This weekend’s eclectic Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts included selections from celebrated Russia composers Thomas de Hartmann (from what is now Ukraine) and from Modest Mussorgsky. The night commenced with a piece by the 31-year-old British composer Grace-Evangeline Mason. And de Hartmann’s Violin Concerto, Opus 66 by with Joshua Bell would have alone been worth the price of admission.
Assistant Conductor Anna Handler made her Symphony Hall subscription series debut with these performances (her BSO debut was at Tanglewood this past summer) as her colleague Jonathan Heyward (who was slated to assume the helm) is nursing a shoulder injury.
Handler did not disappoint. Seemingly she has held the baton on this stage for countless seasons. Exuberantly she involved her entire body into her communicative lexicon. At times she held the music tight in her left fist. At other moments she let it soar to uncharted heights, her arms animated and spread wide the way an umpire would wave a runner safe at home plate. Her vigorous, infectious style drew smiles from the orchestra and three standing ovations from the audience as she led the BSO through thrilling climbs and whispered descents. She personified the evening’s performance with such vivid articulation that I realized if I were deaf, I would still be able to “hear” the music through her vivacious movements. At the end of the night, my wife looked at me and said, “She must be exhausted.” I concur, but she was not tired enough to share the accolades as she physically moved to each part of the stage to honor each section of the orchestra, her hand on her heart beneath a smile of sheer gratitude.
But before Handler had assumed the rostrum, Mason introduced the evenings first offering. He had written Imagined Forest for the 2021 BBC Proms and the Royal Liverpool Orchestra. As the program notes state, “it was inspired by the intricate, nature-based installation work of Berlin artist Clare Celeste.” In her opening remarks, Handler encouraged the packed hall to envision this 14-minute excursion as “a journey into the forest of your imagination.” And so, what follows, is my attempt to put this meditative-trek into words.
A horn, two harps, and strings lulled the listener into daybreak, intimating birdcalls and a laggard sunrise where all nature came alive with anticipation and self-realization, not unlike Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46: I. Morning Mood. Soft, sublime textures burst into vibrant, expressive swells only to return to the contemplative. The timpani evoked an undercurrent of nature rumbling to life as a bubbling marimba quickened the pulse. This was promptly joined by the strings that took wing and meandered (at times) into unexpected territory, suggesting that nature — and the life it induces — charts her own course, sometimes along a random path. But there is nothing random about this music. It is cinematic. In his second year as Concertmaster, Nathan Cole drew lush tones from his instrument, in turn drawing listeners into an equally unforeseen ending.
After a standing ovation, Handler and Mason returned to the stage holding hands aloft as a sign of victory — and a triumph it was! I look forward to a lifetime of work by this promising protégé.
Typically, the “feature” at a classical music concert comes after the intermission. Although Mussorgsky was spectacular (and we’ll get to this celebrated Russian composer in a moment), clearly the night belonged to guest violinist Joshua Bell and his accompanied of the BSO with de Hartmann’s Violin Concerto just prior to intermission.
Ever the master craftsman, Bell’s playing was elegant as he drew the music from his instrument with intense precision and passion blending with the BSO meticulously. He seemed to summon the score through his fingers as well as his facial expressions: his attack deft and pristine. Combined, Bell and the BSO evoked a romantic ambiance that was hypnotic. They moved in unison like seasoned dancers, not an easy feat with an orchestra that fills the stage!
During the times Bell wasn’t playing during the first movement (Largo—Vivace—Andante con moto—Allegro risoluto—Largo assai), the BSO solidified the fact that they are one of the best orchestras on the planet laying a measured foundation before erupting into what can only be described as an eastern European fanfare. It was majestic and jubilant.
Bell returned with rapid fingering cementing himself as the Jimi Hendrix of the violin. His ability to invoke each note from his instrument with silken dexterity enabled the audience to savor every one of them. It sat on the heart the way each sumptuous bite of an entrée from a five-star restaurant envelopes the palate.
The second movement confirmed that Bell is a musician who has total command of his instrument. At times he would carry the melody while exploring every millimeter of his fingerboard hitting notes that were all but imperceptible. Bell never lost sight of Handler’s direction or the movement of the orchestra, at times looking over his shoulder in rapt anticipation of how the Andante would unfurl. As a musician myself, I was enamored with both his fingering (envious of his flawless vibrato) as well as his elegant and expressive bowing technique, pulling the bow away from the instrument with a smooth, fluid movement that led one to wonder if he was conjuring notes midair. I wish my hands possessed the strength of Bell’s left pinky finger which fluttered notes with the same pulse of a songbird’s throat.
The entire amble through de Hartmann reached its pinnacle with the Finale: Vivace. The BSO was in full throttle delivering a robust, expressive performance, tearing through the score with unbridled passion intimating a Russian Kalinka. Flawlessly coordinated plucking by the entire string section provided the footing over which Bell danced like a conquering Cossack. Ending in a rousing flourish, it brought the audience to their feet. Bell remained for an encore — one of Chopin’s Nocturnes that sent breathless patrons into the foyer for intermission.
Mussorgsky fittingly bookended the evening. If Mason’s Imagined Forest is a musical interpretation of visual art, then Pictures of an Exhibition is also an aural jaunt through a museum. With Associate Concertmaster Sophie Wang assuming first chair for this suite, the BSO began with a brass fanfare which segued into an elegant wave of sonorous, impressionistic strings. If the evening’s opening was a forest frolic, this was an aural tour of a gallery. In the opening Promenade, dramatic descents glided into a rapid finish.
Serge Koussevitzky premiered the Ravel orchestration in Parison October 22nd, 1922; two years later, he led the American debut with the BSO in Symphony Hall in November, 1924. Almost 101 years to the day, we relived that moment in the same venue. The 21st-century incarnation of the BSO presented Pictures almost whole-cloth, so it was somewhat difficult for a novice to know where one part ended and another began. However, is that not the experience patrons have in a museum as they move from one painting to the next — never really having enough time to absorb any one work of art? (I often feel I need a month of Sundays every time I frequent Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts: a Sabbath’s worth of time for each masterpiece.)
And yet the BSO’s performance of Pictures assembled form and color into a unified visceral and cerebral aesthetic. Art evokes a range of dialectical emotions. At some moments it it soothes. At other times is flusters. Mussorgsky seizes this range of feeling in variegated movements. Playful and contemplative by turns, the BSO’s interpretation revealed its 101-year tradition with the Ravel orchestration…though at least once they offered Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s more Russian-sounding orchestration. Like all art, this is an assemblage of music meant to be experienced with the nerves as well as the ears (or eyes, as the form dictates).
The handout for the evening included some of the works on which Mussorgsky based this collection. It would have been interesting (albeit a bit gauche) to see the paintings that inspired the composer on display alongside the stately Symphony Hall organ pipes (at least the known ones) to cleave sight and sound into a cohesive experience.
Regardless, this collection runs the gamut of emotion: a juxtaposition of the sensuous and the comical, the mathematical and the organic, the complex and the simple, horns and strings, timpani and harp. Much like the Boston Pops annual Independence Day concert at the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, the only thing missing at the close of this pièce de résistance were fireworks following the herculean, climactic finish.
Handler shared her contagious joy with the orchestra and audience alike. It truly was an evening of art and elegance.