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SYMPHONY REVIEW A Brilliant Premiere November 15, 2002
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By Thomas Goss
Emil Miland is a unique phenomenon. There is just something about the way that he
connects the qualities of style, grace, virtuosity, and real soul that remind me of no
other cellist. As noteworthy and innovative as his local career has been, there has
always been the sense that his full potential as a performer was yet to be utilized
with Oakland East Bay Symphony. Until Friday night, that is, when he premiered the solo
role in this made-to-order concerto, “Holy the Firm,” another of hometown boy Jake
Heggie's string of recent triumphs — as well as a full exploration of the world of
colors and motion at the command of Miland.
Some cellists play as if they were barely hanging onto a monumental cliff of rosin,
wire, and wood. Miland's physical presence is just the opposite. His cello seems like a
small bright thing beneath the synergetic dance of his two arms, an image reinforced by
the urgent, pleading, yet flowing quality of his melodic phrasing, evocative of the
easy lyricism a solo violinist would emote in that heart-string high range. He took the
little 4-note melodic tag that Heggie used as a motivic foundation, a throwaway scrap
of Lalo or Wieniawski, and put it through its paces, growling it, shouting it to the
heavens, weeping it onto the cold ground, soothing it with drowsy sweetness.
How fortunate we were as listeners that the publicized affectation of “cello versus
orchestra” was not truly realized. The cohesion and self-reference were too abundant
for the work to become a dull exercise in defiance. The energy of the first movement
was refreshingly lyrical, phrase upon phrase building in intensity without requiring
the customary drive of rhythmic repetition. The harmonic language was wonderfully
subtle and unsettled, underlining the offbeat logic of the structure with real
compositional mastery. The haunting middle movement and swirling finale confirmed that
this was a work with legs, a concerto and an artistic experience worthy of renewal in
many performances to come, or so I would hope.
Michael Morgan was the most nurturing of midwives in this process, and as much credit is due him for his championing of new works in the process of direct commission as for his subsequent command of those works and the quality of rehearsal the performances reveal. This degree of musicianship was also apparent in the quirky curtainraiser of Rossini's Overture to Le Siège de Corinthe and in the closing reading of Sibelius' Second Symphony. In the latter work, Morgan's approach was perceptively counterintuitive. How many times have we heard Sibelius' orchestral oeuvre wrung like a sponge as if it were Strauss, or mulled to a dull simmer like it was Brahms? Morgan got it right most of the time, letting the slow emotional buildups mutate rather than boil over into following episodes, generating frolic rather than abandon in folksy moments, taking the stall out of periodic ritenutos. The most artistic expense was paid to the most deserving and demanding movement, the second, with its awesome scope of emotion and inherent meanings. In this task, the orchestra seemed united as a single soul, from the stutterless pizzicatos to the flawless wind and brass phrasing. This was, as they say in the record club blurbs, “music-making of the highest order.” At least for around here, that's no exaggeration.
(Thomas Goss is resident composer for Moving Arts Dance Collective, is a member of New
Release Alliance Composers and the Cabaret Composers Consortium, and sits on the
steering committee of the Bay Area Chapter of the American Composers Forum.)
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Emil Miland