Grams Continues to Invigorate Elgin Symphony

After Sunday's concert of classical chestnuts, one thing is clear: Elgin Symphony Music Director Andrew Grams continues to reinvigorate the orchestra's repertoire, and reset the baseline for a concert hall experience.

Ever at ease with a microphone, Grams introduced William Bolcom's satirical Commedia for (Almost) 18th-Century Orchestra (1972) with lengthy and unabashed remarks. However, the effect of serious musicians playing half-serious music was delightful, and the amusing pantomimes from the podium set the tone for a friendly and captivating matinee.

At the opposite end of the program and its pathos was Beethoven's late String Quartet in F Major Op. 135 (1826) arranged for string orchestra by Leonard Bernstein (1979). Along with the other works, this piece enjoyed its Elgin debut this weekend.

The quartet's four parts, scaled tenfold, added volume and mass to Beethoven's thematic contemplations, and the ESO strings provided depth and sheen to their transparent beauty. Often described as music ahead of its time, the work's moments of abstraction, its daring adaptation and infrequent performance made it a treat for connoisseurs. 

Isabella Lippi performs Mozart's Adagio in E Major
for Violin & Orchestra, K.261

ESO concertmaster Isabella Lippi appeared as the guest artist in Mozart's Adagio in E Major for Violin & Orchestra K.261 (1776). Against a tactile and affectionate orchestral brocade, Ms. Lippi laid out strands of melody with precise shape and proportion, projecting clarity of tone and purity of style.

Yet Andrew Grams was the star of this concert. Recently named Illinois Conductor of the Year, Grams is the kind of maestro audiences love to watch as he telegraphs every musical affect through his fluid movements. He "plays" the orchestra as if it were a single magnificent instrument, boldly breaking from conventional technique at will.

Having embraced his role as Music Director, he is now comfortable engaging the audience in direct dialog, both inside and outside the concert hall.  Audiences are growing more comfortable as well, so much that even seasoned listeners spontaneously applauded after the first movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 36 in C Major K.425 (1783), to which Grams responded with a gracious bow.

While it's possible to become too comfortable in any relationship, softening the boundaries between the artists and the audience exalts the experience of the art. The ESO has been transforming its relationship with Elgin in numerous ways this season, and to this community the stage now seems closer than ever.

Elgin Symphony Spotlights Viennese Music in "Mozart and Bruckner"

The works of two great Austrian composers, written a century apart, provided the season finale for the Elgin Symphony Orchestra with guest conductor and piano artist Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Sunday afternoon at the Hemmens.

A smaller ensemble was gathered around the piano at center stage, whence Solzhenitsyn, his back to the audience, cued the orchestra through Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major (1783), alternately rising to conduct, then sitting to perform a crisp and precise set of three movements. 

Leading gently with body language, section principals synchronized tightly like a quartet, while the maestro exhibited his considerable dual talents without the help of a platform or a baton. 

Ignat Solzhenitsyn piano-conducts the Elgin Symphony Orchestra
in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major.

The chamber-sized orchestra balanced nicely with the soloist, but with some pedaling under a closed lid, the piano sound was not quite dry enough even for a piece that favors the fifth octave. Nonetheless, the audience relished this fresh, authentic performance of a concerto not seen on an ESO program before.

A well-prepared stage crew provides a crucial, and usually invisible, contribution to a concert's success, and this weekend they had to perform their best. A major rearrangement was necessary, as nearly double the number of players were needed after the intermission.

Symphony No. 4 in Eb Major "Romantic" (1881) by Anton Bruckner is the kind of piece that brings in symphony buffs from out of town: its long, complex history is matched by its scale and variety. 

To those less familiar with this 65-minute opus, it's an intriguing mashup of Austro-German influences from before, during and after Bruckner's time. Throughout its four movements, we hear some of Beethoven's high ideals, Wagner's radical harmonies, Schubert's gift for song, and echoes of the Viennese "Waltz King" Johann Strauss II. 

Even glimpses of future modernism, to be later elaborated by a young Gustav Mahler, make surprising entrances during its striking shifts in density, tone and register. To us, the  music is unexpectedly vivid for a composer not known for his storytelling.

Solzhenitsyn was literally on his toes for the entire performance, skillfully summoning forceful fortes from an excellent brass section, and coaxing supple phrases from the winds. Principal horn Greg Flint played prominent solos brilliantly, as the horn section worked its hardest all season. 

Listeners agreed it was uncomfortably long, but they are critiquing the art, not the artists. Month after month, the lengthy standing ovations from a full house attest to the sophistication and affection of the ESO's loyal patrons.

Elgin Symphony's Impassioned "Don Juan and Dvorak"

Shouts of approval from the hall capped the finale of the ESO's "Don Juan and Dvorak" program of classics Friday afternoon at the Hemmens. The audience took every opportunity to applaud Elgin's acclaimed orchestra, now in its 61st season. In fact, the enthusiastic response to Music Director Robert Hanson's first appearance on stage was exceeded only by the standing ovation at the concert's end.  The ESO displayed superb artistry in the two hour program, performing a diverse and delightful set of classics that explored the musical expressions of drama, dance, poetry, and song.

