February Arts Review
Well, friends, Sunday, 22 February was probably the.best full day of concerts that I have been blessed to attend. It was one hell of a day. Let’s begin with the Houston Symphony.
A nearly all-Russian afternoon with pieces that included Sophia Gubaidulina’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, a beautiful short work by the French woman, Augusta Holmès, La unit et l’amore, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, Overture-Fantasy, and Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy.
The Gubaidulina piece is a stunning one. I knew something was different when the viola section was sitting on the left side of the stage where the first and second violins are normally placed. There were no violins! A very rich and extremely dark score, the violas, cellos and basses and low brasses gave a daunting accompaniment to the violin soloist, Alexi Kenney. He played with passion extremely high notes with which he made a screechy tone to perfectly contrast with the haunting orchestra behind him. A loud, in-your-face work there is a section in which (I should have counted and I do not have the score) the orchestra plays a block chord, louder and louder and harsher and harsher each time, with nothing else in between the two seconds pauses – I am guessing at least eight times. Music Director Juraj Valčula knows the piece well as he conducted it with HSO in 2020, before coming on board.
After the intermission, the Holmès work was performed. Short, only some five minutes long, it was a very romantic piece, perfectly fitting in with the Tchaikovsky and Scriabin that followed.
A personal note, Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy was the first classical work that I ever heard and I was four years old. My aunt started giving me records, this one being a 10” “LP” with the twenty minute fantasy evenly split on each side of the record. At that tender age it was not a love story but one that fueled my imagination of a dramatic car chase down a mountain, a couple of crashes in which the occupants miraculously recovered. Remember, I was only four. Back to the performance, it was polished and rock solid. After some 70 years of hearing the work, I no longer had the thoughts of my youth.
The final work was the massive Poem of Ecstasy. Scriabin has long been a favorite of mine and it also did not disappoint. Principal trumpet Mark Hughes was sensational with the unrelenting trumpet theme through the work. The entire brass section, horns, trumpets, trombones and tuba were all on their game in this powerhouse and erotic work.
Following the concert, I made my way over to the Cullen Theater at the Wortham Center to hear the Branford Marsalis Quartet. The Quarter includes Marsalis on soprano and tenor saxophones, Joey Calderazzo, piano, Eric Revis, bass, and Justin Faulkner drums. The Quartet has been together for 25 years now, and the only change in personnel was made 15 years ago, when Faulkner joined. Obviously these men know each other’s abilities and styles extremely well and it was a thrilling set. They have a unique sound and rhythm of their own but at times I was reminded of the Dave Brubeck Quartet with its relentless virtuosity. I cannot adequately describe their renditions of the last song of the set, Side by Side, and the encore, Dancing Cheek to Cheek except to mention that they were beautifully phrased and played at a very slow tempi that certainly pleased the sold-out Da Camera audience.
Like I said, that was one hell of a Sunday!
Let me continue to hear from you by email – classicalmusicberquist@gmaio.com.
