Direction of travel - Copland, Bartok and Bernstein in ADDA, Alicante

It is rare for a concert program to hang together as a unit both musically and intellectually. But the latest program from the ADDA orchestra in Alicante under the direction of Josep Vicent achieved this dual goal, and a whole lot more as well. 

There were many themes, but the enduring intellectual idea was surely the experience of the immigrant in the United States of America. The composers represented, Copland, Bartok and Bernstein, all had immigrant experience in their private reality. Copland’s family originated in Russian Lithuania, Bernstein’s in Ukraine and Bartok, of course, was himself Hungarian, but resident in the United States when he wrote his last piano concerto. Eugene Goossens, who provided the theme for the Copland variation that opened the program, was British, but he spent many years in the United States, and also in Australia. And, of course, Bernstein’s masterpiece, West Side Story, was set amongst the Puerto Rican immigrant community living in New York.

Immigrants can often feel like outsiders, excluded from local culture and therefore in search of their own identity. And this feeling of detachment, perhaps not exactly estrangement, came across musically in the works chosen. I found the musical similarity, not in the notes, but in the overall concept, of the second movement of the Bartok, the Copland Quiet City and the Somewhere theme from West Side Story a tightening thread that bound these works together.

Gentle but slightly dissonant string tones characterize Bartok’s night music, which can be described as “eerie dissonances providing a backdrop to sounds of nature and lonely melodies”. The third piano concerto’s second movement is in this style and forms the emotional heart of the peace. Bartok was not only exiled when he wrote this music, but also ill and penniless. No wonder the harmonies suggest unsettled, insecure feelings.

In Quiet City, Aaron Copland tries to depict New York at night, when a clearly lonely young Jewish man blows a trumpet through the silence. The answering call of the cor anglais is like an echo, but it seems to recall a former life now lost, rather than a playback of current experience. And then to Bernstein and Somewhere which, in the orchestral suite, concludes the piece with an unsettling clash of harmonies, suggesting not only estrangement from community, but also death.

Now these musical and intellectual threads, so beautifully drawn together by this orchestra’s perfect playing, did not arise by chance. This wonderful musical experience was clearly thought through by the inspired artistic director at ADDA, Josep Vicent. And not only did it work, but he created one of the most memorable concerts I have ever had the privilege of attending.

We started with a short piece, the Copland contribution to the Jubilee Variations. Eugene Goossens provided the theme, and ten other composers wrote one variation each. We heard just the one by Aaron Copland, two minutes of the composer being his most American.

Then the Bartok piano Concerto No. 3 followed, featuring Jose de Solaun as soloist. To describe this performance as memorable would do it an injustice. The understanding and communication between director, soloist and orchestra was palpable in a work that can sometimes not knit together. In this performance it came across as a perfect unit, perfected by the playing. The slow movement was particularly memorable. The pianist then played two solo pieces by Debussy as encores for an adoring audience.

Quiet City by Aaron Copland opened the second half. Josep Vicent placed the solo trumpet high on the balcony at the side of the stage and its answering cor anglais on the opposite side of the auditorium. It was a theatrical masterstroke, serving to emphasize the separateness and the loneliness of being a member of a minority amidst a sprawling and perhaps oppressive city.

And then the rip-roaring suite from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein allowed the orchestra to show off its virtuosity, an opportunity that the ADDA orchestra grasped with abandon. But this piece, despite its mambo, despite its big band jazz, despite its finger clicking, is eventually tragic. Star-crossed lovers die and the loss is deeply felt in the music, to such an extent that a piece that in theory arouses and excites, eventually deflates with its gut-wrenching sadness.

And then the direction really came into its own. Josep Vicent had chosen to include two encores and they provided yet another layer to the musical and intellectual threads. First, he chose to repeat the mambo with just a little audience participation. This was the lollipop that again got the audience rocking. But then, we had the funeral march from Beethoven’s seventh symphony, a reminder perhaps of the tragedy that we befell the immigrant community in West Side Story. It was a memorable evening, including pop music highs, loneliness and estrangement, loss, and death, but its real triumph was the artistic direction that created it. And under that direction, surely the ADDA orchestra, via its superb playing and its inspired programmes, can already claim to be at the pinnacle of achievement.