The first thing I noticed was that, just as in the open rehearsal that Christine and I went to on Tuesday, several of the key principal players were missing. Alexander Velinzon was not to be concertmaster for the evening, and Efe Baltacigil was also missing from the cello section. Demarre McGill was there though, sitting among the winds with his golden flute.
The short but powerful Xian Zhang opened the program with Sibelius' Karelia Overture. I wasn't familiar with it at all, but it was a nice piece, and very well performed. I again got the suspicion that the acoustics in the second tier are ever so slightly better than on the first tier.
Then Hilary Hahn came out to perform the famous Sibelius Violin Concerto. She got a warm greeting from the almost-sold-out hall, and then Zhang cued the violins to commence with the incredibly quiet beginning of the concerto.
Hahn played the first movement very well, with a broad range of dynamics and musical expressivity, as well as impressive virtuosity. However, very uncharacteristically of her there were a few places where she fumbled ever so slightly, or even landed on a long note slightly high or slightly low and had to slowly slide into the correct pitch. This is the first Thursday evening Masterworks concerts we've ever been to, so perhaps as my brother Oliver suggests, things are generally more polished and put together on the Saturday evenings. For the most part though, her playing was very engaging, and her tone was rich and full. The orchestra supported her playing with a full, velvety sound, and came off brilliantly during the orchestral tuttis.
Just before the cadenza of the first movement, when the hall was completely silent, somebody in the audience made a very loud noise that sounded like a combination of a gasp and a cough. I started laughing quietly, and looked at Christine, who apparently would have been okay if she hadn't noticed me laughing, but with things as they were, she began to lose it as well, and we had a rather dangerous, contained laughing fit which lasted for a good chunk of the cadenza. It was particularly unpleasant because during the cadenza there are moments of silence all over the place, so there's extra pressure to laugh as quietly as humanly possible, or ideally not at all. These can't-stop-laughing-during-a-concert stories are sure fun to tell later though.
I have never been a huge fan of the second movement of this concerto, except for the part where the low strings have a repeated driving rhythm on a low note, and the solo violin has this beautiful, twisting passage filled with double stops that descends atop it. Unfortunately, there was a disagreement as to the tempo during this passage, with Zhang lagging the orchestra badly behind Hahn's playing. By the end of the passage they were back in sync, but it sort of ruined it. This is probably something that will be fixed by Saturday. I originally had tickets for both nights, but a gig came up Saturday night, so unfortunately this is all I get of this concert.
In the third movement, Hahn was in top form. She had warmed up to the stage, or the audience, or whatever, and played the stunningly virtuosic third movement almost impeccably. Those absurd passages that the vast majority of even the great violinists can't quite pull off, she pulled off just like in her recording of the piece. There seemed no end to how long she could sustain blazingly fast passages with impeccable intonation and a full, clear tone for every single note.
Something interesting happened right at the end though. Something very understandable too. As Hahn climbed up the last rapid passages towards the final note of the piece, an air of caution seemed to gather around her, and the gusto with which she had been playing was exchanged for a carefulness to hit all the notes perfectly, particularly the last one. Right before the very last short high note of the piece, she seemed to almost pause ever so briefly to make sure her finger was in the right place, and then she played the note rather quietly and shortly, but it was there and it was in tune.
I think we all know the reason for this is because even if she played absolutely perfect for a full eight minutes, if she had missed the last note all those eight minutes would basically get thrown in the garbage in the experience of the audience. I was surprised by the degree of caution she took though; it was quite noticeable.
She got an almost instantaneous full standing ovation, returned to stage a few times, and then played an unaccompanied Bach piece for an encore. I couldn't say which movement of which sonata or partita it was, but it was beautiful and haunting as Bach always is.
Intermission followed the Sibelius concerto. We sat for a little while in our box, and then wandered around the lobby a bit. We also went up to the third tier and peeked at the view of the stage from all the way in the nosebleed section. The thing I liked best about the view from up there is that you can see a beautiful aerial view of the layout of the boxes along the sides of the hall.
After intermission there was a U.S. premiere of The Battle of San Romano by Pascal Zavaro, followed by Beethoven's 7th Symphony. The Zavaro was pretty good for a work composed in 2012. It was very much like film music describing a battle, though not quite as tonal as most film music would have been. But it is certainly indicative of the modern return from the complete insanity in modern composition that was reached during the 20th century.
After the Zavaro, the stage was reset for the Beethoven. Now poor Demarre McGill got kicked off the stage as well to join the other dejected male principal musicians. It was my girlfriend who pointed out that all the missing principles were male (upon later reflection Ben Hausmann was also missing on Oboe) and made a connection between that and the fact that Zhang and Hahn, the conductor and soloist of the evening, were both female. All the people sitting in place of the regular principles were female. Was there perhaps a radical feminist agenda imposed by Zhang for the evening? Why would all these fantastic principal musicians, most of them new hires under Morlot, be made absent on the evening of the best sold show of the season?
In any case, the woman who was put on principal flute for the Beethoven sounded flat and dry compared to McGill. She's a fine player, she's good. But McGill is great, and it would have been nice to have him on flute for the Beethoven symphony (not to mention Velinzon, Baltacigil and Hausmann on violin, cello and oboe).
Regardless, Zhang was able to lead the orchestra in a very enjoyable performance of one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. It was a timeless performance, gripping from moment to moment with vivid cohesion. The ensemble was incredibly well put together; everything seemed incredibly finely polished, and the tone was unified, loud and clear. A good sign of a high quality performance of this symphony is that you're not impatient for the second movement to come. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the first movement.
Without much of a pause after the first movement, Zhang gave the downbeat for the second movement, and the I6/4 chord from the winds and brass rang out like a haunting bell. Then the low strings, working absolutely as a single unit, began what is probably the most famous piece of classical music ever written. Zhang commanded a complete focus from every player, and the music grew and grew, rising in pitch and volume, as the beautiful, intertwining melodies strove upwards. Every entrance from a new string section was impeccable, gliding perfectly into the existing texture, and as the music approached the first climax I got goosebumps.
The beginning of the third movement burst out from the stage like an eager stallion too long held in a stable. The staccato gestures galloped along with crisp, bright joy, and before too long the movement was over.
Interestingly, Zhang was conducting this symphony memorized. It must be a favorite piece of hers, or one with which she is extremely familiar. She showed incredible energy and involvement in her conducting. My brother's girlfriend commented at the end that it looked like she was going to fly off the podium. Indeed, with no stand or score to deal with, she was free to move about with wild gestures and passionate motions, which she did.
The fourth movement followed suit, with the endless driving figures in the strings relentlessly pushing the music forward. During this movement I was reminded of the last movement of Mozart's 39th Symphony under Jun Märkl back in January. There was a similar sense of excitement and transcendence emanating from the stage. I again wished it wouldn't end.
And that brought to an end an incredibly well-played and enjoyable concert. I feel it lived up to all the hype that I gave it. I'm very sorry to be missing Saturday.
Next up is Mozart and Haydn on May 4th!
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