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| Simone Lamsma (photobucket.com/wiebren_2007) |
What: Jaap van Zweden conducts Rachmaninoff, Simone Lamsma plays Shostakovich
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: March 11 - 13, 2011
Reviewed by Chuck Lavazzi, 88.1 KDHX
Dutch violinist-turned-conductor Jaap van Zweden is one of those performers whom I know entirely from recordings, so I looked forward with some anticipation to seeing him in person conducting the St. Louis Symphony this weekend. I was not disappointed. A brusque, no-nonsense type whose gestures are precise and highly focused, he nevertheless appeared to be passionately engaged with both the music and the musicians. As a result, he and the orchestra did equal justice to both the dark and demon-haunted Violin Concerto No. 1 of Shostakovich and the unabashedly romantic Symphony No. 2 of Rachmaninoff.
Although completed in 1948, the Shostakovich Concerto was not performed until 1955 – two years after the death of Stalin and the subsequent easing of restrictions on composers who (like the residents of Monty Python’s “Happy Valley”) risked arrest for not being sufficiently cheerful. And cheerful is a word which nobody is his or her right mind would apply to this work. Yes, the finale is typically lively and boisterous, but it comes after a dark and tragically brooding first movement, a demonically grinning second that could have been penned by The Joker (Batman’s, not Steve Miller’s), a Passacaglia (based, in part, on the “fate” motive of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony) that sounds like something Bach might have produced had he lived through the horrors of World War II in Russia, and a highly dramatic virtuoso cadenza that’s almost a tone poem unto itself.
Taken as a whole, the concerto is a work of tragic grandeur, which may be why David Oistrakh (for whom the work was written and who assisted in its revision) referred to the solo violin part as a "pithy 'Shakespearean' role". Certainly the cadenza that links the third and fourth movements is as technically challenging as any of The Bard’s soliloquies, with a dynamic and emotional range that compels complete attention. Which it got, thanks to a stunning performance by soloist Simone Lamsma.
Ms. Lamsma has performed the concerto with her fellow countryman Mr. van Zweden before, so perhaps it’s no surprise that they were so completely in synch with each other despite a lack of any obvious visual communication. Even so, it was a remarkably seamless and powerful reading to which the audience responded with an enthusiastic standing ovation. To that Ms. Lamsma responded, on Friday, with an encore – the “Sarabanda” from Bach’s Partita No. 2. This was Ms. Lamsma’s debut with the symphony and given the warmth with which it was received, I suspect it will not be the last.
The second half of the program was given over entirely to Rachmaninoff's lush and expansive Symphony No. 2. Clocking in at around an hour uncut (which, happily, this performance was) and featuring the seemingly endless melodic invention that characterizes so much of the composer’s work, the Second has become immensely popular since its 1908 premiere. Yes, it can be repetitive and structurally disjointed at times, but Mr. van Zweden’s disciplined and yet sympathetic approach made it all work. There were instrumental details here and there that got lost, at least from where we sat in the dress circle boxes, but on the whole the orchestra was its usual splendid-sounding self.
Musical trivia note: both works on the program contain four-note “signatures” with which their respective composers often stamp their music. In Shostakovich’s case the signature is melodic – the notes D, E-flat, C and B natural which, in German notational convention, spell out DSCH – an abbreviation for Dimitry Shostakovich. Rachmaninoff’s signature, by contrast, is rhythmic – one long note and three short corresponding to “RACH-man-in-off”. Is their back-to-back placement coincidental or just a remarkable bit of subtlety? Only your symphony knows for sure.
And finally, a question that has been bugging me for some time now: what is it about some members of the symphony audience that makes it impossible for them to suppress a cough response until breaks between movements? More specifically: why do some people feel compelled to hack up a lung during some of the softest and most emotionally intense moments? Far be it from me to discourage anyone from attending a concert, but if you’re really that sick perhaps you should either stay home or dope yourself up with an antitussive and get a designated driver. On Friday night the Shostakovich, in particular, was marred by outbreaks that made Powell Hall sound like a 19th century tuberculosis ward.
Let’s have a little consideration for your fellow audience members. Some of us are there to hear the music without bronchial obbligato.
Next up on the symphony schedule: a varied program the combines Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ligeti’s Atmospheres (both of which were used in 2001: A Space Odyssey) with Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. For more information, you may call 314-534-1700, visit slso.org, or follow @slso on Twitter.
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