Classical review: RPO’s ‘Bernstein Celebration’

This week, Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic are
celebrating the centennial of that first among 20th century American musicians,
Leonard Bernstein. This concert wasn’t just a tip of the baton to a revered musician;
it was a salute by a lively, communicative conductor to an infinitely talented
composer, conductor, and general muse to American music-making.

I don’t associate Bernstein with the music of Samuel Barber,
but he did perform Barber’s Second Essay a few times with the New York
Philharmonic, and Ward Stare is a Barber enthusiast, so why not include it on
the RPO’s program? This is one of Barber’s best short orchestral works, compact
and melodious but rather dark and Nordic in character. The RPO definitely got
the sound right Thursday night, and the RPO brass highlighted Barber’s sonorous
scoring.

In 1949, Aaron Copland described the music of a 31-year-old
colleague: “At its worst Bernstein’s is conductor’s music — eclectic in style
and facile in expression. But at its best, it is music of vibrant rhythmic
invention, of irresistible élan, often carrying with it a terrific dramatic
punch.”

That year also saw the premiere of Bernstein’s Second
Symphony, inspired by W.H. Auden’s then-sensational poem “The Age of Anxiety.”
When Copland wrote of Bernstein’s music “at its best,” I wonder if he had this
powerful, ambitious work in mind. It is perhaps not the most obvious choice to
represent Bernstein’s “serious” work on a concert celebrating his centennial,
but it is a satisfying one.

To summarize Auden’s book-length poem much too simply, “The
Age of Anxiety” is an exposé of life in a post-war urban world, among four New
Yorkers who try to find meaning in late-night discussions, alcohol, and each
other, and fail on all counts. Bernstein praised Auden’s poem for its
“shattering virtuosity,” and his musical response to it is no less virtuosic in
its way.

Bernstein mirrors Auden’s poem with an intricate but
easy-to-follow structure that is basically a big series of variations. In the
first section of the symphony, they’re variations on a single theme, but also
on each other: The second variation latches on to an element of the first, the
third variation takes off from the second, and so on (a rather neat way to
translate the idea of aimlessly searching for meaning). If that wasn’t enough,
Bernstein adds a demanding part for a piano soloist, who represents the poem’s
narrator or observer.

There are many arresting moments in this 40-minute piece,
starting at the beginning: two clarinets meandering quietly around a simple
theme — a wonderful evocation of nocturnal urban ennui. At the other end of the
spectrum is the symphony’s best-known section, a jazzy, jittery, jangling tour
de force for piano and percussion called “The Masque.”

As Copland stated, Bernstein’s music is exceptionally
eclectic. His borrowings from Brahms and Broadway (not to mention Copland — and
Stravinsky and Mahler and Hindemith), with turns of phrase that are all his
own, don’t seem like an issue now. Maybe it is “conductor’s music,” but now it just
all sounds like Bernstein, and it all hangs together.

You might say that Stare led “The Age of Anxiety” like a
symphony, but soloist Misha Dichter didn’t really
play it like a concerto. The conductor held Bernstein’s sprawling, episodic
structure together, and elicited idiomatic playing from the orchestra. Dichter played beautifully, and piano and orchestra told
the story in a well-integrated fashion.

Not surprising for a pianist who has been a favorite here for
decades in more traditional repertoire, Dichter seemed
more comfortable with the music’s Brahmsian elements
than its Broadway echoes. The “Masque” was exciting, but never had the “punch”
Copland mentioned. However, Dichter played the
piece’s reflective sections with sensitivity and often exquisite tone. This is
not really this pianist’s piece, I think, but overall this was an intelligent
and effective account of a fascinating work.

Bernstein was a notable interpreter of several of the
splashier symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich, but his two recordings of
Shostakovich’s relatively modest Ninth Symphony (and his video commentary on
the piece, available on DVD) reveal that he really “got” this score’s ironic,
satiric tone. (For a cinematic equivalent, think of the Marx Brothers’ “Duck
Soup.”)

At the end of World War II, Stalin and Friends expected from
Shostakovich a Ninth Symphony like Beethoven’s: chorus, orchestra, soloists,
tragedy, and triumphal marches. What they got from Shostakovich was a short piece
that sounds like a Haydn symphony with the ink smeared: tuneful, wittily subversive,
but with moments of genuine, mindless terror poking holes in the high spirits.
For example, the second movement waltz is interrupted by a spooky, crescendoing chromatic figure that could be from “Boris Godounov,” and the fourth movement consists of a recitative
for solo bassoon, overtaken by low-brass blasts that sound like a KGB knock on
the door. Shostakovich also lived in an age of anxiety.

I don’t believe the RPO has played this symphony in many
years, but you would never know that from this tight, knowing performance, which
finely balanced comedy and tragedy. It also offered some virtuosic orchestral
playing, headed by numerous solos from the wind players — I must mention
bassoonist Matthew McDonald, who played his long solo with fine, focused tone
and a sense of drama.

The symphony was preceded by more spoofy Shostakovich: “Tahiti
Trot,” his delightfully dorky orchestration (apparently written in 45 minutes,
on a bet) of … well, I will not spoil a surprise if you’re planning to hear
this on Saturday, but it’s a tune you’ll definitely recognize.

This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 6, 2018.