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concert review: Symphony Silicon Valley
May. 29th, 2005 10:46 amHow does someone whose day job is as a college concert-band director get invited to conduct a symphony orchestra in the upper minor leagues? I'm not sure, but such is the resume of Mallory Thompson, who unlike most women conductors I've seen wears long hair (a little distracting during performance) and a full dress (perhaps a bit inhibiting to her movement).
As an interpreter, Thompson has what is now a very old-fashioned style. She conducts very slowly, deliberately, even stolidly. This is not a criticism: it's just out of fashion. Over the last 20 years the "lean and hungry" style that came out of original-instrument performances has kind of taken over in the symphonic repertoire. This concert, from its big, solid version of Rossini's Barber of Seville overture on, was for me like a nostalgic flashback to the 1950s and 60s recordings by conductors like Ormandy and Karajan that I learned the standard repertoire from.
Saying that Thompson tends towards the slow and stolid doesn't mean she's averse to tempo variation. Indeed, she used tempo variation as a blunt instrument to hack Brahms's Second Symphony into shape. It worked surprisingly well. The finale had a cheerful "rising up out of the sludge" quality that's typical of the way the old-fashioned style treated finales; more surprisingly, Thompson led the middle sections of the 3rd movement allegretto with almost Mendelssohnian tripping lightness.
Though her gestures could be incisive, Thompson tended too often to the school of conducting by waving one's hands around vaguely. This had terrible effects on ensemble: both the first two movements of the Brahms ended with big wet smears for final chords, and that's at least one smear too many.
But it was still Brahms's Second Symphony, a good candidate for the most sublime symphony ever written, so too much complaining would be churlish. And apart from the ensemble problems, the playing was fine, and never too heavy.
A good old-fashioned symphony concert has, besides the little overture for opening and the big symphony for the finish, a flashy concerto with a fabulous soloist. We had the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto with an 18-year-old Russian named Natasha Paremski. Her style was well-suited for this concert: unpretentious, no storming at the keyboard, she played with great power but made it look effortless. She played parts of the concerto so slowly and almost hesitatingly, the effect was almost as if she were improvising, noodling on the keyboard at home with nobody watching.
The hall's extraordinarily bright acoustics made a big difference in this concert.
One of the big mysteries of the Rachmaninoff concertos is why, since the composer wrote them intending to play the solo parts himself, he buried so much of the solo part in complex, fussy figurations virtually inaudible underneath mighty orchestral statements of the main themes. Well, these solo parts were audible this time.
As for the Brahms, you could hear every texture. I had never realized just how antiphonal the first movement is. And if you wanted to hear how often the horns and trumpets issue oomphs and blats in supporting chords, this was the performance to hear them in.
As an interpreter, Thompson has what is now a very old-fashioned style. She conducts very slowly, deliberately, even stolidly. This is not a criticism: it's just out of fashion. Over the last 20 years the "lean and hungry" style that came out of original-instrument performances has kind of taken over in the symphonic repertoire. This concert, from its big, solid version of Rossini's Barber of Seville overture on, was for me like a nostalgic flashback to the 1950s and 60s recordings by conductors like Ormandy and Karajan that I learned the standard repertoire from.
Saying that Thompson tends towards the slow and stolid doesn't mean she's averse to tempo variation. Indeed, she used tempo variation as a blunt instrument to hack Brahms's Second Symphony into shape. It worked surprisingly well. The finale had a cheerful "rising up out of the sludge" quality that's typical of the way the old-fashioned style treated finales; more surprisingly, Thompson led the middle sections of the 3rd movement allegretto with almost Mendelssohnian tripping lightness.
Though her gestures could be incisive, Thompson tended too often to the school of conducting by waving one's hands around vaguely. This had terrible effects on ensemble: both the first two movements of the Brahms ended with big wet smears for final chords, and that's at least one smear too many.
But it was still Brahms's Second Symphony, a good candidate for the most sublime symphony ever written, so too much complaining would be churlish. And apart from the ensemble problems, the playing was fine, and never too heavy.
A good old-fashioned symphony concert has, besides the little overture for opening and the big symphony for the finish, a flashy concerto with a fabulous soloist. We had the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto with an 18-year-old Russian named Natasha Paremski. Her style was well-suited for this concert: unpretentious, no storming at the keyboard, she played with great power but made it look effortless. She played parts of the concerto so slowly and almost hesitatingly, the effect was almost as if she were improvising, noodling on the keyboard at home with nobody watching.
The hall's extraordinarily bright acoustics made a big difference in this concert.
One of the big mysteries of the Rachmaninoff concertos is why, since the composer wrote them intending to play the solo parts himself, he buried so much of the solo part in complex, fussy figurations virtually inaudible underneath mighty orchestral statements of the main themes. Well, these solo parts were audible this time.
As for the Brahms, you could hear every texture. I had never realized just how antiphonal the first movement is. And if you wanted to hear how often the horns and trumpets issue oomphs and blats in supporting chords, this was the performance to hear them in.
