Thursday December 17th, 2015 – Tonight at Carnegie Hall, Leon Botstein (above) was on the podium for a program of music written by Russian Jewish composers between 1874 and 1921. Performed by the American Symphony Orchestra, the concert featured two U.S. premieres and one New York premiere, as well as Anton Rubinstein’s 2nd cello concerto with soloist István Várdai.
Aleksandr Krein’s The Rose and The Cross (‘Symphonic Fragments after Aleksandr Blok’) was composed between 1917-1920, making it the newest work on tonight’s program. Blok was a great Symbolist poet and his mystical drama The Rose and The Cross went thru more than 200 rehearsals at the Moscow Art Theater but was never performed in public. The composer Krein was inspired by Blok’s writing and composed this suite to honor the poet. Tonight’s performance marked the suite’s New York premiere.
The music, which shows traces of harmonic advancement over the other three – older – works played this evening, opens with a somber, rather creepy atmosphere. Later it will take on an almost cinematic feeling, with effects such as trumpet fanfares and shades of exotica from the harp. A songful melody becomes a recurring theme, and the suite rises to a triumphant conclusion depicting the “boundless energy of the heart that sings.”
The Hungarian cellist István Várdai (above) then took the stage for the evening’s one (somewhat) familiar work: the second cello concerto of Anton Rubinstein. The oldest and most conservative piece on tonight’s bill, it marks the pianist-composer as a pioneer, since he was the first major Russian composer to work in the concerto genre (Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto still lay four years in the future). Rubinstein draws upon a very ‘Russian’ sense of melody; the concerto is a vastly pleasing work, and one which places great demands on the soloist.
Mr. Várdai, tall and youthful-looking, is an extraordinarily gifted musician and seemed to win the hearts of the Carnegie Hall audience this evening within moments of starting to play. His timbre has a lovely, deep-violet colour and his technique is refined in both agility and dynamic control. From his opening soulful song, the cellist moved thru a scampering passage and on to a strikingly brisk downhill scale that ended on a delicious trill. A second theme plumbs the most pungent depths before turning into a rapid dance.
The concerto’s movements flow into one another, with a wind chorale signaling the start of the Andante; Mr. Várdai embarks on an optimistic melody but the composer cannot resist a desire to let the music dance. After a mini-cadenza, a jogging Allegro carries us along. The orchestral texture lightens, with cello filigree, then lapses into an interlude and grows quiet. Things slow down beautifully for another injection of melody and the cellist then serves up a more sustained cadenza before a final surge to the end.
Mr. Várdai’s superb performance elicited a very enthusiastic response from the audience; I very much hope to have further opportunities to experience his artistry.
Following the interval, Mikhail Gnesin’s From Shelley (‘Symphonic Fragment after Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound‘) had its U.S. premiere. Written between 1906 and 1908 this short (8 minutes) work was composed while Gnesin was studying with Rimsky-Korsakov. Its brevity precludes any real development of ideas, yet there is a fine sense of the theme blossoming, and some very nice writing for the horns and harp. The ending is, in a word, beautiful.
The U.S. premiere of Maximilian Steinberg’s first symphony raised the question: why did it take nearly one hundred and ten years for this symphony to reach us? It’s as exciting and finely-crafted as many other well-known symphonies; the composer appears to have drawn inspiration from such symphonists as Beethoven and Schumann, eschewing the Russian-nationalist influence of his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov.
Steinberg’s 1st has an animated, congenial opening with the immediate establishing of a rich theme that that put me in mind of – of all things – Humperdinck’s HANSEL UND GRETEL (“Der Wind! Der Wind!”); this theme will re-sound throughout the symphony. This is big, pleasing music with a variety of rhythmic patterns. The timpani lend a stately quality.
In an exuberant Allegro vivace, the composer lightens things to a scherzo quality, later taking on a waltzy air. This second movement ends with Mendelssohnian charm.
After a darkish start, the Andante features a clarinet theme which develops into a tutti passage. In a gentle acceleration, horns and oboe play a part, and then in a richer build-up the horns grow passionate. Horn and clarinet voices entwine; oboe and flute pipe up. The music becomes cinematic in sweep before receding to solo clarinet.
“Der Wind! Der Wind!” is again evoked by horns and trumpets as the finale commences. The oboe speaks out, then the horns launch a fugue. As the Allegro moderato continues on, the music meanders somewhat, as though Steinberg was unsure how best to end the piece: but end it does – strongly.
Kudos to Maestro Botstein for assembling a rewarding program of relative rarities, for including the Rubinstein cello concerto (and Mr. Várdai’s excellent playing of it), and for bringing the Steinberg symphony to these shores.
This evening’s repertory – click on each composer’s name for biographical information:
Aleksandr Krein – The Rose and the Cross (N.Y. Premiere)
Anton Rubinstein– Cello Concerto No. 2
Mikhail Gnesin – From Shelley (U.S. Premiere)
Maximilian Steinberg– Symphony No. 1 (U.S. Premiere)
Oberon's Glade 