November 14 & 16, 2024
Atlanta Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center
Atlanta, Georgia – USA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor; Christina Smith, flute..
Carl Philipp Emanuel BACH: Flute Concerto in D Minor
Anton BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”)
Paul Hyde | 18 NOV 2024
Two strikingly different orchestras seemed to occupy the stage at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s November 14 concert.
The first orchestra: a polished Baroque chamber ensemble. The second: a rhapsodic Romantic orchestra four times the size of the first.
The concert, led by Nathalie Stutzmann, featured the same Atlanta Symphony Orchestra musicians, of course, but they toggled so nimbly between two sharply contrasting styles of music that they might have been separate groups of musicians.
To put it simply, it was a magnificent concert of works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Anton Bruckner.
Longtime principal flutist Christina Smith was the superb soloist in C.P.E. Bach’s Flute Concerto in D Minor. C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788) may be overshadowed today by his famous father, Johann Sebastian, but the son’s music was highly regarded by Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart, the latter of whom called C.P.E. Bach his “musical father.”
C.P.E. Bach’s Flute Concerto is full of charming and electrifying music. Smith, who has occupied the principal flute chair since 1991, brought to the work a clear, pinpoint articulation and velvet-smooth tone.
The first movement spotlighted a solo part of leaps and racing figures, all of which Smith negotiated with ease. Smith’s burnished tone was on full display in the lyrical second movement. The fiery third movement, designed to test a virtuoso to the utmost, was a particular delight, with Smith playing running scales and other figures at lightning-fast speed.
The audience rewarded Smith, clearly a house favorite, with rapturous applause and a standing ovation. I wish only that Smith had offered an encore.
Stutzmann drew luminous and transparent playing from the string orchestra of about two dozen. The strings’ crisp articulation, restrained vibrato, and other stylistic elements gave the work a marvelous Baroque sound.
Following intermission, the orchestra on the Atlanta Symphony Hall stage had expanded to upwards of 100 musicians for a sweeping account of Bruckner’s epic Fourth Symphony, subtitled “Romantic.”
Bruckner (1824-1896) is a composer who some listeners may find hard to love. He favors extremes: Explosive, brassy exclamations often alternate with softly intoned introspections by the strings and woodwinds.
Episodes of driving momentum can suddenly retreat into almost musical inertia.
His symphonies can be brooding and long. The Fourth lasts more than an hour. He demands much from an orchestra in sheer stamina. (Bruckner’s grandiose tendencies, like Wagner’s, made him ripe for appropriation by the Nazis, which, some argue, limited enthusiasm for his works in America.)
Performances of Bruckner seem to be popping up more lately, however, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Bruckner’s advocates love him precisely because of, not in spite of, his eccentricities and excess.
Few composers create such towering cathedrals of sound. Bruckner was a man of devout faith. His brass fanfares and organ-like chorales often can be understood as expressions of transcendence and religious ecstasy. The late German-American conductor Andre Previn, rather unkindly, once said of Bruckner’s overt faith-inspired music, “I wish he’d get up off his knees.”
I’m glad that Stutzmann chose not to restrain Bruckner’s excesses, favoring glorious bombast. I’ve heard more controlled performances of Bruckner, and they were far less satisfying. Bruckner benefits from a free rein.
This was go-for-broke music-making, with the orchestra in top-notch form. The brass, which play such a prominent role in this work, sounded splendid — forceful, yet well-balanced. The trumpet players used rotary-value trumpets, which provided a broader and less piercing sound.
The first movement balances grandeur with almost playful figures in the strings. The second softly introduces an air of mystery with a solemn procession that leads to a noble chorale theme.
Bruckner once called the hard-charging third-movement scherzo, with its French horn declamations, “The Hunting of the Hare.” One music writer quipped that the powerful movement rather suggests an elephant hunt. To modern ears, the movement is apt to sound militaristic, and Stutzmann and the orchestra delivered it in fine heroic style.
Bruckner can be strikingly abrupt in his changes of moods, yet some passages build slowly to a tremendous climax. Stutzmann made the most of those episodes. The finale is the most dramatic movement of the symphony, with occasional snarling brass figures that evolve into brilliant light. The symphony concluded in a blaze of triumph, eliciting cheers from the audience.
The two sharply contrasting works provided, in short, a concert of grace and glory, a consolation and inspiration in our divisive times. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: aso.org
- Nathalie Stutzmann: nathaliestutzmann.com
- Christina Smith: aso.org/artists/detail/christina-smith
Read more by Paul Hyde.
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