 |
| Maestro Doron Salomon, Hagai Shaham (Y. Hirata) |
The Israel Netanya Kibbutz Orchestra
and its audience had every reason to celebrate the event in the Tel Aviv Museum
of Art’s Recanati Auditorium on March 25th 2021. “Reflection” was the first
live concert event to take place in over a year, after public venues had been closed down due to Israeli Covid-19 restrictions. Established in 1970, the NKO was
performing the concert in honour of 50 years of its existence. Today, the
orchestra functions under two conductors - resident artistic director Shmuel Elbaz
and Christian Lindberg (Sweden), the orchestra’s musical director. Conducting
this concert, however, was former NKO musical director Doron Salomon. In his words of welcome, Salomon spoke of the orchestra's warmth and energy. Violinist
Hagai Shaham was the evening’s soloist.
The event opened with
Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No.49 in F minor “La Passione” (not Haydn’s
title). Dating from 1768, its minor mode (pervading all movements!) stems
from Haydn’s Sturm und Drang period, the trend influencing music, literature, painting and theatre, in which artists were exploring emotional extremes and
distress. Setting the scene, the Adagio movement, cantabile and
thought-provoking, gave way to the sudden dynamic contrasts, nervous syncopations and wild leaps of the Allegro di molto movement, wrought in
contrasting colours and textures, offering hearty tutti as against delicate,
pared-down utterances. Following the Minuet, with its charming small comments
and transitions (the Trio providing temporary major tonality respite from the key of
F minor) the Presto burst forth with exhilarating freshness and featuring some
fine wind playing. For Haydn who, at this time, was expected to perform his
works solely to the Prince and a limited audience at the Esterháza
residence, Eisenstadt Castle, there would normally be 12 to 16 players
available for any one performance. The NKO set-up suited this concept
splendidly, the instrumentalists addressing the fine details of Haydn’s Classical layering with
articulacy.
Extra players joined
those already on stage for the performance of Max Bruch’s Concerto No.1 in G
minor for violin and orchestra, Op.26. Unfortunately, this work has suffered
much at the hands of musicians “playing in a way that sounds cheap or
schmaltzy” in the words of American violinist Joshua Bell. However, the NKO’s
inspired rendition of it, consolidated by much eye contact between soloist
Hagai Shaham and Maestro Salomon, emerged as a rewarding and exciting listening
experience. Salomon gave expression to the work’s lush, passionate orchestral
writing as Shaham played the solo role splendidly, handling its gamut of
violin techniques and devilishly difficult passages with authority and profound
feeling. He and Salomon took the listener through the work’s roller-coaster
ride of mood changes, the soaring, lyrical beauty of soulful melodies and
its uncompromising emotional outbursts, wrapping up with the rousing energy and
drama of the gypsy-driven Finale. For his encore, Shaham gave a reflective
reading of the Andante from J.S.Bach’s Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003.
The program concluded
with Zoltán Kodály’s “Dances of Galánta”. Kodály composed the work in 1933 for
the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. Galánta is a
small, Hungarian market town between Vienna and
Budapest, where the composer spent seven years of his childhood. It was there
that a famous gypsy band gave the young Kodály his first taste of “orchestral” sounds. Kodály’s work takes folk material from a collection
of Hungarian dances published in Vienna a century earlier, these dances
actually including one by gypsies from Galánta. The work is an expanded
“verbunkos”, (an 18th-19th century Hungary dance show performed by a
recruiting sergeant and his hussars for potential army enlistees.) Salomon and
the players presented the audience with Kodály’s colourful flow of dances -
some rousing, some feisty, some earthy, others lilting, whimsical, even
reticent or plangent - a head-spinning succession of small, vibrant scenes.
Fine, soul-stirring orchestral fare, the many pleasing solos and small group ensembles
displayed the high quality of individual- and orchestral playing constantly upheld by this
orchestra.
 |
| Hagai Shaham (Miri Shamir) |
 |
| Doron Salomon (Miri Shamir) |
No comments:
Post a Comment