{"id":1278,"date":"2011-10-21T11:04:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-21T15:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2011-10-21T11:04:50","modified_gmt":"2011-10-21T15:04:50","slug":"new-world-symphony-opening-night-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/?p=1278","title":{"rendered":"New World Symphony Opening Night – Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently attended New World Symphony\u2019s season opening concert.\u00a0 On the program were Smetana, Schumann,\u00a0Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u00a0and a new work by James Lee III.\u00a0 This concert was also reviewed in the Miami herald<\/a>, so if you would like a second opinion you can head over there.\u00a0 This is the first time I have been in New World Symphony\u2019s brand new hall designed by Frank Gehry.\u00a0 I remember the symphony\u2019s old hall and there are a few noticeable differences to the atmosphere and sound.\u00a0 The new hall has a much more open quality to it and seats are positioned around a terrace above the orchestra in addition to the standard orchestra seating in front.\u00a0 The sound seems fairly clear, but I find it lacks the vibrancy of the old hall. \u00a0For this concert I was seated in one of the terraces behind the orchestra, right behind the basses and cellos.<\/p>\n

Before the actual program began, Michael Tilson Thomas led the orchestra in the Star Spangled Banner, which I found to be superfluous.\u00a0 Mr. Thomas seems to enjoy beginning pieces without drawing the audience in through poise and focus.\u00a0 Sometimes this is a very effective way to begin a piece, as with the exciting Smetana, but in the case of the Schumann, maybe a little more silence before the sound of the work begins could be afforded. Mr. Thomas is what I would call a \u201cmusician\u2019s conductor\u201d (if there even is such a thing), as his ictus is sharp and clear.\u00a0 Mr. Thomas led the orchestra through the Smetana with great precision, and I must take my hats off to the violins for playing with fantastic clarity through the very exposed opening passages. When the violas, cellos and basses finally enter with the same material it was a little muddy, but I do believe that my seats were not helping me hear the sections directly in front of me, as their f-holes were all pointed away from me. \u00a0 Again, I wish the hall had more of a \u2018shimmering vibrancy\u2019 that these players deserve.<\/p>\n

In the Schumann Piano concerto, the New World Symphony was joined by Javier Perianes.\u00a0 Mr. Perianes\u2019 pedal control is lovely and his playing is very graceful.\u00a0 I do agree with The Herald\u2019s review<\/a> that his playing lacks the muscle one would expect to be needed in a Romantic piano concerto.\u00a0 Throughout the work, the orchestra sometimes overpowered the piano (especially when the pianist was nestled in the middle range of the instrument) and sometimes it marginally lagged behind the soloist as well.\u00a0 Throughout the work, the orchestra performed the pianissimo dynamics stunningly, but consistently overpowered the piano in tutti sections.\u00a0 Mr. Perianes also brought the melodies in the piano texture of the recap of the 1st<\/sup> movement out nicely and the massive swells to forte immediately followed by subito pianos in the 3rd<\/sup> movement were performed magnificently.<\/p>\n

The third piece on the program was a new work by James Lee III called Sukkot through Orion\u2019s Nebula<\/em>.\u00a0 The piece is overtly religious in both title and elements of the piece.\u00a0 The work is based off of a mesh of Judeo and Christian mythology about the return of the messiah.\u00a0 In the Old Testament, the messiah was to return by descending through Orion\u2019s nebula and the piece is a description of this process, ultimately ending in a more joyous version of rapture from revelations.\u00a0 One cute little insertion of numerology into the music was that Mr. Lee had divided the piece into seven structural sections.\u00a0 This is references the number of eyes and horns Jesus has in his \u2018lamb\u2019 form from Revelations.\u00a0 The work begins with a massive percussion and horn announcement.\u00a0 Immediately apparent is that Mr. Lee is a fantastic orchestrator.\u00a0 A large, heavy brass sound and furious strings are used throughout the opening section which then develops into a slower section with threadlike, atmospherically high violin parts placed over a harmonically whole tone-y bed in the winds and pitched percussion.\u00a0 The work eventually returns to the large brass and string sounds of the beginning but more energetically transformed.\u00a0 The piece sounds very \u201cAmerican\u201d (whatever that means to you) and it seemed to have the large fingerprint of John Adams on it.<\/p>\n

Finally we had the Jan\u00e1\u010dek Sinfonietta.\u00a0 New World was joined by members of University of Miami\u2019s Brass department to fill the required needs of the expanded orchestration, and many of the extra players were positioned around the terraces of the hall.\u00a0 The piece begins with heavy, folksy brass calls, much like the opening of L\u2019Orpheo by Monteverdi, but bigger.\u00a0 As the section develops, the harmonies created against the timpani become something much more meaningful than the pesante & simple tune that began the work.\u00a0 In the \u2018B\u2019 section of the movement, the strings take over for an extended, playful dance section with some goofy interjections from the trombones.<\/p>\n

The 2nd<\/sup> movement starts off with a homophonic string intro that transitions into some beautiful wind solos, all of which were played quite well.\u00a0 This movement also featured one of the harder French horn solos I\u2019ve heard.\u00a0 I can imagine the horn player sweating that one a little.\u00a0 The 3rd<\/sup> movement was also very folksy, and at this point I was starting to wonder what was going on in the piece.\u00a0 I usually associate Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u00a0with music a little less obtuse.\u00a0 To see what I mean, I recommend taking a listen to the first movement of this piece and comparing the harmonic language of the beginning of that movement to the end of the same brass section that I admired earlier.\u00a0 The later part of this section\u2019s language is what I usually think of when I think \u2018Jan\u00e1\u010dek,\u2019 not the very opening.<\/p>\n

Overall the performance was very well done.\u00a0 In the beginning, the over sized brass section was having a little bit of trouble staying together because they were so distended throughout the concert hall, but they adjusted and were spot on together by the end of the piece when the more interesting language of the beginning of the work returned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently attended New World Symphony\u2019s season opening concert. On the program were Smetana, Schumann, Jan\u00e1\u010dek and a new work by James Lee III. This concert was also reviewed in the Miami herald, so if you would like a second opinion you can head over there. This is the first time I have been in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20001,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1279,"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions\/1279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opensourcemusic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}