Elgin Symphony Concert Takes On Scottish Flavor

Scotland has inspired great works by artists from Shakespeare to Sting, and foreign invaders from the last twelve centuries can attest: it's the kind of place that's nice to visit (but you may not want to live there). The Elgin Symphony Orchestra's "Scottish Fantasy" program took a full concert hall on just such a visit Saturday night, in the company of great composers and an array of talented musicians.

The Land of the Mountain and the Flood (1887) by Scottish-born composer Hamish MacCunn set the tone with a sweet, but restrained overture whose folk-inspired imagery of lochs and glens is a fine example of the nationalist sentiments that were prevalent among composers during this period. Elgin, too, has some Scottish roots, and the ESO's attentive rendition made it clear that the musicians love these melodies as much as their listeners do.

The highlight of the evening was violinist Michael Ludwig's riveting performance of the Scottish Fantasy (1880) by German composer Max Bruch. The work is more an exhibit of legendary German craftsmanship than Scottish folksong, but this stylistic fusion takes the soloist from peat smoky pipe tunes through romantic airs and astonishing feats of fiddling. Ludwig moved expressively around the stage in his delivery, at times almost dancing, which captivated the audience in a way that no recording could ever reproduce.

One need not be Scottish or German to feel moved by a masterpiece like Felix Mendelssohn's "Scottish" Symphony No. 3 (1842). The ensemble was the star of this program finale, and one wonders whether it's Mendelssohn who makes the ESO sound so good, or vice-versa. When the artists grasp a piece like this, the difference is apparent in their timing, intonation and animation. The energetic new ESO Music Director Andrew Grams, himself a violinist, displays an obvious affinity for his firsts and seconds, turning to enunciate each feeling and phrase of his lucid interpretation.

One patron was overheard to say the first half of the program was "a little schmaltzy; too romantic." We disagree, but it's loyal subscribers like these who make the ESO experience — including its pre- and post-concert social scene — as stimulating for the mind as well as for the senses. Next season promises more excellent programs featuring Beethoven, Copland and Smetana, and all this, as close to home as downtown Elgin.

Contrasting Climates Featured in Elgin Symphony Concert

Audiences were transported across a variety of musical landscapes and languages this weekend as the Elgin Symphony Orchestra presented a series of picturesque works, enlivened by guest artist performances. With attendance near full capacity Saturday, the Hemmens Auditorium buzzed with anticipation of another superb concert led by Musical Director Robert Hanson.

The first stop was at Fingal's Cave, a rock formation in the islands west of Scotland, where Felix Mendelssohn was thought to have taken his inspiration for The Hebrides Overture around 1830, when he was in his twenties. The sensation of deep and shallow waters, and visions of Fingal (the Scots' mythical giant) filled the hall, as echoes of the Classical masters and shades of the new German Romantics clashed throughout Mendelssohn's rarely peaceful work. The orchestra played like a force of nature, through tense countermelodies, stormy chords and crashing sixteen-note unisons, drawing on a collective musical consciousness that spans the continents and the centuries.

French composer Edouard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole (1875) for Violin and Orchestra featured soloist Chee-Yun in a magnificent performance. The concerto-like work in five movements has a definite Mediterranean flavor, seasoned with traces of Gypsy dance, and spicy rhythms imported from the New World. From one moment to the next, you cannot take your eyes off the radiant Chee-Yun as she teases airy and intricate phrases from the Stradivarius, then tumbles three octaves into a swarthy, even scandalous twirl through the low register. The orchestra all but disappears when she plays, until her notes are briefly doubled by another voice in a sultry musical gancho. Her effortless blending of wet and dry techniques were like a feast of Spanish tapas that you wished would never end.

For an encore, Chee-Yun's performance of a Fritz Kreisler cadenza offered more stunning proof that world-class talent is as much a part of Elgin culture as the local pub where she and other musicians gathered after the concert. And the community clearly loves the ESO: even though most patrons had already seen the video preview of next year's concert season, they gladly applauded it once again.

Headlining the program was Aaron Copland's beloved Appalachian Spring, a suite derived from music he wrote for a ballet depicting the American pioneers of western Pennsylvania. The music starts off open and transparent, as the winds bravely enter, one or two at a time, just the way early Americans set out across the continent with no cover from the elements. As different tones and tempos come together with a form, scale and repetition not unlike the art-glass designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, the music finds a voice we now recognize as characteristically American. On a compositional spectrum that includes Gershwin and Bernstein, Copland's musical language touches us prairie folk the deepest, and the ESO, with perfect diction, speaks this language like true natives.

An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise by contemporary English composer Peter Maxwell Davies served as the dramatic finale. While the reverse dotted figures and solo reeds are recognizably Scottish, the unfamiliar (uncomfortable to some) musical setting throughout this piece clearly charts a territory few of us know. The piece required unusual discipline from the ESO throughout its chaotic middle, but the convincing final entrance of Highland bagpiper Carl Donley reminds us of everything we love about the Scotch: though like the whisky, some will say it's an acquired taste.

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5 in D Major "Reformation"

German composer Felix Mendelssohn was born of Jewish origin in 1809, grandson of noted philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.  Baptized and raised as a Lutheran (and adding "Bartholdy" to his surname), the young Mendelssohn was a gifted pianist and composer, completing numerous symphonic works, including his famous overture to Shakespeare's A MidsummerNight's Dream, before the age of twenty.  In anticipation of the 300th anniversary of Martin Luther's Augsburg Confession of 1530 (the articles of faith that were to form the essential doctrines of Lutheranism) he composed a commemoriative symphony in the hopes it would be performed during the official tercentennial festivities in Berlin or Leipzig. Unfortunately, his Jewish background was probably the reason he was passed over for a commission in favor of the now obscure Eduard Grell.

The symphony begins with a slow introduction which alternates between brass fanfares and responding strings playing the "Dresden Amen" (which later appeared in Wagner's Parsifal). The theme from the fanfare is used throughout the remainder of the first movement. The second movement takes the form of an upbeat dance built around a variant of the first movement theme. Mendelssohn then uses a much more restrained third movement, which features a theme played by strings and a small woodwind section at an andante tempo. Finally, the fourth movement, built almost exclusively around Luther's chorale "A MightyFortress is Our God," begins with a simple and direct introduction of the chorale by the flute. Various elements of the woodwind section, followed by strings and brass, are added until the full orchestra plays the chorale. Immediately, the tempo increases to allegro, as various instruments repeat the chorale theme until a final statement is given by the full orchestra with an accompanying trumpet fanfare. 

Known familiarly as the "Reformation," Symphony No. 5 was actually composed before Symphonies 1, 2, 3 and 4, but its lack of success after two public performances around 1832 caused Mendelssohn to put it aside, and it wasn't published until after the composer's death in 1847.