United States Respighi, Tchaikovsky, Casella: Julian Rachlin (violin), National Symphony Orchestra / Gianandrea Noseda (conductor). Kennedy Center, Washington, 27.10.2022. (RRR)
Respighi – Burlesca for Orchestra
Tchaikovsky – Violin Concerto
Alfredo Casella – Symphony No.3
Conductor Gianandrea Noseda opened this National Symphony Orchestra’s live performance by enjoying a reasonably obscure early piece by Italian composer Ottorino Respighi. Anyone who is aware of and loves his Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome, and Roman Festivals will instantly sense the identical atmospherics within the Burlesca for Orchestra, which the then 27-year-old Respighi wrote in 1906, some ten years earlier than he began on the works above. Musicologist Guido Elberfeld finds the Burlesca already exuding Respighi’s typical ‘Mediterranean-iridescent lustrousness of the orchestral sound,’ in addition to his ‘impressionistically colored tonality in melody and harmony.’ In different phrases, at an early stage he was already in possession of the soundworld out of which these later, extremely widespread works would emerge. Unfortunately, the latter triptych’s wild reputation virtually buried the Burlesca and a few of Respighi’s different works. Burlesca’s rating was not revealed till some 20 years in the past and its first recording was not issued till 2001. Noseda and the NSO ever so gently captured the diaphanous, impressionist opening, launching us into this magical world with its glowing orchestration. After constructing to a number of spectacular climaxes with sounding brass and thundering timpani, he gently put the Burlesca to relaxation on this very pretty efficiency that captured the sheer fantasy of the piece.
In all chance, many of the viewers got here to listen to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Though it was composed throughout a turbulent, sad interval in Tchaikovsky’s life, his vacation on Lake Geneva in 1878 seems to have refreshed him to the purpose that this work got here simply to him and was unburdened by any of the near-hysterical pathos that sometimes crept into his later works. What makes it really easy to take heed to is that Tchaikovsky wasn’t aiming at profundity right here. Speaking of his elation on the time of the Concerto’s composition, he wrote: ‘In such a state of mind creative work sheds all its irksomeness of toil; it is purest bliss.’ Thus, within the house of solely a number of weeks, was born one of the vital widespread violin concertos ever composed.
However, the concerto’s preparation for efficiency confronted obstacles. The first two violinists to whom Tchaikovsky supplied it pronounced it unattainable to play owing to the numerous double stops, glissandi, trills, leaps, and dissonances. Finally, Austrian violinist Alexander Brodsky stepped in to play the premiere in Vienna in 1879. It was not universally greeted. Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick savaged the piece: ‘Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto provides us for the primary time the hideous notion that there may be music that stinks to the ear.’ Few discovered it odiferous and it rapidly grew in reputation.
Julian Rachlin met the work’s many challenges in a really partaking efficiency. Noseda and Rachlin have been completely in sync with one another throughout the work’s broad vary of expression. At no level did Noseda permit the orchestra to overwhelm the soloist. They have been companions reasonably than antagonists. There are many issues to go with, however I have to significantly comment on the beautiful refinement and fantastic thing about the Andante. Even in overly acquainted music akin to this, experiencing it performed at such a stage of excellence was an important pleasure.
I confess that I got here to listen to, not Tchaikovsky, however Alfredo Casella’s Third Symphony. When Noseda started his tenure on the NSO, I had excessive hopes that he would carry to Washington D.C. lots of the musical treasures of his homeland, however apparently, Washington audiences are hooked on the fundamental repertory, which is programmed advert nauseam. Noseda did introduce audiences to Casella’s music in 2015 with the Elegia eroica, adopted by the Second Symphony again in 2019, however that’s a very long time between drinks. A Gramophone journal reviewer as soon as castigated this symphony by saying it prefigures ‘the worst kind of movie music bathos, though even Cecil B. De Mille might have balked at having his more sentimental images so relentlessly underlined,’ Yes, it’s that good, as Noseda’s efficiency of it proved.
In any case, it was well worth the wait to listen to the Third Symphony. By approach of background info, Noseda is considerably of a Casella specialist. He recorded the three symphonies and different orchestral works with the BBC Philharmonic for the Chandos label a couple of decade in the past. Casella wanted the advocacy, as a result of his once-substantial fame evaporated after World War II, when the avant-garde took over. Memories of Casella flickered extra as a pianist, conductor (together with of the Boston Pops), and instructor (the nice movie composer Nino Rota was one in every of his college students), than as a composer. Scarlattiana was about the one composition that survived his eclipse.
Symphony No.3 comes from a neo-classical soundworld, with shades of Shostakovich and Stravinsky. Gone are all of the excesses that the Gramophone reviewer deplored. However, the melodies stay. It may in any other case virtually go as a product of mainstream American symphonism of the mid-twentieth century. In reality, it was commissioned by conductor Frederick Stock for the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was an enormous hit at its premiere. The solely thriller is why it has taken this lengthy to revive.
It is a piece of nice natural unity with a principal theme that’s virtually omnipresent, although in typically diverse and generally refined methods. It is nearly unattainable to lose your approach on this great work, even amidst its complexities. Its second motion Andante possesses a candy lyricism and wonder which might be redolent of Samuel Barber. The NSO winds deserve particular credit score for the beautiful approach during which they carried the beautiful principal theme. The Scherzo is essentially the most Shostakovich-like motion of the work with its pile-driving rhythms, however it’s a friendlier model of Shostakovich, with out his minatory sense. The fourth motion Rondo is an exuberant, virtually celebratory finale stuffed with delight. Needless to say, it concludes with the restatement of the opening theme.
Noseda drove the music with an thrilling sense of grip, although with out shedding any element or scanting the fragile moments. There was enjoying of nice character in each division of the NSO, with the winds and brass shining particularly.
In Casella’s absolutely mature interval, of which the Third is a primary instance, he achieved a steadiness of type and substance that led to some extremely authentic works that expressed the ‘logical discursiveness’ that he so admired. Whatever Casella did throughout his myriad kinds, he did it wholeheartedly. His music embraces you; it’s laborious to not embrace it again.
Viva Italia! More, please (how about one in every of Malipiero’s magical symphonies?).
Robert R. Reilly