Symphony review: Scotland excursion an inspiring evening of music
Among his goals for the Spokane Symphony, Eckart Preu, the orchestra’s music director, includes the showcasing of its members, many of whose abilities stand comparison with the world’s finest musicians. Not least among these is Mateusz Wolski, the orchestra’s concertmaster, who appeared as soloist in the third of this season’s Classics concerts at the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox. He was partnered by the orchestra’s resident conductor, Morihiko Nakahara.
In addition to the “Scottish Fantasy for Violin, Harp and Orchestra” by Max Bruch (1838-1920), to feature Wolski, two other pieces with Scottish connections quickly suggested themselves: Peter Maxwell Davies’ (b. 1934) “An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise,” and Felix Mendelssohn’s (1809-1847) Symphony No. 3 in A minor Op. 56, the “Scottish.” What began as a convenient solution to a programming challenge ended by providing an immensely enjoyable, even inspiring, evening of music.
The Davies work recounts in music an actual wedding reception he attended on the island of Hoy. It begins with a genteel tune passed from one member of the woodwinds, representing the guests, to another. Before long, the guests are portrayed as overcome by alcohol, and the dancing and conversation become chaotic. Finally, the party winds down and the guests depart, leaving the bard/composer to make his way home in the early morning mist, until he is brought by the glory of a brilliant sunrise to a vision of what first drew him to make his home in Scotland. To evoke this vision, a bagpiper in full Scottish regalia makes his way onstage to join the orchestra in a final chorale. Aaron Stratton, a well-known local piper, sounded and looked glorious in the role.
The precision with which the orchestra performed Davies’ extremely intricate and demanding passages depicting the growing disorder of the party provided a “spine” to the performance, representing the composer’s skill and seriousness of intent. As a result, the audience felt not merely entertained, but exhilarated and inspired.
Such was the mood when Wolski walked on with Nakahara to perform the Bruch “Scottish Fantasy.” The piece begins with a slow introductory passage, used by most soloists as an occasion to establish their supremacy over the proceedings. As soon as Wolski began to play, however, it was obvious his intent was to draw us into the narrative of the piece, rather than keep us at arm’s length. Perhaps because of his accomplishments as an orchestral musician and chamber music performer, Wolski is unwilling to dominate the audience or his fellow musicians with empty display. He possesses all the chops necessary to negotiate the technical demands of the “Scottish Fantasy,” but avoids the myriad distortions – tiny alterations of tempo and dynamics – by which soloists often direct the audience’s attention away from the composition and toward themselves. The result was to increase the stature of the piece and to confirm Wolski as a musician of the highest caliber.
Throughout the “Scottish Fantasy,” Nakahara regarded the role of the orchestra as a full partner to the soloist, rather than a dutiful accompanist. He carefully balanced the tone of the orchestra to give it a deep, warm quality, like burnished mahogany. One wished only that the contribution of the superb harpist, Earecka Tregenza, could have been made more prominent. The horns and lower strings, often inaudible in this piece, were brought forward to support the winds and higher strings, imparting just the bardic, Romantic quality Bruch must have intended. It seemed less a colorful showpiece than a symphonic tone poem.
In the Mendelssohn Third Symphony, this sumptuous tone quality and a careful balance of local detail with forward momentum resulted in a rendition that leaves the critic searching for adjectives less blatant than “perfect.” Mendelssohn’s genius runs at full tilt in the “Scottish” Symphony, and we were brought by Nakahara and the Spokane Symphony about as close to the essence of that genius as one can expect to get. In the second movement, the variety of color and perfection of balance had one thinking of much starrier ensembles, in cities thousands of miles from Spokane.
Listen to a recording of this concert at 7 p.m. Monday on Spokane Public Radio, 91.1 FM.