San Antonio Symphony, Ricardo Cobo
Lang-Lessing's hallmark? Focus
February 12, 2011The San Antonio Symphony’s concert of Feb. 11 loomed on the calendar with two causes for trepidation, one borne out at the expense of guest guitarist Ricardo Cobo, the other dispatched triumphantly by the orchestra and music director Sebastian Lang-Lessing.
The first cause for concern arises whenever and wherever a classical guitarist appears as a soloist with an orchestra in a large hall. There’s no choice but to amplify the hell out of the guitar. Sometimes the resulting sound is tolerable, sometimes not. Alas, all the audience heard from Mr. Cobo’s instrument, in concertos by Antonio Vivaldi and the living Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, was a tubby, lifeless, too-loud effigy of a guitar.
The other cause for trepidation was Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge,” a landmark of the string quartet literature, presented here in a string-orchestra arrangement by Felix Weingartner. The San Antonio Symphony played the “Grosse Fuge” once before in my memory, during the 1982-83 season, under Lawrence Leighton Smith. The symphony was then at an ebb in its artistic fortunes, and that evening’s “Grosse Fuge” may have been the single most embarrassing performance the orchestra has ever given.
This time, under Mr. Lang-Lessing, the “Grosse Fuge” unfolded with precision, authority and sheen. Mr. Lang-Lessing gave full vent to the score’s ear-stretching wildness -- the wide leaps, the craggy rhythms, the acidic harmonies -- but he also kept the lines clear and in proportion to one another.
In passages where the violence gave way to calm, the music took on an almost Italianate lyricism. By any measure, this was a distinguished performance.
Mr. Lang-Lessing and the full orchestra occupied comparably high ground in music of very different character, Manuel de Falla’s complete ballet score “The Three-Cornered Hat.” The main dance sequences are familiar to concert audiences, but the connecting tissue is seldom heard, and it proved to be of high quality.
As in the Beethoven, the performance was notable for its focus -- not just a matter of precise ensemble, but also of clearly rendered colors, incisive rhythms and an integrated sound. It’s still early in Mr. Lang-Lessing’s tenure as music director, but that focused quality seems to be a hallmark of his performances. The music just sounds right -- and damned exciting, too. His use of antiphonal seating for the past two concerts, with the first violins on the conductor’s left and the seconds on his right, might or might not contribute to that focus, but it certainly hasn’t hurt.
Mezzo-soprano Crystal Jarrell’s bright voice was attractive but not particularly stylish in her two cante jondo solos. Members of the Guadalupe Dance Company, crowded into the narrow space between the orchestra and the stage lip, complemented a few portions of the score with some handsome Flamenco-style choreography. A full ballet treatment would have been nice, but costly.
Mr. Cobo has shone previously in San Antonio under more favorable circumstances. In 2000, he played Mr. Brouwer’s Concerto No. 4 with the symphony, under the composer’s direction, in the relatively intimate space of Travis Park United Methodist Church. This time around, Mr. Cobo played the Cuban composer’s third concerto, the “Concierto elegiaco,” along with Vivaldi’s familiar Concerto in D.
The “Concierto elegiaco” is a wonderful piece, suffused with Mr. Brouwer’s distinctively fragrant and sensuous lyricism combined with a Modernist’s muscularity. The final movement, a driving Toccata, pays homage to J.S. Bach.
A few traits of Mr. Cobo’s musicianship could be heard through the amplification -- a quite beautiful vibrato, used with restraint; a way of caressing gentle lines, especially in the central Interlude; and a technique that was ample though a bit less fluid than it was a decade ago.
He is scheduled to give a solo recital, presumably without amplification, on Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the UTSA Recital Hall (Loop 1604 campus).
Mike
Greenberg
