Canton Symphony and André Watts: Serving Up A Sumptuous Beethoven Feast
By Tom Wachunas
I’m fairly sure that from its inception, the
Canton Symphony Orchestra’s much-anticipated Beethoven Festival that
commenced on March 28/29 posed some
challenging program questions. Which works could best celebrate the composer’s
genius while sating the appetites of his most ardent aficionados? Should the
festival, spread across four concerts, be built upon only the symphonies?
As it is, each
program can be appreciated as an edifying, forward-looking mini-survey of
Beethoven’s progressive climb toward the monumental achievement of his Ninth Symphony, which will close the
festival on April 26. Specifically, the festival programs center around
Beethoven’s five piano concertos as they represent a steady, thoughtful journey
into the composer’s ever maturing explorations of pathos and joy. And who
better to lead us on that journey than Maestro Gerhardt Zimmermann’s colleague
and long-time friend, pianist André Watts?
The March 28
concert opened with Coriolan Overture,
an intensely stormy and compact work from 1807 in sonata form. In many ways it presages the Sturm und Drang aspects of Beethoven’s iconic Fifth Symphony,
completed in the following year. Here, the string section rose to the occasion
with brilliant solidity and finesse, flawlessly articulating the work’s
constant tension between two thematic developments – one agitated and bellicose,
the other gentle and contemplative.
The orchestra was
wholly enchanting in the evening’s third selection - the overture and
selections from an 1801 ballet called Die
Geschöpfe Des Prometheus (The Creatures of Prometheus). Particularly
remarkable were the solo passages from Erica Snowden (principal cello) and
Randy Klein (principal clarinet) in the Adagio following the overture, at once
lilting and poignant.
Set between these
two works, the second program selection was a step back into Beethoven’s youth.
He was only 25 when he completed his Piano Concerto No.2 in 1795 (the
first of his piano works, though not published until after No.1). While not as
musically ambitious as his later works in the form, this shortest of his piano
concertos nonetheless points to the emergence of a fresh and compelling
lyricism. This was especially apparent in the slow movement. Watts navigated its torrent and tenderness
with inspired – and inspiring - vigor and clarity.
The following
evening’s concert began with the orchestra’s memorably crisp, sparkling
rendition of selections from Contradances,
composed in 1802. For all of its unpretentious charm, the collection is
most significant for dance No. 7, which contains a theme first encountered in The Creatures of Prometheus, and more
notably the finale of the magnificent third symphony, Eroica.
Then, the same
inspired energy that sustained André Watts’ astonishing virtuosity of the
previous evening remained undiminished, and in fact was substantially
augmented, in his performances of Piano Concerto No. 1 (1798) and No.3 (1803). The
slow movement in No.1 was utterly breathtaking in its searing emotionality,
likewise the third movement in its unrestrained joy. It is in Concerto No.3,
however, where a newer lyrical substance and interplay with the orchestra came
to fruition for Beethoven in a significant separation from the influences of
Mozart and Haydn.
Interestingly
enough, the only jarring moment of the evening came at the end of the slow
movement, an emotionally transcendent study in ethereal solemnity. It was followed
immediately by the third movement. No pause between the two. No chance to
breathe out, to savor even briefly the ineffable beauty of the music that had
just unfolded. Still, Watts dutifully brought us back to earth, as it were,
with the furious joviality of the finale. As in all of his performances, watching
him play here was to see an artist physically pour himself into his instrument
to draw out what can rightly be called the Beethovian Zeitgeist.
Clearly spent yet exuberant
at the end, Watts and Maestro Zimmermann quickly engaged in a triumphal hug.
This spontaneous gesture of mutual adulation between conductor and soloist
immediately prompted me to think that all
of us in the auditorium, standing now in our boisterous ovation, had been
spoken to and embraced by the spirit of Beethoven himself.
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