Philharmonia Northwest pulled off an awesome feat on Sunday: a performance of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso with three soloists, plus one work with high school students joining the orchestra and another in which dance students performed, both the latter groups as part of the orchestra’s outreach commitment to young area musicians. All this, plus a Mozart symphony, was put together in six rehearsals. Pretty impressive for a community orchestra to achieve, and even more that it was pulled off with fine performances all round.
Beginning with Dvorak’s Nocturne in B Major with a dozen-plus students from the Ballard High School Chamber Orchestra sharing the stage, the concert, titled “Dancing in the Night,” highlighted different aspects of dance in works not always thought of in dance terms. The Nocturne came across as a dreamy, calming performance, nuanced in the hands of music director Julia Tai. Following it, 18 beautifully trained and disciplined teenaged dancers from Dance Fremont performed their own well-designed, imaginative choreography, appropriate to the music, through all the aisles of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Laurelhurst to Sibelius’ melancholy Valse Triste.
The major work on the program however, was the Schnittke. With a Baroque structure but wildly contemporary harmonies including micro-tones, pop music, chromatics, a prepared piano which sounded like an ancient xylophone, and even a tango embedded in the fifth movement, the work requires two excellent violin soloists and a pianist who doubles as harpsichordist. Mikhail Shmidt and Artur Girsky, both Russian-trained members of the Seattle Symphony, were the violinists. Shmidt had worked with Schnittke himself in the past. Cristina Valdés undertook the keyboards, though the piano was only used at beginning and end and the harpsichord was largely inaudible unless playing solo.
The work is very tricky to play and the result was a triumph for orchestra, soloists and particularly, conductor. Speaking with Shmidt afterward, he commented how impressed he was with the quality of the orchestra’s performance in this difficult work, saying that the role of conductor is largely done in rehearsal, and that while he had expected this to be a good performance he had not expected it to be so fine. Tai was in clear control of her forces, which stayed with her every gesture throughout.
Julia Tai (Photo: Philharmonia Northwest)
Last on the program came Mozart’s lively Symphony No. 40, chosen as this is the orchestra’s fortieth anniversary year. Tai gave it a robust, vigorous interpretation rather than an elegant one, but the orchestra played with little vibrato as would have been the case in Mozart’s time, and she set appropriately baroque tempos. This work may have had less rehearsal than the others on the program, given the time constraints. There were glitches from the horns, and the first violins were often not completely together in intonation in the upper registers.
Nevertheless, this is an orchestra well worth going to hear, and its programming often includes something adventurous. Next up is Philharmonia Northwest’s Gala 40th Anniversary concert, this time at Benaroya Hall on March 19, 2016. Titled “Jubilation!” it includes Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Kirkland Choral Society, Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate, and Mendelssohn’s Verleih uns Frieden, as well as Alfven’s Midsommarvaka. The orchestra’s previous conductors, Frances Walton and Roupen Shakarian will join Tai on the podium.