Concert Review

[University of Michigan, 2006]

The audience bursts into applause as the conductor’s hands fall to his side in exhaustion.  Everyone is immediately on their feet, their applause demanding the conductor to reenter the stage not once, but twice.  Cheering echoes throughout Hill Auditorium as the University Symphony Orchestra completes its thirty-fifth concert of the 2006-2007 season. 

            The auditorium was about half way full on Monday night, but the noise emitting from the hall might have told those standing just outside otherwise.  The concert, which began at 8 p.m., consisted of two large works:  Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes & Passacaglia, from his opera Peter Grimes, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67.  And yes, the symphony performed on Monday was thee Beethoven symphony, containing one of the most well-known musical motifs in the history of music.  Beethoven’s Fifth.

            Britten’s Four Sea Interludes & Passacaglia was a beautiful start to Monday’s concert. While Britten is better known for his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, composed in 1946 for the purpose of children’s music education, the excerpt from Peter Grimes that the USO performed Monday was highly imagistic and played well.  Five of the six interludes were performed, including Dawn, Sunday Morning, Passacaglia, Moonlight, and Storm.  Written specifically for the orchestra, these interludes connect the Prologue of the opera to the first act. 

Dawn began with just the high strings, perfectly portraying a rising sun on the horizon.  The addition of the low brass instruments created dissonance, an eerie wonderment of what the day would bring.  Trills formed from minor seconds by the flutes presented uncertainty, and the entire orchestra seemed to hesitate in commencing the day.  Finally, confidence was achieved as the harp’s arpeggios escalated to the bong of the gong, perhaps

representing the outbreak of day and the first stirs of life.  Clarinets ended the interlude with arpeggiated sevenths, again adding mystery and wonderment to coming day.

            Sunday Morning was in part exactly as one might expect:  optimism inspired by church bells.  It began with staccato notes from the woodwind section, supported by a series of major seconds from the brass. Flutes assumed the melody, flying downward in major scales only to rise up once again in crescendo, the harp jumping in with brilliant glissandos.  Soon the violins took on the melody in an optimistic tune.  Church bells faded in and out, just as they should on a Sunday morning, but when the interlude concluded, the audience was left in suspense and unsettlement.

            Passacaglia began with a violin solo, the cello and bass supporting it with pizzicatos.  The harp played a strong role, and the wind instruments continued the interlude in a suspenseful manner. The end of the interlude left the audience feeling unsettled once again.

            But the unsettlement was short-lived, for Moonlight provided its listeners with cadencial resolutions from the start.  Breath-taking harmonies persisted throughout the movement, provided in part by the combination of a deep string sound and low brass notes.  Notable once again was the harp, plucking harmonics as the flute accompanied it in duet. 

           Opportunity for imagery was extraordinary, and surely every audience member pictured a beautiful starlit sky, clouds gently passing through the illumination of a full moon.  The strings and high brass notes added mysteriousness to the image, and one was reminded of the spooks that a full moon might bring.  The xylophone joined the strings and brass in a two-note series parallel to the trumpets.  While the xylophonist and the trumpet section may have been slightly off in their attempt for unison, Moonlight ended calmly enough.

            When the Storm finally came, it certainly came with a bang as the timpani pounded the sounds of thunder throughout the auditorium.  High brass notes resonated in chaos and confusion, and the fast descending notes from the strings provided the listener with a downpour of rain, sheets and sheets of rain.  The trumpets rose and fell in chromaticism, adding still more chaos and confusion, and the snare drum entered, clapping the thunder in a different timbre than the timpani. The crash! of the cymbals that soon followed provided yet another clasp of thunder, but this time was followed by a heart-stopping quiet—the calm of the storm. The harp glissandoed upward once again, and suddenly chaos ensued, the strings frantically fingering a series of speedy notes.                 
           Then, as suddenly as it came, the chaos disappeared and the calm of the storm returned, only to be followed once again by fast notes from the strings. A series of minor seconds followed, and with yet another glissando upward from the harp (Britten surely favored the harp, or at least made a note to recognize and utilize every instrument in the orchestra), Storm’s true nature returned in chaos. The melody from the string section was somewhat disturbing, and as it rose in suspense it rose in volume, building, building in dynamics and thickness, until an upward scale brought the orchestra and audience to a brilliant and wholly satisfying ending.  But audience members refused to allow the conductor to take an intermission just yet, their persistent applause demanding his reappearance on stage.

After a brief intermission, the audience took their seats in anticipation and Kenneth Kiesler resumed his position as conductor.  With a deep breath and an encouraging look to his orchestra, it began.  Beethoven’s Fifth, in its radiant entirety, was everything that it should always be:  powerful, compelling, and engulfed in magnificent brilliance.  Suffice to say, it is difficult to describe in words the performance the University Symphony Orchestra gave of the infamous Fifth.  Audience members all around me were enthralled, eyes darting back and forth to various orchestra members and the conductor as the different instruments of the Fifth resonated throughout the auditorium. 

Each of the four movements; Allegro con brio, Andante con moto, and the final two Allegros, were performed with tasteful musicality-just the way Beethoven himself would have wished it to be performed. 

The Andante con moto, in double variation form, included two basic themes that were repeated in alteration and varied throughout the movement.  The entire orchestra did this with majesty and pomp; intricate flute harmonies were present and violins sometimes played the melody only to be echoed by the cellos. 

The third movement returned to C minor in an intense, serious manner, and the fourth movement was nothing less than exhilarating. The coda was unusually long, and the orchestra pushed the tempo faster and faster as the melody drove to the end.  Finally, the entire symphony was brought to rest with a C major chord, extended for quite some time as Beethoven teased the audience with several ostensible resolutions.  Multiple cadences were presented, and as each chord was played in fortissimo, the excitement built and built along with each audience member’s heartbeat.  By the time the final cadence was completed, each pair of eyes was watching and waiting for the conductor to bring his arms to a resting position so that they might release the energy that Beethoven and the University Symphony Orchestra gave them.  And not surprisingly, the very moment his hands touched his sides, the audience burst to their feet in applause and approval.  A spirited—albeit somewhat accelerated—performance by a spirited and talented orchestra:  Beethoven himself could not have hoped for more.