Filed under: Reviews | Tags: Amra Tomsic, Cassidy Smith, Catherine Sailer, Elijah, Hunter Hall, Jeanne Ireland, Mari Sullivan, Meg Dudley, Nathan Bird, Paul Smith, Sarah Cambidge, Steven Taylor
At one time the oratorio “Elijah” was one of the most popular oratorios being performed. Written by Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847), it is typical, though no less monumental, of his clarity and amazing ability to write for a chorus.
The Lamont Symphony Orchestra, the Lamont Chorale, the Lamont Women’s Chorus, prepared by Catherine Sailer, and the Lamont Men’s Choir, prepared by Paul Smith, gave an absolutely spellbinding performance under the direction of Catherine Sailer on Thursday, May 27. Mind you, this was not just another good performance to add to the roster of the Lamont School of Music’s good performances. In every way, it was exceptional. It is not an easy task to assemble all of the resources necessary to perform such a huge piece of music, and the Lamont School of Music has done it twice this year: “The Planets, by Gustav Holtz, and now this marvelous oratorio. One thinks, quite readily, of the larger music schools such as Indiana University or the University of Wisconsin presenting productions like this. They were indeed fortunate to have baritone Steven Taylor sing the role of Elijah.
As the Dean of the School of Music at, CCU, baritone Steven Taylor is also known to audiences throughout the Rocky Mountain region both for his beautiful, expressive singing, and his dramatic interpretations. Steven Taylor’s versatile singing career ranges from opera and oratorio, to musical theater and gospel, appearing with major symphonies throughout the west, Central City Opera, Opera Theatre of the Rockies, Boulder’s Dinner Theatre, and sixteen seasons with Opera Colorado. As a member of the internationally acclaimed Gospel Quartet LEGACY, Steven has performed concert tours in Australia, Canada, Cuba and South Korea.
The other soloists for the evening were, Obadiah: Nathan Bird, Tenor; Ahab: Amra Tomsic, Tenor; Queen Jezebel: Cassidy Smith, Mezzo – Soprano; The Youth: Mari Sullivan, Soprano; Angel: Jeanne Ireland, Mezzo – Soprano; Angel: Sarah Cambidge, Soprano; Meg Dudley, Soprano; Marisa Walsh, Soprano; Laura Jobin-Acosta, Mezzo – Soprano; Claire Le Borgne, Mezzo – Soprano; Myranda Whitesides, Mezzo – Soprano; Hunter Hall, Tenor; Ben Wood, Baritone and Elijah understudy. I hasten to point out that these soloists are all students, and they were absolutely superb.
It has been sometime since I have heard this oratorio performed live. As a matter, of fact I think the last time was in 1956 or 1957 when it was performed by the Indiana University School of Music. During the course of last night’s performance, I sat trying to determine what makes this work – and his oratorio, St. Paul – so distinctive. This oratorio is very different from the other orchestra and choral compositions of the Romantic period written by Liszt and Berlioz. For one thing, the Liszt and Berlioz seemed to use their choirs as another part of the instrumentation in their compositions. Mendelssohn, and for that matter Brahms and Théodore Gouvy, understood how to write fluently for a chorus and make it a meeting point of the performance, such as the incredibly beautiful “He, watching over Israel.” No part of Mendelssohn’s choruses are mere decorations. They direct our attention to the story at hand.
The opening of this oratorio is extremely dramatic. Dr. Sailer conducts with sweeping arm motions as she conducts phrases, but with subtle jabs to underscore the beat. She seldom seems to point to the sections of the orchestra or the choir to give them cue. Rather, she demands constant attention and through subtle movement of her elbows, for example, she lets the various sections know when to enter. That makes major cues and cut-offs even more dramatic and emphatic. The fact that she conducts in this manner – and that is not a criticism – emphasizes the respect with which these student musicians hold for her. I repeat, these are student musicians. It was absolutely thrilling to see the emotion and intensity with which they played and sang. The orchestra was always in tune, and truly, why shouldn’t it be, as these are young professional musicians. It was very clear that every one of the 200 or so musicians onstage practiced outside of rehearsals. What a concept! Some of the local community orchestras could follow their lead.
Steven Taylor, who sang Elijah, was incredibly dramatic, so much so that his portrayal of the prophet could often be described as fearsome. He and Dr. Sailer worked so well together that they both seemed to move the oratorio forward with a remarkable sense of direction. The choir was certainly fearsome as well, particularly when they almost screamed for Baal to answer them. It’s interesting to point out that the emotion was so strong, there was a young child perhaps three years old, three rows in front of me, who began to cry because it was so frightening.
