Final Symphony Concert of Season

Friday May 15th was the final concert of the season for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, and it was also Maestro Lucas Richman's last concert as music director.  The concert was eclectic, a retrospective of sorts, and was greatly appreciated by an audience quick to shower the orchestra and its conductor with thunderous applause. The concert closed on the perfect note with an encore of Variation IX, Nimrod, from Elgar's Enigma Variations, a beautifully and poignantly performed tribute which provided the perfect finishing touch on a concert that, for me offered a summing up, as well as a series of questions about the KSO itself and how it defines itself, its life in music, and the search for a new Music Director.

The concert began with a fairly uninspired but comfortingly familiar performance of the  Egmont overture by Beethoven, and moving from there to a marvelous performance of Tchaikovsky's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.  The soloist for this piece was the orchestra's own concertmaster, Gabriel Lefkowitz, who is also a highly skilled and talented soloist, and his breathtaking performance showed great understanding and nuance, intelligence and passion.  But what truly made the piece shine was the  way the orchestra played with the soloist as opposed to against him, as has too often been the case in concerts I have attended. The softly overlapping conversation between the violin and the orchestra at the end of the cadenza was heart-wrenchingly beautiful.  In fact, the entire ensemble worked well together, giving each other the space to shine in their own time, especially the brass, who managed a harmonious interplay combining both controlled boldness and a softer counterpoint as needed, and the woodwinds whose questioning interplay floated in and out with a memorable clarity that haunted and shaped the music around them.

But of course this performance, more the exception than the rule, lead my perambulating thoughts toward musings on the nature of the relationship between soloist and orchestra, and yes, even the role of the conductor. Because of course, a concerto, a work that combines a soloist and an orchestra, is not a battle of wills between a soloist and orchestra, but a choreographed (or orchestrated) conversation between the soloist and the orchestra, a give-and-take that allows each party to both strut their stuff in turn, but also to facilitate and provide the perfect background for this musical relationship to assume its own space.  This requires that the soloist and the orchestra, with the assistance of the conductor, work together, be willing to work together.  From the distance of the audience, one is often inclined to lay the blame or praise on the conductor, and although the conductor should play a role, the members of the orchestra itself are also a participating body, a body which may or may not cooperate.  I was reminded of this at the after-party, when an orchestra member, upon receiving a compliment on the Tchaikovsky piece, stated that the orchestra wanted to support and work with Lefkowitz, but that often, with other soloists, they "just don't care".  I found this simultaneously elucidating and disturbing because, simply stated, if you don't care, you can't make beautiful music.  It is that effort to connect, that interaction, that willingness to both give and take, between the soloist, the conductor who must act as a bridge between he soloist and the members of the orchestra, and the members of the orchestra itself, that makes music into something magical that elevates the soul.  You can have all the technical virtuosity in the world, every note can be perfect, but if you are disparate groups, even hitting perfect notes, you are defined by the disparateness of your efforts.  It is in the coming together that music is made.

All this and the intermission is just ending; let us move on to the second half of the concert: 

First up is Mahler's Symphony #10, Adagio.  Richman noted that this work was new to both himself and the orchestra.  Alas it is not new to me.  I have heard at least 4 performances of this work, some even by great Mahler scholars and interpreters, and I have heard recordings of it as well, some very good.  In answer to the comment that you can't just listen to a recording of Mahler, I would both agree and disagree.  A wonderful live performance is enlightening, but a recording can be edifying as well, although in completely different way.  I do not play an orchestral instrument, and would consider myself but a novice pianist, it seems to me that music needs to be both heard, actively, and performed, also actively, so that both heart and hands, mind and music can form their own conversation. 

But onto the performance. 

The Mahler was obviously lovingly an passionately played by the orchestra. It seemed that the musicians were invigorated by the performance but Mahler can be complex and notably difficult.  The music can appear to be a mishmash of things that don't go together and make sense, and the difficulty is in getting to that point where they can not only be performed but where the performance finds that sweet spot where everything fits together and makes some kind of sense of the mishmash that is modernity, or was modernity in Mahler's time and still is today.  The orchestra did not quite pull that off, that magical integration where it all comes together and lifts the soul, although the violas were absolutely brilliant, capturing mystery in a lush richness that provided the glue that held the brashness of the rest of the work together.

The final piece was Ravel's La Vase. Again it was a piece the orchestra obviously enjoyed performing. It was also a piece that I believe most of the audience loved.  To me, the performance seemed to lean too heavily toward the Germanic, toward the spectrum of Strauss and Viennese waltzes.  Yes, I know this sounds strange, because, la valse, the waltz, revolves around a waltz, a classical waltz.  But it is so much more than a waltz, it is a study of a waltz, of the end of an era, and there is a strong sense of emotion and loss, but emotion and loss shaped by distance and intellect. I found the performance lacked that sense of intellect.  As I said earlier it was too German, and not French enough:  heavy handed in its decent into darkness, it lacked the clarity and opulence I associate with Ravel, and that complex intermingling of intellect and distance playing off the lush emotion and bitterness that marks Ravel's farewell to the end of an era.

And of course all this leads to my other big question of the evening.  Where is the orchestra going from here?  Next year's program looks fascinating.  We will have several conductors, all of whom are interviewing for the position of music director and, given that the best performances of this past season were, to my mind anyway, lead by young guest conductors, I cannot help but be intrigued.  But of course there is more to being music director than conducting, and more to that even than my solo opinion.  And this is good.  Because the simple truth is, that from the perspective of the audience, sometimes too much attention is given to the conductor and not the musicians.  From the perspective of the audience, I do not know if that fabulous performance I heard was because the conductor and the musicians worked well together, truly collaborated and lead each other to new discoveries in the music, or if the music  heard on the night of the performance was the result of a battle of wills unsustainable in the long run, or even if the conductors were truly awful and the musicians pulled themselves out of mire only out of force of will in defiance of the conductor.  I also do not know what the musicians themselves want.  Choosing a Music Director can be like walking a tightrope through a minefield of conflicting interests and petty fiefdoms, although I would like to hope it is not so. 

But, for the most part an orchestra needs a conductor.  Yes I have heard the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the famous conductor-less orchestra.  But even they chose a core group of musicians who direct the performance of each piece.  There must be a unity of vision to a performance and unity is hard to achieve in a large body of trained and skilled professionals, each with their own opinions. The musicians may have performed a work so many times they know it in their sleep. It may be true that for a certain orchestra playing a particular part of the repertoire, the conductor is not necessary.  But another orchestra member, equally experienced, may see things differently, and even if there is no disagreement, to fall into the path of the familiar risks the danger of falling into the trap of believing there is nothing more to learn from the music.  For what is the point of performing a work again, other than to find new depth and meaning?  What is the point of going to a concert to hear something so old and tired you can hum it in your sleep unless you are looking to find something more, something that touches your soul and shows you something you hadn't recognized before? 

A great music director needs the sensibilities of a great artist and skill as a conductor; the music director also has to be willing to work with the orchestra, to listen, to facilitate, to guide a body of musicians who also have to be willing to work together, to listen, and to recognize insight and leadership when they see it and have a willingness to care, to create that conversation that makes music into something great. Of course harmony of will is not always achievable. We are all, musicians, conductors, and the audience itself, but human. The question now is where will this search lead? Where will this orchestra, which I have seen incredible growth over the course of the last four seasons find itself headed next? Or am I wishing on a star, or a mythical orchestra and a mythical music director that don't really exist, in my own hopes for something more?