SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Stenhammar, Grieg and Sibelius: Joyce Yang (piano) Tucson Symphony Orchestra/George Hanson, Tucson Music Hall, Tucson, Arizona, 17.1.2010 (PSh)

Stenhammar -  Excelsior!
Grieg  -  Piano Concerto in A minor Op 16
Sibelius  - Symphony No 2 in D, Op 43

The Tucson Music Hall

My friends who arranged for these tickets for me assured me they were the best seats in the house, but, even though I had heard their superb recording of the Mathieu Piano concerto No 4 (Analekta ANA 29281), I still didn’t expect a whole lot from the Tucson Symphony Orchestra live. But the first thing I noticed was the hall itself, a clean glass, brick, and steel no-nonsense box, or rather a traditional pair of boxes, one for the stage, one for the audience divided by a traditional proscenium arch. The acoustic sound shaping panels were set low for clarity of sound. The seating was another pleasant surprise; huge sections of rows A, L, and M were open for wheelchairs, meaning that the disabled could sit next to their caregivers among the audience, in the good seats, not being consigned to aisles or the far sides. Although some musicians were going over their parts when we entered, they soon left the stage. Then, led by the concertmaster, the orchestra filed on, stood, and bowed to accept the applause of the audience first.

Conductor George Hanson, now in his fourteenth season as Music Director, then appeared and acknowledged the applause of the audience. Mr. Hanson won a prize at the Stokowski competition in New York at the age of 28 and came to Tucson after extensive experience conducting opera in Europe. From 1988 to 1993 he was resident conductor of the Atlanta Symphony and served as assistant to both Leonard Bernstein and Kurt Masur.

The concert began with a spirited reading of the Stenhammar work. I’d not heard it before; it was a generic overture with everything you could want, bright colors, clear sonorities, lyrical tunes and the orchestra romped through it with élan. What impressed me at once was the clear, natural, rich sound of the orchestra. The sound source was the orchestra itself, not the loudspeakers above it, as it is at some halls I could name, and as a result it was easy to separate sonically as well as visually, each orchestra member’s contribution.

After the audience had expressed their appreciation and everyone had taken their bows, conductor Hanson then spoke to the audience, asking them to join him in expressing his gratitude to the orchestra who had “played their hearts out” for 15 of the 16 preceding days and the audience responded with another enthusiastic ovation. What he didn’t say but what everybody in the audience knew was that just days previously, due to the continuing economic depression, the upcoming concert schedule, and consequently the players’ paychecks, had just been cut by 20% and so orchestral morale was not the highest. Some players would not be able to fill in the missing days with other work and might face genuine hardship. Then, noting his own Scandinavian ancestry and his pride in this all-Scandinavian-composers program, and after serenading the audience with a really splendid few bars of the Norwegian National anthem, he introduced the soloist.

Joyce Yang was born in Seoul, Korea, moving to the United States in 1997. In June 2005 she was a silver medalist at the 12^th Van Cliburn competition and has since toured extensively throughout the world.

What followed was the finest performance of the Grieg Concerto I have ever heard, on or off records. It always astounds me that graceful, feminine, gentle looking pianists can get such gigantic sound from a good piano. Yes, at times she was fully airborne, with her full weight on the keys, but the sound was always controlled, the dynamics breathtaking from challenging the full orchestra to the most fragile pianissimo solos. The important violin, cello, and flute solos were played brilliantly and idiomatically. Besides being a note-perfect performance, the organization of the performance was flawless, the arc and dramatic flow of the music clearly presented. It had never occurred to me before how the first movement, bold that it is, is basically introverted whereas the lyrical second is actually rather extroverted. The audience who had already shown their appreciation by being totally silent during the very quiet passages, responded with an enthusiastic standing ovation. Pianist Yang played one encore, a Rachmaninoff-sounding arrangement of Gershwin’s “The Man I Love.” The orchestra must surely have recorded this performance for copyright and archival purposes. They could transfer it directly to a commercial CD without any editing and have a sure best-seller.

After intermission we heard the Sibelius Second Symphony. This work, in the hands of even the great conductors of the middle 20^th century, has sometimes tended to sprawl, fragment, and drag; then, the work was taken to be a failed attempt by a third rate composer to write Tchiaikovsky’s “Seventh Symphony.” Even the venerable Osmo Vänskä divides the work into paragraphs of heroic gestures. Now that certain influential and tragically misguided music critics have retired and Sibelius’ full genius is widely appreciated, the Second can be seen in the context of his complete symphonic output. So I am sure conductor Hanson would be the first to concede that in producing this magnificent reading of the work he is standing on the shoulders of giants. Even in view of a few moments of bumptious enthusiasm from the brass section, this was certainly the finest and most enjoyable performance of this work I’ve ever heard. The logical progression of the work from phrase to phrase was brilliantly laid out, orchestral sonorities carefully crafted. Although some tempi were on the brisk side, the climactic chords and dramatic pauses were held to their full value, so there was no sense of the work being rushed. This surging, breathing performance seemed to move swiftly by, propelled entirely by its own inner energy. My first thought was I wanted them to start at the beginning the play it through again. Again the audience responded with enthusiasm.

No matter where in the world you live, if your work or your recreation takes you to Tucson, schedule your visit to coincide with the symphony concerts. You’ll be very glad you did.

Paul Shoemaker

The Tucson Symphony Web Site is : www.tucsonsymphony.org