Friday, July 9, 2021

The Jerusalem Street Orchestra winds up the 2021 Jerusalem Rooftop Festival, conductor: Ido Shpitalnik, solo violinist: Ori Wissner Levy

The Jerusalem Street Orchestra, soloist Ori Wissner Levy  (Yael Ilan)

 

On July 21st 2021, a balmy Jerusalem evening, there was excitement in the air as hundreds of people of all ages took their seats on the terrace of the Jerusalem Music Centre (Mishkenot Sha’ananim) in the capital’s picturesque Yemin Moshe quarter. This was the third and final event of the 2021 Jerusalem Rooftop Festival - a symphony concert performed by the Jerusalem Street Orchestra, conducted by its founder and musical director Ido Shpitalnik, with solo violinist Ori Wissner Levy. Established in 2013, the Jerusalem Street Orchestra is a chamber orchestra comprising talented young music graduates. The ensemble aims to make classical music accessible to new audiences, enrich the public scene with high-quality culture and to provide a stage for members of Jerusalem’s young creative community and musicians. 

 

It seems that there is nothing more reposeful than listening to good music with a glass of wine in hand and  watching the subtly changing colours of sunset over Jerusalem’s Old City, an experience so aptly put by English writer, essayist, and literary critic: “Call for the grandest of all earthly spectacles, what is that? It is the sun going to his rest.” 

 

Following words of welcome from concert- and masterclass director of the Jerusalem Music Centre Uri Dror, the concert opened with Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No.19 in D major, Hob I:19. Composed c.1759, this work was to change the composer’s life. Old Prince Antonio Esterházy had gone to visit Count Morzin, who had in his service a large, handpicked orchestra. After hearing this symphony by Haydn, the Prince took a liking to the composer’s style and urged the Count to let him have the man. The Count, who had been considering dismissing his orchestra for financial reasons, was happy to comply with the prince’s wishes. The Street Orchestra’s playing of the symphony’s outer movements abounded in Haydnesque joy and good spirit, these sections highlighting the orchestra’s fine wind-playing. The touching, appealing D minor Andante movement, (I saw smiles on people’s faces around me) is scored for strings alone, a practice probably deriving from the desire to give the hard-working wind players a rest before launching into the vigorous finale.

 

Next on the program was Benjamin Britten’s “Simple Symphony”, introduced by Shpitalnik as a piece that is “not at all simple to perform”. Composed at age 20, the work, scored for small string orchestra, is entirely based on a collection of melodies and small works which the composer had written between the ages of nine and twelve. (The actual sources are given in footnotes to each of the movements.)  Not making use of typical classical tempo indications, Britten’s somewhat whimsical titles to each of the short movements allude to his unassuming humour and neoclassical inclination. Shpitalnik and the string players presented the essence and charm of each movement with articulacy: the Boisterous Bourée’s lively motivic interplay suggesting neo-Baroque contrapuntal textures, followed by the play of featherlight pizzicato textures tripping along brazenly, making up the Playful Pizzicato, with some folksy, stomping accents heard in the slower trio. A tinge of nostalgia coloured the Street Orchestra’s dynamic playing of the modal-type melody of the Sentimental Sarabande, as it swelled to bold symphonic utterance, to end with a haunting, muted coda. As to the Frolicsome Finale, opening with a unison burst of sound, conductor and instrumentalists reminded the audience of themes and techniques from the earlier three movements, from cheeky pizzicato interludes to the dance-like style of the Bourée. So English in flavour, Britten’s “Simple Symphony” is a work that reveals its charms even at first hearing, making for splendid concert fare.

 

The festive evening concluded with W.A. Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 5 “Turkish”, featuring soloist Ori Wissner Levy. Like Mozart's other violin concertos, this is an early work, dating from December 1775, when the composer was nineteen years old. For whom it was written is not known, but there is a possibility that it was played by Mozart himself, at that time, employed at the Salzburg court, where one of his chief duties was to lead the court orchestra from the violin. In his performance of this work, one of strikingly original ideas, Wissner Levy guides the listener through its unpredictable formal trail by dint of his deep-felt melodic sense, as he explores each gesture, maintaining constant eye contact with his fellow musicians. Cadenzas (by Joseph Joachim) were played with a sense of freshness, discovery and adventure. As to the concerto’s Turkish content, it suddenly appears as a minor-mode Allegro in the middle of the graceful (final) Minuet movement, with soloist and orchestra playing what is intended to suggest wild Turkish music. Turkish culture enjoyed considerable popularity in 18th century Europe, with the introduction of Turkish coffee, Turkish subjects in drama and paintings, popular stories about Turkey in many operas and with some rulers even creating strident-sounding Janissary bands for their armies. In this violin concerto, Mozart uses no percussion or outdoor wind instruments; instead, he imitates the “Turkish” effect with strong accents, exotic chromatic scales, sudden crescendos and a percussive drone of the cellos and basses playing col legno, with the soloist engaging in energetic figures of a folk-like nature. Following this unleashed middle section, the music returns to its graceful Minuet format, ending gracefully in quiet simplicity. The Rooftop Festival audience loved it! Wissner Levy communicated to them through his own sense of enjoyment, his warm, mellifluous tone, easeful playing and outstanding musicianship.  

 

Born in New York (1990) Ori Wissner Levy has studied and performed worldwide. He will presently be moving to Tel Aviv from Leipzig, Germany where he lived and worked prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Kudos to the excellent Jerusalem Street Orchestra; also, to Maestro Ido Shpitalnik for his hearty and appealing programming, its inspiring delivery and his own infectious joie-de-vivre! 

 

Maestro Ido Shpitalnik (Yael Ilan)



 



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