March 27, 2013

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra paid tribute to both New Jersey composers and music educators this past weekend with a concert of Classical period music—touched with a bit of 20th century New Jersey. NJSO Music Director Jacques Lacombe led the Orchestra in a performance of Mozart, Schubert and Cone works which also showed off the results of effective music education.

The Orchestra began Friday night’s performance at Richardson Auditorium with a demonstration of an NJSO educational initiative. Four members of NJSO’s Greater Newark Chamber Orchestra, violinists Winifred Waters and Rachel Seo, violist Melissa Hollfelder and cellist Nicholas Wu, played an excerpt of a Dvorak string quartet, showing solid technique individually and a well-blended sound among the four players as an ensemble. Under the careful watch of coach Stephen Fang, the Orchestra’s Assistant Principal Cellist, this quartet of young musicians showed their drive and dedication to music with elegant melodic lines played by each instrumentalist and handling well the responsibility of communicating as a quartet.

Mr. Lacombe paired the New Jersey educational initiative with a work by a New Jersey composer.  Edward Cone’s Elegy is a piece NJSO has presented before as part of its New Jersey Roots Project, and is a work with which both conductor and Orchestra becomes more comfortable with each performance.  The combination of haunting oboe and English horn solos played by James Roe and Andrew Adelson, respectively, sounded especially smooth in the hall, and Mr. Lacombe found both a crispness and flow which gave the work direction.

The wind effects of the Cone piece were well paired with another work with elegant wind writing—Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the “Unfinished” Symphony.  Conducting from memory, Mr. Lacombe began the first movement with creeping celli and the familiar theme played lightly with a Viennese touch.  Mr. Lacombe brought out the sforzandi well and effectively used a pair of teasing horns to lead back to the restatement of the theme.  The second movement was marked by a light touch on horn and strings, aided by a light clarinet solo played by Karl Herman and Mr. Roe’s clean and lilting oboe solos. Mr. Lacombe’s concentration and focus in this piece was exceptional, given the unfortunate instances of Richardson house staff seating late-comers (very late-comers) just as he was ready to give the downbeat and a cell phone ringing in one of the quietest moments of the second movement.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is viewed as a height of the Classical period, and his Requiem is seen as a zenith of his compositional powers. Left unfinished at Mozart’s death, the Requiem includes challenging quick passages for the choral singers and opportunities for chorus and orchestra to create an elegant 18th-century Viennese musical palette.   Joining the pared-down NJSO were four vocal soloists and the 60-voice Montclair State University Singers, who had been thoroughly prepared by Heather J. Buchanan.  Bassoonist Robert Wagner provided the dark opening theme, and the basses of the chorus began the Mass for the Dead text with assuredness.

In the more elegant and lyrical movements the chorus provided a very full and blended sound in the hall without having to oversing, and the phrase directions requested by Mr. Lacombe were well executed.  Running passages were well handled by all sections, with the tenors impressively light and clean.  The soprano section was able to float their sound well in the beginning of the piece, but as the mass went on, vibrato began to control the sectional sound.  The tenor and bass sections provided particularly effective bite in the “Confutatis” movement, answered by a sweet “voca me” from the women.

The vocal quartet, soprano Christine Brandes, mezzo-soprano Suzanne Mentzer, tenor Gordon Gietz and bass Robert Pomakov, showed especially solid ensemble in the “Benedictus” section, as well as other moments when all four singers were singing together. Ms. Brandes was consistently a decisive singer with a voice full of color, and Mr. Pomakov showed his best lower range on the “Tuba Mirum” text elegantly accompanied by tenor trombonist Vernon Post. The Orchestra maintained a Viennese lilt to the accompaniment, with very clean brass playing among two trumpets and three trombones in the “Benedictus” movement.  Showing the attentiveness of the chorus, the final fugue was as clean as the first as the Requiem closed in dramatic fashion.

This performance was a solid collaborative effort among New Jersey ensembles as well as student players from within the NJSO organization.  Performing Viennese such staples as Mozart and Schubert no doubt made everyone’s late winter Friday evening just a bit more pleasant.

 

March 28, 2012

Musical ensembles in Princeton have presented a number of fine soloists over the years, and when a superstar passes through, it is immediately noticeable. Pianist André Watts has been a legendary performer long enough to be familiar to an entire generation of concert-goers. The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) brought Mr. Watts to Princeton this past weekend in a Brahms concerto performance that thrilled both players and audience.

Music Director Jacques Lacombe preceded the American legend with a taste of the next generation of talent by starting Friday night’s concert in Richardson Auditorium with three young students in the orchestra’s education and community engagement program. The three musicians played a lively flute trio, showing poise and musicianship. It was also fitting that the NJSO followed this educational outreach sampler with Edward T. Cone’s Music for Strings, given Mr. Cone’s commitment to students over his life.

Music for Strings proved to be a block of concentrated string sound, with players uniform in their intensity and meter changes. Mr. Cone clearly liked lower strings, with the dense sound of the celli and double basses contrasted by a lyrical violin solo by concertmaster Eric Wyrick. Mr. Lacombe maintained solid control over the changing textures, bringing the piece to nothingness at the end.

André Watts joined the orchestra for Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, a towering late 19th-century work combining keyboard virtuosity with a luxuriant orchestral palette. Mr. Watts was seated almost directly behind the conductor, but it was clear from the outset that both conductor and soloist had the piece well in hand and needed only occasionally to check in with each other. The first movement’s opening paired principal hornist Lucinda-Lewis with Mr. Watts in a perfectly timed duet. What set Mr. Watts well above other excellent soloists was the exact timing and rhythmic symbiosis between the soloist and orchestra. Mr. Watts’s precise dialogues with the ensemble no doubt come from familiarity, at times seeming to play just for himself, yet keeping solid communication with the orchestra. He took complete charge of tempo changes, with skips in the left hand and phrasing that always seemed to be going somewhere. Mr. Watts in particular exhibited fierce contrary motion between hands and forceful double trills to close the first movement.

