LOS
ANGELES, CALIF – Of the years that I have been attending L.A.
Phil concerts, perhaps none was more exciting or splashy than this
season’s opener: a highly stimulating pairing of two works as
disparate in their styles and subject matters as they are similar in
their abilities to arouse an audience. The Bartok is a product of
wartime sufferings and privation; the Orff, a product of springtime
fecundity and overindulgence. Esa-Pekka Salonen and his players
brought great brilliance and sensitivity to their music making. The
Los Angeles Master Chorale and Children’s Chorus proved to be an
equally winning partner and produced some deliciously earthy (and
unearthly) sounds in the “Court of Love” section of Carmina Burana.
The Miraculous Mandarin suite is a prime
example of Bartok’s mastery of orchestral color. The Philharmonic
players, under Salonen, brought to the music clarity of texture
without loss of atmosphere. The graphically gruesome original story
of the ballet-pantomime becomes relatively innocuous in its
three-piece suite form, which elicited some sweetly sensuous sounds
from the cajoling clarinets and animated, silky-toned playing from
the rest of the orchestra.
Like the Bartok, Orff’s Carmina Burana
can still raise eyebrows even today. A tale of lusty Bavarian monks
overindulging in wine, women and worldly pleasures isn’t exactly
going to win over many parents trying to convert their children to
classical music, even as the piece calls for a large boys choir.
All lurid references aside, the work remains a splendid celebration
of springtime joys and is full of good humor. Tenor soloist
Stanford Olsen milked the most weird sound (and faces),
appropriately, out of his “roasted swan” song. Rodney Gilfry used
his mellifluous baritone to dramatic effects in the “Tavern” section
and also in the song of yearning “Circa mea pectora”. Soprano
Harolyn Blackwell phrased her solo “In trutina” expressively,
although her somewhat forced cry of “Dulcissime” left me unconvinced
of her willing submission to the Goddess of Love. The orchestral
playing caught the work’s primitive energy superbly. The
percussions in Abbot’s Tavern song were cataclysmic. The choruses
were bustin’ out all over with their joyous, ebullient singing.
Truman
C. Wang is editor of Classical Voice.
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