The student soloists were also at the top of their form. Nathan Bird, Amra Tomsic, Cassidy Smith, and Sarah Cambidge were quite remarkable. They had excellent diction as well as good romantic sense. The tenor, Hunter Hall, who sang the aria, “Then shall the righteous shine forth,” and Miss Cambidge both had enormous voices, and one could easily imagine them on an operatic stage. However, all of the soloists were excellent and very well chosen for their role. As I stated above, it has been sometime since I have heard a performance where all of the performers were so emotionally involved and so eager to show the audience the power and the beauty of this work and its outstanding composer. The choir, the orchestra, and the soloists, were very precise in their rhythms and their musicianship. In the chorus, “Thanks be to God,” at the end of part one, the violin section did some remarkably fine work. Again, Cassidy Smith as Queen Jezebel in her recitative with Elijah at the beginning of part two, “The Lord hath exalted thee,” had such a dramatic voice and such excellent diction, that I was amazed that she is “only” a student. What a future she will have. The cello section of the Lamont Symphony, was wonderfully mellifluous at the end of Elijah’s aria, “Though stricken, they have not grieved.”
This was a marvelous performance in every sense of the word. Everything fell into place, and these students seem well on their way. They displayed genuine musical maturity. They are fortunate to have the leadership of Sailer, Taylor, and Smith.
Mendelssohn conducted the premiere of this oratorio on August 26, 1846, in Birmingham England. It underwent a few revisions, and Mendelssohn conducted the final version in London on April 16, 1847. On May 14, 1847, Mendelssohn’s sister, Fanny, died of a stroke in Berlin. Both of Mendelssohn’s parents died of strokes as well, so there must have been a genetic trait of some kind. Around the beginning of October, Mendelssohn himself began to feel ill. In a letter to the King of Prussia, Mendelssohn addresses this issue. It is an interesting letter, and I am sure, one of his last. It is short, and therefore I will enclose it in its entirety below:
To Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia
Leipzig. October 17, 1847
Most Serene and Powerful King,
Most Gracious Lord and Sovereign,
Your Royal Majesty,
I am taking the liberty of laying with the utmost Reverence the enclosed first copy of the score to my Elijah at your feet. It seems to me as if it were not only the deepest and innermost gratitude which makes this my duty, but as if I had no other means of proving to your Majesty how continually I strive to be more and more worthy of all the generosity Your Majesty has shown me. May these strivings be visible in the present work.
It was my hope to find an opportunity to hand this work to Your Majesty myself while in Berlin. But having been detained here by illness I would not like to wait until the score is placed before the public, and am thus making so bold as to address these lines to Your Majesty. With deepest reverence
Your Majesty’s most humble servant,
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
On October 28, a few days after this letter was written, Mendelssohn suffered his first stroke. On November 3, he had a second stroke. He died the following day, November 4, at the age of 38.
Filed under: Reviews | Tags: Bruce Blomquist, Carlton Alexander, Catherine Ricca, Cheryl Gooden, Dave Wallace, Joan of Arc, Joe Walsh, Josh Chance, Kathy Thayer, Kenneth Greenwald, Manny Araujo, Shaun Burley, Steven Byess, Verdi
Friday night, May 7, the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra played their season finale at their home venue, the KPOF Concert Hall in Denver. The program was comprised of the Overture to Giovanna d’Arco (Joan of Arc) by Giuseppe Verdi, the Mozart Concerto for Bassoon in B Flat Major, K. 191, with the DPO’s own Kenneth Greenwald performing, and the beautiful, if often performed, Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony. The DPO is still involved in a search for a new conductor, and tonight’s guest conductor was Steven Byess.
Steven Byess is Music Director of the Tupelo Symphony Orchestra and the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, Cover Conductor for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Ohio Light Opera, and Conductor at the International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel.
He is a former faculty member of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Michigan School of Music.
Mr. Byess received his Bachelor of Music Degree in classical performance and jazz studies from Georgia State University, and his Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied conducting with Louis Lane and Carl Topilow, bassoon with George Goslee and David McGill, violin with Carol Ruzicka, and piano with Olga Radosavljevich. He also attended the Pierre Monteux Memorial School for Conductors under the tutelage of Maître Charles Bruck. In addition to his conducting studies with Louis Lane, Robert Shaw, and Carl Topilow, he has worked under the auspices of the American Symphony Orchestra League with such noted conductors as Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, and Otto Werner Mueller. Mr. Byess was an assistant to conductor Robert Shaw at the Shaw Institute in Souilliac, France.
