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| Maestro Christian Lindberg, Maestro Shmuel Elbaz |
Attracting a large
audience to the Recanati Auditorium of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on July 10th,
2021, “Golden Moon” was the title of the concert celebrating 50 years of Israel
Netanya Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra’s existence. Sadly, the event also marked the
closing of this same very excellent orchestra. Conducting the farewell concert
was the NKO’s associate artistic director and house conductor Shmuel Elbaz, with soloists
from among the orchestra’s players.
The evening’s
program opened on a hearty, celebratory note with the “Alla Hornpipe ''
from G.F.Handel’s Suite No.2 in D major HWV 349. Following his accession to the throne in 1714,
George I, wishing to cement the Hanoverian line into British history with a
spectacular occasion to impress his English subjects, turned to Handel to write
music for a concert to be performed as he travelled down the Thames on the
royal barge. Performing the movement, with brass players placed at the front of
the stage on either side, the NKO players brought out the characteristic
joyful, loud and pompous nature of the piece, showcasing its piercing trumpet
fanfares and jubilant strings.
This was followed by the 1st and
4th movements of Charles Gounod’s “Petite Symphonie'' in B-flat major, an
opportunity to enjoy the playing of the NKO’s fine wind players. Scored
for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns and 2 bassoons and premiered in 1885,
nothing could be further from the heady drama of Gounod’s opera “Faust''; this
is a work of Gallic charm! The players engaged wholeheartedly in the cheerful,
melodious bucolic nature of the first movement and the buoyant,
jaunty "patter song" character of the Finale, with its quirky
development section. Their playing was well coordinated, rich in the beauty of
wind timbres and full-bodied, with a fair share of both vigour and delicacy as
required, offering delectable concert fare.
Then, to the first movement -
Allegro maestoso - of W.A.Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major for
violin, viola and orchestra, K.364, with NKO concertmaster Gilad Hildesheim and
first violist Avital Tsaig Noussimovitch taking on the solo roles. The
soloists contended well with what is, indeed, more of a
formal double concerto than a symphony but they also addressed the fact that
the term “concertante” indeed suggests playing “in concert” among a mixed group
of instruments. In fact, each of the winds here has its own distinctive say in
addition to the two soloists, sometimes playing along with them, at others,
interjecting their own phrases. Hildesheim and Tsaig Noussimovitch balanced
solo utterances with attentive dialogue as the violin
and viola parts, meeting and contrasting in timbres, wove in and out of each
other, presenting Mozart’s seemingly inexhaustible stream of melodies. As to
the cadenza, they delivered it with equal measures of virtuosity and
sensitivity.
Eugene Levitas (b.1972), a film
composer equally at home in the diverse languages of classical-, contemporary-,
jazz-, electronic- and even pop/rock music, has been the Netanya Kibbutz
Orchestra’s house composer since January 2019. In 2005, he wrote a string
quartet, later arranging it for orchestra. The NKO’s playing of the
Andante (4th movement) of Levitas' “String Symphony'' was indeed a highlight of
the concert. In this highly melodic movement, its nostalgic major-minor
modal duality attired in lush string timbres, Levitas presents an introspective
tone poem that is both engaging and appealing to the listener. Violinist Pavel
Levin’s poignant soloing added beauty to the performance. The composer was in
attendance at the concert.
A lover of the British Isles, Mendelssohn
was inspired by a visit to Scotland in 1829. There, he visited the rugged
ruins of Holyrood and the Palace of Holyrood, “where Queen Mary lived and
loved”, in the composer’s words. The NKO concluded its final concert with Felix
Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.3 Op.56 “Scottish”. The work does not employ
actual folk melodies from Scotland, but the composer’s writing does conjure up
a spirit that would have been deemed folk-like by many of its contemporary
European listeners. Clearly inspired by Mendelssohn’s own pencil sketch of
1829, the dark and brooding Introduction to the 1st movement, based on the
“Holyrood Castle” theme and issued in by a rich, mid-range orchestration of
oboe, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and divisi violas, sets the scene. In the first movement
proper, the NKO performance brought out the composer’s highly active and
dramatic writing, with only a temporary lull from it offered by the plangent,
sighing second theme. In the 2nd movement,
a featherweight scherzo, the clarinet solo (Igal Levin) added freshness to
Mendelssohn’s elfin writing for the strings, to his enchanting use of the
woodwinds and the scurrying, fairy-like magical (Midsummer Night’s Dream?)
atmosphere.
Following the Adagio movement’s mix of slow, cantabile playing and massive,
somewhat strident tutti, the highly rhythmic, almost martial Allegro
vivacissimo takes over, to die down to a whisper, then to soar into
a majestic, hymn-like transformation of the “Holyrood Castle” theme.
Maestro Shmuel Elbaz led his players in an inspiring
performance of the “Scottish” Symphony, a work often referred to as
Mendelssohn’s greatest contribution to the symphonic form.
The Israel Netanya Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra is an orchestra of hand-picked players,
its high-quality and varied performances taking place in several locations
throughout the country, The orchestra will be sorely missed on the
Israeli concert scene. Its recent two conductors, Shmuel Elbaz - mandolin player/conductor/pedagogue,
a musician with a deep interest in East-West encounters - and Swedish
conductor/composer and world-famous trombonist Christian Lindberg, who has premiered over
three hundred works for the trombone (including more than thirty composed by
himself), have brought much joy of music-making to the NKO’s players and
audiences. in encounters between Western and Eastern music
cultures,
Terrible dear Pamela.
ReplyDeleteAnd so sad