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SYMPHONY REVIEW
Mark O'Connor Joseph Silverstein January 20, 2007
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Bluegrass Meets Classical By David Bratman
Symphony Silicon Valley gave a relatively subdued performance at the California Theatre in San Jose on Saturday evening, but the material was at least as responsible for this as the musicians were.
Antonín Dvorák's Symphony No. 7 in D Minor is often called his tragic symphony, but Dvorák is no heaven-stormer like Beethoven, and he has too much equilibrium to go into profound depression like Tchaikovsky. Dvorák in a tragic mood just gets a little quieter, a little more introspective — insofar as such a naturally ebullient composer ever can. And that describes his Seventh Symphony. It has its bright moments, but no other mature Dvorák symphony begins both its outer Allegros in such a quiet, expectant mode.
Guest conductor Joseph Silverstein — a venerable name, formerly music director of the Utah Symphony and concertmaster of the Boston Symphony before that — led the musicians in a quest to inject energy into the music. They succeeded, but it was an uphill battle and an audible effort. The interpretation was coherent, and the sound was bright in the balcony, aided by the theater's shiny acoustics. But there were a fair number of flubs, mostly in inner voices, and occasionally ensemble came to the verge of falling apart in more complex moments.
And the work contains complex moments aplenty. It is by far the composer's most tightly argued and intricately constructed symphony, a demonstration of his mastery over classical forms as well as his ingenuity in varying them. But the Czech nationalist in him makes the music sound loosely rhapsodic at the same time.
Silverstein's approach was largely brisk and straightforward. He used an old-fashioned trick by applying a strong ritardando to the opening notes of the Scherzo, both on its first appearance and then in the da capo, leaning into it as if it were a Viennese waltz rather than a Czech furiant. A bit of more subtly applied ritardando broke up some of the congestion near the end of the finale.
Beethoven's "Leonore" Overture No. 3 had the opposite character. Here's a naturally vehement, exciting little piece that came off subdued as a result of the performance. The distinctive orchestral sound was much the same, but the music didn't catch fire until James F. Dooley's rhythmically inventive performance of the offstage trumpet calls. After that, the recapitulation produced the shivers that it should.
The nonstandard work of the evening was the "Old Brass" Concerto for violin and orchestra, composed by Mark O'Connor, who also played the solo part. O'Connor is a cross-cultural fiddle whiz who has collaborated with everyone from Yo-Yo Ma through Wynton Marsalis and Stephane Grappelli to Dolly Parton. His work as both composer and performer melds classical, jazz, country, folk, and bluegrass, making occasional excursions deep into all of them. But I suspect his heart lies with bluegrass, as it's the strongest nonclassical influence on his concert music.
Mark O'Connor The result is that O'Connor as a classical composer is a firm Americanist whose music offers something of the sweetness, but not the humor, of the late work of Henry Cowell, and is somewhat further away from the open, dry sound of Aaron Copland or the rough astringency of Roy Harris. It's a more sophisticated version of the kind of music you'd expect to hear in the background of a PBS documentary on 19th century America. The "Old Brass" Concerto, named for a South Carolina plantation that inspired its composition in 2002, is a large, rambling three-movement work that keeps a sedate, even keel throughout its great length. It's a bit garrulous, but in the manner of an easygoing, country cracker-barrel philosopher who simply likes to exercise his jaw. It's not a fast-talking city slicker who'll gnaw your ear off if you let him. The solo violin's part often sounds something like an obbligato that wanders off in one direction while the orchestra wanders off in another. A number of bassoon tags and other orchestral figures seemed quite disconnected from anything the soloist was doing. In the first movement, the violinist plays a lot of six-note arpeggios in honor of the hexagonal buildings that Frank Lloyd Wright built at the plantation. The slower second movement is full of gently handled double stops. In the not-too-fast finale these turn into country fiddle drones before the opening arpeggios return at the end. The soloist gets a long cadenza in the finale, and the orchestra gets a fugato with none of the academic bristliness typical of the genre. Instead it sounds as if the listener is in a hallway hearing the same folk dance being played, slightly out of sync, in five or six nearby rooms at once. O'Connor, self-effacing in a plain business suit, was completely at ease with his instrument. He played with a smooth, buttery tone, making no attempt to override the orchestra or to look or sound flashy. He indulged himself a bit in the long cadenza, shifting back and forth among classical, jazzy, and bluegrass passages, and truly sizzled only in his encore, a medley of tunes in Appalachian Scotch-Irish folk style. In the concluding dance, he wowed the audience by accelerating to a couple of steps beyond prestissimo, as any first-class countryside fiddler should do just before taking his final bow. (David Bratman is a librarian who lives with his lawfully wedded soprano and a wall full of symphony recordings.)©2007 David Bratman, all rights reserved |
