Over the last decade, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, led by founder/director Paul Gambill, have modulated into what sounds like a new key. This is partly because of how they play, but even more because of what they play. NCO is essentially a classical chamber orchestra—a clan of violin family members who make music together. Sometimes they invite others to join in—winds, brasses, percussion and even guitars, banjos and mandolins—as the occasion demands.
NCO’s taproot reaches deep into classical masterworks, and each concert includes one or more of these. In this NCO resembles gazillions of other orchestras. But each NCO concert also typically features work never heard in public before, work that marries classical procedures with non-classical materials drawn from almost anywhere—folk traditions, mainstream country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and gospel.
Working with non-classical performers who don’t read music has often obliged NCO to incorporate improvisation in ways few classical ensembles do anymore. But though rare nowadays, improv was once a mainstay of classical music. In Handel’s organ concerto scores, the organ parts are not written out: Handel himself improvised them. Classical concertos before Beethoven included space for cadenzas, bravura improvisations by the soloist. But when the soloist was not the composer, the cadenza might be in a style completely different from the rest of the composition. To avoid that, Beethoven wrote his own cadenzas into his musical scores, and composers since have followed suit; cadenzas nowadays are nearly always written out beforehand.
But classical improvisation never completely died. French organists especially are famous for it: During a recent improvisation for an American Guild of Organists conference, Olivier Latry heard somebody’s cell phone ring—and incorporated the cell’s tune into his texture, to the great delight of the house. In non-classical traditions, improvisation remains essential, thus it figures into some of the NCO’s own performances—which gets at the heart of what makes this ensemble so unique and exciting.
This weekend’s NCO opener is typical: Called “Fiddlers Three,” it showcases Celtic fiddler Crystal Plohman, bluegrass fiddler Stuart Duncan and classical violinist Carolyn Huebl. Huebl will play Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 (1775) and Stravinsky’s neo-classical “Basel” Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra (1946). Both these taut, three-movement concertos require virtuosity, and the Mozart requires several cadenzas. Since Mozart’s own have not survived, Huebl has chosen some composed by Joseph Joachim (d. 1907) and Ernst Hess (d. 1968).
Between these classical bookends comes a brand-new composition by Nikitas Demos for two fiddles and orchestra. Called Long Journey Home, this work melds the tradition of the classical double concerto with the Celtic folk tradition bluegrass grows out of, and modulates into a style known today as “newgrass.” The composer says he conceives the work as a kind of tone poem/narrative of how newgrass came to be. (For more background on the newgrass phenomenon, see the story on Nickel Creek on p. 29.) Demos adapts the classical three-movement, fast-slow-fast structure, featuring soloist fiddlers Plohman and Duncan, along with John Jorgenson on acoustic guitar and mandolin; he uses Mozart’s orchestra (strings plus two oboes and two horns) augmented by penny whistle and various kinds of percussion.
The first movement, “Hard Rain Coming,” is an impression of Celtic immigrants moving toward the New World in a rainstorm and features Plohman performing a Demos version of the Irish reel. The second, “No Time Left to Be Young,” is a meditative lament featuring both fiddlers in an emblematic passing of the torch. The final movement, “Reunion,” is a hell-for-leather newgrass romp showcasing Duncan and Jorgenson in a blazing affirmative celebration. The soloists mostly improvise, but this is not an innovation. Rather, it is a reclamation of a tradition stretching from earliest history down to now, and in live performance it should affirm the connections between classical and folk musics in fresh and exhilarating ways.
