This evening’s Piccolo Spoleto Spotlight Concert, Music in the Time of Charles Ives, brought the Piccolo Spoleto Festival Orchestra (listed in the program as the PS Conservatory Orchestra) to the welcoming acoustic of New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church under the able baton of Maestro Donald Portnoy. After the deluge of intimate trios and other chamber ensembles which have graced this series so far this week, the sound of a (well, almost…) full orchestra brought a welcome expansion of tonal color, wider textures, and even two vocalists to our series. The orchestra handled this modernist fare superbly, with only a slight muddiness occasionally coming from the violin section. Programming seven (count ‘em…) composers of such vastly different temperament and style together may seem like a risky proposition; our musicians not only brought them together, but also created a rich context for evaluating the impact this period was to have on later Twentieth Century music.
We began with Children’s Day, a lilting romp of an Allegro from Charles Ives’ Pulitzer Prize winning Symphony No. 3, “The Camp Meeting”. This beautiful movement delightfully creates a very slight off-kilter feeling, showing exactly how modernism strove to take the traditional elements of musical expression and combine them in new ways. In light of Ives’ tireless (yet completely secretive) support of all forms of “new” music that came after he had stopped composing, this piece now sounds almost quaint, but (almost) left me wishing a few of the other works had been dropped so we could hear the whole symphony in this large context. Nah, the program was perfect as it stood…
Manuel de Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares came next, and we welcomed mezzo-soprano Jennifer Luiken to the stage. Her darkly rich and full voice (with masterful vibrato) served these Spanish gems well. The watery textures of Asturiana (the third song) were a particular highlight for me.
From Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Grosso No. 1, for strings and piano, we then experience the opening Prelude, and closing Fugue. The agitated blocks of sound rubbing against one another during the Prelude were positively thrilling! So much so, that normal concert etiquette was abandoned at its conclusion and the orchestra received a round of applause. Your humble scribe must admit that while I am normally quite the stickler for such etiquette…I joined in… The Fugue then announced its brisk theme, which seems to ask the question, “What if Brahms had been born a farmhand?” By itself, this theme could be construed as a bit maudlin, but when its full complexity dawns, it reveals itself to be a masterful construction.
Up next came Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise, for Orchestra, Op. 34, No.14. It’s sweetly plaintive melody deeply touched all present, acting in this program as a palate cleanser before the arrival of our second vocalist.
Soprano Jill Terhaar Lewis then took the stage for three of Giacomo Puccini’s most popular arias. “Mi chiamano Mimi” from La Boheme kicked things off in grand style, but our singer wasn’t singing quite loud enough at the beginning to compete with the orchestra. By the aria’s end, she found a proper balance, revealing astounding control and a sweetly round, but firmly grounded tone . “Senza mamma, o bimbo” from Sour Angelica and “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi proved her point!
The sharply angular and dissonant contours of Carl Ruggles’ Men and Mountains lifted the Puccini induced reverie quite abruptly, but served as a good reminder that this is music that looks forward, ever. Ruggles was a member of the group of composers known as the “American Five” (of which Ives was the most prominent), the modernist answer to Russia’s “Five.” The first movement, Men, drops one into the Minotaur’s Labyrinth without so much as a peck on the cheek, always finding a sharp angle and keeping any true sense of resolution just out of reach. Lilacs opens with quiet dissonances that proceed to rise and fall like waves. The effect is one of walking down a school hallway while someone in each room is raking their fingernails across the blackboard (and occasionally we venture into one of those rooms…). Sure, it’s unsettling, but quite evocative. Marching Mountains closes this piece by combining elements of the previous movements, then alternates between exhaling them softly into the ether, and huffing and puffing them with a fiery dragon’s breath. Not the prettiest of works, but one which boldly achieves its purpose.
Our concert closed with the Allegro from Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25, “Classical.” It served a fine and richly exciting ending to this wonderfully varied concert which our orchestra obviously enjoyed playing, and their playing showed it. The more conventionally “pretty” lines went over well with the audience as well, and a standing ovation ensued. Another most satisfying evening for the Spotlight Series. And me…