In the opening Verdi overture, it was readily apparent that the orchestra was responding to every demand placed upon them by Byess, and that one of the requests he had made of them during their rehearsals was that the violins, particularly the second violins, play in tune. And what a difference this makes! I have not heard the violins play so well since Dr. Horst Buchholz and Dr. Lawrence Golan conducted this orchestra. The opera, Joan of Arc, was written in 1845 and is Verdi’s seventh opera. It is not performed as much, perhaps because the story follows the play which was written by Friedrich Schiller, rather than remaining true to historical fact. This really is a shame because the music is quite good and is typical Verdi. Maestro Byess gave this work some genuine electric tension and there was some fine oboe work by Carlton Alexander, as well as the flutes, Cheryl Gooden and Catherine Ricca.
The Mozart Bassoon Concerto in B Flat, which followed the Verdi, is the first concerto for wind instruments. It was finished in 1774, the year in which Mozart did not travel until December. It is his only surviving bassoon Concerto, though it is suspected that he may have written three more, as well as a bassoon sonata for Thaddäus Baron von Dürnitz (who owned an astonishing seventy-four pieces by Mozart). From the outset, the violins again sounded very good. I emphasize this because throughout this season the violins have seemed to struggle even though they have a fine concert master, Kathy Thayer. It is quite possible that the entire orchestra felt an immediate connection with Maestro Byess, and of course, that is a fortunate situation. But, it would be a shame if their past struggles this season were caused by their anticipation for a conductor that they could readily connect with. One of the first things that a string player learns is to play in tune. But all of that aside, they sounded quite good in the Mozart. And of course, so did Kenneth Greenwald. Greenwald joined the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra as principal bassoonist in 2008. A native of Colorado, he grew up surrounded by music. He began studying the violin at age 5, and later, would study piano and flute. He discovered the bassoon when he was in high school, and began taking lessons with Jonathan Sherwin, and later Joann Goble, both of whom performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. He received both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in performance from the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver.
Greenwald has been a fine addition to the DPO, and his orchestral performing experience has made him a very reliable solo performer. That is to say, that he has great confidence and seems to be remarkably relaxed when he performs as a soloist. His playing is marked by great ease, and he does not seem to struggle at all with any of the technical difficulties. While his performance Friday night was very good Mozart, I would have preferred a little more playfulness and, perhaps, a little more dynamic contrast. The orchestra was quite good in their support of Greenwald, and he and Maestro Byess gave the impression that they had performed together for many years, such was their ease in this performance. One unusual feature of this concerto is the tempo marking for the second movement: Andante ma adagio (easily flowing, but slow). I would also point out that Mozart used the theme of the slow movement in his opera The Marriage of Figaro. This was really an enjoyable performance of this popular work from bassoon literature. Greenwald had absolutely no problems with the giant leaps that occur in this work.
After the intermission, the DPO performed Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Much has been made about Tchaikovsky symphonies having programs, and it does seem that Tchaikovsky’s patroness, Nadya von Meck, asked him to write a program for this particular work. That fact led many critics to disparage the work for which nowadays seems rather silly. There’s no question that he had a true program in mind for his Sixth Symphony, and even considered calling it the Programmatic Symphony but decided against that – not only did he dislike that title, but he was afraid that people would ask him what the program was, and he never divulged the program to anyone, not even his brother. The Fourth Symphony’s program, what ever it may be, seems to be a little bit more contrived, because it was written after the symphony was completed.
Byess is not an overly demonstrative conductor, but throughout this entire concert he demonstrated great confidence in his ability to control the orchestra, and he did so with grace and passion. This is a difficult symphony, and every movement that he made seemed to say that he knew it was difficult, but there is only one way to do it, and that way is Tchaikovsky’s. The orchestra really responded to him, and there was some marvelous clarinet work from Shaun Burley. In fact, there was some marvelous work from the entire woodwind section. In the second movement, the violins had a few glitches, but the glitches lasted only a few measures and seemed odd, because they performed so well throughout the entire concert. The third movement of the symphony is a scherzo, which requires all of the strings to play pizzicato, except in the trio section of the scherzo which Tchaikovsky wrote mainly for woodwinds. The pizzicato was together and had great dynamic contrast – it really demonstrated what the strings in this orchestra can do when they put their minds to it. The fourth movement is guaranteed to give any orchestra a real workout. It is difficult. But like the first movement, it gives each section a chance to shine. The brass section, all of them, Dave Wallace on horn, Manny Araujo on trumpet, Josh Chance on trombone, and Bruce Blomquist who plays bass trombone, and Joe Walsh on Tuba, were all exceptional.
The Denver Philharmonic has established a reputation of giving absolute stellar performances in their final concert of the year. This was no exception, and the success was in so many ways due to the musicianship and leadership of Steven Byess. It was genuine pleasure to hear the violins get back into the groove. The entire orchestra worked very hard at this performance. Bravo!
