Randall Goosby after performing the Barber Violin Concerto.
Program
Finlandia, Op. 26 by Sibelius.
Violin Concerto, Op. 14 by Barber.
Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 17, Ukrainian, by Tchaikovsky.
Short - not necessarily the best or the most accurate - descriptions of the three pieces on tonight's program.
Today's program consisted of one very well-known piece by Sibelius, a violin concerto we heard 1 1/2 months ago, and a Tchaikovsky symphony I hadn't heard before.
The venue is rather small (seating capacity of around 900), thus giving the concert an intimate feel, even for those seated in the last row of the balcony. We had a good view of the stage and all the musicians.
My expectations were thus quite high, even though I didn't know what to expect of the Tchaikovsky piece. While the concert was enjoyable, those high expectations unfortunately were not met.
At the conclusion of Finlandia.
For the orchestral pieces two issues stood out. One was the lack of precision. That may be a bit more difficult with the Tchaikovsky symphony, but with the Finlandia it shouldn't be a problem - but it was. The other was the lack of consistent story-telling in the performance. The music was going somewhere most of the time, but every now and then the players seem to have lost the plot.
The Tchaikovsky piece used to be called "Little Russia" (think politics at that time) because the composer used several Ukrainian melodies in the symphony. Perhaps due to my unfamiliarity with those melodies, I couldn't quite pick them out beyond fragments that got repeated here or there. The four movements of the symphony are Andante sostenuto - Allegro vivo; Andante marziale, quasi moderato; Scherzo: Allegro molto vivo; and Finale: Moderato assai.
Zhang after the Tchaikovsky.
The Program Annotator mentions Tchaikovsky's use of his contemporaries' techniques, probably true, but not meaningful to those who do not know what those techniques were - and I assume that was most in the audience, even an audience in Princeton.
However, it is likely that many in the audience also attend NY Phil concerts regularly, given how easy it is to get to NYC from the Princeton area. So I wonder how many of them heard Augustin Hadelich perform the Barber violin concerto with the New York Philharmonic. And I wonder what they think. Goosby put in a good performance, but one that was far from being inspiring. The first two movements of the concerto are known not as virtuoso pieces, but rather as contemplative and melodic ones. I wish Goosby had put more of himself into these movements, rather than simply let the music speak for itself. That attitude served him well for the third movement, which was basically a fast-paced piece, lasting about 4 minutes, with only two short breaks for the soloist. Goosby just made it look like a day in the office.
For encore he played Bach's C major sonata, Largo.
I remarked that Hadelich's Guarneri violin sounded very well at David Geffen Hall. I was surprised to find out Goosby performs on a Stradivarius. I expected a much brighter and strong sound to reach the top of the balcony (I could certainly see the instrument clearly); it was barely adequate against a "modest-sized" orchestra. And I was surprised at how harsh the E-string sounded.
Xian Zhang will be conducting the New York Phil later this week (writing this entry on 1/13), and the Tchaikovsky symphony is also on the program. It will be interesting how the two orchestras compare.
For some reason I thought the concert began at 8 pm, so it was a mad scramble to the car when I finally realized it was a 7:30 pm start. We made it by about 10 minutes. It was disappointing that there were many empty seats in the auditorium. The applause was more enthusiastic than what one typically gets at other NJ Symphony concerts, so that's good.
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