From the roars of "brava" and the standing ovation the moment the music stopped at the Tennessee Theatre Friday night, one might have thought it was an opera and the audience was rewarding a gorgeous soprano aria at the end of Act One.
Except that the attractive soloist in the beautiful copper gown was holding a violin, the orchestra was on stage instead of down in the pit and it was only the end of the first movement of Johannes Brahms' "Concerto in D Major for Violin and Orchestra," Op. 77.
Had this happened in Leipzig, Germany, in 1879 at the concerto's premiere, with the soloist Joseph Joachim, for whom the concerto was written, the response of the audience in the middle of a concerto would have been the accepted norm.
But it's not these days. Just why concert etiquette permits opera audiences to immediately respond to music well performed, as they have for centuries, while symphony audiences are expected to sit quietly until the whole thing ends can be confusing for first-time concertgoers. And judging by the volume of the roars and the number of people on their feet, there must have been a houseful of first-timers on Friday.
Music that comes to the kind of triumphant end with which Brahms concludes the first movement deserves a response, especially since it arrived shortly after virtuoso violinist Rachel Parton Pine had brilliantly maneuvered her way though Brahms' very difficult, very un-violinistic passages, followed by a magnificent performance of her own cadenza.
Often considered a man's concerto because of the bold assertiveness of the music, Pine's heavy-metal musician alter ego was more than enough to conquer its demands.
But nowhere was her playing more warm and lovely than during the double- and triple-stop phrases that can be harsh and grating in the hands of a less-gifted musician, as well as her playing of the short, quieter "Adagio" second movement.
To reward the audience for its enthusiasm, after the approving audience settled down at the end of the Brahms, Pine presented a taste of Chicago blues with Corky Siegel's "Blues for Unaccompanied Violin," Op. 11.
The concert opened with a well-articulated performance of Brahms' "Tragic Overture," Op. 81.
But as good as maestro Lucas Richman and the KSO's performances of the two Brahms works were, the orchestra's best playing may have been reserved for a stellar performance of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major," Op. 60.
The unusually sensitive, exquisitely delicate opening moments of the first movement were as beautifully executed by Richman as any of his very good work with the orchestra thus far.
Bravo.
Harold Duckett is a freelance writer who writes about music and theater for the News Sentinel.
© 2010, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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Comments » 1
ArtSeen writes:
I'm guessing that Duckett was so in a rush to champion the shallowness and distraction of premature applause in this concert, that he couldn't be bothered to even get the soloist's name right. After all, it's BARTON, not "Parton." But perhaps, another Parton was what he had in mind, anyway. As far as his other comments, I wonder--is there a musical version of the phrase "penny-wise and pound foolish"?
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