Found coins: October 2014

Friday, October 24, 2014

Seven cents along Washington St

R.I.P. Frühbeck, part two

This is the second weekend of concerts that the late Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos was meant to conduct with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His original program remains in place, and in retrospect it seems he had planned his own swansong. The first item is J.S. Bach's Cantata No 82, 'Ich habe genug'. The title aria translates as "I am content", and Frühbeck could certainly reflect back on his career with satisfaction. He was principal conductor in Berlin, Montreal, Vienna, Tokyo and Dresden, and he guest conducted in most of the major cities around the world, including New York, London, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Boston. The other arias from the cantata, Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen (Fall asleep, you weary eyes) and Ich freue mich auf meinen Tod (I look forward to my death) suggest that Frühbeck had his own mortality in mind when he chose this composition.

The second item on the program is A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms. The work spans seven movements; the selected texts from the Lutheran bible offer comfort to our suffering, meditate on the fleetingness of human life and anticipate the joys that await us hereafter. The themes of contented resignation from the Bach cantata resonate in the closing section of the requiem: "they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."

Welsh conductor Bramwell Tovey took the baton for this concert and proved himself adept in vocal works. Joining him for the Bach cantata was fellow Welshman Bryn Terfel. This bass-baritone looks and sounds like he could hail a ship from shore, yet riding above his robust set of lungs is a shimmer of sweet facial resonance. Terfel could just as easily sing a baby to sleep in his arms.

The Bach employed just 21 musicians: an oboe soloist, a bassoon, a console organ with cello to accompany the recitatives, one string bass, four violas and a dozen violins. In contrast, the Brahms used a full orchestra, harp, pipe organ, chorus and two vocal soloists. There were easily two hundred performers onstage. In order to accommodate forces of this size, the Symphony Hall house managers remove the first few rows of audience seating and extend the stage with a ten-foot thrust. It took four and a half minutes for the 120 members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus to file in to the five levels of risers behind the orchestra.

The chorus sang from memory and stood through most of the hour-long work (one alto needed to take an early seat). They matched Bryn Terfel's impact with some full-throated singing, but they were most impressive in the blended harmonies of the quietest sections. The full chorus got to sit in the fifth movement, when we finally heard the female soloist, Rosemary Joshua. The Welsh soprano had a rich, ringing sound that carried the hall.

Bramwell Tovey conducted with fluid gestures but never called attention to himself. What struck me most was how right the two works sounded, with well judged tempos and no jarring eccentricities. The requiem closed with a brief silence, a fitting tribute to Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, may he rest in peace.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Free concert in a sub-basement

Members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra are in the midst of a series of free community chamber concerts. Last weekend a string quartet performed at Beverly's Larcom Theatre, and today they repeated the same program in Cambridge. The venue was the 200-seat blondwood lecture hall in the sub-basement of the new main library. The gently raked seating had good sight lines and made for a comfortable hour of up-close music appreciation.

The players were Victor Romanul and Jason Horowitz on violins, Michael Zaretsky on viola and Blaise Déjardin on cello. Their program dovetailed with items heard in recent concerts of the full orchestra. Carl Nielsen's String Quartet No 4 in F had a Nordic flavor in the third movement, with skipping folk rhythms and a few fiddling slides. The musicians were having fun, and it was equally fun to listen to.

The violinists swapped first and second chairs for Franz Schubert's String Quartet in A minor, D804. The second movement quoted the main theme from the incidental music to Rosamunde, which the BSO played two weeks ago. It must be an engaging change of pace for these orchestral musicians to work as a chamber ensemble, but there was a sense that this was a pick-up quartet sight reading their parts. They seemed more attuned to the sheet music than each other; there was little of the eye contact that would indicate shared familiarity with the material. There were quick corrections of missed notes, the cello had a tendency to play flat, and they could have milked more expression out of the final movement of the Schubert without going overboard.

Still, I got my money's worth, and there was even a coffee and dessert reception afterwards. The coming weekends will feature a string quintet playing in Medford, Lowell, East Boston and Dedham. Go to BSO.org for locations and to reserve your free ticket.