November 16th, 2013: Morlot Conducts Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony

I'm coming to that point where I can't just keep saying the same things over and over again without feeling obnoxious or repetitive. "The strings had a great tone," "conducted with enthusiasm," etc etc. The problem is that there is no way to avoid being repetitive when you write dozens of concert reviews. I suppose that I shouldn't be thinking of each of these posts as a chapter in a longer story, but rather as a completely stand alone thing; because admittedly, many of the same expressions, adjectives and evaluations are going to be used for multiple concerts, and there's no way to avoid that. So in case you actually have been reading through my entire blog like chapters in a book, just a warning that I'm not going to worry about being repetitive anymore. Each of these is an independent post.

Last night's concert was quite excellent. The orchestra was in top form, and the range of repertoire throughout the program was quite compelling. It opened with Sibelius' Tapiola, which was the last major work he wrote. That was followed by the U.S. Premiere of Pascal Dusapin's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, "Aufgang" ("Stairway"). After intermission, the second half consisted of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F major, "Pastoral."

When I was at the rehearsal for this concert on Thursday morning, I felt that the acoustics on the floor weren't as bad as I remember them being (the open rehearsals are usually floor-only seating), but not long after the concert began yesterday, I realized again how stark the difference is between the floor and the tiers. It's amazing that they sell so many seats at such high prices down there when the sound just doesn't reach your ear properly.

Tapiola was Sibelius' last major work, after which he wrote practically nothing for the last thirty years of his life. Apparently he didn't know what to do with the direction that music had gone, a sentiment which I greatly appreciate. Tapiola is as close to atonal as anything Sibelius wrote, and while there are moments that are thrilling (particularly the climax near the end), there are also extensive sections that are completely incomprehensible to me even though I've heard them a few times now. The orchestra played very well, with great subtlety and expressivity. It didn't get very enthusiastic applause though. I don't believe Morlot was called to stage a second time.

The Dusapin concerto followed after a quick resetting of the stage. Renowned violinist Renaud Capuçon came out followed by Morlot, and they began the piece. I again immediately noticed the difference in the acoustics between last night and what I heard from the orchestra level on Thursday morning. Capuçon's tone was like liquid gold, shimmering brilliantly. He is really an incredible musician, and he made this rather challenging work much more comprehensible than it might have been with a different performer.

Nevertheless, for much of the first movement I wasn't gripped. Everyone involved clearly had a solid grip on the piece, but the music itself failed to move me for the most part. It wasn't until the second movement that I began to really feel that there's something worth getting to know in this new work. The second movement had these long sections involving the flute interacting with the solo violin, and they were simply haunting and beautiful. The lush and erie textures and harmonies of this movement were enchanting, and the flutist (who was neither Demarre McGill nor the woman who is his replacement for the year) did quite well with her very essential part.

The second movement came to an end unfortunately, and in the third movement we were back in territory more similar to the incomprehensible first movement. After several minutes of that movement had passed, I was gazing absent-mindedly somewhere towards the back of the first violin section when all of a sudden Capuçon handed his violin to concertmistress Emma McGrath and took her violin in a lightning-quick exchange. I was so bummed to not have been watching Capuçon at the moment that his string broke, and the exchange was so quick that I missed about the first half of it by the time I even registered what was going on. It was quite impressive. The funny thing was that initially I didn't think a string had broke. I didn't know what had happened, but I didn't see any string dangling loose, so I was speculating over what it might be. Later during intermission I went to the ushers who guard the backstage door and asked them if they knew what happened. One of them had gone backstage to find out already, and he said a string broke. But I still wish I knew more, because there was no string dangling loose when he handed his violin to McGrath. There must be something else to it. In any case, it was great to see something like that live.

That happened less than a minute from the end of the concerto, and Capuçon did incredibly with McGrath's violin. It was astounding. There were no issues with tone or intonation in the blazingly fast virtuosic passages that brought the concerto to a close. I could scarcely even hear a difference in the quality of the sound. I don't know whether he missed any part of the piece while making the exchange, because I don't know the piece nearly well enough to tell that, but that's another interesting question to be asked about the incident.

Intermission began when the concerto ended, and I wandered around for a while before going backstage to ask about Capuçon's violin. Not long after that intermission ended, so I headed back to my seat. Morlot then came on stage to lead the Beethoven symphony, which used a slightly smaller orchestra than the works in the first half of the program.

It was really a good performance. Compared to Mahler or Sibeilus, Beethoven is really difficult to pull off well. From the beginning the strings had a distinct and clear voice in the way they phrased the music, and it really spoke. The joyful music cascaded out from the stage, and the flurries in the winds, led primarily by Ben Hausmann on the oboe, were just pure delight. The music really took off, it was very enjoyable to observe and to listen to.

The same excellent level of playing continued into the second movement and the third movements. I'll admit that this isn't my favorite Beethoven symphony. I listened to it quite a bit before this concert, and it never really stuck with me or became a favorite. I'm not sure why. But the Seattle Symphony made a very strong case for it last night, that's for sure.

The only part of the piece that I really love is the storm section. The whole symphony is set in nature, with movement subtitles specifying what kind of scene is being described. The fourth movement (of five) is the storm, and the music is just epic. I mentioned in my post about the open rehearsal that it didn't seem stormy enough, but this again was partly remedied by the better acoustics that I experienced last night. But it was still lacking a little bit for me. Everybody was playing with a great amount of vigor, but I just felt like there has to be some way to make it bigger. I was thinking about it later while on the bus home, and I think that it's possible that some of the recordings I'm used to use an oversized orchestra, which was very common in the latter half of the 20th century. Now they always perform works with the period-appropriate orchestra sizes, which may not have the same impact on our ears as they did at the time the work was written. Also, Morlot did take the same slightly slow tempo for the storm, as in the rehearsal, and so between the modest orchestra size and the difficult tempo, that could explain the relative lack of power. To be clear, it was extremely powerful, and the orchestra did very well considering their modest size and the slower tempo; I just wished it could have somehow been more cataclysmic.

Following the storm came the last movement of the symphony, which again is just not one of my favorite pieces of music. They played it well, and then the concert was over. They got only a partial standing ovation for the Beethoven, probably because it didn't have a loud bang at the end.

Next up is the Seattle Youth Symphony concert, which I will be heading out to in about an hour!

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