Much has been made of "French style" in music and how different it is, "the usual" being the masterworks made familiar by Germany's early stewardship of musical history. French music does have its own style, but that style sounds "different" only from a foreign perspective or in juxtaposition with other styles. Dubay flawless, precise; cello
rich and resonantGregory Dubay plays Lalo's Cello Concerto
in D minor: With the Honolulu Symphony.Reviewed by Ruth O. Bingham
Special to the Star-BulletinIn an all-French concert, such as that presented by the Honolulu Symphony yesterday and coinciding with the city's ongoing French Festival, the music's "Frenchness" faded in importance, compared to its presence and variety. Witty, serious, serene, passionate ... the concert plumbed the gamut.
Maestro Samuel Wong opened with Jacques Ibert's six-movement Divertissement, which Wong described as "one of the naughtiest pieces written, full of joy and rien (nothing)." That rien included snippets of Mendelssohn's wedding march, police whistles, warped waltzes, discordant dirges, and a raucous Carnaval atmosphere. It was a delightfully crazy, hilarious work.
Divertissement used a chamber orchestra of about 25 strings, led by concert mistress Claire Hazzard, and only one of each wind instrument. The result was an agile ensemble with exceptionally clear texture and sparkling solos, most notably by flutist McGinn, trumpeter Zonshine, clarinetist Foster, bassoonist Schweitzer, and celesta/pianist Nyle Hallman.
Repeats: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall.
Tickets: $15 to $55. Call: 792-2000.
Closing the first half of the concert as featured soloist, principal cellist Gregory Dubay chose Edouard Lalo's Concerto in D minor. "The Lalo Concerto is to the cello repertoire what Carmen is to opera: It's a very lyrical, hot-blooded piece ... very brilliant."
Dubay began memorizing the piece a year ago, trying to learn it in many ways, including writing out the music by hand from memory. "That meant I was learning it as a composition and not just as a series of fingerings and bowings," he said.
Dubay's distinctive red cello seemed to have an even richer, even more resonant tone than when he performed the Boccherini year before last. Cellos, Dubay said, "do better with age because the resonance when you play actually alters the cell structure of the wood. Two different players on the same instrument will end up with a different sound; (the cello) adapts to each player."
Dubay's performance was as rich and resonant as his cello, hot-blooded but controlled. Dubay revealed himself an authoritative musician with exacting intonation, uncanny precision, flawless technique, and a seriousness and depth that matched the music.
Wong kept the orchestra in check, reserving its fullest sound until the final measures, which meant that every note Dubay played could be heard, but it also meant the piece lost some of its wild passion.
Saint-Saëns's Symphony No. 3, which filled the second half, was nicknamed the "Organ" symphony because it was the first symphony to include one.
Unfortunately, Blaisdell Concert Hall has no pipe organ. Acquiring a suitable instrument included borrowing an electronic one, unpacking and transporting it from storage, and spending valuable rehearsal time solving technical challenges, such as reconfiguring speakers to integrate its sound into the orchestra.
In addition to an organist, Saint-Saëns's Symphony also requires two pianists, filled by Nyle Hallman, a harpist and pianist as well as organist and musical director at Central Union Church for 29 years, and by Andria Fennig, Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii. All three were inadvertently omitted from the program.
Once the orchestra settled into the music, Symphony No. 3 proved to be an exciting work with organ chords like Russian bells, blazing piano runs, percussion accents (timpanist Chafetz made the most of his solo), and a thunderous brass choir, all shaking the rafters.
Three French composers, but three strikingly different works: small, light, and witty (Ibert); serious, dark, and passionate (Lalo); large, innovative, and rousing (Saint-Saëns). It is not such a stretch to imagine them as "the usual" masterworks, and the rest of the repertoire as "different."
Ruth O. Bingham is a free-lance writer who has a Ph.D. in musicology from Cornell University.
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