Last night’s full moon would’ve just about been rising as the Spoleto Festival Orchestra tore into Brahms’ fourth symphony. Remember Cher in Moonstruck? Could that be what got into them? All I know is that some kind of magic happened at the Sottile last night. Some of us who thought we knew this towering masterpiece also thought we were somehow hearing it for the first time.
But first, our appetites were awakened and tantalized by Maurice Ravel’s delightful Mother Goose . It glowed with fairy-tale fantasy and captured fleeting moments of childish whimsy. And Ravel, the master orchestrator (maybe the best ever), gave our ears lots of gorgeous sound to chew on – and many individual players a chance to shine in challenging solo moments. For sure, a delicious appetizer.
But ahhh – the main course. Brahms owes his immortality as much to this piece as any other he wrote. The drive and drama of the opening movement – leavened by moments of lovely lyricism – set the stage. Throbbing, honeyed lower strings vied with devastating, stately nobility in the following Andante. The near-violent jolly spirits of next section were delivered at frisky (and risky) tempos. And – glory be – the final 34-variation passacaglia simply sizzled, crackling with energy and headlong drive
After the final crashing chord, I wondered if I could really believe my ears – or my heart. But a trusted festival friend from Chicago – who hangs out at Millennium Music a lot between events – told me that – while his esteemed hometown orchestra could play this piece in their sleep, they also sometimes sounded like they WERE asleep. He’d heard this music dozens of times – but never like this. Neither have I.
And that’s where the stupendously talented young musicians of the SFO make a huge difference. If you haven’t seen my earlier Eargasms tribute to them, scroll way down to my pre-festival posts. At Spoleto, we catch these brilliant kids on the brink of their artistic maturity: while their sense of musical wonder is still intact — before they become jaded and making music gets to be routine.
Maestro Villaume understands this: he knows he’s got a band of virtuosic young firebrands under his baton. He’s cool and canny enough to tap into all that youthful energy and passion, but strong enough to keep it all under control. It all adds up to an electric kind of music-making that is hard to beat – anywhere. I wonder how many of us truly realize how infernally lucky we are to be on the receiving end of such miracles.
If ears could drool, they’d be soaking my shoulders right now at the prospect of next week’s Mahler 4.
