Opus Colorado

The Lamont Symphony Orchestra consistently presents outstanding programs which bear little resemblance to the concerts given by other university orchestras that I am familiar with. The concerts are so good that they encroach on performances given by professional orchestras. If any of you readers doubt that statement, start attending some of the Lamont Symphony Orchestra concerts. Thursday night’s concert, March 10, was an exception only because it was the best I have heard them do, and that is saying quite a bit. It is easy to dismiss this orchestra by saying, “Well, sure, they should be good because they are all music majors.” Yes, they are all music majors are, and yes, they practice all the time as music majors do. Nonetheless, these are students. They are not consummate concert level professionals, but mark my words, there are some who certainly will become that. 

Thursday night, they presented another performance of Silouan’s Song (the work was written in 1991, and this was the Colorado premiere) by the Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt. I have written about Arvo Pärt in previous articles, but please be reminded that Arvo Pärt is widely known as a minimalist composer, and his work between the years 1977 to 1992 can be described as “holy minimalism” because of his immersion in Gregorian chant and early liturgical music. He further describes this sound as “tintinnabuli” because it often sounds like the ringing of bells. Some critics have gone so far as to describe Pärt as a Western Confucius because of his mysticism and liturgical leanings. In Silouans Song there is not so much tintinnabuli, but there is certainly an influence of religious mysticism. Pärt found much inspiration in the Russian Orthodox Church, and was specifically influenced by his acquaintance with Archimandrite Sophrony, who was a disciple and biographer of St. Silouan. As a matter of fact, it was Father Sophrony who advised Pärt to stay the course and become a composer. Silouan’s Song is really Pärt’s orchestral interpretation based on words of St. Silouan, and some say that Pärt tried to create the mood of the words in the violins and the cellos. 

This work certainly is among the most serene that Pärt has composed. It is for string orchestra, and is in long phrases, really sections, that are separated by periods of silence. Most of the sections are subdued and positively shimmered under the hands of Travis Jürgens, who truly is a superior conductor. It seems to me that the difficulty with this piece are the entrances of each section. Almost all of them began at a piano or pianissimo dynamic level, and trying to get an orchestra to enter precisely, and I do mean everyone, takes a lot of attention on the part of all the orchestra members, and I would think much rehearsal time. The entrances were perfect. That confirmed the control that not only Maestro Juergens is able to make use of over the orchestra, but it also confirms the control that the orchestra members have in their own performance ability. As I have said before, this orchestra, and it seems this year alone, just keeps getting better and better. One of the reasons simply has to be that they have a great deal of respect for Travis Jürgens, and it is always easier to do well when you are cooperating with someone that you respect. I am always struck by how hard every single musician in this orchestra works for their conductor. I have seen and heard a lot of university orchestras in my life, and the Lamont Symphony makes many of them appear to be totally unconcerned. I know that this is an old cliché, but my hat is off to Travis Jürgens and the Lamont Symphony Orchestra. 

The next work on the program was the Beethoven Piano Concerto Nr. 2 in B flat Major, Opus 19. I would like to point out that somehow it was listed in the program as Opus 10, and that is incorrect. This Concerto is Opus 19, and it had its origins in Bonn before Beethoven moved to Vienna. There are sketches from this concerto that are from the year 1785, and it was first published in 1801. The publication dates of Beethoven’s first two piano concertos long confused the issue of when each one was written, but we have also known for a time now, that what is known as his Concerto Nr.1 in C Major, and carries the opus number 15, was written by 1798. This Concerto was also published and 1801, but one of the aspects of this work which indicates it was later than the B flat Concerto, is that the orchestration is much more advanced, and is for full orchestra. Beethoven was not completely satisfied with either concerto, and both are sometimes mentioned as extensions of Mozart’s piano concertos by several scholars. 

