by Laura McDowell
February 28, 2010 Brevard, NC: The Asheville
Symphony Orchestra under
the direction of Maestro Daniel Meyer reprised their fourth Masterworks
program “Red Hot and Blue” as part of the Porter Center
Artist Series at Brevard College. Di
Wu, a Van Cliburn competition
finalist and winner of Juilliard’s William Petschek Piano Debut
Recital Award, was the featured soloist in Gershwin’s "Rhapsody
in Blue." Offering something for everybody — the much-beloved
American jazz favorite, Handel’s festive Overture from Music
for the Royal Fireworks, and Shostakovich’s monumental Symphony
No. 10 — the
program was gratifying not only in its emotional scope but also its
fine execution. Several in the audience had come to hear the program
a second time, and with good reason.
Not only are the acoustics of the Porter Center superior to those of
the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, but the orchestra’s inspired playing
under Meyer’s direction merits such attention. The orchestra’s
personnel are experienced musicians and collectively they seem up to
any challenge Meyer hands them. They play with energy, focus, and meticulous
attention to detail, rendering each piece with stylistic integrity.
Handel’s Overture, composed to commemorate the signing of the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 ending the eight-year War of Austrian
Succession, was commissioned to accompany a fireworks display. This “outdoor” music
with its scoring for violins and the “warlike instruments” of
woodwinds, brass, and drums works splendidly also as festive indoor
music. The majestic opening bars with their regal dotted rhythms recall
a kind of formality especially cultivated in 18th century ceremonial
music. The orchestra’s range of terraced dynamics was dramatic,
and in the softer passages the synthesized “harpsichord” could
be clearly heard. Meyer’s brisk tempi in the two Allegro sections
resulted in some breathtaking string passagework against the soaring
brass lines — absolutely thrilling!
With Di Wu and Meyer’s direction, Gershwin’s "Rhapsody
in Blue" was clearly in good hands. Wu is a powerful player and was
more
than a match for the orchestra, but knows when to hold back where necessary.
Most impressive were her careful voicings in several extended solo
passages and her near-chamber-like touch in quieter passages which
she performed as introspective quasi-improvisatory interludes.
Like a massive emotional counterweight to the preceding works came
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 after intermission. Shostakovich
had labored for years under Stalinist repression, at times in defiance
and at others in deference to the Soviet regime. After Stalin’s
death in 1953, the composer set to work to write a work that would
incorporate not only a portrait of Stalin in its second movement, but
also a portrait of himself in the third movement, also a scherzo. A
four-note motive of D/E-flat/C/B, crafted from a transliteration of
the composer’s initials, embodies his presence, not only in this
movement, but in the finale, heard over and over as though in triumph
over the dictator. Meyer took an extra moment, standing quietly on
the podium with head down, to collect himself and in so doing, gather
us all together for what we were about to experience.
This is clearly “indoor” music composed for the concert
hall, but at times it strains against the physical constraints of the
building. The orchestration is huge, with much written as massive blocks
of sounds — low winds, horns alone, all brass, low strings, percussive
outbursts. Solos and duets emerge, but the brooding mass of the orchestra
is never far away. The first movement sounds like one huge arch, building
inexorably from a dark serpentine melody in the low strings to a shattering
climax, only to recede again to the same brooding string sounds. The
second movement, Stalin’s portrait, sounds like a forced and
furious march, relentlessly intense. Meyer stabbed out cues right and
left into the abrupt end of the movement, resulting in someone spontaneously
shouting what we were all thinking — “Whew!”
The elusive third movement scherzo proceeded in triple meter, but most
of the phrasing worked against the meter, creating a “contrarian” portrait
of musical defiance. In the finale the 4-note motive introduced previously
becomes prominent. The music refuses to settle into any one meter,
and the incessant repetitions of blocks of dissonant music are both
thrilling and unsettling. This was truly an inspired performance that
appeared to have left Meyer emotionally spent, and brought the audience
to its feet. Bravi tutti!
