March 21, 22, 23 & 24, 2024
Atlanta Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center
Atlanta, Georgia – USA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Krzysztof Urbanski, conductor; Janai Brugger, soprano; Myles Mykkanen, tenor; Joseph Lattanzi, baritone; Georgia Boy Choir (David R. White, director); Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus (Norman Mackenzie, director of choruses).
Witold LUTOSŁAWSKI: Concerto for Orchestra
Carl ORFF: Carmina burana
Mark Gresham | 24 MAR 2024
Composer and conductor Witold Lutosławski (1913 – 1994) was one of Poland’s most significant figures in 20th-century classical music; perhaps the most important of that country’s composers since Chopin. His notable works span various classical genres, excluding opera, and include the well-known Concerto for Orchestra (1954), the culmination of his “folkloristic” style inspired by the Kurpie region’s music. In this concerto, Lutosławski transformed traditional melodies into neo-baroque forms, adding complex counterpoints and modern harmonic language.
Its three movements are “Intrada,” a two-subject overture beginning on a threatening ostinato; “Capriccio notturno ed Arioso,” an airy, virtuoso scherzo followed by an expressive arioso, with a reprisal of the Capriccio that concludes in ominous rumblings; and “Passacaglia, Toccata e Corale” that concludes the work in a mighty flourish.
Like those of Béla Bartók and Jennifer Higdon, rather than having a featured guest soloist, Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra is a tour de force for the orchestra itself; a showpiece for its various sections.
Krzysztof Urbanski conducts the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, March 21, 2024. (credit: Rand Lines)
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, with guest conductor Krzysztof Urbanski at the helm, opened Thursday night’s concert with the Lutosławski concerto, which they had last performed in January 2020 with then-music-director Robert Spano.
For the third concert in a row, the ASO was demonstrably at the top of its game in this piece. The orchestra’s musicians displayed their top-level professionalism, technically and musically, with Urbanski overseeing an excellent shaping of the work and balance among the musical forces. It was an exhilarating performance, even though it was not the part of the concert intended to be a drawing card for the audience for this week’s rare instance of four consecutive days of performing a single subscription series program. That would come after intermission when the ASO Chorus, Georgia Boy Choir, and guest soloists joined Urbanski and the ASO in performing Carl Orff’s Carmina burana.
Immensely popular with the public, the ASO and its Chorus most performed Carmina burana in November 2013, with Robert Spano conducting. But besides the long performance history, the ASO and Chorus have also recorded it twice, both on Telarc: the first with Robert Shaw conducting, released in 1981 as a 2xLP set (with Hindemith’s Sym[phonic Metamorphoses), then reissued on CD in 1983 (Telarc CD-80056) and the second in 2002 on CD with Donald Runnicles conducting (Telarc CD-80575) also released as an SACD surround sound disc.
With that history, the work’s iconic opening celebrated in popular culture, and having just heard Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra under Urbanski’s baton, expectations were high for the concert’s second half. They were mostly met, but we got mixed results on a few levels.
That promise shone brightly with the striking opening measures, “O Fortuna, velut Luna statu variabilis” (“O Fortune, like the moon you are changeable”), chorus and orchestra serving up a unified sonic force like a blow to the solar plexus. And then immediately, and astonishingly, the opposite with the sudden drop in dynamics with the text “semper crescis aut decrescis; vita detestabilis…” (“ever waxing and waning; hateful life first oppresses and then soothes as fancy takes it.”) where the sound of the chorus became merely soft and covered, without requisite intensity.
It takes just as much energy as a fortissimo passage (if not more) for a chorus to sing a laser-focused pianissimo that sizzles, which is what “O Fortuna” requires (almost a stage whisper) for the emotion involved as well as the sheer projection of the choral part, but alas, that didn’t happen. The Chorus delivered the fortissimo passages well, ringing out with an unusually bright choral sound. The same edgy sonic emotional intensity is necessary for the subsequent “Fortune plango vulnera” which closes the introductory “Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi” section.
That is also necessary to achieve the emotional contrast that should accompany the next section, “Primo vere” (“Early Spring”), which begins with the chorus, “Veris leta facies” (“The merry face of spring”) and closes with another, “Ecce gratum et optatum ver reducit gaudia” (“Behold, the welcome and desired Spring brings back the joys”), a more relaxed, cheerful, and lyrical choral sound is warranted — but still, not “covered.” As with the “O Fortuna” prologue, except for a baritone solo and two instrumental interludes, the chorus dominates Part I, both the “Primo vere” and subsequent “Uf dem Anger” section (the text for the latter of those primarily in a Bavarianized High Middle German rather than Latin), so it must carry the dramatic narrative.
