Tuesday night’s concert of the Portland Symphony Orchestra at Merrill Auditorium was billed as a tribute to the nationalism of two composers: Jean Sibelius and Antonin Dvorak. However inspired, the two larger works on the program, conducted by guest artist Christopher Warren-Green, are much more than patriotic music.
The Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor (Opus 47), played by Steven Moeckel, is one of the great works in the concerto literature. The Dvorak Symphony No. 7 in D minor is one of his most sophisticated and thoroughly composed. Strangely enough, the most nationalistic work of the evening, the Sibelius “Karelia Suite” (Opus 11), was also by far the most effective.
The Karelia Suite began the program on a high note, with perfect tempos, tremendous crescendos and a soulful Ballade, highlighted by an oboe solo straight from “The Swan of Tuonela.” It was excitement personified, two of the world’s most striking marches surrounding a vignette of medieval nostalgia. Warren-Green got every last ounce of tonal color and volume from the orchestra.
Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. The best that can be said of Moekel’s rendition of the Sibelius violin concerto is that he got through it with only a few wrong notes — a feat in itself since the violin part is among the most difficult ever written. Listening to this concerto should be a peak musical experience. I kept waiting for it to take fire, but it never did. Orchestra and soloist never got onto the same page.
I don’t know about Moekel’s other performances, but this one lacked sufficient volume for the violin to soar over the orchestra, in spite of Warren-Green’s best efforts. It also lacked feeling for the long, dark and almost baroque melodic lines that characterize the piece.
The concerto is one of my all-time favorites, but on Tuesday I came to the conclusion that it requires not a virtuoso but a genius to overcome the technical difficulties while retaining the ability to lift the score into the stratosphere.
In the Sibelius, it seemed that Warren-Green was exaggerating the percussion in an effort to overcome the lack of coherence. In the Dvorak Symphony No. 7, it was revealed that he overemphasizes percussion in general.
The Dvorak symphony is as hard to hold together as the Sibelius concerto. It has a split personality, in which the composer’s academic training, with elaborate or incomprehensible development sections, crashes head-on into his beloved Bohemian folk songs. Usually, the folk songs win out, as in the beautiful scherzo movement, but sometimes they get buried. Warren-Green’s reading gave no clue as to their whereabouts.
The orchestra performed admirably, with some notable French horn solos, but was unable to do more than produce some memorable moments. Maybe, as the program notes indicated, they were clearings in the dark Bohemian forest, if there is such a thing.
Christopher Hyde’s Classical Beat column appears in the Maine Sunday Telegram. He can be reached at:
classbeat@netscape.net
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