Extracting fun from the classics

The Spokane Symphony began its Symphony at The Met series Friday with a greater “fun quotient” than anyone has a right to expect from classical violinists playing Vivaldi followed by some seriously beautiful Beethoven playing from a Spokane native son, pianist Stephen Drury.

The four violin concertos that make up Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” may be the most frequently performed of any baroque concertos. But the four symphony violinists who played the solo parts Friday – Tana Bachman, Michael Price, Kelly Farris and Jason Bell – exploited their humor and their virtuosity. Conductor Eckart Preu decided not to stand and conduct in front of the 13-member ensemble, but instead to perform at the harpsichord. Each soloist led the ensemble just as Vivaldi might have done in the early 1700s, when these works were new.

Preu prefaced each concerto by summarizing and quoting from the text of each of Vivaldi’s descriptive sonnets, and he illustrated Vivaldi’s effects with musical examples of the barking dogs, crop-flattening storms, lurching drunks and tumbles on the ice heard later in the concertos’ performances.

I was especially impressed with Bell’s performance of “Winter,” not only because of Bell’s secure virtuoso playing in the fast passages, but because of the warmth he brought to the slow movement describing the coziness of a winter fireside. Farris was delightful in his depiction of a drunken peasant tottering until falling asleep. And Price and Bachman contributed to the fun, evoking bird calls, spring storms and summer’s swarms of flies and gnats.

Each concert in this year’s Met series features the homecoming of a Spokane-born soloist who has achieved national and international recognition. Stephen Drury, who has established himself as one of the outstanding pianists to perform adventurous new music, proved just as effective in the 200-year-old Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major by Beethoven.

Drury avoided the temptation to turn this youthful work into the kind of tormented emotionality of Beethoven’s later works. Instead, he brought out its classical poise showing just how beautifully Beethoven paid tribute to Mozart. I had been so struck by how much Beethoven obviously admired Mozart’s own famous C-major Concerto (K. 467) with its marchlike opening and inventive interplay of the piano and solo wind instruments. And rarely have I heard a soloist explore the expressive variety of piano touch Beethoven demands – from the lightest staccato to the most opulent, singing legato.

The evening’s most eloquent playing came in the slow movement in which Drury’s delicate figuration curled around the tender melodic line of clarinetist Chip Phillips.

Drury, Preu and the orchestra received a warm and well-deserved standing ovation.