Guo, Miller, and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.
There are two responses to the notion that classical music’s canon is too narrow. The first is to turn one’s back on the canon entirely, and the second is to dig deeper into the canon, looking for lesser-known works from famous composers.
On Friday, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, led by guest conductor and music director candidate Tania Miller, mostly demonstrated the latter approach. This worked better in some cases than others from an audience perspective — but in all, the orchestra under Miller’s baton demonstrated care and sensitivity in their approach to this wide-ranging program.
The highlight of the evening was the performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with soloist Chelsea Guo. The first movement in particular made an incredibly transparent display of the possibilities of the piano to contrast or complement the orchestra. This work shows the outright influence of some of Beethoven’s classical-era predecessors, and reflects the rigorous musical organization that was a main characteristic of that era. Using another parlance, you might see the orchestra and the piano as trading fours.
The effect of that on Friday night was massive. Guo navigated lengthy solo passages with all of the subtle shifts of dynamic and tempo needed to bring the full potential out of writing that sometimes felt restrained by the formal rigor. Miller served as perfect intermediary between Guo and the orchestra, navigating the dynamic middle section of the first movement with effortless coordination. By the time Guo began the lengthy cadenza, or solo section, that concluded the first movement, the room was full of energy; the cadenza heightened that with an edge-of-seat intensity.
The second movement then showed some of the sense of invention that Beethoven would bring to his later orchestral writing. At one point Guo’s left hand served as a hushed, songlike counterpoint to the strings. At other moments, the piano would appear to be going furiously, but was masked by the orchestra, then slowly revealed as the brass and winds pulled back. The orchestra brought a lot of care to this exchange, which carried through as the third movement arrived without interruption, or attaca.
A group of young seminarians from Legion of Christ College of Humanities in Cheshire said, during the concert intermission, that part of their mission is to study the humanities — music and culture. That’s what brought them to the concert on Friday. One of them said in particular that he was drawn to the fact that Miller was coming from Vancouver, and by her wide range of orchestra experience. Does he hope Miller takes the music director post?
“Absolutely,” he said.
A pair of school-age siblings in attendance were both struck by the virtuosity and precision of the concerto. Both had enough musical experience to recognize how challenging the music would have been to play.
“Dazzling,” their father offered.
They, along with the rest of the audience, were struck by Guo’s encore. The piano lid was closed, and after a short departure from the stage, Guo returned and sang Franz Lehar’s “Vilja’s Song” from the operetta The Merry Widow. Her full tone and restrained vibrato allowed the English-translated lyrics to come across fully into the hall. Where the final movement of the Beethoven had an almost mocking playfulness to it, the Lehar aria had a directness and sincerity that served as a clear musical contrast.
The other works on the program were more challenging in different ways. “Hymne,” by Valentin Silvestrov, featured only the strings, with a lot of relatively conventional harmony occasionally soured by restrained dissonances. The orchestra — especially principal players in the first and second violins — wove some delicate soli through the murky textures, bringing their best to this work. But the work itself did not make a strong impression, offering more a sense of stasis than the implied spirituality of the title.
In her introduction to Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, Miller offered that many of the strings would be instantly familiar with the Scherzo, the second movement, which shows up as audition repertoire. She also talked about Schumann’s direct influences from Bach and Beethoven, as well as the significance this work played in correlating with the composer’s recovery from a bout of depression.
It would be easy, but inaccurate, to say that the composer is depressed, therefore the work is depressing. The first two movements do bear a sense of expectation and anxiety that is profoundly discomforting. It is also quite a bit more heavy-handed than some of the excellent musical study of emotional ambiguity that characterizes Robert Schumann’s earlier piano and songwriting.
The result is that the work doesn’t seem to come into its own — ironically — until it starts really digging into the Bach references in the third movement. Here the orchestra brought an incredible sensitivity as melodies were passed in different combinations around the brass and winds. This may have been more deliberately referential to another composer, but the choices felt more assured.
The other result is that the sometimes obligatory sense of spiritual uplift in the final movement, a common feature of music from the Romantic era, actually feels earned and cathartic here. The musical links this movement claims to Beethoven may be a bit more obscure to someone not looking along in the score. But similar to the famous final movement of Beethoven’s 9th symphony, there is a sense of triumph, and a sense of having gone through something and emerged through the other side.
Ultimately, though the range of work sometimes seemed formally restrained, the program showed Miller, Guo, and the orchestra delivering a strong set of performances.
The next NHSO Music Director Candidate is Perry So, who will lead the New Haven Symphony Orchestra at Lyman Center for the Performing Arts. on Sunday afternoon, March 26, at 3 p.m., with Barber, Beethoven, and Léon.