Friday January 26, 2007 SGN.org |
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Volume 35 Issue 04 |
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Monday, Oct 13, 2008
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Death, tears, and a deadly concert at Benaroya Hall |
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| Death, tears, and a deadly concert at Benaroya Hall | ||
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by Rod Parke -
SGN A&E Writer There were so many things wrong with this concert by the Moscow Soloists that I had better start with what was good. The ensemble of 17 string players plus their conductor/viola soloist played very well. Their sound was velvet smooth, and their precision was admirable. They used dynamics, from super-soft to moderately loud, to good effect in shaping musical phrases. What they lacked was relief from a gloomy, even deadly, program and any sense of the joy of music-making. Their conductor came out looking like a parody of a super-serious musician, as though Woody Allen on a bad day (with a huge, black hairpiece from another galaxy) were about to lead the world's most serious music. No one cracked a smile, ever! No one looked like they might enjoy what they were doing. This aura of gloom, in which the conductor radiated self-importance, was underscored by a program of unrelieved depression and sadness. Even the opening Beethoven 'String Quartet No. 11, Op. 95' was titled "Quartetto serioso." But the saddest thing about this intense and utterly intimate work was that it was robbed of all of its intimacy and most of its intensity in this arrangement by Gustav Mahler. A group of 18 strings cannot possibly express the intensity of Beethoven's private pain any more than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir could express the heartache of a Billie Holiday ballad. (Beethoven expressly said that it should not be presented to the general public but only to a small group of sophisticates, a wish that happily some great quartets have ignored.) From this misguided abortion of Beethoven's sublime effort, we moved to a much more interesting, but no less depressing, work: Alfred Schnittke's 'Monologue for Viola and Strings.' At times a-tonal and always dark and brooding, this piece featured the conductor as solo violist. It was effective and ended as the soloist gradually detuned his instrument on the long, dying last note. The program notes described the opening as "a slow, lugubrious theme," which was the mood in which we wallowed to the end. I liked it! But I needed a palette refresher, a change of mood before more death and depression. Instead, after intermission, we moved to Benjamin Britten's "Lachrymae (Reflections on a Song of Dowland"). Dowland's motto was "forever Dowland, forever grieving." So, another very dark, depressing work, again well performed and in itself rewarding; but let me see some light, some fresh air. I'm dying here! But no, we moved to Schubert's great "Death and the Maiden" 'String Quartet No. 14'," again arranged by Mahler. This time Mahler's work was not so destructive as in the earlier Beethoven. Still, it seemed like watered down Schubert to these ears. Pretty, but pretty boring. Paradoxical as it sounds, musicians can express the joy of music-making even when performing the saddest music. Think of the greatest blues singers. This concert lacked any joy of any kind. I have a problem with that. Reviewer Rod Parke can be reached at rmp62@columbia.edu. 507 words, no accurate photo available (press photo of this guy must be 30 years old!) |
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