Access Atlanta > Arts > Our Reviews > Archives > 2005 > April > 08
Friday, April 8, 2005
ASO plays Sibelius and Beethoven
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEW
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Thursday in Symphony Hall. Program repreats Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. www.atlantasymphony.org
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and conductor Robert Spano ended their concert Thursday with the most majestic music in the world, the Beethoven Violin Concerto. It was a great finish to a surprisingly satisfying evening in Symphony Hall.
The soloist, Cecylia Arzewski, has been the ASO’s concertmaster since 1990. As leader of the violin section and liaison between players and conductor, her job perks include an annual concerto performance. Dogged by injury in recent years, however, she’s not been at full strength. Her winning performance Thursday indicated that she’s returning to tippy-top form.
Unlike most touring virtuoso fiddlers, Arzewski doesn’t produce a monster sound on her violin. But her phrasing Thursday was sculpted and sensitive to the changing demands of the music, and her technique was robust and agile — perfectly calibrated for the first movement’s whiz-bang cadenza by Jascha Heifetz.
Because her Beethoven interpretation was mostly unsentimental and disciplined, and because her lean tone contains no butterfat, no excess, Arzewski’s tender moments felt confessional, like unexpected glimpses into a closely guarded personal world. The slow middle movement sounded especially poetic by her understatement. One wished for more joy in the (potentially) exuberant finale, but her reading was consistent, thoughtful and kept everyone on seat’s edge.
Her colleagues delivered for her, too, with stately contributions from bassoonist Carl Nitchie.
Two symphonies by Jean Sibelius — Nos. 6 and 7, played back to back — filled the concert’s first half. This is unusual programming, but under Spano’s guidance, it produced revelatory results.
In the opening of the Sixth, Spano drew a rich sonic palette from the strings, almost sounding like a pipe organ. So often, this Finnish composer’s music seems to have started sometime before the players actually begin, as if the sounds were there all along, waiting to be discovered. This trait, along with darkly pastoral imagery in the music, suggests themes of nature: the burbling source of a river, the silence that accompanies a heavy snowfall.
When the cellos and basses rumbled, you knew the sky would darken. In the second movement, an extended quiet passage conjured up images of a faraway flock of birds, weary but determined. The zigzag volleys between sections in the fourth movement were an exception, sounding like human conversation. (A touch of sloppiness here and there is likely to be fixed in subsequent performances.)
Playing both symphonies together, Spano set them up as a series of contrasts. The Sixth is extroverted, the Seventh introverted. One is logical and plain-spoken, the other moodier and private. One is ego, the other id.
Spano’s interpretive style leans toward the intellectual-logical-ego, and not surprisingly the Sixth sounded more fully explored, more comfortable in its own skin.
In the Seventh, Spano burrowed deeply, and the ASO played beautifully. Yet they left the sense that there was more to explore, more emotion to convey, more personality to reveal. In this profound music, there’s always further to go.
Permalink | | Categories: Classical Music
