New York Times Review of April 21-st Concert in Carnegie Hall Pacific Symphony
Review: Two U.S. Orchestras Get a Rare Chance at Carnegie
- K Rapids Symphony and Pacific Symphony
- NYT Critic's Pick
It felt almost similar a momentary return of Bound for Music, the defunct festival of North American orchestras at Carnegie Hall designed to give exposure to regional ensembles and encourage adventurous programming. The actual return of Spring for Music — or its much-revised and renamed successor, Shift, at the Kennedy Center in Washington — happened the week earlier, April 9-xv.
Merely there at Carnegie, past happenstance, were two regional orchestras — the Grand Rapids Symphony, from Michigan, on Fri; and the Pacific Symphony, from Orangish County, Calif., on Sat — with distinctive programs. Too by happenstance, the music directors of both orchestras were once assistant conductors of the Boston Symphony Orchestra: Marcelo Lehninger in Grand Rapids and Carl St. Clair in Orange County.
Both sizable audiences seemed rich with home-state boosters, especially Michiganders on Fri. Simply there the similarities by and large ended.
Spring for Music, in its day, defrayed some of the expenses and helped with the logistics of a New York advent. The M Rapids ensemble, which celebrated its 75th anniversary with its Carnegie debut in 2005, returned, with its chorus of 140, once again at its own expense (some $700,000). A campaign to finance the trip came "inside a stone's throw" of its $1 1000000 goal, according to Diane Lobbestael, the orchestra'due south vice president for development, and the remainder "will drop to the bottom line."
The Pacific Symphony, making its Carnegie debut, had the good fortune to exist presented by the hall itself, as part of a season-long series of concerts centering on Philip Glass, who currently occupies Carnegie's composer's chair. The main issue was the New York premiere of Mr. Glass'southward oratorio "The Passion of Ramakrishna," a Pacific Symphony commission (with the Nashville Symphony) outset performed by the orchestra and the Pacific Chorale in 2006.
It is a large, beautiful piece, written more or less in the mode of Mr. Glass's Gandhi opera "Satyagraha" (1980), Mr. Glass at his best.
"Gandhi wouldn't have been Gandhi if it hadn't been for Ramakrishna," Mr. Glass said of the 19th-century Hindu mystic in a brief preliminary chat on stage with Mr. St. Clair. The "Passion" text presents some of Ramakrishna'due south thoughts and tells of his decease in touching mode.
In the earlier parts, Mr. Glass wields his sustained, seamless arpeggiations to produce a timeless, subdued sort of rocking lullaby. He breaks into uncharacteristically wild expressionism in the death scene, and so finds his style to gorgeous tranquillity in an epilogue.
The operation was excellent, with the orchestra sounding similar a major ensemble; excellent singing from the chorus; and fine piece of work by the baritone Christòpheren Nomura and the soprano Elissa Johnston, especially lovely as the Mother of the Universe.
The ambitious plan opened with Mr. Drinking glass's "Meetings Forth the Border," a movement from "Passages" (1990), a major work he wrote in collaboration with the Indian sitarist and composer Ravi Shankar. And it included Shankar'south own Sitar Concerto No. 3 (2009), with his girl, Anoushka Shankar, as commanding soloist.
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The idea behind the Grand Rapids Symphony's return to Carnegie, Ms. Lobbestael said, was to reintroduce the orchestra, with the Brazilian-built-in Mr. Lehninger, in his second season equally music director, to the national stage and celebrate his early achievements. Then the program included works by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos forth with Falla'due south familiar "Nights in the Gardens of Spain" and Ravel's overfamiliar "Boléro."
Villa-Lobos'southward seemingly untranslatable "Momoprecoce" is a 1929 reworking of his set of pianoforte pieces "Funfair for Brazilian Children." Like Falla'due south "Nights," it is a concerto-like work, and the eminent Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire, on mitt for both, presumably made the best possible instance for it. Still, for all its local color and a semi-jazzy, semi-spiky style wavering somewhere between Gershwin and Stravinsky, it proved rather bland in the end.
Villa-Lobos'due south "Chôros No. ten," a setting of Catulo da Paixão Cearense's poem "Information technology Tears Your Center," was birthday more than compelling, and the Grand Rapids forces delivered it amply. It seemed a bit improvident to accept brought a large chorus to New York to sing four minutes of a 12-minute piece, merely the conclusion was further justified by the encore, Fauré'due south "Pavane," in its melting choral version.
The Grand Rapids forces performed it well, as they did the entire concert simply for a raw contumely solo or two.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/arts/music/carnegie-hall-grand-rapids-pacific-symphony.html
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