February 16, 2024
Schwartz Center for Preforming arts, Emerson Hall
Atlanta, GA – USA
National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Volodymyr Sirenko, conductor; Natalia Khoma, cello.
Dmitri BORTNIANSKY/arr. Sirenko: Sinfonia Concertante in B♭ Major
Franz Joseph HAYDN: Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, Hob. VIIb:1
Jean SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52
Mark Gresham | 21 FEB 2024
This past Friday evening, just after announcing its 2024-25 concert season, the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts in Atlanta hosted a concert by the touring National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, conducted by its artistic director Volodymyr Sirenko and featuring cellist Natalia Khoma as soloist.
The concert opened with a work by a Classical-era Ukrainian composer not-so-well-known in Western countries but highly popular in the Russian Empire of his day: Dmitry Stepanovich Bortniansky (1751-1825).
A harpsichordist and conductor of Ukrainian Cossak origin, Bortniansky served at the Russian Imperial Court of Catherine the Great, playing a pivotal role in both modern Russia’s and Ukraine’s musical legacies, and revered by both nations as a luminary figure.
Bortniansky’s Sinfonia Concertante in B♭ Major (1790) was originally for harp and keyboard solos with a chamber orchestra of two violins, viola da gamba, cello, and bassoon. However, in this concert, NSOU presented the audience with a re-scoring of the work by Sirenko for a standard “Classical” orchestra, which eliminated the solos and redistributed their parts among the other orchestral musicians.
That actually worked out well, turning the “sinfonia-concertante” into more of a standard “symphony” &mdash, something average listeners would not likely have recognized as an arrangement had it not been for mention in the program notes.
Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809) was almost two decades Bortniansky’s senior but contemporaries in their late Classical-era style, and NSOU followed the latter’s Sinfonia Concertante with Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1, written between 1761 and 1765.
Cellist Natalia Khoma solos in Haydn’s “Cello Concerto No. 1” with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraoine at the Schwartz Center for Performing arts, February 16, 2024. (credit: Bill Head)
Cellist Natalia Khoma was the soloist for this concerto, which possesses features of both a Baroque concerto’s ritornello form and the evolving classical sonata-allegro structure and exhibits highly idiomatic writing for the solo cello.
Khoma was spot-on with her delightful performance, with a warmly lyrical, clear projecting tone and the ability to be more musically assertive on occasion when needed.
After intermission, Sirenko led the orchestra in the Symphony No. 3 by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865 – 1957). Written between 1904 and 1907, it is an affably straightforward composition, with themes from Finnish folk music presented early on. It marks a pivotal point in the composer’s symphonic output, with an almost “classical” demeanor — a big contrast to the heavily Romantic temperament of his first two symphonies.
Sirenko and the NSOU confirmed the work’s clarified mode of expression in their performance, letting the listener hear the inner workings well.
The three-movement symphony commences “Allegro moderato” with a vigorous rhythmic melody introduced by the celli and double basses, gradually joined by brass and the remaining strings. The prominent C–F♯ tritone interval, pivotal to this and subsequent movements, is emphasized early on, followed by a gentle flute solo transitioning into a horn call amidst the movement’s three significant climaxes. Serenity returns through the celli in B minor before winding down to a recapitulation of themes. The C–F♯ dichotomy is finally resolved, for this movement at least, with a concluding F–C plagal cadence.
The second movement, marked “Andantino con moto,” unveils a nocturnal atmosphere, with recurring thematic developments suggestive of a rondo structure. The finale (“Moderato – Allegro ma non tanto”) unfolds in two interconnected parts: a tense scherzo followed by a recurring chorale theme, leading to a climactic coda concluding in a triumphant tutti.
National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine then performed several encores, all parts of a large work entitled Christmas Symphonysms by Ukrainian composer and music producer Ivan Nebesnyy, based in Lviv, best known for his stage works and film scores.
First came a version of “Щедрик” (“Shchedryk,” a Ukrainian New Year’s song better known in the Anglophone world in a Christmas incarnation as “Carol of the Bells”). Two more songs from the set followed, played without pause: “Нині Рождество Божого Дитяти” (“Today is the Birth of the Child of God”) and “Небо і земля нині торжествують” (“Heaven and Earth are celebrating now”).
As of this writing, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine concludes its US tour with concerts in upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia over the next four days. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine: nsou.com.ua/en/
- Volodymyr Sirenko: nsou.com.ua/en/artists/volodymyr-sirenko/
- Natalia Khoma: nataliakhoma.com
- Ivan Nebesnyy: nebesnyy.com
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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