Flamenco flavors a night at the Fox
How often does a symphony orchestra present a guitar soloist? Rarely. Spokane Symphony’s audiences at the Fox had an opportunity this weekend to hear Manuel Barrueco. The Cuban-born American guitar master is one of the great guitarists. He was heard in a new work alongside conductor Eckart Preu’s fine exploration of earlier works by Liszt and Bruckner that have not been heard here in more than a decade.
Preu opened Saturday’s and Sunday’s performances with Franz Liszt’s “Les Préludes”; once a war-horse in orchestral concerts, it is heard far less frequently now. Liszt’s sonorous opulence found its ideal home in the rich decor of theMartin Woldson Theater at the Fox.
What was most remarkable about Preu’s approach to this symphonic poem was, well, the poetry. His delivery was not merely a gush of pretty melodies or the technicolor bombast of its heroic sections. What happened instead was a carefully measured unfolding of descriptive music. What is described has never been clear. Even Liszt was cagey about that. But the logic of the transformation of a tiny grain of an opening melodic idea through Liszt’s amazing contrasts was beautifully handled.
Barrueco proved to those who have admired his many recordings what a great live performer he is. There are few guitarists who can come close to Barrueco’s combination of beauty of sound and fastidious technique. But there was more. Barrueco’s range of musical imagination and command of the guitar’s subtle colors of sound was astonishing. The soloist’s own concerto-like suite, drawn from Manolo Sanlúcar’s 1987 ballet “Medea,” transferred the setting of the Greek myth to a Spanish village.
Sanlúcar ranks as an outstanding practitioner of flamenco and is noted for his ability to bring authentic flamenco style to symphonic music, opera and ballet. The stereotypical view of flamenco centers around women in twirling skirts clicking their castanets accompanied by percussive guitar playing. The real flamenco is based on a highly ornamented, deeply passionate singing, strongly linked with Arab music that came across the Mediterranean with the Moorish conquest of Spain and the music of gypsies from the north and east.
Anton Bruckner’s symphonies present two barriers to symphonic audiences. First, they are long. His Symphony No. 4, played this weekend, lasts well over an hour. Second, they are unlike any other composer’s symphonies, even their closest cousins, the symphonies of Gustav Mahler.
The question is: Are Bruckner’s symphonies worth the trouble of a long sit and a demanding listening?
Yes. Preu and the orchestra made a vigorous, passionate case for Bruckner in the Saturday performance I heard. In his preconcert talk and his introduction to the piece, Preu pointed to the sources of Bruckner’s style – his grounding as a great organist and brilliant improviser on the instrument, his obsessive self-training as a composer, his youthful jobs playing fiddle for dance in taverns, his great love of nature and his adoration of the music of Wagner. The combination makes for a very heady stew.
Preu said, “This music takes its own time.” And the conductor had a firm grip on Bruckner-time with its leisurely, seemly improvisational repetitions, slowly building climaxes and sudden contrasts as the listener is taken from church-like chorales, heavy with brass, to the lilting lightness of Upper Austrian dance music dominated by woodwinds and strings.
Bruckner’s Fourth, with its numerous and exposed solos, is a holy terror for the orchestra’s horn soloist. Jennifer Scriggins-Brummet got off to an unsteady start in the work’s opening solos Saturday. But her rich tone and beauty of phrasing in later movements earned her a well-deserved solo bow at the end. At times, too, the coordination of the interplay between horns and trumpets was not ideally achieved.
Still, the performance clearly showed Preu’s conviction as a Brucknerian, and it made a compelling case for the rapt attention that appreciation of the work requires and the simple surrender to sonic glory Bruckner’s music amply rewards.