She sort of hunched over, her right foot planted forward. Extending high above her head, the bow came to a rest, the tip, the single focus of a thousand eyes. Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg was playing the violin. Beside her, Conductor Peter Bay was orchestrating a revelation of the music of Dimitri Shostakovich. By a ‘revelation,’ that the swing in this mid twentieth century Russian formal music was opened up to the audience on Austin’s Bass Concert Hall in January of 2006. Throw away notions of atonal music and martinets in military uniforms. Forget the ice. This woman’s performance was hot. My friend had to take off his jacket in the middle of the concert.
The 100th anniversary of Shostakovich’s birth date is being celebrated in Austin this year. Earlier in the week the Austin Lyric Opera performed the piece that got him banned in Moscow, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. From what I understand, the recent performance might have been banned in Omaha too, due to the Soprano’s costume malfunction. I wasn’t in attendance, but I’m told the Opera became more rousing with each performance.
ON the night Nadja (Nadia) showed up—she showed up in white pants and a sleeveless blouse that had an odd informality, more of a cocktail look than the formal look of the orchestra—Mid-century northern European music was on the bill. I have to admit that this is not what I normally find appealing. However, I decided to go in with an open mind to the proposition of examining, with the rest of formal-music-listening Austin, the work of Shostakovich over the next few months. The program consisted of 2 works by Shostakovich, and one by Sibelius. The first piece, featuring Salerno-Sonnenberg, was the scherzo in F sharp minor, Op 1. We forget that most of these symphonic musical forms are rooted in dance. A scherzo is a fast, energetic dance. The F# Min is no exception. What makes it a little strange—though not by any means far out—is the outgoing exuberance of the dance form written in a minor key. Once upon a time the minor key was reserve only for funereal music. Allen Toussaint recently cut an album of the music of Professor Longhair arraigned in a minor key. It is a fund raiser for hurricane Katrina. I don’t want to get into a discussion of the musical merits of Longhair vs. Shostakovich. This performance of the Austin Symphony was hot and precise. It is an amazing thing to hear an excellent orchestra live without the benefit of over dubbing. The sound of the hall is warm and smooth.
While Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg danced through the first number, it was through the second piece, Violin Concerto no1, Op 69 that she really stood out. A Concerted is a concerted effort, in this case, of 4 movements each related, I guess you would say, in attitude. It began, oddly with a ‘nocturne.’ This is ‘night music.’ No one fell asleep. The solo violin drew the attention of the audience above the orchestra. The second movement was a scherzo, the dance form from above. This modulated the pace of the performance. The third movement was the moment. It was a form called a ‘Passacaglia.’ I must digress for moment. The Passacaglia was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. There is a great one by CPE Bach. It is derived from the Spanish, passer, to pass or to step, and the Latin, calle, for “street.” Since walking is no longer ‘in’ we have to use our imaginations to empathize with such cadences as passacaglia or ‘andante’ both of which refer to ordinary street activity. What Shostakovich has written, or at least what Peter Bey and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg have done with this movement is out of the ordinary. It took the audience out of themselves for a few minutes. I know this. It is not just a projection of my own. This section had about four minutes which began with the soloist reaching down to the music stand and picking up a mute which she deftly installed at the bottom near the bridge of her violin. I know it took the audience because after a couple of measures she was playing solo and pianissimo. This means very quietly. Yet, the music soared. The orchestra came back in long enough for the soloist to gracefully pull out the mute. She dropped it on the floor. She then began playing another solo, this time a little louder, but still very soft, in piano. This passage had great emotional intensity. This is the section which ended with the bow moving slowly across the strings until it extended high above the violinist’s head. There was not a sound in the house. Usually somebody is coughing. This is covered up by the orchestrated background, the basses or the brasses. The great Austrian pianist Paul Badura-Skoda, the one who owns Beethoven’s Boxwood piano (that’s a whole other story) has candy distributed at all entrances before his performances. He doesn’t allow coughing. The audience was silent, all eyes on the bow, transfixed by the music. This is why music exists. This is the reason to go to the symphony. This is the reason why afterwards I pulled out $20 for a CD of Salerno-Sonnenberg’s live performances. After the final movement, something called a “Burlesca” a musical form that I’ve never heard of, there was a long, impassioned standing ovation. On the third bow she picked up her mute and skipped off the stage to the table which was set up in the foyer to sell her self-produced cd’s. Rock and Roll. She has her own label.
After intermission the Austin Symphony performed the Sibelius Symphony no 1 in C minor. If the Shostakovich pieces commanded attention to the performance of the music, I would call this a thought-provoking piece. This is to say that while I listened closely to every note and every beat of the drums, I was thinking the whole time about my work, my relationships, and whatever else passed through my mind. IT is not about loss of interest or mind [wandering]. It was the music. Sibelius engendered a pleasant contemplativeness which balanced against the direct focus of the Shostakovich.
I enjoyed this concert. On my camel hair blazer I wore a layered abstract pin which I built a few weeks ago using tube and wire rivets and taking advantage of the metallurgical characteristics of the metal when submitted to heat to produce different hues of color on the surface. Around my neck, under my button down color I wore, in a dignified manner, a jasper pendant on a black cord. The jasper is set in silver on a sterling back plate. The back plate is riveted behind a copper sheet with a rectangle cut out for the jasper; the copper is textured along the topography of the stone and then colored with a fire patina to compliment the deep reddish tones of the stone. As the pin, the pendant is buffed twice with Renaissance wax to preserve the patina.
| Provided by Steinhardt & Company. |