A Christmas Gem from Eric Benjamin and a Timeless Gift from Beethoven
By Tom Wachunas
In the
beginning, I thought that the December 3d MasterWorks program by the Canton
Symphony Orchestra (CSO), called “Gifts of Fate,” was a peculiar, even
arbitrary pairing of very disparate works: The
Secret Gift, a Christmas-themed symphonic poem of sorts, written in 2013 by
American composer Eric Benjamin; and Ludwig van Beethoven’s iconic 1807
masterpiece, Symphony No. 5 in C Minor. But by evening’s end, I heard the
connective light.
Eric Benjamin, Musical Director of the
Tuscarawas Philharmonic and the Alliance Symphony, named his work after a 2010
book written by Ted Gup, which chronicled the generosity of Gup’s grandfather,
Sam Stone, a clothing store owner in Depression-era Canton. In December, 1933, Mr. Stone was so moved by
a church performance of Dickens’ A
Christmas Carol that he placed an ad in The Canton Repository asking for
those in dire need to send him a letter describing their circumstances.
Ultimately Stone, under the pseudonym “B. Virdot,” sent gifts of $5 to 150
destitute families. That’s perhaps a laughable pittance by today’s standards.
But during the Great Depression, it was a Godsend.
Conducted with
amiable panache by CSO Assistant Conductor Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz, Benjamin’s
work is a remarkable achievement of poignant storytelling. Evoking a Dickensian
setting, the music feels like a lavish film score leavened with variations on
19th century English Christmas carols (such as God rest ye merry, gentlemen,
and Here We Come A-wassailing), as
well as imaginative passages – at times
reminiscent of George Gershwin’s melodic sensibilities - describing various
events and individuals related in Gup’s book. In his program notes, Benjamin
wrote of some musical styles he sourced, “
…Rumanian folk music for the account of Sam’s childhood there, early jazz
for his arrival in and beginnings of his career in the U.S., something vaguely
like cantorial music to underline his orthodox Jewish roots and the Talmudic
teaching on social justice…” The spiritual dynamic of the work was further
augmented by the dramatic sonority of the Canton Symphony Chorus.
Vintage photographs
of 1930s Canton people, places, and letters sent to Sam Stone were projected on
the large screen above the orchestra. Throughout the performance, Benjamin
himself was an especially warm and empathetic narrator. The work was also
peppered with narrations drawn from the citizens’ letters to B. Virdot,
beautifully spoken by a cast of 11 gifted actors directed by Craig Joseph.
While Benjamin’s
music is often heartrending in its sentimentality, it’s never mawkish. Beyond a
deeply emotive remembrance of Sam Stone’s philanthropic heart and the lives it
graced, the potent lyricism of the score transcends its specific historical
narrative to resonate as a clarion call for compassion and hope in any era or circumstance. There is
indeed an aura of timelessness about this work.
And who could
possibly doubt the timelessness of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, conducted here
by Maestro Gerhardt Zimmermann? He reminded the audience to reflect on the
enormity of Beethoven’s desperate efforts to battle through his increasing deafness,
once declaring in a letter that he was determined to “…seize Fate by the
throat; it shall not bend or crush me completely.”
Hence the forever
unforgettable opening of the work (“Thus Fate knocks at the door,” Beethoven
was reported to have said) proceeds through a vast terrain of emotions in a
heroic journey to arrive at the equally unforgettable and triumphant coda of
the finale. Zimmermann’s reading of Beethoven was consistently brisk,
translated by the ensemble into a palpable urgency, yet tempered with thrilling
alacrity. Appropriately enough, the marvelous aural clarity and sheer power of
the CSO throughout this phenomenal work suggested nothing so much as life’s
most compelling forces.
Beethoven’s
developments from C minor to C major in his Fifth Symphony could be rightly
regarded as a metaphor for darkness giving way to light. In that sense, his
music is a gift for the ages, an exhilarating symbol of human spirit. Benjamin’s
work proclaims a similar bent-but-not-broken message. Hearing them together on
one program was an experience at once sobering and joyous.
As a faithful decades-old Canton Symphony ticket-holder, I had planned to attend this particular concert, but didn't really expect much . . . Sure, Beethoven's beloved war-horse would thrill as it always does, but Eric Benjamin's musical patchwork quilt of dusty letters from a bygone era . . .? Surprise, surprise! Much more than a musical work, it turned out to be a theatre-piece with thematically-related music underscoring the voices of a near dozen actors and a moving narration over the music. I loved it . . . in fact, I was emotionally moved to the very end. Do I dare to admit to tears?
ReplyDeleteTom's evocative description of the concert hits the bull's eye as do all his reviews, and I look forward to hearing the recording on the only radio station in my world, WKSU-FM.
MJA