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concert review: Symphony Silicon Valley
May. 12th, 2007 10:43 pmI wasn't jumping up and down in eagerness to hear this particular program, but the concert itself won me over. That's what I like a concert to do.
A good spread of music across three centuries, with, in the middle, Brahms's Double Concerto (for violin, cello, and orchestra). Two youngish soloists, Axel Strauss on violin and Mark Kosower on cello, played to each other as if this were chamber music, but with enough breadth to broadcast that intimacy to the whole auditorium. And was there an orchestra somewhere in the background? There was, emitting a good dark Brahmsian tone that provided a fine setting for the soloists, though their phrasing was oddly short-winded.
Haydn's Symphony No. 102, which came from London in 1794, and Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements, which came from L.A. in 1945, seem an odd pairing. The Haydn is brisk, chirpy, and a bit quirky, while the Stravinsky is ... well, much the same. Totally different musical languages, to be sure, but a similar approach within them. Haydn's characterist odd pauses and unexpected phrases in his finale seemed to find an echo in the jumpy, nervy approach of Stravinsky's first movement immediately afterwards. Guest conductor Joseph Silverstein led the Haydn in a plain, light style. This is a small-scale work by mature Haydn standards, and Silverstein was out to make it coy and elegant rather than to inflate it. Stravinsky's work started as drafts for unfinished movie music, much of it about WW2, and marks his abandonment of neo-classicism for a harsher, more dissonant style (on the way to atonality, though even Stravinsky didn't know that yet), while maintaining a characteristic Stravinsky sense of rhythm and wind-heavy tone color. This too was an elegant performance, tending to smooth out the music rather than to exaggerate the spikes. They're spiky enough as it is.
A good spread of music across three centuries, with, in the middle, Brahms's Double Concerto (for violin, cello, and orchestra). Two youngish soloists, Axel Strauss on violin and Mark Kosower on cello, played to each other as if this were chamber music, but with enough breadth to broadcast that intimacy to the whole auditorium. And was there an orchestra somewhere in the background? There was, emitting a good dark Brahmsian tone that provided a fine setting for the soloists, though their phrasing was oddly short-winded.
Haydn's Symphony No. 102, which came from London in 1794, and Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements, which came from L.A. in 1945, seem an odd pairing. The Haydn is brisk, chirpy, and a bit quirky, while the Stravinsky is ... well, much the same. Totally different musical languages, to be sure, but a similar approach within them. Haydn's characterist odd pauses and unexpected phrases in his finale seemed to find an echo in the jumpy, nervy approach of Stravinsky's first movement immediately afterwards. Guest conductor Joseph Silverstein led the Haydn in a plain, light style. This is a small-scale work by mature Haydn standards, and Silverstein was out to make it coy and elegant rather than to inflate it. Stravinsky's work started as drafts for unfinished movie music, much of it about WW2, and marks his abandonment of neo-classicism for a harsher, more dissonant style (on the way to atonality, though even Stravinsky didn't know that yet), while maintaining a characteristic Stravinsky sense of rhythm and wind-heavy tone color. This too was an elegant performance, tending to smooth out the music rather than to exaggerate the spikes. They're spiky enough as it is.
