Fireworks Fun Started Early Thanks To Schuller, Musicians

Spokane Symphony Festival at Sandpoint, Memorial Field Saturday, Aug. 9

Gunther Schuller makes any concert more of an adventure than almost any other conductor. Saturday’s finale of The Festival at Sandpoint was no exception. Though the concert ended with a burst of fireworks, the adventure of musical pyrotechnics came earlier from the Spokane Symphony in playing ignited by Schuller.

Schuller’s musical fireworks do not result from any stagy exhibitionism. Far from it. He made George Whitefield Chadwick’s “Jubilee” dance without once leaping Bernsteinlike into the air. And the Adagio of Sergei Rachmaninoff played on the audience’s heartstrings without Schuller swooning dramatically over his own orchestral strings.

Part of any adventure with Schuller lies in his programming. Most of the time, this conductor can introduce something brand new or pull some forgotten musical rabbit out of his hat. He did both.

Especially for this concert, Schuller orchestrated Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 22. “This is my gift to the festival,” he told the Memorial Field audience. This short sonata (it only lasts about 10 minutes) sits neglected between two of Beethoven’s mightiest and most popular sonatas: No. 21, the “Waldstein,” and No. 23, the “Appassionata.”

“It just cries out for the colorings of orchestral instruments, ” Schuller said.

So, using the same instruments Beethoven called for in his Fifth Symphony, Schuller made the sonata into what he called (tongue firmly in cheek) “The Tenth Symphony,” Beethoven himself thoughtfully having provided the other nine.

Schuller knows his Beethoven. The rich orchestral colors and the ingeniously varied textures sounded like Beethoven, all right. So did the humor of those growling bass passages and the motifs tossed like a tennis ball from one group of instruments to another.

Chadwick’s “Jubilee,” written around the turn of the century, and Charles T. Griffes’ 1917 tone poem “The White Peacock” are not heard much nowadays. Chadwick combined his rigorous German training with a cheeky Yankeeism that allows him twice nearly to quote a phrase from “Oh, Susanna.” If the orchestra players were not having fun with this, they certainly fooled me.

I also admired the solo woodwind playing that made Griffes’ sensuous sounds hover in the air like a beautiful perfume.

Schuller’s attention to the tiniest details of the largest works gives new spirit to even the most familar orchestral warhorses. Saturday’s concert ended with a moving account of Rachmaninoff’s hourlong, emotionally saturated Symphony No. 2. The grand tunes of the first and third movements and the sheer exuberance of the second and fourth are easy marks for any conductor. Subtleties such as the balance between the querying oboe phrases and the answering English horn sighs in the Adagio, or the precise timing of the dramatic pauses scatted here and there - these demand the scrupulous attention of a great conductor like Schuller.

Too few people realize what a rare talent Schuller has in making listening an exciting adventure, even in the most familiar works. Somehow, too, this adventure plays best with the Spokane Symphony.

, DataTimes