Seattle Symphony performance hits the pits and the peaks

Seattle Symphony performance hits the pits and the peaks

by Rod Parke - SGN A&E Writer SEATTLE SYMPHONY WITH VIOLINIST NADJA SALERNO-SONNENBERG APRIL 5 BENAROYA HALL The audience loved Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg's performance of Max Bruch's 'Violin Concerto No. 1.' I was one of the few not standing in the ovation she received. I won't dwell on why I disliked her playing except to give a couple specifics that turned me off. Like some singers, she lacks continuity between loud and soft notes. Thus, when she plays a musical line that includes both, the soft notes "drop out," leaving holes in what should be a smooth legato line. When she goes up a run, you hear some notes and entirely miss others. Her playing was at times sloppy, with some off-pitch notes especially in the beginning, and with weird portamentos where they don't seem to make emotional sense. I like animated performers generally, but this violinist moved more like a prizefighter than a musician. Her super-butch movements were extremely distracting. She even jumped up and down in place at times, Rocky style, as though trying to get her heart rate accelerated. Some people perceive this as "passionate" playing, a sign of the artist's profound involvement with the music. To my eyes, it was ugly, self-indulgent in the extreme, and unmusical. I could go on, including notes on her scratchy sound, more metallic than beautiful. My experience of this artist some 15 years ago would have kept me away from this concert were it not for the main part of the evening: Bruckner's 'Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major.' I can't resist Bruckner, even when my hopes for a good performance are not great. Imagine my delight as Gerard Schwarz led us into the first movement of this long work and absolutely everything sounded right! Tempi were not rushed; balances were perfect; dynamics - so important in Bruckner - were impressive. In fact, the whole effect was one of loving attention to detail, while maintaining the all-important broad sweep, the overall arch of the piece. Bruckner's Fifth also presents a supreme test to an ensemble's ability to play together because it contains countless isolated attacks where notes are separated by silence. The concentration of the players was impressive in their ability to stay together on all those naked attacks. And the sound! I have never heard the SSO sound better. Warm celli and basses, silken violins and violas. Spot-on woodwinds and perfect attacks by the horns. And the tuttis had a grandeur, so appropriate here, that I don't remember hearing before from the SSO. Bruckner and Sibelius excel all others in the use of the brass section, and our players really were up to the task. This was sound that no stereo system can reproduce, absolutely thrilling in its beauty and power. Bruckner builds huge cathedrals of sound, often starting from a soft solo flute or oboe, adding choirs of instruments much like an organist adding stops. As these crescendos reach their peak, they often seem to stop just short of the goal, or climax, if you will. Then he begins again. Many find this frustrating and attribute it to the composer's inability to find the way to resolution. Bruckner lovers instead understand his extreme, naïve form of Catholicism and his reaching, reaching, reaching up to his God, never quite getting there in this life. Yes, it's frustrating, and it's supposed to be! Perhaps it's this unsatisfied yearning that gives his music a feeling of absolute, even desperate, seriousness. Like Wagner's RING, going to hear Bruckner is, even for a non-church-goer like me, like attending a communal spiritual event. It's terribly serious stuff, so that when someone delivers the way Gerard Schwarz and the SSO did Saturday night, your heart leaps with love for these players. I swam in sonic ecstasy for all 76 minutes of it. Thank you, Maestro and SSO players, for a truly sublime experience. Reviewer Rod Parke can be reached at rod@sgn.org