The concerto was primarily about the orchestra and pianist, with a few wind solos interspersed, including from flutist Bart Feller and oboist James Roe. The third movement featured an extended duet between piano soloist and solo cello, gracefully played by principal cellist Jonathan Spitz. This movement gave the pianist a bit of a break, as the music moved languorously among several solo instruments. Mr. Watts returned to constant piano motion in the closing movement, accompanied by well-nuanced phrasing from the orchestra.

Equally as towering as the Brahms Concerto was Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, known as the Rhenish Symphony because of the influence on the composer of Europe’s Rhine River. Through the four movements of the symphony, Mr. Lacombe kept the tempi moving along at an exuberant clip, giving the impression of the Rhine rolling along. Clearly very familiar with the work, Mr. Lacombe allowed the first movement to state its point from the beginning while building dynamic swells and elegantly tapering wind phrases. The second scherzo movement maintained a rather heavy lilt with a bit of teasing in some of the internal cadential passages. Mr. Roe demonstrated delicate playing in oboe solos in the first movement, and an augmented brass section blended well with clarinets and bassoons in the fourth movement.

The nearly full house at Richardson no doubt thought it was a truly special evening to hear a soloist of this caliber, as Mr. Lacombe and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra continue to make their mark around the state.


January 25, 2012

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) focused its Winter Festival this year on the theme of “Fire,” including a well-received performance of the rarely-heard complete ballet score of Stravinsky’s The Firebird. Winter is by no means over, and the NJSO brought its festival to Richardson Auditorium this past weekend with a concert described as “Fire: Light and Legend.” Music Director Jacques Lacombe accomplished several of his stated goals with the orchestra in this concert while staying within the “Fire” theme, including presenting lesser-known works of familiar composers and promoting the music of important composers of our time. The Richardson audience at Friday night’s concert came away hearing the music of Haydn and Beethoven in a new way, as well as becoming familiar with a significant leader in new music.

Franz Joseph Haydn’s symphonies are frequently heard on orchestra programs, but often they are the same pieces — ignoring much of the composer’s more than 100 symphonic works. Mr. Lacombe found an early Haydn symphony which fit with the idea of “Fire,” and the ensemble’s performance of Symphony  No. 59 in A Major was as crisp and chipper as a crackling winter blaze.

The presence of a harpsichord onstage indicated the symphony’s roots in the early Classical period and its connection to the previous Baroque ear. The opening movement had unusual rhythmic gestures which Mr. Lacombe brought out decisively, accompanied by a well-unified string sound. Mr. Lacombe demonstrated an elegant touch to the more lyrical second phrases, keeping the movement’s “development” section light. The customary third movement, menuetto, was unusually forceful, contrasted by a flowing solo string quartet for the “trio” section and a graceful ending to the movement. A pair of horns, led by principal hornist Lucinda-Lewis, provided strong hunting calls in the fourth movement.

As music director of the New Jersey Symphony, Mr. Lacombe has made a strong commitment to contemporary music, including European composers who may not be as familiar in the United States. Kaija Saariaho is well-known in her native Finland and is clearly respected enough in the United States to be named composer-in-residence at Carnegie Hall. Ms. Saariaho has collaborated with Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen for a number of years, and the NJSO brought both together with a performance of Saariaho’s Notes on Light —a concerto for cello and orchestra.

Saariaho scored this five-movement work for standard orchestra, with the addition of unusual percussion instruments and unconventional playing styles. Mr. Karttunen began the opening “Translucent, Secret” finding the quarter-tones in the solo line, and throughout the work he derived a variety of musical effects from the cello against a palette of orchestral colors. Mr. Lacombe kept a steady beat pattern on which the players could focus, and it was clear that the solo cellist had the piece well under control. Four flutes and piccolo excelled in the second movement, and in all movements Mr. Lacombe built dynamic intensity without allowing the piece to become strident.

Like Haydn, Beethoven is a popular composer on orchestral programs, and his 1800 Opus 43 ballet The Creatures of Prometheus is recognizable to many from its often-played overture. For Friday night’s concert, Mr. Lacombe chose to approach the familiar music as a multi-disciplinary performance, inviting two actors and a dance ensemble to convey a more complete story, accompanied by eight movements from the complete ballet score.

The story of Prometheus connects to fire in that fire brings the two central characters — clay statues — to life. In Friday’s performance, the two live characters were Zeus and Prometheus, acted by André de Shields and Claybourne Elder, respectively. Both actors conveyed their lines vividly, tying the story together around the musical vignettes. Acting the parts of the “Creatures” were dancers of The Francesca Harper Project.

Making room for actors and dancers required the orchestra to be more closely placed together on the stage, which brought out a very compact sound, especially from the winds. Flutist Kathleen Nester and oboists James Roe and Andrew Adelson played elegant solos in the overture, with Ms. Nester providing another clean solo in a later movement against pizzicato strings. A poignant duet was played late in the performance by Mr. Roe and clarinetist Andrew Lamy playing a basset horn, with a nice Viennese lilt maintained by the rest of the orchestra. Mr. Lacombe led a smooth transition to the coda as the work closed and Zeus seems to have his way at last.

The performance of the Beethoven ballet was visually interesting to look at, and with an additional libretto and lighting effects, was certainly a new way of approaching the work. Designing creative ways to present familiar music will no doubt work in the New Jersey Symphony’s favor in bringing people back to their concerts to see what is new.