~ Author: Brad S. Ross
Thursday May 2nd, 2019 - A prayer of sorrow and for mercy was the theme of Thursday night’s concert at Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium as The Orchestra Now and the Bard Festival Chorale treated the audience in a night of divine music. The theme connecting this program was that of Psalm 130, known in Latin as “De Profundis,” which calls up its reader to, in brief, “trust in the Lord, for with Him there is mercy, And with Him is plenteous redemption.” With this reverence in mind, the resulting concert was one of the most satisfying in recent memory.
The evening began with James Bagwell leading the Bard Festival Chorale in a performance of the first titular De Profundis - one by the great American composer Virgil Thomson. The roughly four-minute piece was written in 1920 and later revised by the composer in 1951. Thomson, whose musical career was largely made by arranging southern folk and hymn tunes, was evidently most at home here and his reverence for the subject-matter clear.
One setback of this otherwise fine opening performance was that the audience had not quite settled down by the time it had began. Indeed, the relatively short work was plagued by the sounds of lingering chatter, doors slamming, and - despite written and spoken pleas from Carnegie Hall staff to silence all electronics - the garish sound of a cellphone ringing only a few seconds into the piece. I would be lying if I said such brazen displays of audience rudeness didn’t, if only for an instant, sour my mood.
Following this opening, TŌN bassoonist Adam Romey stood up to speak not-too-briefly about the organization’s mission and the night’s program. These pre-performance talks - written and delivered by the students in the form of personal essays - would become an unfortunate theme of the evening. Informative and insightful as these sometimes were, they made the proceedings hard-going for a program already running over two-and-a-half hours.
Calling for the combined forces of the full orchestra, chorus, and the soprano Elizabeth de Trejo, Leon Botstein took up the baton next for a performance of De Profundis, Psalm 130, by the little-known Romantic composer Joachim Raff. Raff, who was a student of the great Franz Liszt, composed the work in 1868, eschewing then-contemporary Romantic styles for an almost neo-Baroque approach. Though apparently once popular in performance, De Profundis has fallen from the orchestral repertoire since the composer’s death, aside from the occasional performance in Europe, and was only tonight receiving its much-belated New York premiere.
It began with a wholesome instrumental prologue before the choir entered with a powerful and arresting exaltation of “De Profundis!” This was followed by a stoic and somber “Si iniquitates,” a divine "Quia apud te" (curiously the only movement to take advantage of the soloist), and a warm and grounded “A custodia matutina,” which contained some of the most inviting and exalting moments of the entire piece. The final movement, “Et ipse redimet,” began on a dramatic, fugue-like opening that built with triumphant energy before a dramatic pause and the final, grand exclamations of “amen!” Botstein, whose musical interpretations have caused me much headache in the past, was well-suited for this admittedly anachronistic, but highly worthy musical revival.
TŌN violinist Drew Youmans then gave his thoughts on the next piece of the evening: the New York premiere of Lera Auerbach’s De Profundis, Violin Concerto No. 3. Composed in 2015, the concerto is cast in three connected movements, lasting about 35 minutes. Here, as in its world premiere, the performing soloist was the esteemed violinist Vadim Repin.
It began with a haunted solo on Repin’s violin as an extended cadenza, accompanied by fleeting whispers from the orchestra, set the work’s unsettling tone. It was often characterized by angry percussion, volatile brass, and monstrous tutti bell tones, while other softer moments played out like a demented lullaby.
Despite much unique instrumental color, however, the one regard in which the concerto often fell short was development. The music drifted and wafted like waves crashing up against the shore - a series of colorful episodes that never seemed to be taking the listener anywhere and seldom coalesced into a satisfying whole. Rife with catchy modernist techniques and skilled playing as the performance was, this left me pining for a more coherent sense of structure: something upon which I could latch as the musical experience unfolded. Nevertheless, the audience seemed overall pleased by the work, many of whom stood for an immediate ovation as Repin, Botstein, and Auerbach, who was in attendance, stood to take their bows.
If I was feeling a bit winded by the time of trumpeter Anita Tóth’s pre-performance talk about the final piece on the program, all would be forgiven by the time they started playing; indeed, this final piece turned out to be the most exciting work of the entire evening. This, of course, was Psalm 130: Du fond de l’abîme (De Profundis) for soprano, tenor, chorus, and orchestra, by the great French composer Marie-Juliette Olga "Lili" Boulanger. Lili Boulanger, younger sister of the famed composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, completed Psalm 130: De Profundis in 1917 after three years of work. It would be one of her last and, most upsettingly, only major finished works before her death at the tragically young age of 24 in 1918. Nevertheless, in her short time on this Earth, she managed to compose some of the most evocative music of her time—and certainly this program.
Psalm 130: De Profundis begins on a somber instrumental opening with a low and menacing undercurrent. The choir eventually joined the proceedings as the orchestra rumbled along, most ill-tempered, beneath it. This tragic tone continued for some time with the occasional dollop of heavenly respite to remind us that it is, after all, a plea for redemption. A great tutti climax erupted before de Trejo’s vocals joined, offering to the heavens a visceral and beseeching prayer. The tenor Sean Fallen joined and a sublime duet carried the work as the orchestra provided an ethereal instrumental backdrop. Moments of rapturous force erupted as the piece came to its climax, followed by an intimate and haunting supplication as the combined voices of “amen” echoed throughout the Isaac Stern Auditorium.
This was a composition to behold in concert and everyone, audience and performers alike, knew it. As Carnegie Hall and TŌN wrap up their respective concert seasons, it’s greatly satisfying to hear them conclude on such a high point. Bravo!
~ Brad S. Ross