The Princeton Symphony Orchestra opened its season on Saturday with majestic Brahms, pollyanna Tchaikovsky, and a new work conjuring the big blue (and Sibelius?) from New Zealand.
The young American violinist Aubree Oliverson demonstrated that there’s more than one way to skin a masterpiece on the PSO’s opening night at Richardson Auditorium, when she appeared as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
By way of introduction, Oliverson took the microphone briefly to share her appreciation of the work, which she said was the first piece she ever heard in concert that made her realize how much she truly loved classical music. She herself played it for the first time with the Utah Symphony Orchestra at the age of 13.
And what’s not to like? There are big emotions couched in big melodies and some thrilling instrumental pyrotechnics in the first and especially the third movement.
The violinist’s affection was evident from the start on Saturday. Her unhurried interpretation of the first movement emphasized the sheer beauty of the music over urgency or passion. Oliverson also spoke of the balletic qualities of the work (after all, Tchaikovsky was also the composer of “Swan Lake,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” and “The Nutcracker”), which were easily discerned in certain characteristics of her performance. But the deeper emotions seemed to be lacking.
Oliverson played the undeniably beautiful music beautifully, with the occasional feint toward wistfulness, but it was mostly the music itself, as opposed to anything in the interpretation, that made it unavoidably poignant. Tchaikovsky crafted it right into the score. The spirit conveyed in Princeton, on the other hand, by and large, was as untroubled as a pleasant breeze on a languid, late summer evening.
Oliverson was the very embodiment of the joy of music. For much of the piece, she played with a smile on her face, evidently savoring all the felicities of the moment. It might very well have been the happiest Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto ever.
It is also possible that so much sunshine, while undeniably endearing in the soloist, served to undercut, or at any rate dilute, the nobility of the work. I remember listening to a recording in college with a group of friends – when I was only a few years younger than Oliverson, in fact – and commenting that if I were ever in a position in which I would have to pilot a plane to an emergency landing with the cockpit engulfed in flames, I would want it to be to the grand orchestral statement of the big tune of the opening movement. Of course, this was back in the 20th century, when such an over-the-top, overtly cinematic scenario could still be considered romantic by a someone in his melodramatic teens. There’s a lot of doomed romance in Tchaikovsky.
The PSO’s music director, Rossen Milanov, proved a generous collaborator, tailoring the orchestra to his soloist, giving her her head while sensitively molding the accompaniment, then whipping his musicians into welcome displays of energy for the tutti passages.
Unfortunately, Oliverson’s largely relaxed view of the first movement didn’t allow for very much contrast with the second. For me, the lack of differentiation in the emotional temperature affected the balance of Tchaikovsky’s design, making it seem almost like the Bruch or Barber concertos, where you get two meltingly gorgeous slow movements and then a lightning virtuoso finale. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, if you don’t mind back-to-back tours of the same beautiful scenery. The lurking woodwind soloists did what they could to try to keep things haunted, but given the context they were more like decorative cartoon spiders on a Halloween Carvel cake.
The third movement follows attacca – without break – and can often jolt an audience with its explosive opening, bursting as it does onto a scene of unusual repose. For whatever reason, that didn’t really happen here. In this instance, the cause, or interpretive choice, might be attributed to conductor and orchestra, rather than the soloist. Oliverson relished the movement’s folk-like elements, though, tossing them off with requisite dash. But whenever the fiddle passages lagged the performance would slip back into languid admiration. The violinist was at her most compelling in the fleeter moments, which, as with everything she played, brought her evident pleasure.
The highlight came as things really started to heat up finally toward the end, when Oliverson turned on concertmaster Basia Danilow and the rapidly handed off exchanges between soloist and orchestra were transformed into a kind of musical duel. It brought a welcome touch of drama and panache. If only there had been more of that and perhaps some genuine gloom, when appropriate. Perhaps more of it will come as the soloist is ground down by life’s tragedies and disappointments like the rest of us. Great experience for the artist, surely, not that I would wish it on anyone.
Despite my mixed reception of the performance as a whole, I must say it was gratifying to witness a soloist, still very much in the early part of her career, so unjaded and completely enjoying herself. There may not have been a lot of Byronic introspection, but there were plenty of tiny hearts popping over heads. I’m tempted to describe it as a young person’s interpretation, except when I was her age, I was totally angsty. May she always retain some of that lightness of spirit, so at odds with a cranky middle-aged reviewer shouting at clouds on Facebook!
The audience responded with a standing ovation and Oliverson was applauded by members of the orchestra.
I have to commend the soloist, the conductor, and the entire group for going all in and trying something different, and Oliverson in particular for putting her own stamp on it. Personally, I prefer my Tchaikovsky laden with more tragic-heroism.
Milanov had his chance to exercise full control on the second half of the program, when he took the podium for Brahms’ Symphony No. 4.
I have a history with this piece, as well, once again going all the way back to my teen years. I remember the first time I heard a recording of Brahms’ Symphony No. 2, which was lent to me by my piano teacher, and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Then she lent me the Symphony No. 3. During a period in high school, I used to listen to the first movement of the Symphony No. 4 every night before bed. It’s fair to say that in my spring I was already in my autumn.
