Symphony review: Preu taps into nostalgia of early concert music
In assembling the program for this weekend’s concerts by the Spokane Symphony at the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox, music director Eckart Preu sought to explore works shining light on an earlier period of American concert music, and to gain some insight into why these works, once immensely popular, have fallen out of fashion.
To the extent he stuck to those goals, the results were both illuminating and pleasurable for the audience. When he varied from them, problems arose.
A glance at the program is all that is needed to start some head-scratching. It includes three works that epitomize different camps of American creativity during the period between the world wars: “American Festival Overture” (1939) of William Schuman, “Grand Canyon Suite” (1931) of Ferde Grofe, and George Gershwin’s icon of the Jazz Age, “Rhapsody in Blue” (1924). Also included, for reasons we shall consider later, was Concerto for Piano and Winds (1924) by the Russian composer, then resident in Paris, Igor Stravinsky. The piano soloist in the Stravinsky and Gershwin works was Andreas Boyde, making his debut with the Spokane Symphony.
From every point of view, Schuman’s “American Festival Overture” was a brilliant starter. It is a superbly crafted piece of music, demonstrating the composer’s mastery of structure and orchestration, and composed according to the same democratic principles it is meant to celebrate: Every principal player in the orchestra is allowed to strut their stuff. Still, the most thrilling passages were those in which the entire band meshed in perfect harmony and unison.
The acoustics of the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox were also shown to their best advantage, with every tone – from the grumblings of the tuba to the whisper of a solo violin – projected with crystalline clarity and balance. The chrome-plated perfection of the orchestra’s response to Schuman’s complex demands gleamed like the front grill of a Deusenberg.
If Schuman’s overture showed that it was possible to write great symphonic music in a purely American idiom, Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite” demonstrates that the American landscape can inspire emotions as lofty and powerful as any arising from a European river or mountain. Grofe, who first came to prominence by orchestrating “Rhapsody in Blue,” here proves that his mastery of orchestral resources is fully comparable to that of Richard Strauss, whose tone-poems set the standard of the form. Yet, for all the grandeur of the sound of the full orchestra, the audience was most spellbound by the solo violin playing of Concertmaster Mateusz Wolski in the exacting, cadenza-like passage that begins the third movement, “On the Trail,” in which he evokes now the braying of a mule, and now the pyrotechnics of a Romantic violin virtuoso.
Coming then upon Stravinsky’s concerto was like being offered a glass of sauvignon blanc at a barbecue. While the American works were all designed to excite feelings of passion and exaltation, Stravinsky was attempting to detach himself, and us, from such feelings, replacing them with dry wit, formal perfection and clarity of utterance. Considering how such different approaches might occur during the same period is a valuable exercise for musicologists, but it did not make for a coherent concert program.
While both orchestra and soloist negotiated the intricacies of Stravinsky’s score with great professionalism, they failed to capture the idiom of the music. Furthermore, Boyde did not exhibit the variety of touch needed to bring Stravinsky’s welter of notes fully to life. His tone was beautiful in the soft, delicate passages in the second movement, but when more volume was called for, its color and character faded to a white, chalky quality that was easily overwhelmed by the orchestra.
When the program got back on track with the Gershwin Rhapsody, so did Preu’s mastery of idiom. Starting with Chip Phillips’ superlative rendition of the famous clarinet glissando that opens the piece to Larry Jess’ smiling “wah-wah” trumpet work, the tone and timing of the performance perfectly embodied Gershwin and Grofe’s groundbreaking musical vernacular. While Boyde’s facial expressions and body language showed intense involvement in the piece, his fingers allowed numerous opportunities for stylish and distinctive phrasing to slip by unobserved. Still, the vigorous acclaim of the audience showed that the American energy and genius during this formative period of our history found a warm, if nostalgic, welcome in their hearts.
Listen to a recording of this concert at 7 p.m. Monday on Spokane Public Radio, 91.1 FM.