We got off to a rousing start with an energetic performance of Dvorak’s Carnival Overture. This is music that starts and ends with in-your-face celebration that conjures up a festive gathering by a populace eager to participate. The more reflective passages are surely sideshows and personal stories. Written as part of a sequence to illustrate Nature, Life, and Love, the Carnival Overture is celebratory throughout and certainly wakes up an audience.
The other familiar element came after the interval and was a performance of the concert hall favourite, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 From The New World. I have written before on the doubt that any of the now familiar themes were inspired by the composer’s stay in the United States, so I will not repeat the arguments here. In fact, I will concentrate on the performance.
Over the years, Josep Vicent, artistic director and conductor of the ADDA Orchestra, has built a performing and interpretive tradition, which is greatly appreciated by the loyal audience. What is more is that the orchestra members themselves seem to enjoy the concerts as much as their audience. The communication on stage between the conductor’s podium, and the orchestra and, indeed, between the orchestra members themselves is palpable. The relationships are clearly excellent, and this affects the way the orchestra performs.
The consequence of this is that no matter what the program, you always know that the musicians on stage will not only perform well, but will be happy with what they with what they are doing. The feeling does contrast quite strongly with the experience of listening to some visiting orchestras, where the concert seems to be just another day at the office. With Josep Vicent and the ADDA Orchestra, every audience member in the auditorium can be confident that a performance is going to be energetic, thoughtful, artistic and played with commitment.
Dvořák’s New World Symphony is so well known that I will not spend time describing the musical content. Let it be said, however, that the ADDA Orchestra made the piece sound fresh and inspired, though I am sure they have played it many times before. Bravi!
The unfamiliar filling of the concert sandwich was Tan Dun’s Clarinet Concerto, Three Lotus in the Zen Garden. The composer wrote the concerto for his friend, Patrick Messina, who was indeed the soloist last night.
The first piece by Tan Dun that I heard was his 1997 Symphony and to my ear he still inhabits a similar musical oeuvre. What Tan Dun tries to do is incorporate traditional Chinese forms and harmony with the language of western music. The Clarinet Concerto illustrated this in its use of percussion, pentatonic scales, rhythm and vocalization for the orchestra all within a form of a twenty-minute concerto for a soloist and orchestra.
But there was more to the concerto than this. Patrick Messina played almost continuously throughout the concerto and employed several modern techniques, like double stopping, breathing through the instrument and almost screeching harmonics.
The first part is evocative of the sounds of nature
when one is sitting in a garden. But this is very much Zen garden, where the
soft edges are hardened by stone. Patrick Messina virtuosity is clear, but in Tan
Dun’s piece this was rarely the kind of virtuosity that a concerto normally
displays. In other words, this was about control, phrasing, texture, and sonority
rather than a torrent of notes. I felt, overall, that the concerto came close
to a solo piece with orchestral accompaniment rather than a dialogue between
soloist and orchestra. But perhaps I am showing my very Eurocentric heritage by
writing that. But Tan Dun’s work is
clearly from a different cultural heritage, and I feel it will take more hearings
before the true nature of the music reveals itself. Patrick Messina’s more conventional virtuosity was on show in the klezmer
like encore.
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