GlickArts

LSO MasterWork 6 - The Modern and the Powerful   April 1, 2019

As I was entering Wharton Center for a Lansing Symphony Orchestra concert on Saturday night, a friend said, “I’m looking forward to the Tchaikovsky, but it looks like I’ll have to sit through a modern piece first.”

It’s true that most people go to a symphony concert and want to hear the music that is most familiar to them, and if not familiar certainly tuneful and harmonic.

But Maestro Timothy Muffitt enjoys contemporary music and somehow manages to find works that any audience can enjoy. As it turns out, “Visions and Miracles” by Christopher Theofanidis was a wonderful work in three movements for string orchestra.  Adapted from a string quartet, the work sounded a bit like Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” at times.

Muffitt has changed the seating of the orchestra recently, placing the cellos near the center of the orchestra with the second violins opposite the first violins.  I prefer this arrangement, as we hear the four voices - violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello – more distinctly.  Certainly, it worked very well for the fugal style in which this piece was written.

A few more instruments were added for the following work on the program: the Schumann Cello concerto (woodwinds and an abbreviated brass section) featuring the young gifted soloist, Nicholas Canellakis.

The Schuman is not as popular as many other showstopper cello concertos, but it is a very poignant, heartfelt piece.  Canellakis has a strong, intense sound and played the concerto with deep expression.

As usual, Muffitt is a sensitive accompanist, and he and Canellakis clearly enjoyed making music together.  Although the work has three movements, they were played with no interruption. 

The big work for the evening, and the reason most people were in the Great Hall that night, was the powerful Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique” by Tchaikovsky.

The dark, somber work, for me, is Tchaikovsky’s finest.  It was first performed nine days before Tchaikovsky’s death.

My Russian friends tell me that Tchaikovsky’s music is not romantic, it’s melancholy.  I’m not sure if that’s true, but I do think it fits the mood of the sixth.

For this work, we hear the complete Lansing Symphony, as the trombones, tuba, and the full horn section joined the orchestra.  And they were all needed to stretch out the full breadth of the massive chords.

When those chords were especially lush, as they were at the end of the first movement, I am sure Muffitt would have appreciated a larger string section to match the woodwinds and brass.

Some key section leaders were filled by substitute players on Saturday, and a certain soloistic quality was missing at times.

Tchaikovsky seemed to see the future with this work, meshing instruments together in creative ways.  But the clearest evidence of that modernism is the tantalizing second movement.

It is here that the Russian composer has the audacity to write a waltz in 5/4 time, rather the traditional 3/4. Interestingly, the melody is so lilting and beautiful that few realize that it is a strange meter for a waltz.  The music just flows along, and the audience members bob their heads in the swing of it all.

As he often does now, Muffitt conducted the Tchaikovsky without the benefit of a score (it was on his stand, but closed shut) which seemed to give him a closer communication with the orchestra.

This symphony is a serious work and demands much of the musicians.  Muffitt and the LSO were up to the challenge.