By YVONNE HUDSON
Romance meets pathos this weekend at Heinz Hall.
Opening with Arturs Maskats’ “Tango”, the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Valentine’s weekend concert celebrates romance and dance, conducted by Manfred Honeck.
Inspired during a visit to Italy in 2002, the Latvian composer’s acclaimed piece aimed to stir audiences while exploring the role of the orchestra players in weaving a musical “life story…a metaphor that can’t be explained in words,” says the composer, who spent much of his career writing music for the theater. So at the turn of this new century, Muskats conjures dance rhythms that reflect his country’s new freedom and his place in a generation of new composers.
A full orchestra is in play during 11 short minutes. Beginning with a whisper, “Tango” evolves into more urgent and dramatic passages led by the strings. Maskats’ specialty as a theater composer shines through here. Layers are enhanced by the harp (Kathrine Ventura) and the iconic bandoneon, a cousin of the accordion, played by guest Alejandro Pinzon. There’s so much historical context and dance inspiration in this piece that it deserves more frequent programming and discussion as a 21st-century classic, having been declared a finalist in the 2003 Masterpiece Competition in London. It was televised internationally in the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2022 Summer Night Concert at Schonbrunn.
Returning as a PSO guest soloist, having debuted here in 2023, Randall Goosby, who turns 30 in July, applies his own impressive virtuosity to one of the five violin concertos Mozart composed within the year 1775. The composer was only a teenager, but the prolific composer was already a working music director.
Goosby is featured for the Concerto No. 5 in A Major for Violin and Orchestra, K. 219. Here, the Baroque orchestra employs almost every PSO string player, especially the violins, violas, and cellos. Goosby is very busy with his artistry throughout the three movements. He wins us over with the charming Allegro.
Then, he is essentially a soloist in the Adagio, featured in lovely passages and then in front of the orchestra’s lines. Reflective and sometimes lightly meditative, Goosby brings to his cadenzas the marvelously improvisational quality that can still surprise even the seasoned listener. This reflects the soloist’s ability to engage and experiment. Goosby achieves this throughout. Mozart’s style in recalling motifs is apparent, but it’s fresh and captivating, especially as Goosby puts a virtuosic cap on the movement with a solo line.
The Rondo: Tempo de menuetto features Goosby throughout as the closing movement, continuing his musical conversation with the strings.
Goosby’s encore is the one his first audiences here heard, a cakewalk tune, Louisiana Blues Strut, a cool shout-out for Black History Month. The 2002 “fiddle” cakewalk by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was debuted by the New York Philharmonic in 2021. Thus, another contemporary composer is featured in this concert
The exquisitely elegiac Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber opens the second part of the program. The ultimate joy and heartache of life and love are captured in this well-known, yet perhaps always surprising piece, for it may speak differently to us depending on where we are in life’s journey. Its profound nature has made it historic, as when it was aired from New York and London following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. More contemporary movie audiences heard it in many films, including Platoon, a classic film about the Vietnam War.
Adagio soars from a whisper of violins on one note to a minor melody supported by simple, timeless harmony. It’s musical layers arch, reading up and falling towards a closing that ends in one unresolved chord. The piece has endured in popularity throughout 90 years in performances, competitions, and broadcasts. Only about seven minutes in length, Adagio succeeds in its compact mastery to do what music can do best–take us from the most introspect moments of love and loss to the questions that remain in our journey for resolution.
Since Leonard Bernstein pulled nine sections from his West Side Story to create these Symphonic Dances, orchestras have showcased the passion and drama of a timeless musical inspired by Romeo and Juliet. The PSO marks the 65th anniversary of the Dances, first performed by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss on February 13, 1961.
The rhythms and instrumentation convey hot conflicts and passion–the drama of the Shakespeare story sent forward to the 20th century.
From one of the most beautiful melodies for a single word with “Maria” and the romanticism of “Tonight”, the urgent and forbidden love of Tony and Maria, the arrangement of Bernstein’s melodies captures the action and emotion of a timeless story told mid-century in the immigrant community of New York. The vibrant “America” and “Mambo” reflect the clash of cultures and immigrant experience,
From soaring romance to the fiery energy of “America” and “Mambo,” the music captures the intensity of love, rivalry, and hope. This piece features one of the few times you hear the finger snapping of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra players and their voices as they declare “Mambo!” during what we know as “Dance at the Gym”.
A prologue sets the scene with the iconic strains of the famous long-zoom West Side Story film opening. Over the course of these dances, the music takes anyone who knows the film well from the streets, school yards, and fire escapes of the Upper West Side. Eyes closed, the listener might easily conjure the dancers and Jerome Robbins’ choreography as this writer did.
Weaving nine orchestral excerpts from the masterful score must have been no easy task for Sid Ramin and Irving Kostal, who created this suite with Bernstein’s blessing. The PSO last performed it in 2012, so three audiences are blessed to hear it this weekend and be reminded of how cultural clashes can take a tragic turn not only on stage but in life. Moreover, the power of music, like love, is healing, as is this concert closer.
But wait, there was more! A pair of additional pieces by a chamber ensemble is a treat for audience members to move to the front rows to spend a little more time with PSO players. As violinist Dylan Naroff explains, Edgar Elgar wrote Salut D’Amour (Love’s Greeting) for String Quartet as a loving artistic gift to his wife. The original German title was translated into French to sound more romantic. Indeed, it’s a charming coda with Naroff joined by violinist Marta Krechkovsky, violist Andrew Wickesberg, and cellist Charlie Powers. Then flutist Rhian Kenny and trumpeter Micah Wilkinson join for Bernstein’s “One Hand, One Heart”, another gorgeous love song from West Side Story. Sung by young lovers Maria and Tony as they imagine their wedding, the dreamy and wish-filled piece is just a perfect send-off from the red velvet warmth of Heinz Hall into the February night. Once more, Saturday night audiences may also linger for these romantic performances by PSO players.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
This heartfelt weekend continues with this program tonight, Saturday at 7:30 pm, and again on Sunday at 2:30 pm. Tickets at Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Reviews
Leave a Reply Cancel reply