* Samuel Barber: Essay No. 2, op. 17 * Jean Sibelius: Violin Concerto in d, op. 47 * Edward Elgar: Variations on an Original Theme, "Enigma," op. 36 Valeriy Sokolov, violin The Cleveland Orchestra/Ward Stare (Barber), David Zinman August 25, 2007 Every time I'm in my home town of Cleveland, I have to hear the Orchestra. Not to do so would be like forgoing a pastrami on rye in New York. After all, I lost interest in the Indians when they traded Kenny Lofton to Atlanta, and the art museum has mostly shut down for massive expansion. Besides, I know the orchestra better than I know anything else about the area. In fact, I can call the roll of the entire woodwind section from memory, but I can't tell you the name of the current mayor. During the summer, the orchestra plays south of the city at Blossom Music Center, near Akron, a gorgeous outdoor facility with superb acoustics, built in the Szell era, because Szell wouldn't put up with less. The auditorium looks a bit like a giant, half-open clam shell, facing a hillside slope for lawn-chair listeners. There are lots of picnic spots as well. It's a great way to spend a summer evening with music-loving friends. At least two local cookbooks have been devoted to picnic recipes at Blossom. Each time I go back, I must admit I worry. Can the orchestra remain as good as I remember? Let's face it. Very few things stay as good, and even fewer become better than you remember. And each time -- no matter who's conducting, no matter what the program -- the Cleveland Orchestra is so much better than I remember, its virtues improved. I don't know what it's like for those fortunates who get to hear them week after week. Is it possible to get jaded or, worse, bored with players who keep raising their own extremely high standard? I haven't heard the Berlin Philharmonic live, and I always want to judge an orchestra in concert. As much as I like and need recordings, I consider "live" the best way to hear music. I can say, however, that the Berliner recordings don't sound this good. The program, for Cleveland at any rate, ran a bit to the unusual, with the Barber and the Elgar, not really staples of the orchestra's repertoire. However, the Cleveland has had a long and wonderful acquaintance with the music of Sibelius. Barber wrote his Second Essay (of three) in 1942, at the urging of Bruno Walter. All three of Barber's essays stand near the top of his output, and all three appear at different phases in his career. The First belongs to his youthful period that saw the School for Scandal Overture, the First Symphony, and the Violin Concerto. The Third comes from his late period, after the critical firestorm (and the ensuing creative trauma) over his opera Antony and Cleopatra. The Second more or less inaugurates his middle period -- a superb melding of his essentially Romantic lyricism with Modernist verve. Works in this period include the Cello Concerto, Second Symphony, Prayers of Kierkegaard, Piano Sonata, Toccata Festiva, Capricorn Concerto, Piano Concerto, and Antony and Cleopatra, a masterpiece that waits revival. Although the work sports two main themes, they both grow out of a single idea, heard at the beginning on the flute. The idea sounds like a song, but if you take the trouble to listen a bit harder, it seems a bit intractable to development. It jumps around a lot, for one thing, by wide intervals. The soloist tamed it wonderfully well and set us up for a performance that was, despite the pyrotechnics of the piece, lyrical above all. I've heard this score many times by orchestras of all ranks and can honestly say I've never encountered a bad performance. Cleveland, however, outdid anything I've heard -- the difference between miraculous and extremely well-done. Every phrases came from somewhere and went to somewhere else. Each phrase had its own little arch, and each of these hooked on to the next to form larger phrases and larger arches. It's as if each player knew and obsessed about the score as much as the conductor. The strings sang with an aching yearning and rich tone. The winds in the fugato played not only with rhythmic precision at breakneck tempo, but with the rest of the orchestra. At one point, three or four simultaneous pulses at different speeds emerged. I've never heard that particular aspect of the score before. The New York Philharmonic under Schippers has the best recording of this (Sony MHK62837), but it wasn't a patch on what the Cleveland did that night. Ward Stare, a pupil of Zinman's (among others), emphasized the emotional core of the music, since the orchestra pretty much could handle the technical aspects. However, that tempo-on-tempo section I haven't heard from anybody else, so I'm perfectly willing to credit him. On that basis alone, he's got a career, and the orchestra seemed to enjoy playing for