Perhaps it would be good to begin with the intimate subtleties of Haydn, even if his music, the G major "Oxford" symphony, Hoboken I/92, was not the first work on the program. This was performed with a reduced string section, which Cabrera effectively balanced against a relatively rich complement of winds (flute, two oboes, and two bassoons), brass (two horns and two trumpets), and timpani. First and second violins sat at the front of the stage, facing each other from opposite sides, currently the preferred seating for eighteenth-century composers, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and particularly desirable when the second violins have their own voice, rather than just reinforcing the firsts.
Having established his command over the sonority of the composition, Cabrera focused his attention on the phrasing, making sure that no gesture lapsed into insignificance. Some of his tempo selections may be been more exaggerated than necessary: His Allegretto for the third movement Menuetto (one of the ways in which Haydn's wit would twit the listener with a totally undanceable rendering of a traditional dance form) tended to come a bit too close to the Allegro spiritoso of the opening movement (which may have pushed the strings faster than they might usually play but not beyond their capabilities). Nevertheless, this was a thoroughly upbeat reading of the score, which may very well have reflected the same mood that Haydn brought to his own performances of the work.
The program began with an exhibition of the Orchestra at its largest scale in a performance of Rouse's "The Infernal Machine." This is an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink perpetuum mobile driven at a truly "infernal" pace that, as Rouse himself put it, is "more than a little sinister." Nevertheless, the work was an excellent complement to the Haydn symphony, since, for all of its "dark materials," occasional flashes of wit would streak by on the periphery of this dizzying roller coaster ride. This included a passage from Ludwig van Beethoven's Opus 130 B-flat major string quartet (which I swear had been previously appropriated by Giuseppe Verdi's Simon Boccanegra) and those notoriously brutal thumping chords that introduce the "Danses des Adolescentes" at the beginning of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps. The Stravinsky connection was particularly appropriate, since this is the sort of work that demands that same attention to precision and clarity that always occupied Stravinsky's conducting. Cabrera had clearly rehearsed this work well, because all instances of that precision and clarity were present, allowing the music to speak in the voice that Rouse had intended for it.
The second half of the program consisted entirely of Edward Elgar's Enigma variations. As usually seems to be the case, the program book provided Michael Steinberg's "decoding" of the enigmatic titles of the variations, reflecting, as Elgar put it, the "friends pictured within." However, since we do not know very much about who these people were, I have always felt it sufficient to treat the variations as a set of portraits, dwelling more on the artist's rendition of likeness than on who the individuals actually were. The one major exception may be the "Nimrod" variation (August Jaeger, who worked for the Novello publishing house and assisted Elgar through many of his bouts of depression). This is clearly a gesture of heartfelt thanks whose sincerity almost literally overflows the capacity of the orchestral ensemble. It is such a powerful variation that I have heard it taken as a concert encore, as Yuri Temirkanov did when he brought the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra to Davies in 2007. The other variation whose context is relevant is "the one with the dog in it," "G.R.S.," which stands for the organist George Robertson Sinclair. This variation is less about Sinclair than about his dog. Here is how Elgar himself put it:
The first few bars were suggested by his great bulldog Dan (a well-known character) falling down the steep bank into the River Wye (bar 1); his paddling up stream to find a landing place (bars 2 and 3); and his rejoicing bark on landing (second half of bar 5). G.R.S. said 'set that to music.' I did; here it is.Dan has now been immortalized by a wooden carving on the bank of the Wye:
The fourteen variations of this composition cover a broad diversity of tempos, moods, and even durations. Thus, in addition to managing the rich orchestral resources that Elgar specified, the conductor also faces the challenge of presenting the overall flow of variations as a journey, rather than Winston Churchill's notorious "one damned thing after another." Cabrera's sense of both pace and flow was entirely appropriate to the overall theme of intense personal reflection. We did not have to know the specifics about either Elgar or the acquaintances he depicted to appreciate the emotional significance of those acquaintances. The spirit of reflection drives this music, and Cabrera knew where it needed to go and how to get the Youth Orchestra to take it there.
Alas, there are only three concerts in the Youth Orchestra season. The next one will not be until March 21, followed by the final concert on May 16. The good news is that the programs prepared for these remaining concerts are likely to be just as exciting as today's was. It is really very encouraging to think that the future of classical music is in such good hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment