San Antonio Symphony
Fearless Prokofiev, jolly Shostakovich
March 13, 2010The two musical giants of Russia’s Soviet era, Serge Prokofiev and Dmitri Shotakovich, each has his partisans and detractors. The San Antonio Symphony, in a model of diplomatic tact, honored both with dazzling performances on March 12 in the Majestic Theater.
Guest conductor Gregory Vajda led the concert, which culminated in a fleet, precise account of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9. Pianist Andrew Armstrong delivered astonishingly nimble, devil-may-care solo work in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 -- and though that compact piece contained more than enough notes to justify his fee, he followed it (after intermission)with a burnished traversal of Robert Schumann’s seldom-heard Introduction and Allegro Appassionato. The concert opened with Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 in D, “Prague.”
Prokofiev’s concerto demands fearless speed and youthful insouciance in the athletic outer allegros, and mature poetry in the rhapsodic slow movement. Armstrong complied on all counts. His biting rhythms were right on target in the allegros. At one point in the finale, where the solo line bounces wildly across the keyboard, Armstrong pushed the tempo so hard that the music almost careened out of control -- which is the point, actually. For flat-out excitement, this performance could hardly be bettered.
Schumann’s Introduction and Allegro Appassionata also calls for some fancy fingerwork, but the piano part is more a part of the orchestral texture than a vehicle for solo display. Armstrong’s fluidity and elegant touch served the music admirably.
In Shostakovich, Vajda impressed with his sense of the long line and his excellent tempo choices. The quick movements were uncommonly jolly, the slow ones patient and thoughtful. He had the good sense not to conduct the ruminative bassoon solo in the largo but just let principal bassoonist Sharon Kuster play it, which she did to stunning effect. Also notable were juicy solos by Julie Luker on piccolo, Ilya Shterenberg on clarinet, John Carroll on trumpet and Ertan Torgul on violin.
Vajda’s sense of line acquitted him well in Mozart, as well, although his lush balances and cushy articulation might not be to everyones taste.
One shouldn’t be dogmatic on the matter of articulation in Mozart, partly because the staccato markings in his autograph scores are sometimes ambiguous. To take one example from the second movement of the “Prague” Symphony, the strings have a recurring five-note motive that the old Bretkopf and Härtel edition renders with a staccato dot over the first four notes; the New Mozart Edition, making a choice among varying sources, places a staccato dot over only the three middle notes. (From the sound of it, that would seem to be edition used for this concert.) Too, there is often room for debate about how detached Mozart wanted staccato notes to be. In the case of that five-note motive, Vajda favored minimal detachment; other conductors prefer crisper definition, and I would side with them.
Who’s right? Too bad Mozart didn’t take an orchestra into his friendly neighborhood Deutsche Grammophon studio to settle the matter.
Mike
Greenberg
