Midori demonstrates
stunning tonal range
The Honolulu Symphony's Halekulani MasterWorks season got off to an auspicious start Friday evening with a concert of Beethoven and Brahms that featured popular violinist Midori. Samuel Wong led the orchestra in a program that gives promise of an exciting season.
The concert began with Beethoven's Symphony No. 8, a work that is heard less often than its more famous counterparts. The reason may be that it is the most classically oriented symphony of the composer's middle period.
Beethoven often worked simultaneously on two contrasting works, developing ideas with seemingly little in common. In this case, he wrote the Seventh and Eighth symphonies in tandem, pouring the heroic themes so typical of the middle period into the former work while reserving his classical inspirations for the latter. The result is a work that harks back to Haydn and Mozart rather than reflecting the romantic tendencies of his middle and late compositions.
The orchestra's performance of the work illustrated the advantages and disadvantages of performing a thoroughly classical work with a late-Romantic orchestra. Wong and his players excelled in the sumptuous melodic sections and brought a level of dynamic contrast that was breathtaking, particularly in the final movement. The performance was less successful in the sprightly humorous sections, where the large ensemble had trouble achieving the lightness implied in the score.
The second movement of this symphony features a musical imitation of the metronome, a new invention that came to Beethoven's attention during the time he was composing the work. The quaint evocation of 19th-century technology was rudely interrupted on opening night by the intrusion of 21st-century technology when a cell phone rang during this movement.
THE SECOND HALF of the concert was devoted to the Brahms Violin Concerto. Brahms wrote the work for his friend Joseph Joachim, the pre-eminent violin virtuoso of his day. Joachim found the violin part to be difficult, but Brahms was not inclined to simplify it and it remains one of the most challenging concertos in the repertoire.
This work was written 70 years after the Beethoven, and its sweeping romantic lines were eminently suited to the powerful forces deployed at the Blaisdell Center. Again, the orchestra's dynamic range was impressive, and the soaring melodies were interpreted beautifully.
Violinist Midori has risen from her debut as a child prodigy 21 years ago to a position of prominence in the world of classical music. Symphony President Stephen Bloom stated in his introductory remarks that "we have been trying to get on her schedule for years."
Anticipation in the audience was high, and she did not disappoint with her dramatic entrance in the first movement. The range of tone colors that she pulled from her 1734 Guarnerius del Gesu was stunning, and in fact the most dynamic moment of the concert occurred during the ethereal pianissimos of the first- movement cadenza, when the audience was utterly hushed. At the end of the final movement, the near-capacity crowd gave her a standing ovation.
E. Douglas Bomberger is a professor of music at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
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