On Saturday evening I went to Carnegie Hall to hear a performance given by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Although Orpheus is an exceptional ensemble and well worth hearing for its own sake, I have to admit my main motivation in attending this particular performance was to hear the legendary violinist Pinchas Zukerman play Mozart and Beethoven.
The program opened with the Symphony in G Minor, Op. 6, No. 6 (c. 1760) by Johann Christian Bach, youngest son of J.S. Bach. Johann was something of an anomaly in his family. One imagines all the Bachs as sober German Protestants perennially dressed in black. But Johann traveled first to sunny Italy, where he actually converted to Catholicism (though most likely for practical reasons), and then on to England where he composed operas, organized public concerts and became tutor to George III's German born queen. It was while in London that he befriended Mozart and performed with him. No matter how anglicized he became, however, Johann did not forget his German roots. The present symphony is an example of sturm und drang, the pre-Romantic movement that swept through German arts in the second half of the eighteenth century. Notably, all the movements are in a minor key.
Next came Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216 (1775). While Mozart is most often thought of as a virtuoso pianist, he was also a more than competent violinist and this is reflected in the five concertos he wrote for that instrument. The No. 3, in particular, shows a great advance in the young Mozart's abilities as a composer. One reason for this was his fascination with Italian opera, an interest that was to continue for the rest of his life. Mozart had only just completed Il rè pastore, K. 208, that same year and used one of its arias in the concerto's first movement allegro. But it could be argued that even beyond this the concerto takes its playful mood and sense of drama directly from the Italian operatic tradition.
the ensemble and soloist returned to perform Beethoven's Romance for Violin and Orchestra in G Major, Op. 40 (1802). Like Mozart, Beethoven was another performer whose pianistic talent obscured his ability as a violinist. The first position he held before relocating to Vienna was actually as a violist in the Bonn court orchestra. In light of this it's surprising that, considering the extent of his oeuvre, Beethoven wrote so little for the violin other than the sonatas. Aside from the Op. 61 Concerto, the two Romances are the only works he composed for violin and orchestra. Although some critics have seen in them foreshadowings of the concerto, they really belong more properly to Beethoven's early period and as such still show the strong influence of Haydn and Mozart. While Beethoven must have learned much from writing them, the concerto stands on its own and owes little to these earlier exercises.
Pinchas Zukerman has performed regularly here in New York over the decades and I've been lucky enough to have heard him often. When I first saw him he was known primarily as a virtuoso violist. But his mastery of the violin is equally impressive. I've heard the Mozart concerto many times but never so well performed as it was here. It was a tribute to the ability of the Orpheus musicians and the soloist that even without a conductor the entire ensemble was able to flawlessly performs so complex a work.
After intermission came the New York premiere of Vision Machine (2016) by Harold Meltzer. According to the Program Notes, the Brooklyn born composer has several times found inspiration for his compositions in examples of modern architecture. This particular work is his response to a New York City residential high rise, 100 Eleventh Avenue in Chelsea, and the title is taken from architect Jean Nouvel's description of the edifice.
The evening concluded with Le tombeau de Couperin (1914-1917) by Maurice Ravel. The work can perhaps best be viewed as this composer's attempt to make sense of the horror of a World War that was still raging about him even as he wrote. The use of formalized Baroque dances, though rendered with modernist neoclassical technique, may have been a device deliberately employed to impose some type of structure on what was essentially a chaotic event that could not be completely comprehended by those who witnessed it or participated in the destruction it wrought. It is difficult for us one hundred years later to imagine the feelings of cultured Europeans who saw the Western civilization they no doubt had regarded as immutable suddenly give way to barbarism. The effect would have been traumatic for those who survived. Ravel was luckier than most and was discharged from the French army in the first year of the war (he was already almost age 40 and suffered from a heart condition) at which time he began work on the solo piano piece from which this orchestration is taken. Others were not as lucky as he, and each movement is dedicated to the memory of a fallen comrade. The resulting work has a charm that makes it seem a holdover from an earlier and happier time. It is as if one had discovered among war torn ruins an antique and exquisitely crafted music box. The reference to the Baroque composer Couperin is indicative of the surge in wartime nationalism that enveloped Ravel and his compatriots as they turned away from the music of Wagner and other German composers; this same spirit also informed Debussy's final works. For some reason, the orchestration contains two less movements, the Fugue and Toccata, than were contained in the original piano version.
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