hard the principal bass
worked. Surprisingly Bruckner does not
need a large percussion section to pull off his grand music, the instruments
for this are, quoting from the Program, “woodwinds in pairs, four horns, three
trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.”
Christoph Konig after the Bruckner Symphony.
Attendance was okay, not great. The applause was one of the most sustained I have heard from an NJSO audience.
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