There is little wonder why the St. Paul Orchestra has become so acclaimed. It has a youthful music director, Hugh Wolff, a nationwide weekly radio program, several very popular recordings, and a high-profile creative consultant, Bobby McFerrin. The USU concert was part of its tour of the western states. The concert featured three selections: the "Too Hot Toccata" by Aaron Jay Kernis, Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons," and Beethoven's Fourth Symphony.
The "Too Hot Toccata," the first number on the program, showed Kernis to be a composer in the tradition of Leonard Bernstein. Like Bernstein, the music was written in Late Romantic idiom, but with a strong jazz beat. Also like Bernstein, Kernis has often been criticized in the "serious" musical press for writing music that is too lightweight. It would be silly to level such a charge against the "Too Hot Toccata," however. It is obviously meant as a bagatelle, something modern, yet approachable, to kick off an evening's concert.
The second piece on the program was Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," one of the so-called "war-horses" of the orchestra repertoire. The four brief violin concertos that make up this piece have been recorded more often than any other. "The Four Seasons" is no stranger to Logan, either. In the past, individual "seasons" have been performed by chamber music groups here on campus, and a number of years ago, the Utah Chamber Symphony, led by Joseph Silverstein played the whole thing. That concert was memorable in a bad way, with dry, unpleasant tone from soloists and orchestra. On Wednesday night, however, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra brought "The Four Seasons" back from the dead. Hugh Wolff coaxed a gleaming tone from the string of his orchestra during the opening of "Spring." Each movement of each season received a different tone from the orchestra, matching the spirit of the music. There are not enough words to praise solo violinist Gil Shaham. Besides matching the tone of the orchestra in each piece, Shaham was able to beautifully phrase the solo lines of his part. The music, which can seem so banal to other interpreters, seemed to dance and sing under his bow. Gil Shaham is only twenty-four years old, and is already one of the most popular violinists in the world: he may eventually become one of the masters of the instrument. Those who attended Wednesday's concert got a rare treat in seeing him. The standing ovation he received was richly deserved.
The final piece on the program was Beethoven's Fourth Symphony. It is one of the less well-known of Beethoven's works, but the performance by Hugh Wolff and company leads one to wonder why that is. Like many of Beethoven's great works, the Fourth Symphony seems to be a dance of the cosmos, and here the St. Paul Orchestra got into the spirit of things. The performance was very rhythmically involved; at one point in the final movement, Wolff seemed to be dancing on the podium ala Bernstein (to a few giggles in the house).
While the Kernis piece highlighted the composer and the Vivaldi highlighted the soloist, the clear star of the Beethoven symphony was the orchestra itself. The end of the symphony led to the second standing ovation. It is unfortunate that the applause diminished so quickly, however; it is likely that the orchestra had an encore piece prepared. In any case, Logan is lucky to have heard one of the finest chamber orchestras in the nation. Bravo to Cache Performances for making the concert possible.