JPO Spring Symphony Season: Second Week

Just a few short notes from Thursday's JPO concert, the second in this Spring Symphony Season.

Justus Franz was back to conduct, and the soloist was the Latvian violinist Kristine Balanas. (After our ovation, she let us know she had been to South Africa twice before, and found our audiences warm and generous.) She played the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, with an incredibly sweet, flowing sound (like a light lyric soprano), which was a bit small at times; sometimes, when the orchestra played, I couldn't hear her at all. She also played with a strikingly free rubato, some of the freest tempi that I've heard from a soloist. Her encore was a lovely tango, played with even greater sweetness and sensitive tempo fluctuations.

The orchestral accompaniment was highly disappointing. As unfair as it may be, my impression was that Franz had done nothing at all in the rehearsals with the orchestra; there didn't seem to be any conception at all of the shape of a melody, of phrasing, of musical ideas and feelings, or of building and developing a large structure. It seemed like the orchestra was out on its own, and Franz was just there to (half-successfully) keep time. The tutti restatement of the first movement's main theme at the end of the exposition was as bright and satisfying as you could hope for, but that was thanks to Tchaikovsky (and the instrumentalists), not Thursday's conductor.

The second half of the concert was a completely different performance. Franz began by filling in the audience on the usual programmatic information on Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, explaining the scenes depicted and the use of new instrumentation to paint new pictures. He dwelled on the woodwind cadenza on the second movement, which mimics bird calls, and even asked the flautist, oboist, and clarinetist to demonstrate their parts. The audience seemed to greatly appreciate the whole speech, and gave a warm knowing laugh when the birdsong arrived during the performance. (Something I always appreciate about JPO audiences is that there are many concertgoers who are hearing each piece for the first time.)

Here, Franz seemed to be full of ideas of what he wanted from the music. From the very opening, the orchestra shaped the melodies beautifully, with sudden changes in dynamics and tempos that gave the wonderful effect of shifting colour and light, like walking through the green-lit lanes and valleys of a wooded countryside (as Beethoven intended). For me, it was like shafts of sunlight were breaking into the Linder Auditorium. Mostly, the sound that came from the orchestra was buoyant and light, bouncing from the stage and sailing right up to us in the balcony. (Franz had said in his speech that, to him, the symphony contrasts strongly with Beethoven's darker and more dramatic symphonic music.) With such a highly pleasurable surprise coming after the interval, the whole affair ended far too soon for me. Even when programmes look unimaginative, there can be great delight in fresh air blowing through the most familiar works.