Symphony finale
By Jeff Mannix -
Special to the Herald
April 20, 2004
The bookends for Maestro Post's final San Juan Symphony concert of the season Saturday night at the Community Concert Hall were deliriously heady compositions by two of the greatest composers of the 19th century, Beethoven and Brahms. The two volumes being held between, works by Igor Stravinsky and John Adams, demanded forbearing, sufferance and no small degree of concentration.
Music Director Arthur Post, pianist Norman Krieger and the indefatigable musicians of the symphony ventured courageously from yin to yang and left the audience and the season further enlightened musically than anyone in this parched crossroads-to-nowhere has the right to expect.
Beethoven's Coriolan Overture is a work of heroic proportion written in 1807 by a man who was in the process of challenging the rules of engagement: venturing into the florid field of storytelling, or program music, which became de rigueur in the Romantic era and almost a requirement for composers to musically describe scenes of nature or war or patriotism.
The orchestra played with enthusiasm and its now quotidian skill under the baton of Post. The room was filled with the luscious, full vibrato for which Beethoven has been justly canonized.
Post's second selection was a piece entitled "Lollapalooza," written by minimalist composer John Adams. There was nothing minimal about this music. In fact, it was the maximum use of every member of the orchestra and must have been vertiginous for Post, who was required to perform the duty of directing traffic in addition to directing musicians. The different sections of the orchestra were delineated by John Adams into cells, each maintaining and integrating their five beat (lo-la-pa-LOO-za) rhythms into the syncopation of the whole.
It sounded as if it were an amalgamation of all the bad rock 'n' roll music of the 1970s, yet it wasn't at all that vacuous. It was a finely constructed piece of modern classical music, which may be an oxymoron, and one could sense that the orchestra was divided about how much fun they were having with it. It was, however, bohemian, humorous, garish, hypnotic and delightfully entertaining.
Igor Stravinsky lit up the music world in 1911 with the completion of his second ballet score for the Ballets Russes in Paris. He became famous a year earlier with "The Fire Bird," which followed the traditions of Rimsky-Korsakoff and the Russian national school. But with this ballet, "Petrouchka," Stravinsky departed from tradition and eventually influenced music composition - how would you say? - irreparably, starting a vogue of polytonality by putting together two keys at once: in this case, C Major and F Sharp Major, still today known as the Petrouchka chord. In retrospect, this was the beginning of modern music celebrated by some, loathed by more, but receiving a standing ovation this night in Durango.
After playing the Adams piece, then Stravinsky's "Petrouchka," it was hard not to imagine the musicians using the intermission to soak their fingers and lips in ice water. These were two very arduous compositions following the customarily verbose Beethoven, hugely demanding of the musicians. Post ventured his reputation this season on the heretofore inchoate San Juan Symphony, and his temerity was met with surprising, delightful, robust equivalence.
Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 is thought by Norman Krieger to make a believer of anyone who hears it. It is a most exquisite composition, and Krieger attacked it with his patented vigor and passion, making this sold-out crowd believers of at least the genius of Johannes Brahms, the powerful gift possessed by Krieger, and the good fortune the Four Corners has in Arthur Post and the San Juan Symphony.
