PASADENA, Calif
– This concert is yet another in a series of
highly imaginative programs by the Pasadena Symphony.
The three works featured tonight,
despite their apparent stylistic differences, all share the
same dance-inspired theme.
Maestro Mester and his orchestra obviously enjoyed a
rollicking good time and the bubbling fun spilled over into the
audience.
The first work of the evening, Jeu de Cartes
(Card Game), was a ballet in three movements (or ‘deals’) by
Igor Stravinsky. Written
during the composer’s neo-classical period, the ballet contains
much grace, pungency and humor, underlined by great rhythmic
complexity, and calls for a large orchestra where players play like
chamber musicians. The
work nicely showcased the technical prowess of the Pasadena Symphony
in the trememdous agility (in ‘deals’ one and three) and
balletic grace (in ‘deal’ two) of their playing.
A side note: the
third ‘deal’s waltz-minuet seems to me to foreshadow Anne Truelove’s aria
“I go, I go” from Rake’s Progress.
The next work, Aaron Copland’s Billy the
Kid, was a six-movement ballet that tells the story of the
famous American outlaw and his capture after a fierce gun battle.
The ballet begins and ends with a broad, atmospheric painting
of the open prairies of
the Wild West. (Billy was actually born and raised in Brooklyn NY,
as was the composer himself!) My
own favorite moment is the “card game at night”— a quiet,
soulful nocturne for strings accompanied by a solo trumpet
(exquisitely played by Burnette Dillon).
The final work on the program, Brahms’
D-major violin concerto, is as famous for its dreamy, romantic
opening bars (á la the Second Symphony) as for its exhilarating
Hungarian-dance finale. Maestro
Jorge Mester, together with violinist Elmar Oliveira, favored a
lean, classical, aristocratic approach to the concerto (as opposed
to, say, the romantic and highly personal readings by Anne-Sophie
Mutter or Maxim Vengerov).
The clarity of detail and the pure tone were a joy to hear;
however, I, for one, would have loved to hear a freer, more
rhythmically buoyant line in the Intro and the Adagio, or a more
infectious lilt in the Hungarian rondo-finale.
Ultimately, though, the sheer strength and
brilliance of Mr. Oliveira’s playing outweighed whatever
misgivings I might have had about the overall conception of the
piece. Mr. Oliveira’s
first entry immediately established himself as a master of bravura
display-- double-stopping passages, immaculate trills, pure
intonation, etc. Joachim’s
magnificent cadenza was realized to stunning effect with a
buttermilk tone. Mr.
Oliveira was also capable of playing softly and sweetly in the many
reflective passages in the first movement as well as the songful
Adagio. Rarely
have I heard the first-movement coda played more sweetly or with
more hushed intensity. The orchestra accompanied sympathetically though
without quite matching the soloist in the nobility of expression or
the tautness of phrasing. In
the rousing rondo-finale, the Hungarian melodies were tossed off
with great thrust and bravura, and Mr. Oliveira’s clarity of
articulation throughout was a delight.
Truman
C. Wang is editor of Classical Voice.
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