Yesterday evening, my wife once again settled in over dinner with a Live from Orchestra Hall streamed performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO). The ensemble was led by German conductor David Afkham, making his debut with the ensemble. He prepared a program consisting of a single composition on either side of the intermission and devoted, respectively, to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Screen shot from last night’s streamed performance of violin soloist Veronika Eberle with David Afkham conducting the DSO
The composer for the first half was Johannes Brahms, represented by his Opus 77 violin concerto in D major. The soloist was Veronika Eberle, and her command of both the “text” and the cadenzas could not have been more engaging. (No information was provided regarding the sources of those cadenzas.) Afkham brought a sure hand to balancing the rich sonorities of the ensemble against Eberle’s solo work. There are probably those that think that this is a concerto performed too many times, but Eberle brought a freshness to her perceptive command of detail. The music was familiar, but one still sat on the edge one’s seat wondering where her expressiveness would lead.
As might have been expected, the audience would not let Eberle leave without an encore. Rather than perform any of the usual solo fireworks, she played a duo with Concertmaster Robyn Bollinger. Sadly, the selection was not announced, leaving most of us in the dark with regard to both composer and title. Nevertheless, there was no mistaking that the performance was a dynamite account of a short piece clearly conceived for spectacle.
Having devoted the first half of the program to a virtuoso soloist, Afkham broadened the scope as wide as possible in the second half with a performance of the work that Béla Bartók called “Concerto for Orchestra.” This title was no mere conceit. Over the course of five movements, Bartók made it a point to allow every instrumental sonority to have its say at least once, if not more often.
As a result, this is music that allows the attentive listener an opportunity to appreciate the full scope of what all those instruments can do, either in solo or in differently combined groups. This is particularly evident in the second movement, which was given the title “Game of Pairs.” The theme consists of five “stanzas,” each of which is played by a different pair of instruments separated by a different interval. It is introduced by two bassoons in parallel minor sixths. They are followed by a pair of oboes in minor thirds, after which two clarinets pick up the theme in minor sevenths. The flutes then continue the theme in open fifths, followed by a radical shift to muted trumpets in major seconds.
By all rights, last night’s telecast should have been a visual feast as much as an auditory one. Sadly, the camera work for that “Game of Pairs” was disappointingly lax; and the full-brass chorale that followed all those pairs was distressingly neglected in the video. Going back to a tradition established by Jordan Whitelaw with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, this is a composition in which the camera work needs to follow the score as acutely as the musicians do. However, it is clear that no one in the video crew paid very much attention to the score, figuring that they would be able to “wing it” on the basis of familiarity with auditory cues.
The good news is that Afkham delivered a first-rate account of one of Bartók’s most imaginative undertakings; and there was more than enough to be engaged in attentive listening to compensate for the negligent video work.
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