Milanov, who conducted without a score, kept the textures lucid, but lost none of the work’s autumnal power, the orchestra most impressively navigating waves of rubato. Either a lot was accomplished in rehearsal or the musicians are just totally in tune with the conductor after a partnership of so many years. (Milanov, who turns 60 this year, is now in his 15th season at the helm.)
Unlike that for the Tchaikovsky, the Brahms performance was full of variety, with an organic flow of ever-shifting moods and tempi. Yet everything was nicely blended. The horns were equal parts wistfulness and nobility, demonstrating that there was still some sap left in Brahms’ autumn foliage. The woodwinds played gorgeously. There was a seamless flow of tension and release throughout, with some characteristically dramatic timpani work from Jeremy Levine.
In the second movement the strings exhibited a range of mastery from delicate pizzicato to high-flown aspirational melodies and aching harmonies. Brahms can be so emotional in his reserve. The work glows with nobility and heroism, but of an Apollonian, as opposed to a Dionysian cast. He also knows how to gently muse and intimate good spirits. This kind of subtlety can be tricky to pull off and is perhaps less appreciated by general audiences than the “bigger” moments. There can be a world a difference between his music and that of Tchaikovsky.
Interestingly the two composers knew one another. They were also born on the same date (Brahms on May 7, 1833, and Tchaikovsky on May 7, 1840). They didn’t care much for one another’s music – Tchaikovsky was particularly hostile, at least at first; Brahms seems to have been just bored (he fell asleep during a performance of Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony in the presence of the composer) – but the two managed to warm to one another immensely on the few occasions when they did get to socialize.
Brahms’ third movement is a rousing, roistering interlude. If you have a fever and the only prescription is more triangle, look no further, with Levine’s timpani also at their most riotous. Early audience satisfaction is guaranteed, and of course there was premature applause.
The concluding passacaglia lends the work a tragic dimension. But again, it is not a tragedy of teeth-gnashing and hair-tugging, but rather one of inexorable grandeur. The Baroque form lends it a sense of continuity, Brahms cementing his status in the pantheon, even as it puts a stamp of finality on this most autumnal of the composer’s symphonies.
Yet what lingers in a performance like this is a sense of Brahms’ inner warmth and generosity of spirit in his “twilight years.” For the record, he was 51!
The concert opened with a brief work by New Zealand composer Gemma Peacocke. Peacocke currently makes her home in Hopewell as she works toward her doctorate at Princeton University. Her orchestral piece “Manta” is steeped in the natural world and Māori lore. Inspired in part by Wiremu Grace’s story “Whaitere,” about an enchanted stingray who visits her parents in the underworld before returning as a kaitiaki, or guardian, of the sea, the work was also influenced by the composer’s observations of these wondrous sea creatures off the coast of her native Aotearoa.
Even though geographically Finland is half a world away from Oceania, there is something of a Sibelius tradition in the antipodes, as former assistant conductor of the New Jersey Symphony, Gemma New – who was born in Wellington and is now principal conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra – once discussed with me. She pointed out that many Finnish musicians perform there (the NZSO recorded an acclaimed cycle of Sibelius symphonies under its then music director Pietari Inkinen). There’s also a shared kinship with nature. She added that there’s even a similar reserve in the Kiwi disposition. So environmentally and temperamentally, the two cultures are somewhat apposite. Perhaps it partly explains why one of the country’s most famous composers, Douglas Lilburn, is clearly indebted to the Sibelius sound.
With all this in mind, it’s hardly surprising that the tone colors in Peacocke’s work reflect those of the Nordic master. But is it intentional? Her instrumental choices could also be said to conjure aquatic associations. And why wouldn’t it?
Joining the PSO were an octet of young musicians (four violinists, two violists, and two cellists) from the Youth Orchestra of Central Jersey, against whom concertmaster Basia Danilow played solo passages. The piece, which at five minutes does not by any means outstay its welcome, ends on an otherworldly pitch bend.
The program was repeated at Richardson Auditorium on Sunday afternoon. On that occasion, Aubree Oliverson provided an encore to the Tchaikovsky concerto in Mark O’Connor’s “Menuhin Caprice.”
I hasten to add, I have been unable to find even one other mixed review of a performance by Oliverson anywhere online, so this could very well be yet another case of something just not sitting right with me. Kind of like when I lambasted Esa-Pekka Salonen’s performance last season of Sibelius’ 5th Symphony with the Philadelphia Orchestra. I wish Oliverson nothing but the best in a long and rewarding career.
For alternative, uniformly laudatory reactions, check out Susan Van Dongen’s thoughts in U.S. 1 and Nancy Plum’s in Town Topics.
Community News/U.S. 1
Town Topics
Princeton Symphony Orchestra Opens Season with Towering 19th-Century Masterpieces
The next concerts of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra will be held at Richardson Auditorium on October 19 & 20. On the program will be Michael Abels’ “More Seasons,” Prokofiev’s “Classical Symphony,” and Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto.” For more information, visit princetonsymphony.org.
Leave a Reply