Cover image: Alina Ibragimova, violin (Photo: Georgia Bertazzi)
Last Thursday’s Seattle Symphony concert at Benaroya Hall left this listener with a feeling of overkill. Not that the program was uninteresting, nor that it was poorly played. On the contrary, it was more that it was an onslaught on the senses.
It began with “The Miraculous Mandarin” Suite by Bartók, a dark, atonal musical backdrop to an exceedingly sordid story—no wonder the ballet for which the music was composed never really caught on. The music is descriptive, as Paul Schiavo‘s excellent notes call the tale: “lurid expressionism in which sex, violence and the macabre” combine together. Bartók’s music mirrors this all too well.
The orchestra performed it superbly under music director Ludovic Morlot, particularly the clarinet solos from Benjamin Lulich. From the outset, the work’s discordance, loudness, whistles and screams created an unsettling, anxious ambiance, and abrupt switches of mood and energy to deceptive quiet becoming aggressive blasts, along the way included spiky shrillness, ominous rumbles, cymbal clashes, and drum thumps. Perfect for Halloween, but not so great for sleeping at night.
Something a little calmer might have been pleasant as a contrast, which Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 2 emphatically is not. Again, a fine performance by the reduced orchestra with young soloist Alina Ibragimova taking on the energetic solo role which continues from almost the first notes with hardly a break until the end. Like the Bartók from half a century earlier, this music is largely atonal with little that might be hummable. A few moments are peaceful but in general the work is loud and non-stop busy, becoming more and more frenzied towards the end. Ibragimova played as though she owned it. Her fine technique was married to a rich deep tone without scratches even in the most emphatic passages and she tossed off the many short solo passages with confident ease. The orchestra, also busy and contributing to the intensity of the work, supported her admirably.
The performance ended with Brahms’ Symphony No. 1. While it was a relief to come back to a warm harmonic tonality, this too is a dense work, and seemed almost too much following on the two previous pieces, beautiful as it is. Something gentle and quieter would have suited this listener much better.
The performance, as will be every concert the orchestra gives for the next week, was dedicated to the victims and all those affected by hate crimes.
