Music: Final Spring Concert

Spring seems to be the primary music season and one of the things I missed the most during my confinement was attending concerts.  To some extent, this caught me by surprise because earlier in the season I missed a few performances, fraught as they were with memories of shared expeditions with George. I had no way of knowing if a concert would be a joyous occasion or filled with tears, and I suppose, in a misguided attempt to avoid the tears, I would avoid the concert, thereby missing the joy as well.

Therefore it may come as no surprise that I was determined that, if at all possible, I would attend the last concert of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra last Friday even though it was a mere two days following my surgery.  Admittedly it was a bit of a stretch, and on Thursday morning it seemed like an impossible dream. By Friday morning however it was evident that I was most comfortable sitting and that I could easily sit for a couple of hours; I could also stand for long periods of time and walk, although stiffly and slowly for moderate distances.  A friend had offered to drop me off at the door to the Tennessee Theater, and it was an easy walk to my seat, conveniently located on the aisle, although I have requested a change for next year.  I managed to convince myself that the healing power of music is exactly what I needed.

Indeed it was.  I do believe that this was one of the best, if not the best concert I have heard the Knoxville Symphony perform. The concert opened with Beethoven's Overture to Fidelio and although it was an acceptible performance, I thought it sounded muddy in places.  It is possible that the problem lies at least partially with my ears.  I suspect however that someone or section is slightly off beat, but I can't really distinguish different instruments well from my seat, so I am hoping that, by moving up to the balcony next year I will have a different perspective on the performance.  At any rate the opening was lovely, and warmly received, and it certainly did not detract from the two highlights of the concert, Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4 in G, and Shostakovich's 10th Symphony.

The soloist was a young Pianist named Spencer Myer, a name I did not at first recognize. When he came on stage and began to play I realized I had indeed heard him play before.   He is an excellent pianist who plays with fluidity, precision and nuance. Listening, and watching, him play, I felt his sensitive phrasing helped me to hear parts of the music with renewed appreciation.  This was especially well realized in the second movement, where Myer and Richman worked well together in controlling the dynamic between the piano and the orchestra, and it was in this movement that I felt Myer's combination of subtle passion held by restraint was particularly effective.

The Shostakovich was surprising in just how good and enjoyable it was.  It is a piece I have heard performed enough times that I was cautious in my expectations.  Shostakovich is never easy, although I do think Richman excels in 20th century works and his affinity for the intersection between classical and popular works should work well with Shostakovich.  And I have to admit the piece was joyous and exciting.  Again there were sections that sounded slightly "muddy" to me, I suspect that there were discrepencies in timing which blurred the sound in my location.  The orchestra managed to capture a sense of that contrast that is always present in Shostakovich, of joy and pathos, hope, yearning, beauty, horror, absurdity. The second movement captured that sense of brutality well, and the final movement was triumphant.  The audience was silent, rapt throughout the performance, and it errupted upon the finale.  The gentleman in front of me was bouncing up and down in joy through parts of the performance, a welcome change from the sometimes bored placidity of the New York audience.  A gentleman behind me said "yes" once, and "no, no, no" on at least two other occasions.  I might have agreed with him, but overall, I found the performance exciting and enjoyable.  The piccolo was fabulous. My only complaint might be that the work was somewhat muted in its impact and mainstreamed.  Yes the second movement was forceful.  Yes Shostakovich triumphed over Stalin in the music but the dynamic was slightly subdued,  the contrast between joy and pain, beauty and horror, not quite as heart-stopping and shocking as it should have been.  The first movement especially did not seem to have that nightmarish quality that you can't quite pinpoint that I find most compelling in some performances: an eerily haunting listlessness in the strings, that leaves one unnerved on the deepest level, the almost hroat-clenching pain of the sudden outbursts.   Still, these are very small complaints in a work that was extraordinarily difficult and very well and powerfully performed.

Saturday morning I was musing about the concert and where I might have heard Spencer Myer perform before. I suspected it was at Bard and I hoped that I had written something about the performance in my earlier blog.  Alas I was inconsistent in my blog posts, and there was nothing about Myer to be found, although I did enjoy reading my old posts.  Next I went through the old Bard Music Festival programs, where I tended to write notes about the performances, and I did indeed find a few notes about Myer, not valuable for anythng really, other than ascertaining that my memory was indeed correct.    I noted that I had thought he was enormously talented, and played with great precision, but that I felt at that time, and this was some years ago, that he was too driven by control.  In thinking about these earlier performances, and the Beethoven from Friday night, it occurred to me that although I did find the second movement compelling, the Piano Concerto as a whole was not quite my cup of tea. Myer's performance was incredible, his phrasing and coloring shapes a subtly thoughtful emotional landscape, but it lacked, to my ears at least, a certain dynamic contrast and mystery, perhaps even a bit of that sense of struggle, although controlled, of the fine line between joy and pathos that Beethoven seems so often to tread.  Yes, it is possible to over-Romanticize Beethoven, but Myer's approach was perhaps to intellectually ethereal.  Nonetheless, I think he is a pianist from whom I wish to hear more, and I am sure there are composers to whom I will find him brilliantly suited, although perhaps not Beethoven.