April 18 & 20, 2024
Atlanta Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center
Atlanta, Georgia – USA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Lina Gonzalez-Granados, conductor; Cédric Tiberghien, piano.
Gabriela ORTIZ: Kauyumari
George GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue
Joel THOMPSON: To See the Sky
Gabriela Lena FRANK: Walkabout: Concerto for Orchestra
Arturo MÁRQUEZ: Danzón No. 2
Mark Gresham | 27 APR 2024
It’s rare for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to play as many as five different works in one of its classical subscription series concerts. It is even rarer when four of those works are first-time performances by the ASO. But that was the case on Thursday night when guest conductor Lina Gonzalez-Granados made her ASO podium debut, and pianist Cédric Tiberghien made his debut as a soloist with the orchestra.
The concert opened with a seven-minute work by Gabriela Ortiz entitled Kauyumari, which means “blue deer” in the indigenous language of Mexico’s Huichol (Wixárika) people. Huichol is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by about 45,000 people in all, primarily in the Mexican state of Jalisco, but also found in a handful of other Mexican states and U.S. border states of the American southwest, including cities such as Houston, Texas, and La Habra, California (southeast of Los Angeles).
In Huichol folklore, the blue deer represents a spiritual guide, transformed through the use of the hallucinogenic peyote cactus, which is believed to allow the Huichoi to communicate with their ancestors. After a brief droning introduction that includes antiphonal figures from muted trumpets placed on the left and right side of the audience at ground level, Ortiz seems to attempt to invoke this experience of the “intangible” through an underlying rhythmic pattern (3 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 2 eighth notes) in which the orchestral texture attempts to evolve (the effect of peyote). Even so, it doesn’t feel like the piece moves forward, though textures are changing; instead, it comes across as caught up in the repetition of its rhythmic pattern, like a Grateful Dead-like jam session that can’t seem to go anywhere, but they keep playing anyway. (In this case, limited to seven minutes.)
(Note: Nowhere in the concert notes was the question raised as to whether the consumption peyote just might be a bad idea. Draw your own conclusions, but it seemed starkly overlooked.)
This year marks the 100th anniversary of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, written in January 1924 and premiered on February 12 of that year by the Paul Whiteman Band with the composer as soloist in a concert entitled “An Experiment in Modern Music” in New York City’s Aeolian Hall.
So it is no surprise that the ASO would program Rhapsody in Blue in some program this spring, though not necessarily this particular one where its presence seems much like the proverbial “carrot on a stick” to get an audience to show up for what is otherwise a program filled with mostly unfamiliar, new, and diverse music.
I’ve heard Gershwin’s Rhapsody in all sorts of incarnations, from the most wacky, off-the-wall approaches to very mainline performances that felt absolutely uninspired. But I’ve also experienced performances that ring incredibly true to the music, the composer, and his times. Thursday’s was not one of them
Grench pianist Cédric Tiberghien performs Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, April 25, 2024. (credit: Raftermen)
French pianist Cédric Tiberghien’s take on the iconic piece was very rhapsodic, exceptionally personal, and at times curiously introspective. It’s not that Tiberghien is a bad pianist, far from it, but with Gershwin’s Rhapsody, he missed the mark and did not capture the clear and straightforward “American modernist” character of Gershwin’s music—and we know what that should sound like, because of Gershwin’s own audio recording with the Paul Whiteman Band as well as his playing of the Rhapsody captured on piano roll overdubbed with piano reduction of the orchestral (big band) part.
Even given the differences between the original and the modern versions with the orchestra played today, Gershwin’s own playing of the piano part remains the yardstick for his interpretive intent. And the artist’s search for the composer’s intent is just as valid a prime criterion with Gershwin as with Beethoven or Dvořák. At least a certain impression of authenticity is necessary; in this case, the interpretations just didn’t feel… well… all that “American” to me, nor did the work’s rhapsodic structure come across as spontaneous and organically connected as it should whether the soloist alone or between soloist and orchestra. And yes, I’ve heard plenty of dry, rigid “by rote” performances with the same problem.
Lina Gonzalez-Granados leads the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with piano soloist Cédric Tiberghien, April 25, 2024. (credit: Raftermen)
After Gershwin came Atlanta-based composer Joel Thompson’s To See the Sky, inspired by a quote from lyrics of jazz vocalist and composer Cécile McLorin Salvant: “Sometimes/you have to gaze into a well/to see the sky.” In his notes, Thompson calls Salvant (who performed at Spivey Hall in February with pianist Sullivan Fortner) “probably my favorite artist alive right now.”
His longest instrumental work to date, Thompson’s 20-minute To See the Sky, is the product of a co-commission between the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Forum, New York Philharmonic, Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Bravo! Vail Music Festival. The piece had its world premiere on March 21 by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by its music director Jaap van Zweden.
Thompson’s music essentially alternates sections of clamorous, assertive rhythms with passages of quiet lyricism that (if one listens carefully) hint at the composer’s choral background. However, this back-and-forth doesn’t contribute to a persuasive overall structure for the duration, even if some of the isolated musical ideas and stylistic nods may be interesting in and of themselves.
After intermission, the program’s penultimate and most extended work was Gabriela Lena Frank’s Walkabout: Concerto for Orchestra (2016), inspired by the composer’s travels in Perú, her mother’s homeland.
The thing is, despite its complexities, Walkabout does not come across to me as a “concerto for orchestra,” but more of an “orchestral set” akin to Charles Ives’ Three Place in New England, where each “place” in the set is intended to make the listener experience a unique atmosphere, as if there. Both pieces are geo-societal portraits that involve both musical and extra-musical references.
For Frank’s Walkabout, the evocations are references to Peruvian culture: “Soliloquio Serrano” is a soliloquy to the Andes Mountains. In the final “Tarqueada,” Frank’s evocation of parading “tarka” flutists with their flutes, whistles, and drums can credibly compare to Ive’s portrayal of the village cornet band in “Putnam’s Camp” movement of Three Place in New England.
One would think it could have been the final work on the program, but no: the ending of Walkabout left the listener feeling like the concert was “unfinished” and that it desperately needed am effective closer.
That functional task fell to Danzón No. 2 (1994) by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez, a piece that became popularized in orchestral circles after Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela included it in their 2007 European and American tour concerts.
The piece is grounded in the rhythms of the dance style known as danzón. This style has Afro-Cuban origins but became an essential part of the folk culture in the Mexican Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, where it inspired Márquez during a visit to a local ballroom.
Nevertheless, as entertaining as it might have seemed on paper, it was not enough to fulfill the need for a strong conclusion to the concert, leaving it like an evening meal left unfinished because the host forgot the dessert. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: aso.org
- Lina Gonzalez-Granados: linagonzalezgranados.com
- Cédric Tiberghien: cedrictiberghien.com
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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