David Stabler wrote a review [not posted on the Oregonian's website at the time of posting] of this Saturday’s classical series concert featuring the Latvian violinist Baiba Skride as soloist in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto along with Sibelius’ Scene with Cranes and the Walton First Symphony.

He was not enamored of Skride’s approach to the Tchaikovsky:

She didn’t  employ an unusual range of colors nor did she phrase freely enough to suggest spontaneity.  Her playing wasn’t unfeeling, but it didn’t burn with intensity, either.

I couldn’t disagree more!

I fully admit that it is quite unusual for the Tchaikovsky to be played as music rather than being used as a star vehicle to be ridden hard and put away wet, its meaning wrung out of it by wild and self-indulgent gestures, becoming a parody of itself.  I remember a favorite soloist of our previous music director who trampled the poor Tchaikovsky so thoroughly and completely that it ceased to be a violin concerto and became something akin to an uncensored view into MTV’s The Real World video confessional booth - phrases were vomited forth with no regard for continuity, only for emotional affect or audience pandering, and left me feeling cheap and used as a result.

My wife Heather wonders if we’re so numb as a society to performances as over-the-top spectacles that we’re left flat when presented with a nuanced performance - and since when did simplicity become a dirty word?

As for lack of spontanaeity, Skride did many things differently than in our rehearsals with her, and there was an atmosphere of chamber music making on stage for the entirety of the concerto - perhaps it didn’t make it into the deadened reaches of our concert hall’s flaccid acoustics - but there was spontanaeity aplenty.

Also, the second movement calls for the soloist to play the A-section with a mute, but most soloists trained by Galamian or DeLay have ignored those instructions (as well as making many cuts in the first and last movements).  Skride chose to play the entire movement muted, which is somewhat unusual - I’ll have to ask her about how she came to that decision.  She did use two different mutes between Saturday and Sunday night - we’ll see what she does tonight.

This weekend brought a huge program to the Schnitz.  Huge how?  Well, first, in terms of a major new talent that is just beginning to be known here in America, the Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.  Second, the Walton First Symphony, a gigantic workout for the entire orchestra that makes a similarly large (read LOUD) sonic statement in its second performance in OSO history. [Read more →]

The German broadcasting network Deutsche Welle has an excellent documentary on the supremely talented Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, who is making her OSO debut this weekend.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

• I just caught Robert Levine’s latest blog entry about the Milwaukee Symphony’s recent concerts with Hilary Hahn.  Robert is one of the smartest guys out there, I’m coming to appreciate, and reading this post had me scratching my head and wondering “why couldn’t I have said that?”.  I like the way he clearly expresses what’s on his mind, and gets to the crux of the matter with minimal equivocation.  Hahn was in Milwaukee playing the Tchaikovsky concerto, and Levine really hits the nail on the head about this piece (which is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, by the way):

But I found myself not really convinced by her version of the piece, which surprised me, as I hadn’t felt that way about the previous times she’d played with us. I spent all week trying to figure out why. The best I could come up with was that she was trying to find more in the piece than was actually there. She was making wonderful and interesting phrases all over the place. But it’s not that kind of piece. In a funny way, her great strengths as a musician – her intelligence and imagination – were not really relevant to the piece, and even got in the way. One doesn’t think of semplice and Tchaikowsky as ever being coupled – but I think that’s what it needs. Perhaps that’s why the last movement consistently worked the best, because all it needs – all there’s time for, really – is technique and a kind of inexorable rhythmic stability, which of course she has in spades.

• In other news, my joint recital with Heather Blackburn went pretty well - I’ll have more thoughts on it when I have a little more distance from it.  For now, my alarm clock is off until further notice, however!

• Last Friday evening I went to hear a chamber concert organized by cellist Justin Kagan, and it featured some top local players in works of Shostakovich (his Piano Quintet), Gerald Cohen (a trio for viola, cello and piano), and Schoenberg (his sextet Verklärte Nacht).  Every work was played with conviction and assurance, with kudos going out to everyone involved, as to single out one or several would be unfair to them all.  

I hope that concerts such as this become more of a regular event in Portland.  We have plenty of high-powered out-of-towners that come in and play chamber music on the various series in town, but little opportunity to hear our high-powered locals play the same.