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Concert review: Kremerata Baltica
Nov. 7th, 2004 11:42 am22 young Baltic string players, plus their impresario-leader (violinist Gidon Kremer) and a percussionist(!) came to serenade a small but curious audience rattling around in Davies last night that included ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
athenais and myself. A curious audience for a very curious program. All three works were arrangements of chamber music for string orchestra (with, in two cases, timpani or percussion).
Before you say "ewww," let me assure you that this can work, and it depends on the talents of the arranger and the suitability of the work chosen. Some of Schubert's quartets, like the "Death and the Maiden" quartet, are just aching with tightly-wound fury to burst the bounds of their tiny ensembles. I've heard Gustav Mahler's arrangement of that quartet for string orchestra, and it's just wonderful: my favorite of Mahler's works (that Mahler didn't actually compose it gives it a tremendous advantage in that department). Mahler could orchestrate, I'll give him that.
But Schubert's G Major quartet, no. 15, is not one of those quartets. It's a huge, soft, gentle work for the most part, with many intimate moments: it's not asking for a larger group to play it. But this group went ahead anyway. They played it very well for the most part - impeccable ensemble, gorgeous tone - only a flacidity of line in some of the slower parts of all three works slightly marred this performance. It's the arranger I want to have a few words with. Some of the chords were thickened and sweetened and sounded so unlike Schubert I jumped in my seat. And the sections where the arranger, one Victor Kissine, took a Schubert solo line and had a solo instrument play it, not against three other soloists but against the whole orchestra, destroyed the balance. (Not to mention that solo instruments can barely be heard, swallowed up in Davies' huge space.)
The other two works are both by Shostakovich, the great depressive of 20th-century composers. One was his Eighth Quartet, disguised under the name "Chamber Symphony", as if Shostakovich himself had authorized Abram Stassevich's arrangement. He didn't. The Eighth Quartet, depending on who you believe, was either Shostakovich's reaction to viewing the ruins of Dresden, or his suicide note on being forced to join the Communist Party. (Acting against the second view is the fact that he didn't commit suicide.) Either way, it's deeply personal, deeply intimate, and sounds extremely weird when played by a full string orchestra with timpani softly backing up the heavy points. I kept staring at the timpani. What's it doing there?
Even weirder was the arrangement by M. Zinman & A. Pushkarev of the Sonata for Violin and Piano. I don't know this work well, but it's very much a dialogue for the two instruments dependent on their distinctly different sounds. So arranging the piano part for a string orchestra (Kremer played the violin part) seems an elaborate exercise in missing the point. I've heard other modern concertos for violin with strings, and the composers always have trouble pulling the soloist's sound out from the ensemble. So it was here, and this time it wasn't even the composer's fault. This time I was glad for the percussion (a little drum, a little cymbal, a little bit of other things) behind the orchestra, because at least it made it sound different.
A curious but pleasant outing. And tonight ...
athenais and myself. A curious audience for a very curious program. All three works were arrangements of chamber music for string orchestra (with, in two cases, timpani or percussion).Before you say "ewww," let me assure you that this can work, and it depends on the talents of the arranger and the suitability of the work chosen. Some of Schubert's quartets, like the "Death and the Maiden" quartet, are just aching with tightly-wound fury to burst the bounds of their tiny ensembles. I've heard Gustav Mahler's arrangement of that quartet for string orchestra, and it's just wonderful: my favorite of Mahler's works (that Mahler didn't actually compose it gives it a tremendous advantage in that department). Mahler could orchestrate, I'll give him that.
But Schubert's G Major quartet, no. 15, is not one of those quartets. It's a huge, soft, gentle work for the most part, with many intimate moments: it's not asking for a larger group to play it. But this group went ahead anyway. They played it very well for the most part - impeccable ensemble, gorgeous tone - only a flacidity of line in some of the slower parts of all three works slightly marred this performance. It's the arranger I want to have a few words with. Some of the chords were thickened and sweetened and sounded so unlike Schubert I jumped in my seat. And the sections where the arranger, one Victor Kissine, took a Schubert solo line and had a solo instrument play it, not against three other soloists but against the whole orchestra, destroyed the balance. (Not to mention that solo instruments can barely be heard, swallowed up in Davies' huge space.)
The other two works are both by Shostakovich, the great depressive of 20th-century composers. One was his Eighth Quartet, disguised under the name "Chamber Symphony", as if Shostakovich himself had authorized Abram Stassevich's arrangement. He didn't. The Eighth Quartet, depending on who you believe, was either Shostakovich's reaction to viewing the ruins of Dresden, or his suicide note on being forced to join the Communist Party. (Acting against the second view is the fact that he didn't commit suicide.) Either way, it's deeply personal, deeply intimate, and sounds extremely weird when played by a full string orchestra with timpani softly backing up the heavy points. I kept staring at the timpani. What's it doing there?
Even weirder was the arrangement by M. Zinman & A. Pushkarev of the Sonata for Violin and Piano. I don't know this work well, but it's very much a dialogue for the two instruments dependent on their distinctly different sounds. So arranging the piano part for a string orchestra (Kremer played the violin part) seems an elaborate exercise in missing the point. I've heard other modern concertos for violin with strings, and the composers always have trouble pulling the soloist's sound out from the ensemble. So it was here, and this time it wasn't even the composer's fault. This time I was glad for the percussion (a little drum, a little cymbal, a little bit of other things) behind the orchestra, because at least it made it sound different.
A curious but pleasant outing. And tonight ...
