SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

Sibelius, Rakhmaninov and Ives:  Stephen Hough, piano, Stephen Drury, solo piano, Tanglewood Festival Chorus (John Oliver, conductor) Boston Symphony Orchestra, Alan Gilbert (guest conductor), Boston, 7.3.2009 (KH)

Sibelius, Night-Ride & Sunrise, Opus 55
Rakhmaninov, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43
Ives, Symphony № 4


It was a mild surprise to reflect, almost by accident, that this was an all-20^th-century program.

Sibelius draws so much color out of his orchestra, it is something of a surprise to realize that his scoring is for an ensemble scarcely any larger than that of Brahms.  While the ride through the dark here depicted is no Berliozian cours à l’abîme, the strings patter on at an energetic but controlled pace, and at the last dawn breaks with a glorious yet shifting chorale in the brass.  The orchestra were in good form, though the brass might have been more homogeneous.  Mr Gilbert paced the strings at perhaps a slightly slower tempo than he might have;  but it is an exciting piece, and the execution was true to that character.

Mr Hough acquitted himself very well in the Rhapsody;  maybe a bit dry of touch, but on the whole more engaged than the last time we heard him here at Symphony.

What a hubbub is the Ives Fourth.  Gunther Schuller (who had attended the premiere performance of the symphony in its entirety, conducted by an 82-year-old Leopold Stokowski, on 26 April 1965 at Carnegie Hall) led the first BSO performances of the symphony in 1966/67.  Before this past weekend, the only other BSO realizations of the work were with Ozawa, in 1976 and 1992.  The work requires a fair-szied orchestra, with additional brass (two cornets and six trumpets) and percussion, in particular (including tubular bells so long that the player stood up on a scaffold to play them, practically at eye-level to the first balcony), organ, solo piano, celesta, orchestral piano four-hands, optional quarter-tone piano (omitted for these performances) and “ether organ” (the St Petersburg-born Léon Thérémin gave concert demonstrations of his aetherophone in the US in 1927 — included in these performances, the Theremin mostly doubles the strings, adding something of an ‘off’ glint to the string-choir tone).  Oh, and four-part chorus for the outer movements.  It’s a sprawling malstrøm of a piece, but the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Orchestra and Mr Gilbert carried it off splendidly.  (One might argue that the choral writing is as simple as a 19^th-century hymnal, but it takes grace and presence to fit it in such an ‘unsteady’ setting.)

Music-director designate of the New York Philharmonic (to begin his official tenure with the ’09-’10 season), Alan Gilbert is a native New Yorker, and the first such to enjoy that appointment.  His concert this Saturday past was an unalloyed pleasure to witness, and I look forward to further occasions when he may be the guest of the BSO.

Karl Henning


^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}