We sat in the second tier for this concert, in the first box on the left side of the stage. Not long after we took our seats a lovely couple joined us and introduced themselves. It turned out to be Charlie Staadecker and his wife. Staadecker is running for mayor of Seattle in the August election, and I had heard good things about him. It was awesome to be sitting with them.
Schwarz took to the podium for the Festive Overture, which was very festive indeed. The orchestra kicked off the concert in high spirits, delivering a fantastic and triumphant performance of the six minute work. Afterwards, the strings customarily left the stage to allow for the rearrangement for the concerto. Then Julian Schwarz came on followed by his father. He took his seat on the little pedestal thing and after a few moments began the concerto. It was a good performance. He played well. He was particularly strong in the high registers, and the sound got a little muddled sometimes in the lower register, but he held the piece together. It was enjoyable to listen to.
The principal horn player who was situated amongst the strings for the concerto due to the very involved solo horn part also played very well, although he did flub a note during his solo duet with the cello towards the end of the first movement.
After the concerto was over the Staadeckers immediately got up and told us they'd see us after intermission. I was hoping to get a picture with Charlie at some point, but as intermission was coming to an end they returned to the box just to retrieve their belongings and inform us that they were moving downstairs to sit with some friends for the second half, so I never got the picture.
We noticed one or two of the disaster subs from May 4th in the orchestra tonight. For the most part everyone was actual Seattle Symphony musicians, but one I noticed in particular was the one who looks like Edith Crawley and who never uses more than three inches of bow. She was sitting about four stands in in the second violin section. There was also a new cellist at the back of the cello section who looked about eighteen years old, and a new violist at the back of the viola section who looked like Gérard Depardieu. And now that I think of it, maybe it actually was him, since he recently became a Russian citizen and this was a program of Russian music.
In any case, I assume they had some of these people there just to fill out the sound, especially for the 11th symphony. With all the solid players dominating the sections, it certainly had little to no negative impact on the quality of the tone. Though Efe Baltacigil was not there leading the cellos, and he hasn't been for quite some time. The last time was saw him was either April 13th or April 20th I think. Not cool.
After intermission Schwarz returned to the podium to conduct Shostakovich's 11th symphony. This is a piece I really like. It's frightful, dark, violent and dramatic. The entire first movement is slow, quiet and icy, describing the winter morning that will precede violent massacres. They played it magnificently. The tone from the very opening was like pure ice. The character was that of a hushed pianissimo, but the sound was delivered firmly and clearly to the ear at the same time. Truly excellent string playing. The trumpets were impeccable throughout the movement as well, with their calls and echoes. The entire brass section had their mutes on for the whole first movement, to chilling effect.
The second movement begins with roiling gestures in the strings, again executed excellently and to tremendous effect. This movement builds to very loud heights before dying back down again before the depiction of the massacre. All gets quiet and icy, and finally fades out almost completely before the snare drum comes punching in loudly, bringing along with it new curt and violent gestures in the lower strings that are eventually traded off throughout all the sections as the music begins to rise violently.
Definitely my favorite part of the piece, the ensuing section is a seemingly endless, overwhelming mass of death, destruction, terror, and literal sounds of machine gun fire. The music builds and builds to a point where suddenly, under the umbrella of a massive symbol crash it thunders into a section that is propelled endlessly forward by the violent rat-tat-tat of the snare drum, a thundering, relentless bass drum and other percussion instruments. Atop this, the rest of the orchestra blasts out a ceaseless barrage of notes that here seems to take on a tonal form of depiction of machine gun fire, punctuating itself in a tuplet meter against the duple time of the cataclysmic percussion.
This was another world class performance from the Seattle Symphony. The intensity with which they performed this music was absolutely thrilling. When all the thundering apocalyptic sounds finally faded out abruptly, what was left was the same backdrop of the icy day, depicted by the upper strings as in the beginning, but this time with the added twist of trills on the notes to make it even colder.
The third and fourth movements were performed at the same excellent level, and were as timeless as the first two. I really felt like I could have heard another hour of this symphony and not gotten bored. After the final dramatic punctuations of the last movement, I immediately stood up to applaud. Something became clear to me last night after Schwarz existed the stage for the second time and the intensity of the applause did not waver. When the orchestra is present and spirited, it really affects the audience, and they keep clapping. Calling a performer back for a second bow is common courtesy in Seattle; it doesn't indicate anything about how much they actually liked it. It's when the applause holds firm even after that second exist that you know they were moved. And this always coincides with those clearly outstanding performances.
The next concert we have tickets to is the season finale on June 29th, though we may be attending the Britten War Requiem on June 13th or 15th as well.
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http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/buy/single/production.aspx?id=12757&src=t&dateid=12757
http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/buy/single/production.aspx?id=12757&src=t&dateid=12757
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