Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Springfield, MA
March 14, 2015
by Michael J. Moran
Consisting only
of two symphonies, this program presented the strongest study in contrast of
the current SSO season, between (as Maestro Kevin Rhodes notes in “Rhodes’
Reflections” in the program book) Beethoven’s “trip to the country” and
Bernstein’s portrait of the “angst of the city and modern life.” As Rhodes also
notes in these “Reflections,” Beethoven “was the first person to give a symphony
a program and a title” in his sixth, or “Pastoral,” symphony.
The Maestro’s urgent performance reminded listeners that for
this most dramatic of composers even a walk in the countryside was an
adventure. Thus, the first movement, subtitled “Cheerful feelings awakened on
arriving in the country,” moved along at a brisk clip; the slower second
movement, “Scene by the brook,” flowed swiftly past; the livelier third
movement, “Merry gathering of country folk,” danced energetically by; the
contrasting fourth movement, “Thunderstorm,” featured a shockingly loud drum
thwack; it was only in the final “Shepherd’s song: Happy and thankful feelings
after the storm,” that repose was finally achieved. The SSO played throughout
with vigor and poise.
Following intermission, Bernstein’s second symphony, named
and programmed after Auden’s poem “The Age of Anxiety,” explores the meaning of
life after the devastation of World War II. Its six movements are divided into
two groups of three, set in a New York City bar (Part I) and an apartment (Part
II). Its prominent role for a piano soloist makes it almost as much a concerto
as a symphony.
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| Sara Davis Buechner |
Sara Davis Buechner’s virtuosic playing showed off both the
lyrical and the percussive qualities of the instrument, which Rhodes carefully
balanced against the enlarged orchestra. The jazzy fifth movement, “Masque,”
for piano and drum set, was particularly infectious, even foreshadowing “West
Side Story.”
The audience included two groups of young students, and one
boy no more than ten years old seated near this reviewer leaned forward through
all 40 minutes of Beethoven totally enthralled by the performance. Though he
didn’t stay for the Bernstein, he could have had no finer introduction to
classical music and a potential lifetime of concert-going pleasure.