him, besides. Zinman took the rest of the concert. The Sibelius Violin Concerto, one of the composer's most mature statements, comes from 1903-04, when it bombed. The composer reworked it, and we know the 1905 version today, although the original has recently undergone revival. We heard the revision. Like the Brahms concerto, Sibelius's work doesn't give up its secrets easily. Almost every phrase is so idiosyncratic, it's hard for both listener and player to figure out the shape. Furthermore, the architecture -- at least that of the first two movements -- is rather complex. Added to all that, it bristles with technical difficulties for the soloist: simultaneous trills and countermelodies, huge, quick leaps into the violin's ionosphere, triple-stops, and so on -- and it all has to sound like "just singing." Sokolov has technique to burn, but he simply is not ready for this concerto. This became especially obvious in the second movement. He had very little idea where the music was going, even as he played all the notes. It was as if he learned his part phonetically. Clearly, the orchestra and the soloists operated at different depths of understanding. I began to long for orchestral tuttis. Nevertheless, the Cleveland, one of the great accompanying orchestras, achieved pianissimos close to the level of thought. The brass played gloriously, with power minus any sense of bombast or strain. The third movement, the least complicated, came off best. Nevertheless, Sokolov wasn't really with Zinman and the orchestra rhythmically. Apparently, he prefers to pursue his muse, rather than listen. Still, nothing fell apart. The Sibelius concerto has made a comeback of sorts, with just about every soloist you can name on CD. Unfortunately, a lot of kids or near-kids have tried to turn it into another Mendelssohn. Sibelius needs a mature musical mind to follow him. Nevertheless, the concerto has been recorded so often, you can find several top-notch performances, both historical and modern. The question you have to ask yourself is whether you really need to hear a particular performance. I've heard accounts from second-tier forces that just burned into the wood, that made themselves necessary. The concerto demands that kind of commitment. Of modern recordings, I like Salerno-Sonnenberg and Thomas on EMI -- just that kind of reading. Sokolov has a beautiful tone and flexible fingers, but he apparently needs at least five years of seasoning. The concert ended with a blazing realization of Elgar's "Enigma" Variations, a composer and a work I don't associate with either Zinman or Cleveland. The reading had little "Englishness" to it -- an earnestness and reserve I associate with conductors like Boult, Sargent, and Hickox. Indeed, Zinman seemed to emphasize the internationalism of the piece. During the "Ysobel" variation, one savored the resemblances to Richard Strauss in Elgar's treatment of the orchestra. Certain phrases wouldn't have been out of place in Don Quixote, yet another set of variations. Of course the orchestra got the chance to show themselves the virtuosos they are. Instrumental solos (and none of the principals played that night) were exquisite: the violist in "Ysobel," the cellist in "B.G.N.," the clarinet in "***" intoning Mendelssohn's Meeresstille und gluckliche Fahrt. The orchestra showed its chops in variations like "W.M.B." and "G.R.S." (representing G.R.S.'s bulldog, Dan, who inspired several musical portraits from the composer). Of course, "Nimrod" counts as one of the make-or-break variations for any performance. It depicts a conversation between Elgar and his friend August Jaeger one evening under the stars about Beethoven slow movements. Indeed, the famous melody seems to be Elgar's take on the slow movement of the "Pathetique" piano sonata. It's definitely one of Elgar's greatest tunes, which, of course, he recognized, since he brings it back in the finale. Zinman and the orchestra started the variation softer than I've ever heard it, building a long, crescendo that moved inexorably to the climax, peaked, and softened about five dynamics in three seconds, without coming across as bizarre or fallen like a souffle. We went from strength to quiet strength in an amazingly short period. Zinman took each variation with highly flexible tempi that somehow emphasized Elgar's orchestral wizardry, and the orchestra kept up without breaking a sweat. Most evident in the finale, it's the kind of thing best appreciated live. The finale was tremendous -- strings, brass, wind, percussion all shining glory. I don't see why this isn't at least as fine a variation set as the finale to the "Eroica" or the Brahms Haydn Variations. So call me a Philistine. A terrific evening, all told. Damn, I wish I lived here. Steve Schwartz *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html