Legendary Cellist Lynn Harrell Graces the Elgin Symphony Stage

The audience left the Hemmens Main Hall brimming with excitement Sunday as the Elgin Symphony Orchestra wrapped up its opening weekend of Ives, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, conducted by ESO Music Director Andrew Grams.

After an uplifting rendition of the National Anthem, the program started with Variations on America (1892) by a teenaged Charles Ives, composed originally for the organ. It's the kind of piece that benefits from an introduction, and an affable Grams relaxed the concert's usual decorum to share a few words about the composer and his work, illustrated with musical excerpts played by the orchestra.

The 1964 arrangement by William Schuman remarkably preserves the sound of two keyboards with pedals, evoking the humor of circus organs or silent movies, and the orchestration is reminiscent of P.D.Q. Bach. But in comedy we hear the truth, and Ives' genius was indeed ahead of its time.

Joining the ESO for two works by Tchaikovsky was Lynn Harrell, known in music circles as the "Dean of American Cellists," whose 50-year career includes appearances on the world's greatest concert stages, the Grammy Awards broadcast and the Vatican.

Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Tchaikovsky's Andante cantabile
from String Quartet No. 1 with Elgin Symphony Orchestra.
(Photo by James Harvey)

The eight-part Variations on a Rococo Theme (1877) was a showcase for Harrell's effortless technique. Bowing from the wrist, his delicate high passages were like an angel's laughter: lighter than air. Across the low register, his timing and placement was like Russian ballet dancers barely touching the floor. 

Even subtler still was the Andante cantabile from String Quartet No. 1 (1871), in which the orchestral accompaniment was impossibly soft and superbly conducted. Harrell seemed to work from a place beyond method or doctrine, quoting from memory, playing the whole instrument as easily as exhaling a breath.

The ESO has welcomed its share of rising stars, but the elocution of an artist with Harrell's experience is in a class by itself.

Walking briskly to the podium after intermission, Maestro Grams launched his colorful and emotive 45-minute interpretation of Brahms' Symphony No. 1 in C Minor. The well-known piece rejoiced in a wealth of understanding and affection within the ensemble. Excellent wind solos attested to the players' exceptional preparation for the start of a concert season.

Elgin Symphony Orchestra Music Director Andrew Grams.
(Photo by James Harvey)

Like a brilliant film director working with great actors, Grams connected with every section in a creative two-way dialogue of motion and sound, producing a vivid musical gestalt. Only in the hands of diligent and devoted artists like these would Brahms' familiar four-movement plot (and its Beethovenian subtext) seem new again. 

"Each concert is better than his last," said one awestruck musician in the audience. Grams continues to surprise listeners with the breadth of his repertoire and depth of his ability, and we are eager to learn whether the well has any bottom.

"Russian Spectacular" Lives Up To Its Billing

The ESO launched its 2011-2012 season at The Hemmens on Friday with a well-conceived program of magnificent surprises. The lobby was enlivened by excited patrons of all ages, caterers, vendors and new procedures at the hall doors. For the first time in years, an image of now retired Music Director Robert Hanson was missing from the program cover, though he received a generous full-page tribute inside for his exceptional contributions to the organization.

The concert opened with a performance by the audience: singing the National Anthem accompanied by the entire orchestra, standing along with guest conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn in an inspiring and unexpected gesture of patriotism before the start of a program of classics entitled "Love & War: A Russian Spectacular."

For an opener, the internationally-acclaimed maestro led the ESO through a colorful, flowing interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, eliciting a moving performance of the famous love themes with generous and expressive cues and body language. Despite an occasional staggered entrance, the ensemble was impressively synchronized through long sections of afterbeats and a series of final chords. Near the end, a sequence of choralic woodwind "amens" foreshadowed the concert finale. 

Perhaps more moving than the tragic end of Romeo and Juliet are the forces of love and loyalty that impelled them, and this was the perfect prelude to Alexander Glazunov's Concerto in A Minor for Violin and Orchestra, featuring ESO concertmaster and violin soloist Isabella Lippi. Throughout the piece, you get the distinct feeling that you are listening to a group of people who truly respect and care about each other, coming together to work at something they love. Ms. Lippi's playing was strong and focused, displaying both the skill of an artisan and the passion of an artist, laid out in textures and timings that suggest not merely sound or movement, but also thought. After a long, abstract and technically dazzling cadenza, the piece concludes with spirited allegro in which the orchestra and soloist take turns with joyful, dance-like phrases that hint at the sounds of Russian music that would emerge over the next thirty years. 

After the intermission, remarks by Principal Trumpet Ross Beacraft echoed the themes of love and loyalty between the ESO and its audience, as he announced their plans for a worldwide search for a Music Director.

The symphonic poem The Rock by a young Sergei Rachmaninov completed this program's artistic trajectory of Russian composers, but the concert finale was reserved for one of the most popular concert works ever written: Tchaikovsky's overture 1812. The orchestra was joined by the Elgin Choral Union for a seldom-heard arrangement of the piece in which the chorus sings sacred Russian lyrics to the hymn-like sections at the beginning and near the end of the piece. Add to this the inspiring subtitles projected overhead, effects of cannon fire and church bells, stirring performances by percussion and brass, and you have an exhilarating Russian spectacle that still brings a teardrop and a chill no matter how many times you may have heard it. Cheers arose before the last note even ended, and the audience followed with a standing ovation so vigorous that it brought smiles to the faces of every musician on stage. Clearly, this is the "concert" they come to hear: the applause of a loyal, adoring, and grateful audience.

If you haven't heard the ESO lately, this is an exciting time to become reacquainted, and the "Russsian Spectacular" is just the beginning. For tickets to the Saturday (8 p.m.) or Sunday (3:30 p.m.) concerts go to http://www.elginsymphony.org

ESO Presents the Music of Russian Masters

This weekend, you'll experience the powerful competition of ideas, emotion and fantasy in an all-Russian concert featuring a work whose composer never heard it performed.

Topping the bill is Modest Mussorgsky's A Night on Bald Mountain, a piece of music which died, arose and changed forms not unlike the witches whose myth inspired it. After the composer's death in 1881, the work was rearranged for concert performance by his friend and colleague Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, whose brilliant creative spirit haunts much of the Russian music from this period.

Another member of their fiercely nationalistic circle, the doctor and chemist Alexander Borodin, contributed the important Russian opera Prince Igor as well as instrumental music.  The second of his three symphonies evokes the gleaming, heroic side of Russian folk legend.

The place of enduring love in the Russian psyche is marked by Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, a ballet and musical love story colored by black magic. Unlike his contemporaries, Tchaikovsky leaned westward in his style and injected more pathos than patriotism into his music.  Ironically, he confessed no love in the writing of his best known work, the overture 1812 which commemorates Russia's defense against Napoleon in Moscow.

Opposing forces is a main theme in the life of Dmitri Shostakovich, who fell in and out of favor with the Soviets repeatedly during his fifty-year career. The unusually upbeat Piano Concerto No. 2 was written for his son's 19th birthday, in the years after Stalin's death when the composer was enjoying a period of "official rehabilitation."

For tickets to "Night on Bald Mountain" call the ESO Box Office (847-888-4000) or visit www.elginsymphony.org.