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, led by guest conductor Krzysztof Urbanski, perform Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” with soloists and Georgia Boy Choir. (credit: Rand Lines)
The ASO Chorus progressed through that and the rest of the work with good to excellent sound and emotional relevance. The men of the chorus were featured in Part II, In Taberna, while the fill chorus returned (along with predominantly Latn texts) in Part III, “Cour d’amours” (“Court of Love”). Part III also featured the Georgia Boy Choir in two segments: “Amor volat undique” (“Love flies everywhere”) and “Tempus est iocundum” (“Time to jest”), where they fulfilled their musical contribution rather well.
We’ll talk about the concluding choruses shortly, but first, let’s introduce the vocal soloists.
Joseph Lattanzi was the baritone soloist of the evening. He was a last-minute replacement for the scheduled Anthony Clark Evans, who suddenly became indisposed after passing out during dress rehearsal. An intensive search for a replacement found the locally based Lattanzi available and willing to jump in. As of Thursday night, Evans was said to have taken the day to rest but expected to sing the remaining concerts on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
The baritone has the most extensive solos in the work, singing in six of its 25 numbers, and is the first solo voice the audience hears. We first heard Lattanzi early on in “Omnia Sol temperat” (“All things are tempered by the sun”) sandwiched between the “Veris leta facies” and “Ecce gratum” (“Behold the welcome”) choruses in the “Prima vere” section of Part I.
Lattanzi performed admirably throughout, although the forceful “Estuans interius” (“Seething inside”), which opens Part II, would have benefitted from a more stentorian delivery, returning as it does to the darker emotions of the Prologue, expressing anger and bitterness toward the changeability of life’s fortunes while feeling chained by one’s own desires and societal expectations.
The only tenor solo in the entire work follows immediately after in Part II: “Olim lacus colueram” (“Once I swam in lakes”), and rather than sit awkwardly onstage for the other 24 numbers, tenor Miles Mykkanen took advantage of the situation by entering stage right as his segment began, crossing the apron of the stage as he sang with theatrical gestures, exiting stage left at the end. The risk in that is one of hamming it up, but Mykkanen never crossed that red line. Especially in the uppermost range of the lyrical tenor voice, he delivered the allegorical distress of a human in misery being roasted and eaten by life. (The male chorus responds to his verses: “Misery me! Now black and roasting fiercely!”)
As a related side note, in medieval times, taverns commonly spit-roasted swans on a hand-turned rotisserie, and a cook’s assistant who turned the handle was known as a “Schwanendreher” (“Swan-turner”). However, “Schwanendreher” is also a euphemism for a wandering minstrel who plays a hurdy-gurdy &mdash, an organ grinder. (Perhaps another allegorical expression of musical distress!)
It is only in Part III, in the “Cour d’amours” (“Court of Love”) section, that Orff finally includes the soprano soloist. Soprano Janai Brugger performed in its first number, “Amor volat undique” (“Cupid flies everywhere”), which also introduces the treble choir that sings it with her. This combination contrasts and relates to the combination of all-male voices of soloists and chorus in Part II — an essential structural device that marks the shift in Part III to themes of love, desire, and longing, portraying the complexities of romantic relationships and the intense emotions they evoke. “Amor volat undique” explores the joy and pain of love, the longing for physical intimacy, the agony of unrequited feelings, and the tension between passion and modesty.
From yearning and melancholy to exuberance and ecstasy, the section’s exchanges between soprano, baritone, treble choir, and mixed choir (and briefly, a male sextet) reflect the multifaceted nature of love, growing to an exuberant culmination for all forces on stage in “Tempus est iocundum” (“This is the joyful time”). Suddenly Brugger’s brief, final solo, “Dulcissime, Ah! totam tibi subdo me!” (“Sweetest one! Ah!
I give myself to you totally!”) reached into the stratosphere, setting up the penultimate choral section, “Blanziflor et Helena” (“Ave formosissima” / “Hail, most beautiful one”), the climax of the entire work and apex of singing from the ASO Chorus, finally showing the electrifying sound of which the ensemble is capable.
But alas, at its very end, it more or less stumbled or fell into the reprise of “O Fortuna” rather than do what it ought: act as a powerful anacrusis to it, which would have given “O Fortuna” the same kind of focused emotional impact that it had at the beginning — not merely a repeat, but a return with the heightened experience of everything that has transpired in between, the experience of having been entirely around the course of Fortune’s elusively fickle wheel.
A final verdict on the concert: The pairing of Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra and Orff’s Carmina burana was a great programming decision. As for its realization on Thursday evening, the critical choice goes to Lutosławski, while the “people’s choice” award goes to Orff. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: aso.org
- Krzysztof Urbanski: krzysztofurbanski.com
- ASO Chorus: johannes-moser.com
- Janai Brugger: janaibrugger.com
- Myles Mykkanen: milesmykkanen.com
- Joseph Lattanzi: josephlattanzibaritone.com
- Georgia Boy Choir: georgiaboychoir.org
Read more by Mark Gresham.
.png){kind=logo}