CLASSICAL
Terrence Wilson
Originally, Wilson had been slated to perform a Prokofiev concerto, giving more credence to the concert title "Russian Brilliance," but instead was asked for some Mozart by concert sponsors. Instead the Mozart Concerto No. 21 in C (K. 467), one of the most popular and frequently played of that genre, was paired with the Symphony No. 5 by Shostakovich. The two halves of the program could not have been more disparate in mood.
Steven Smith is well-known to New Mexico audiences as the music director of the Santa Fe Symphony, and as many of the NMSO players are also members of the other orchestra, this constituted a reunion of sorts. Smith has always impressed me for his intelligent and lucid interpretations, and this concert proved no exception.
A Julliard graduate, Wilson brings to his instrument a robust enthusiasm and energy coupled with solid technique. Glistening passagework and pristine rhythmic figures characterized the performance bursting with vitality, yet without the slightest hint of exaggeration of style. Smith preferred to take the tempos generally on the brisk side and Wilson responded without any loss of detail. There seemed a genuine camaraderie between the two. The middle movement, Andante, now forever called the "Elvira Madigan" movement for its use in the impressionist film, was filled with sensual textures and luxurious sense of line. A genuine playfulness characterized the final Allegro with Wilson spinning forth trails of notes as smooth as pouring oil.
Throughout his career, Shostakovich toiled under the watchful eye of government censorship, just as did Hollywood film directors in the 1930s, even up into the '60s. Which is not to say there weren't some masterpieces produced in either case. Indeed, the Russians wrote some of the most oftenplayed works of the 20th century. Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, written in 1937, was described, perhaps ironically, as "a Soviet artist's reply to just criticism." The result being that the work contains little if any of the "abstract experimentation" the composer had employed in earlier works.
Masterfully, Smith held together the massive, slowmoving textures of the opening Moderato. The Allegretto by contrast proved a study in gaudy color in this bizarre, surrealistic satire of a waltz.
The great climaxes of the Largo are not cathartic but introspective in this intensely emotional and undoubtedly personal experience, closing almost in contradiction on a major chord. The most optimistic of the four movements, the final Allegro began in pure fire, blasting forth in mock triumph.
I found it amusing that Music Director Guillermo Figueroa couldn't stay away from the concert. He could be found playing at the back of the first violin section.
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© 2008, ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