All that aside, be rest assured that the young lady who performed this Beethoven Piano Concerto, Madoka Asari, is absolutely breathtaking. She is the winner of the 2011 Lamont Solo Honors Competition, and she studies with Professor Stephen Mayer. Her playing is extremely clean and precise, and she shapes each phrase, making sure that there is a subtle highpoint. When there is a small two note phrase, which is such a cliché of the classical period, particularly in Haydn (Beethoven’s teacher) and Beethoven, she has a perfect wrist drop on the first note of each phrase, and plays the second note as she is coming off the keyboard. This consistency carried through to so many other details. I was a little surprised at how far back she sat from the piano, because her arms were comparatively outstretched. If she sat just a little closer, she might be able to relax her arms just a little more, which in turn will relax her hands. I did notice in a few places that her left hand was a little more tense than her right. I mention this only because she is young, and she has a whole lifetime of performing before her, and she must take care not to damage anything. And I assure you, she really does have a whole lifetime of performing in her future. The minute she began to play the first movement, her artistic concentration seemed to kick in, and she knew the piece so well that she could think about it to the exclusion of everything around her except the orchestra and Maestro Golan. That makes her an incredibly reliable musician: she knew the score, and she knew her entrances, and she clearly allowed the orchestra to help her with these aspects of performing. What do I mean? When you perform with another group of musicians, whether it is a chamber work or a concerto, you have to know every single note mentally. One does not learn a piece by practicing it so much that one’s hands can just “do it.” One has to listen to the other musicians, and be able to say to themselves, “Oh, yes. There’s the bassoon making his entrance, and I come in three measures later.” All of this means that one is reliable as a musician and can be counted on by the conductor. Madoka Asari is that kind of musician, reliable, and consummately musical. The last movement of this concerto has one thing in common with the C Major Concerto, Opus 15. Both are almost playful, and both begin to show Beethoven’s development away from Mozart and his teacher, Haydn. The second movements of both concertos are much deeper musically, and Ms. Asari excelled. And, guess what? She has ten more performances scheduled for the year. Keep in mind that she is only a junior at the Lamont School, and will play her junior recital this coming May. Ladies and gentlemen, that is impressive. 

The next performer on the program was equally impressive, and here I speak of the Lamont Symphony Orchestra as a single performer, under the direction of Maestro Lawrence Golan. I truly think this is the first time I have ever heard a student performance of Richard Strauss’symphonic tone poem, Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life). Of course such a huge work is possible because the Lamont Symphony is itself very large. Nonetheless several instruments were added to fill out the orchestra, for example, four harps. Not only is a large orchestra required for this work, but the members of the orchestra must be skilled: this work, like all Strauss orchestral pieces, is extremely difficult. That is why student orchestras seldom attempt such a piece. But Maestro Golan is so adept at pulling musicianship and skill out of this orchestra, that I am willing to bet that all he had to do was calmly tell them, “You can play this piece, its reputation for difficulty is exaggerated. Here we go!” Now it probably didn’t happen quite that easily, because every measure of this performance reflected intense work and intense joy of performing. 

The performance of this difficult piece has to be one of the finest performances I have ever heard the Lamont Symphony Orchestra give. 

Ein Heldenleben can often give conductors fits because of its difficulty, but you have to understand that the performance Thursday night again made obvious how much the orchestra members admire and respect Maestro Golan. I can remember when the great Hungarian conductor, Fritz Reiner, fired the entire brass section of the Pittsburgh (Was it the Philadelphia?) Symphony. My mother showed me the newspaper headlines. He was conducting a Strauss tone poem and became dissatisfied with the brass section, so he simply fired all of them: horns, trumpets, trombones, and tuba. The next day, the headlines said that he had hired them all back, because the Symphony Society threatened to fire him. But be aware that in those days conductors were often tyrants, and I am quite sure that the members of the Chicago Symphony, which he conducted for 10 years, considered Reiner to resemble Dracula. He led the Chicago Symphony from 1953 until his death in 1963, and many of the orchestra members predicted that he might even fire some of his pallbearers. 

I hasten to add that Maestro Golan would never suffer from comments such as these! The performance of Ein Heldenleben was spectacular. The opening is remarkably difficult. There is no time to collect your thoughts, or to even think, Yes, it gets hard in a few measures. It gets hard from the very first note, and the entire orchestra was ready to go and they did it. Maestro Golan took a perfect tempo, which is to say it was the tempo that would have suited the composer very nicely. Golan did not, obviously, think I’d better go slower. These are students. There is extensive violin solo work in this piece that the first chair violin, or concertmaster, performs. I was truly flabbergasted by the mature and artistic performance given by Janis Sakai. Her performance was as professional as any that I have heard, and when I say that, I am including performances done by professional orchestras, not only student orchestras. This young woman possesses remarkable talent (how I hate that word talent, because it does not begin to encompass what gifted individuals do). Janis Sakai is stellar. It was wonderful idiomatic Strauss. Golan conducted this work with the swagger that Strauss requires, especially since “the hero” that Strauss is referring to is himself, even as he takes a poke at his critics in this work. And it was clear that Janis Sakai played this work so brilliantly because she has the maturity to believe in every single measure. Her playing was opulent, and when it needed to be brooding, it was brooding. Those of you who were in the audience not only know what I am talking about, but I am sure that you consider yourselves fortunate for having heard this performance. 

Think of this: you audience members got to hear two young musicians who will make their mark on the world, and you got to hear a student orchestra led by Maestro Lawrence Golan support these young artists in a very professional way.