San Antonio Symphony, Lang-Lessing, Skride
'Symphonie fantastique' in high-def
October 20, 2012Sebastian Lang-Lessing opened his third season at the helm of the San Antonio Symphony with an almost frighteningly vivid account of Hector Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique,” played with almost frightening virtuosity by the orchestra.
The Oct. 19 concert in the Majestic Theatre opened with the brief, atmospheric “Old and Lost Rivers” by Tobias Picker, a widely performed opera composer and also artistic director of a nascent local company, The Opera San Antonio. In between, the superb Latvian violinist Baiba Skride was the soloist in Robert Schumann’s seldom-heard Violin Concerto.
Ms. Skride’s first local appearance came in a recital for the Tuesday Musical Club in 2007, when she impressed with her total technical command and her deep musicality. Both qualities were in full flower again in her return visit.
The Schumann concerto is a bizarre work dating from 1853, when the composer’s terminal syphilis was well advanced and he was on the edge of madness. It was dedicated to the great violinist Joseph Joachim, who deemed it a product of madness and kept the unplayed score in his own possession until his death. It was performed for the first time in 1937, and though it has been championed by several great violinists -- Yehudi Menuhin, Joshua Bell and Gidon Kremer, among them -- it remains something of an oddity on the fringes of the standard repertoire.
The concerto is most interesting in its middle slow movement, which seems to float in the sky above the Night’s Plutonian shore, to borrow a phrase from Poe. The solo line in the opening allegro rambles a bit, though Ms. Skride played it beautifully; this movement is flawed mainly in its orchestral score, at once muddy and schematic. The finale is a cheerful dance and offers opportunities for the soloist to dazzle -- Ms. Skride did, with confidence and precision -- but the music keeps repeating itself and doesn’t seem to have a destination in mind.
Since her previous visit, Ms. Skride has begun playing a 1734 Stradivarius, on loan from Mr. Kremer. The instrument projected a substantial, almost palpable tone with more bite and perhaps a shade less sweetness than the usual Strad, if there is such a thing. That tone quality gave the solo line ample presence even when playing at pianissimo against the full orchestra.
There was plenty of presence in Ms. Skride’s musicianship, too -- beautiful inflections of pitch and color, clear diction and a strong sense of purpose even where the music itself wasn’t sure where it was going.
There is no doubting that Hector Berlioz was fully lucid and at the height of his considerable powers when he composed his “Symphonie fantastique,” an 1830 landmark of Romanticism and still one of the most astonishing and compelling works in the orchestral repertoire.
This performance astonished more than is customary, in large measure because of Mr. Lang-Lessing’s admirable penchant for giving full expression to the details of a score -- especially to dynamic contrasts, which are extreme and frequent in the “Symphonie fantastique.” His tempo relations were consistently chosen for maximum dramatic effect; there was often an aptly feverish quality to the music. The performance also was notable for alert teamwork: Lines passed from voice to voice like perfectly executed double plays. Among the many splendid solo turns, mention must be made of the exceptionally lovely dialogue between English horn (Jennifer Berg) and offstage oboe (Mark Ackerman) at the beginning of the third movement.
“Old and Lost Rivers,” which supposedly takes its title from a road sign on I-10, east of Houston, identifying two former channels of the Trinity River. The idiom is tonal , with very rich harmonies on a diatonic framework, sounding much like Aaron Copland under layers of luminescent gauze. The strings predominate, though there is also a very nice trumpet solo, played handsomely by John Carroll. It’s all very pretty, but not much happens. To slightly amend Peter Warlock’s comment about Ralph Vaughan Williams’s music, it’s a little too much like a longhorn looking over a gate.
Mike Greenberg
