Yesterday evening my wife and I returned to live-streaming the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) for its latest Live from Orchestra Hall Webcast. After a few recent encounters with guest conductors, this was our most recent opportunity to observe Music Director Jader Bignamini at work. There was much to observe in a program that marked the transition from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth.
The concerto soloist was pianist George Li playing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 18 (second) piano concerto in C minor, which was completed in April of 1901. The intermission was followed by the symphony selection, Johannes Brahms’ Opus 98 (fourth) in E minor. The “overture” for the program was the Opus 33 “Ballade,” composed in the key of A minor by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in 1895. Taken as a whole, this was an offering that was rich in sonorities and broad in its approaches to invention.
Li provided an intensely focused approach to the wide diversity of technical demands in Rachmaninoff’s score. Both Bignamini and the camera crew provided an excellent account of the instrumentation that established a context for the solo piano work. However, it was clear that the keyboard was “where the action was,” with more camera attention to Li’s deft fingerwork than to the rest of his body:
Screen shot from last night’s streamed performance
Nevertheless, what was most important was how Li worked in partnership with Bignamini to provide a clear sense of the overall “journey” through this concerto, which is definitely far more than “one virtuoso display after another.” One could definitely appreciate Li’s technical skills, but the overall listener experience was just as absorbing.
Where the symphony was concerned, the camera crew was particularly helpful in selecting close-up shots that clarified awareness of the overall structure of each of the four movements. As a result, the attentive listener could easily be aware of not only the exposition and development of thematic content but also Brahms’ strategies in deploying instrumental sonorities. This was particularly evident in the final movement, which Brahms structured as a passacaglia. The composer was determined to explore every aspect of variation in phrasing and instrumentation to lead the listener down a centuries-old structure endowed with an in-the-moment interpretation. Bignamini was at the top of his game in managing the full instrumental resources, judiciously keeping intensity in check to allow for the coda to carry the strongest impact.
My “first contact” encounter with Coleridge-Taylor’s Opus 33 was through an album consisting entirely of orchestral performances of that composer’s music performed by the Chineke! Orchestra. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the ballade genre seemed capable of embracing a wide variety of oratorical stances. Perhaps that is why Coleridge-Taylor chose to structure his own approach around the interplay of two differing themes, the first boldly energetic and the second more introspective. Much of the contrast was achieved through distinctive shifts in instrumentation; and here, again, the video work facilitated awareness of those shifts. Mind you, such shifts played a significant role in the expressive dispositions found in the music of both Rachmaninoff and Brahms, making Coleridge-Taylor’s music an appropriate “overture” to prepare the listener for the “emotional ride” through the remainder of the program.
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