[ad_1]
United States Various: Paul Yancich (timpani), Liv Redpath (soprano), Justin Austin (baritone), Cleveland Orchestra / Alan Gilbert (conductor). Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Cleveland, 05.01.2023. (MSJ)
James Oliverio – Legacy Ascendant: Concerto for timpani and strings
Haydn – Symphony No.90 in C main
Nielsen – Symphony No.3 in D main, ‘Sinfonia espansiva’
Personality was to the fore within the Cleveland Orchestra’s first live performance of 2023, led by welcome visitor conductor Alan Gilbert. It speaks extremely of Gilbert’s Nielsen to say that it was totally the equal of the gorgeous performance led right here in 2013 by the good Herbert Blomstedt, the world’s rating Nielsen conductor. Gilbert was as much as the comparability, bringing if something much more vitality to the careening waltz in the course of the troubled first motion.
The symphony lived as much as its expansive subtitle with Gilbert permitting time at transition factors for the musical storytelling to shift. He was aided on this by the spectacular enjoying of the Cleveland Orchestra, together with a rhapsodic oboe solo within the gradual motion by Jeffrey Rathbun. In 2013, Blomstedt had positioned the wordless vocals that come up within the coda of that motion someplace offstage, which was evocative. On this event, Gilbert saved his singers positioned within the orchestra, as members of the ensemble, which labored high-quality and gave them their moments within the highlight. Soprano Liv Redpath sang with easy lyricism, and baritone Justin Austin introduced a velvety heat to his solos. Both singers have been luxurious casting for these comparatively small components.
Gilbert relished the ambivalence of the third motion, drawing consideration to its quirks. He paced the grand finale broadly, but with a continuing sensitivity to Nielsen’s volatility. Part of this composer’s magic is that at one second he may be delivering a simple, nice melody, however then just some notes will flip in an sudden route, introducing doubt. Likewise, Nielsen can present lethal fangs in a single second that dissolve right into a heat smile the subsequent. Gilbert will get that, and made certain the interaction of solar and shadow was fixed.
Gilbert additionally has a knack for Haydn, which he has carried out right here earlier than and can hopefully proceed to do sooner or later. This time, he led the hardly ever heard Symphony No.90. It was solely the second time it has been programmed in Cleveland, certainly simply because it lacks a memorable nickname. In fact, it is stuffed with Haydn’s ingenious conversational wit. After a stately introduction, the allegro opens as if in the course of a thought, which proves a fantastic gadget for propelling the motion ahead. Gilbert opted for a full complement of strings, but saved textures and vibrato below management to realize a crisply classical really feel.
The gradual motion variations introduced elegant solos from Rathbun on oboe, Jessica Sindell on flute and Mark Kosower on cello. The minuet was ideally paced, with simply the proper slackening of tempo for the trio, and the finale took excessive spirits a step additional when Gilbert performed up Haydn’s false ending by turning round to cease the viewers applause which began up. He took it a step additional, although, on a repeat of the second half of the finale by pretending to fall for the false ending himself. Concertmaster David Radzynski performed together with the joke, protesting when Gilbert stopped conducting and exhibiting him the rating with its extra pages. The viewers cherished it.
Had these items alone been the live performance, it might have been satisfying and memorable. But the appreciable bonus was the world premiere of a brand new timpani concerto by James Oliverio, written for the Cleveland Orchestra’s principal timpanist, Paul Yancich. Yancich and Oliverio went to music college collectively on the Cleveland Institute of Music, and this was the third concerto Oliverio has written for Yancich over time. The earlier items discover extra predictable percussive virtuosity, however Legacy Ascendant stakes out sudden territory: lyricism.
The piece begins and ends softly, with intensive melodic materials given to the timpanist who performs seven drums, 5 of that are geared up with pedals. This permits for a substantial vary of pitches, all of that are made use of in Oliverio’s tonal however modernly tart writing. There are just a few energetic thrives alongside the way in which, however the predominant environment is reflective, even when the outer actions are shifting at a quick tempo. Yancich particularly requested for a concerto for timpani and strings, and the composer add a harp as properly to get an autumnal tone with flecks of shade.
Getting the chance to take heed to Yancich entrance and middle makes it clear how a lot his reserved, suave contact is the very core of the Cleveland Orchestra sound. Toxic banging is banished when this artist demonstrates that even essentially the most intractable of objects may be coaxed to sing.
Mark Sebastian Jordan