None other than Mozart gives us the first of two musical takes on the legend of Don Juan, the mythical Spanish playboy whose quest for knowledge of the opposite sex eventually leads to his own destruction. In the overture to the comic opera known as Don Giovanni, Mozart deftly sets the stage for tragedy as well as comedy in a characteristically entertaining style that invites you into the drama like only the cleverest book jacket blurb or movie preview. A consummate showman at heart, the composer finished the overture the very day before its 1787 premiere in Prague.  Two hundred twenty-four years later, the ESO played it as if it was being heard for the first time: with freshness, intensity and an obvious affection for the audience and the art.

We may never know the number of Don Juan's children, but his literary and artistic progeny span at least twenty generations. His legend was the subject and namesake of Richard Strauss's breakout symphonic poem, written a century after Mozart's opera, when Strauss was only 24. At its opening flourish, you realize that this is like no poetry you've heard before. Images of a dashing Don Juan spring to life from the orchestra: you can hear silver conchos jangling on his belt, see his sword slicing the air, feel his breath as if he's striding towards you. This music tests every limit of the orchestra to produce all the effects of a motion picture without pictures or dialogue.  At Maestro Hanson's direction, the combined forces of more than sixty-five musicians are able to create a kind of superhuman musical voice, just the sort of thing that would preoccupy Strauss's imagination for the rest of his life. From tender, lyrical, romantic interludes to fierce moments of conflict, the ESO conveyed a full and complex range of pathos with a brilliant musical technique, ending the Don's story with a three-note ellipsis that would seem to say, "we'll be hearing much more from this young composer."

Yet it is often the simplest phrases and quietest notes that separate a good musician from a great one. The abundance of such in the Ancient Airs and Dances -- Suite No. 1 leave no doubt which sort of musician plays in the ESO. The endearingly coy rhythms of Ottorio Respighi's modern setting of Renaissance formal dances proved that there is beauty in restraint. Elegant solos and duets by double reeds and strings against a transparent but perfectly syncrhonized orchestral accompaniment were as fluid and intimate as those of a seasoned quartet. Unlike a similar suite by his English contemporary Peter Warlock, Respighi's use of lute-like harp chords — and harpsichord — lent a loving, period authenticity to the work, which still moves us, musician and audience alike, to tap our feet and nod our heads with the music as we recall the ancient urge to dance.

Following the intermission, the concert concluded with Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 8, considered an unusually cheerful work from a period when other composers of his own generation were writing music with much darker tones. The sights and sounds of his native Bohemia would seem to have inspired many of his musical motifs, whose natural, song-like phrasings are easy to grasp and remember. Colorful flute solos and a clarinet duet decorated the four movements, which ventured smoothly through numerous changes of tempo and meter, each section in turn playing perfectly in unison, then in harmony.

As his career progressed, Dvorak gravitated westward, eventually spending three years in America where he would leave us an important musical gift: not just his famous Ninth Symphony "From the New World," nor his "American Suite," but a lasting vision for American music that included the unique influences of Native American and African American sounds. If you listen closely to the fourth movement of Symphony No. 8, you might hear a "blue" note or two — the musical twinkle in Dvorak's eye that would someday be heard again in American jazz, gospel, and blues music.

The ESO presents two more performances of "Don Juan and Dvorak," Saturday, March 5th at 8:00 pm and Sunday, March 6th at 3:30 pm. Tickets are still available online at www.elginsymphony.org or call the Box Office at (847) 888-4000.

Mozart: Serenade No. 13 "Eine kleine NachtMusick"

Even those who don't know the name Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) have probably heard at least part of his Serenade No. 13 for strings (K525), one of the most recognizable works in all of classical music.  It derives its more familiar title from the composer's own handwritten catalog entry: "Eine kleine NachtMusick, bestehend in einem Allegro, Menuett und Trio. -- Romance. Menuett und Trio, und finale. -- 2 Violini, Viola e Bassi."  

The listing of five movements here has remained a mystery: no one knows when or why the first minuet was omitted from the piece.  Even so, this light-hearted work in four movements is considered a shining example of Mozart's ebullient creative genius and mastery of classical symphonic structure.  Probably commissioned as party music to be played by a string quartet (as it is sometimes heard today), the piece is said to evoke the feeling of after-dinner conversation, an accurate reflection of Mozart's own loquacious personality and zest for entertainment.  It was one of several masterpieces of chamber music written in 1787, at the height of his career, while he was simultaneously at work on the brilliant opera Don Giovanni.

During an age when most composers relied on steady employment by church or state institutions, Mozart spent essentially his entire life in commercial pursuits.  As a child prodigy, he was introduced to the life of a traveling virtuoso by his enterprising father Leopold, and he later acquired his own keen style of self-promotion among wealthy and influential circles in many of Europe's great cities.  However, his personal fortunes tended to rise and fall at the whim of contemporary fashion, and he struggled to remain solvent despite his incredible volume and variety of work.

Mozart's legendary reputation as a superstitious bon vivant, thriving on competition and personal politics, is not documented nearly as well as the excellence of his art, an astonishing record of over 600 separate works that practically define the Classical era in music.