It occurs to me that I haven’t had the time to acknowledge the passing of Minnesota composer Stephen Paulus, who died Oct. 19, nearly 16 months after suffering a debilitating stroke. Paulus, who made his home in the Twin Cities area (though born in Summit, NJ), was particularly noted for his choral and vocal works.
The The Philadelphia Orchestra will perform Paulus’ Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra at the Kimmel Center tonight at 8. The work was composed in 2004. This will be its first performance by the orchestra. Ken Cowan will be the soloist. It comes at the end of a three-concert weekend celebrating the Verizon Hall’s magnificent Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ, the largest mechanical-action concert organ in the United States.
Each program includes a different organ work, each rendered by a world-class performer. Yesterday afternoon, Paul Jacobs joined the orchestra for Alexandre Guilmant’s Symphony No. 1 for organ and orchestra.
I attended the first of the concerts on Thursday night, with Peter Richard Conte in Joseph Jongen’s Symphonie concertante, and it was a stunner. The work is well enough represented on recordings, though this is the first time I had an opportunity to enjoy it live. The soloist, choirmaster and organist at Philadelphia’s St. Clement’s Church and Grand Court Organist of the famed Wanamaker organ, was seated at a console situated right up between the cellos and the podium, which was wholly appropriate in a work with so much interplay between organ and the other instruments. It is an extremely well-written piece, and the orchestra, which played beautifully, with plenty of elegance in the winds, merged seamlessly with the organ, the King of Instruments on a genial stroll out among its subjects.
All three programs open with Carlos Chávez’s orchestration of an organ piece by Dietrich Buxtehude, his Chaconne in E Minor. Buxtehude, of course, was an influential and revered organist. Composers travelled from all over Europe to hear him perform. There is a famous story, perhaps apocryphal, of Bach walking close to 300 miles for the privilege. It’s certainly possible, since Bach took off work for almost four months for the occasion!
I have to say, I found Chávez’s arrangement to be surprisingly refreshing. Maybe I’m just suffering from Bach/Stokowski fatigue. Even the austere Schoenberg, for as much as I enjoy his arrangement of the “St. Anne” Fugue, is far too flashy for me not to feel a little cheap for enjoying it. Chávez‘s treatment is a model of good taste, allowing the music to speak for itself, without any attention-grabbing razzle dazzle. This kind of restraint in orchestrating a keyboard work is not to be undersold (though showmanship certainly does have its place). Of course it helps that the music in itself is extremely beautiful.
Buxtehude’s use of ostinato influenced Bach, and the Chaconne in particular became the model for the final movement of Brahms’ Symphony No. 4.
Here it is, played by a youth orchestra in Caracas:
The Latin connection, both in the clip and in the ethnicity of the orchestrator, is fitting, since the chaconne had its roots in the Spanish colonies as a triple-meter dance of the 16th century. Of course, once the Germans got a hold of it, everything became very solemn.
The concerts conclude with Sir Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations,” a work I never tire of hearing. On Thursday, the orchestra did the piece proud. Each variation was put across as characterful, sporatically witty or energetic, often melancholy, and always noble.
I was a little worried toward the end, since music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin has a tendency to push, rather than allow a work’s grandeur to unfold naturally. Indeed, he launched into the finale in a vigorous manner, perhaps just to prove his players could keep up. For me, personally, this kind of thing has marred his interpretations of Shostakovich’s 5th and Mahler’s 1st, for instance, though from the ecstatic audience and critical reaction, I appear to be in the minority. Thankfully, it was only a momentary aberration, and the Elgar concluded with unforced grandeur and nobility as it should. The organ was heard once again in the progam’s finale, in all its “Star Wars” throne room pomp.
While I have had mixed feelings about Yannick, his programs are often undeniably exciting in themselves. This was the second Philadelphia concert I attended this season to which I was enticed by the opportunity to experience unusual repertoire performed by a major orchestra. A couple of weeks ago, I shelled out my hard-earned dollars to hear Leoš Janácek’s “Glagolitic Mass,” an astonishing piece of music I never thought I’d be able to hear live without traveling to the Czech Republic (which also happens to feature a major part for organ, including a wild cadenza). The balance of the program was made up of symphonic poems by Sibelius and Dvorak.
Sadly, on that occasion, as on this, the hall was half empty. Can it really be that audiences only want to hear Schubert’s 9th Symphony?
PHOTO: Philadelphia’s King of Instruments
