It was a colorful evening at Powell Hall on Thursday, May 8th, and not just because of the bright spring plumage sported by many of the women (and some of the men) in attendance. The works that made up the program were also riots of orchestral color that gave every section of the orchestra a chance to show off - which they did, to great effect.
The evening opened with that favorite of cartoons and horror movies - Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor - as arranged by one of the 20th century's great transcribers, Leopold Stokowski. Sometimes lambasted by critics for his flamboyant conducting style, "Stoky" was certainly capable of wretched excess from time to time, but I've always had a soft spot for both his performances and his arrangements. Dating from 1926 - and made famous in 1939 by its inclusion in Disney's Fantasia - the transcription is really quite a brilliant display of the capabilities of the 20th-century orchestra in general and the Philadelphia Orchestra (where Stokowski was Music Director from 1912 to 1938) in particular. The way in which melodic fragments are tossed around between instruments recalls Webern's transcription of Bach's "Ricercare No. 2" - albeit on a grander scale - and the occasional echoing of themes between sections put me in mind of the famous antiphonal brass works of Gabrielli.
Early music purists shun this sort of thing, of course, but I've always felt that a sympathetic arrangement in no way denigrates the original but rather creates a new work that's a kind of musical hybrid. Some critics dismissed Stokowski's Bach transcriptions as "Bachowski" but, in fact, that's exactly what they are: collaborations between two musical originals who just happened to have lived two centuries apart.
Peter Oundjian conducted the orchestra in an appropriately Hollywood-lavish performance of this unabashedly flashy piece. The winds sounded particularly fine and it was nice to hear from that orchestral wallflower, the celesta, even if it's only used as a garnish.
Following the Bach/Stokowski was Christopher Theofanidis' Rainbow Body, a transcendent 2000 composition that's a kind of fantasia on 12th century composer, author and mystic Hildegard von Bingen's Responsorium "Ave Maria, O auctrix vite" ("Hail Mary, o source of life") - which was itself an adaptation of an anonymous "Alma Redemptoris Mater" from two hundred years earlier. Mirrors within mirrors. Von Bingen's work radiates a celestial serenity that's difficult to define, but Theofanidis has nevertheless captures it perfectly. The theme is presented three times in this thirteen-minute piece, each time in a different swirl of orchestral color, but its first appearance is simply magical. Played simply by the strings in an arrangement that mimics the effect of reverberation in a large space, this 10th-century chant, expanded in the 12th century and filtered through the lens of the 21st, is simply one of the most beautiful things you will ever hear.
The title, according to Paul Schiavo's program notes, derives from Tibetan Buddhism and refers to "the form an enlightened person takes after escaping the cycle of reincarnation". In this sense, then, Rainbow Body is something of a contemporary version of Strauss' Death and Transfiguration, with each statement of the theme indicating the progress of the "subtle body" towards pure light and energy. Theofanidis illustrates that final transformation with an all-stops-out setting that manages to be both overwhelming and subtle at the same time.
The symphony did this modern showpiece up proud, with a performance that was received with great enthusiasm by the audience - a relatively rare response to most recent classical music. Rainbow Body clearly deserves to be made a part of the regular orchestral repertoire. Writing music that is beautiful as well as intelligent seems to be finally making a comeback, and not a moment too soon.
It was back to the familiar after intermission with that most famous of 20th century settings of medieval texts, Carl Orff's 1936 Carmina Burana. The title is taken from an 1847 collection of secular poetry by anonymous authors from the 12th and 13th centuries that turned up in 1803 in the Benedictine monastery in Beuren, Germany. As befits their "vulgar" status, the poems celebrate not the theoretical joys of heaven but rather the practical ones of earth: spring, sex, food, sex, drink, gambling and sex. They also recognize something that we moderns have lost track of, to our detriment: the heavy influence of blind chance on our lives. The setting of "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" ("Fortune, Empress of the World"), which opens and closes the work, reminds us that the wheel of fortune is always turning and that none of us should get too cocky, as the universe has a tendency to dope-slap the excessively smug.
Orff envisioned this material as the basis for a choral cantata with some mimed action and "magic tableaux" and while it's usually performed strictly as a concert piece these days, the composer's theatrical intentions are evident in every note. Oundjian's reading was appropriately dramatic, with marked contrasts of both tempo and dynamics that called to mind David Amado's somewhat controversial 2003 Carmina. I loved that one and I'm equally smitten this time around. The orchestra and chorus sounded great despite the occasional intonation problem here and there, and the addition projected supertitles saved those less familiar with the work from having to constantly bury their noses in their programs. There was also fine work from the Children's Chorus, brought in from the wings to stand in front of the stage for their brief appearance in the "Court of Love" section.
Baritone soloist Lucas Meachem nicely delineated the various characters Orff created for him. His Abbot of "Cucaniensis" (which I've seen translated as Cuckoominster or Cockaigne, among other things) was especially striking, and he got all the required dramatic mileage out of the tormented, hedonistic narrator of "Estuans interius". Soprano Anna Christy was the epitome of girlish innocence flirting with budding sensuality in "Stetit puella" and "Dulcissime", and she nailed the daunting glissando that opens the latter with ease.
I was less happy with tenor Stanford Olsen's "Olim lacus colueram". The poem is a macabre little piece about a roasted swan seen from the bird's point of view. It's comedy of the dark and creepy variety, and I felt Olsen's overly broad performance (or was it Oundjian's overly broad direction?) pulled it too much towards slapstick and did a disservice to his own fine singing. Sometimes less really is more.
This concluding concert of the 2007 - 2008 season will be presented again Friday and Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, May 9th through 11th. It's a splendid evening of vivid, Technicolor wide-screen music making and a fine way to welcome the season. As they sing in the "Primo Vere" ("Early Spring") section of Carmina Burana:
Rerum tanta novitas in solemni vere et veris auctoritas iubet nos guadere
"All things are refreshed at Spring's celebration, and her authority bids us rejoice."
Call 314-534-1700 for tickets or visit the St. Louis Symphony web site at slso.org . Because in these concerts, the orchestra and chorus truly rock, dude. Seriously.
No comments:
Post a Comment