Canton Symphony and Andre Watts: Burnin’
Down the House
by Tom Wachunas
Vive
le Francais was the theme for the January 26 concert by the Canton Symphony
Orchestra (CSO) at Umstattd Hall, featuring works by Debussy, Ravel, Franck and
Saint-Saens. Maybe a more apropos title for the evening would have been Vive le Watts, as in the eminent
pianist, Andre Watts. His return to Canton (the last being in 2010) begins a
three-year CSO residency. The 2014-15 season promises to be especially
momentous, when he will perform all of Beethoven’s piano concertos with Maestro
Gerhardt Zimmermann conducting.
In some ways, this concert brought to mind
a twist on the old adage, “a watched pot never boils.” For programmatically,
this watched pot, so to speak, did finally bubble over, and explosively so,
though only after a long, lingering simmer.
First on the program was Claude Debussy’s
symphonic suite, Printemps (Spring), a
lesser-known work from his youth in two free-form movements which, despite their
largely derivative nature, foreshadowed some of the more memorable developments
in the composer’s later work. Here the orchestra was particularly fresh and
tantalizing during the first movement’s atmospheric string crescendos. And in
keeping with the spirit of the work, which suggested a bursting forth of new
life, the aural intensity of the more extroverted second movement was decidedly
more pronounced.
The second program selection, Ma Mere l’Oye (Mother Goose Suite), by
Maurice Ravel, seems in retrospect a more substantial exercise in frothy
orchestral textures and thematic whimsicality, with enchanting solo passages
from the winds, violin, and viola, along with a splendorous fanfare in the finale.
By now the water, as it were, was getting warmer.
Following the intermission, the much
anticipated appearance of Andre Watts significantly raised the temperature, beginning
with Cesar Franck’s Symphonic Variations.
The work has often and rightly been described as a superbly structured,
colorful dialogue between piano and orchestra. And while it does not require
any unusually frenzied virtuosity on the part of the soloist, Watts voiced his
end of the scintillating conversation with passionate animation and clarity.
Call it the last step prior to full-boil.
From the opening cadenza of the evening’s
final work - Camille Saint-Saens’ Piano
Concerto No.2 in G Minor - with its solemn, muscular arpeggios, to
the breathtaking rhythms of the exhilarating third movement, Watts exhibited
astonishing stamina and flawless authority. It is after all the piano which
establishes the overall thrust of this work. Watts greeted the task with fierce, riveting
panache. So too the sparkling orchestra, responding in kind as a full partner
on this remarkably powerful musical excursion.
At one point during the final movement I
looked around the hall and saw rows of faces with eyes widened and jaws dropped
in rapt attention. Presto indeed,
Watts had completely immersed himself in a seemingly endless torrent of
joyously cascading notes until the very last cymbal crash. Then, for a moment,
he seemed to collapse, utterly spent.
But his apparent exhaustion was
short-lived. He quickly stood up and smiled broadly at the clearly adoring
audience, which just as quickly stood for a long ovation. No encore was
forthcoming. None was needed.