The conscientious concertgoer had quite a time of it this last week in Nashville. From Monday’s performances in the Blair Quartet’s Beethoven cycle to Sunday’s flurry of events at Cheekwood and the recital and film at Scarritt-Bennett Center, these last seven days have been a deep wallow for the city’s culture pigs. Predictably, some of the best music-making was to be found from two of Nashville’s premiere concert series, Great Performances at Vanderbilt, which hosted the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, which performed the second concert pair of its 50th season.
There is no telling what they put in the water in Norway, but the members of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra—even those with suspiciously non-Norwegian names like Laurent Quenelle and Miranda Playfair—were all, in folksinger Tom Paxton’s unforgettable phrase, “tall and tan and young and blond.” They were all also very, very good. Ably led by Iona Brown, best known in this country for her longtime affiliation with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the NCO provided the audience in Vanderbilt’s Langford Auditorium with performances that were equal parts technical brilliance, tasteful restraint and precision ensemble work.
Two works on the first half of the program, “Study on a Norwegian Hymn” by Magnar Am and Stravinsky’s Concerto in D, served as examples of the group’s technical abilities. Throughout these two performances, the ensemble demonstrated great precision in attacks and cutoffs, exemplary balance between the instrumental groups, and a high level of individual performance in pieces that called for tremendous skill. Some noteworthy examples in the Am were the solid ensemble work by the cellists, difficult extended tremolos by the violas, and some eerie effects contributed by both violin sections. In the Stravinsky concerto, the frequent starts and stops required by the composer’s syncopation and changes of meter were ably negotiated by the group. The only question was why these works were on the program. The Am, while it may be a favorite of the Norwegian Ministry of Cultural Affairs, and the Stravinsky, while it may have its moments of humor, were mostly technical exercises.
The two other pieces on the first half of the program, Edvard Grieg’s “Two Elegiac Melodies” and Henry Purcell’s “Chaconne,” should have given the audience a chance to revel in that technique and ensemble work at the service of emotional music-making. Unfortunately, the group’s tasteful restraint sometimes got in the way. In the Grieg piece, arranged for strings from two of his songs, and the Purcell, originally composed to accompany a theatrical scene of intense tragic emotion, the listener was left wanting the ensemble to gush. Perhaps it was a misjudgment of the acoustics in Langford, but there was a constant sense of pulling back at the necessary climaxes.
The second half of the concert brought Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364, a work that proved the evening’s best demonstration of the group’s abilities. Brown served as the violin soloist, and Lars Anders Tomter, one of the NCO’s older members, served as the viola soloist. Written by Mozart for one of the Parisian this is music that calls for great technical ability on the part of both soloists and ensemble and for the cool restraint so typical of the French Enlightenment. All was in order here. A splendid musical conversation between the individual soloists and between the soloists and ensemble made this performance a particular pleasure. In addition, the judicious choices of tempi meant that the ensemble did not need to slow down so that the soloists could negotiate difficult passage work. The violists, those Rodney Dangerfields of the orchestra, really did get respect for some fine, ornamented playing in the second movement, and the two oboists added just the right amount of color. The only two noticeable problems were some small intonation flaws by Brown in the work’s first movement and a rather constricted sound on the part of the two horn players.
As an encore, Brown and Tomter sent the audience off into the night with the andante cantible second movement from Mozart’s “Duo for Violin and Viola in B-flat,” K. 424. It was a wistful envoi for the leave-taking of friends.
Mozart was very much on the minds of patrons of the Nashville Symphony as pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn made his debut with the Symphony. This second outing in the orchestra’s golden jubilee season began with a work by a composer who enjoyed his greatest popularity at about the time the Nashville Symphony came into being. Born Guiseppe Guttoveggio of Italian immigrant parents in 1906, Paul Creston is one of the last rediscoveries from the remarkable generation of American composers who made their mark during the Depression and World War II. Although he did not receive formal training in composition or theory, he was a practicing pianist and theater organist. His Op. 62 “Dance Overture” is characteristic of many of his works: Its principal tune is very approachable, and the variations on that tune are filled with bright touches in rhythm and orchestral color.
NSO symphony members must have had a great deal of fun playing it, because their performance was filled with good musical cheer. There were splendid musical turns by soloists from the woodwinds; the strings had a splendid sheen throughout and were very convincing in the hoedown section—they are Nashville cats in their own way, after all.
The above remarks concerning the elements of a good performance of Mozart’s apply also to his Piano Concerto, K. 482. Much of this is Mozart in his most elegant vein, and it demands a performance of equal elegance by both orchestra and soloist.
From the outset, the tempi chosen by Kenneth Schermerhorn were brisk—the opening allegro had an almost vivace feel. The orchestra’s phrasing was more like the phrasing encountered in chamber music or a good jazz performance than the heaviness that so often occurs when a modern symphony attempts Mozartean dexterity. This fine feel for phrase was also amply demonstrated by soloist Ignat Solzhenitsyn—a pianist with a Russian name who does not pound the instrument. His legato playing was an especial delight in this first movement, and, if by its end, some of the passage work had become a bit labored, his fine playing in the cadenza redeemed any flaws.
The second movement had a few problematic moments but was, on the whole, so good that flaw-finding demanded the closest of attention. There was some choppiness on the soloist’s part, some of the attacks might have been a bit gutsier, and the basses needed just a bit more power. But what playing! The strings demonstrated an outstanding glossiness and unity. This piano concerto was one of the first works in which Mozart used clarinets; he gave them exposed positions as part of a wind-band ensemble, with meaty parts in the second movement. The winds of the Nashville Symphony, always good, were superb here.
The final movement tied together many of the performance elements: The soloist was on top of the quick but very gracious allegro rondo. Again, the winds displayed their fine wind-band sound. Solzhenitsyn played in his best legato style with such intimacy that couples throughout the hall began to scoot together and hold hands. When the movement’s opening tune returned, the audience was set for some of Solzhenitsyn’s best solo playing of the evening. The program notes were silent on the source of the cadenza used in the last movement, but it had a power that was reminiscent of Beethoven’s violin concerto, a power that was not out of place here.
The gutsy feel of the Mozart carried through to the symphony’s performance of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. This was no autumnal Brahms—this was a Brahms that seemed to have listened to Wagner, Bruckner and, above all, Dvorak. Throughout the performance, there were splendid dynamic contrasts, with fine playing by all sections, but especially by the brasses. Although Brahms’ Fourth is a very episodic piece, Kenneth Schermerhorn’s conducting led the players ably and consistently through a reading that never suffered from choppiness. The strings were in especially fine shape: Pizzicati with entire string sections are very hard to do together, and this work, especially its second movement, almost makes the string players into guitarists. The ensemble work in the bell-like motives from the third movement was likewise a test of playing, a test that all passed with ease. The fourth movement was an extraordinary summation of what had gone before. Particular praise must be given Charles Wyatt for his extended flute solo and the members of the brass section for their ability to convey first mystery and then power from one bar to the next.
If Brahms were played in this way more often, the anonymous Boston Globe critic from the last century would not have been led to suggest signs in concert halls that warned, “Exit in case of Brahms.”
What a week. It almost seemed that we were in the big city.
