NZSO and conductor André de Ridder: total immersion
Conductor André de Ridder - versatility and panache
Photo credit: Marco Borggreve
Arriving for the first of three concerts in the NZSO’s Immerse Festival programme, “Become Ocean”, we were intrigued to encounter a stage set with chairs and stands, enticingly lit with colour, but empty of people. The lights faded to darkness before returning to illuminate just three musicians, percussionists high at the back.
Tōru Takemitsu’s Rain Tree begins with two of the players dropping into the silence the sounds of crotales (little bells) like magical sonic raindrops, joined by the stronger metallic voice of the vibraphone and then by marimbas from the first two musicians. The lighting effects suggest a to-and-fro but it’s less a conversation, more a rain shower of sound, growing, easing, then increasing again. The atmospheric piece, just 12 minutes long, is sometimes contemplative, sometimes brilliant display, and a marvellous opener to an unconventional concert.
When German conductor André de Ridder arrived on the podium, he suggested we surrender ourselves to the immersive experience to come. Composer John Luther Adams, a former environmentalist, has described his Pulitzer prize-winning orchestral work Become Ocean as "a meditation on the vast, deep and mysterious tides of existence." The music is, like the ocean, all texture, dynamics and colour, painted by the orchestra as great blocks of sound with rippling percussion washing over us, ominously threatening to submerge us with the watery power of its waves. The composer’s indication at the head of the score is “Inexorable”.
The conductor maintains a 4/4 beat throughout but there’s nothing square about this minimalist repetitive music. There is, in fact, a grand design at work, evident in the unconventional arrangement of the instruments on stage. De Ridder drew our attention to this in his brief and engaging introduction. The orchestra is divided into three groups, the first, front and centre of the stage, strings with piano, celeste, timpani and percussion, the second, woodwinds, two harps and percussion, on one side behind the first group, with brass, two more harps and percussion on the other side. (Yes, that’s four harps - not the only hint of the soundscape of Debussy’s La Mer.)
The work is symmetrical, a giant palindrome with three big wave-like climaxes. But just as we don’t need to know all the intricate details of the ocean’s currents to appreciate its force and strength, as audience we don’t need to know about the architecture of Become Ocean to experience the spacious power and atmosphere of this music.
Become Ocean by John Luther Adams - spacious power in a grand design
Album cover for the Seattle Symphony’s recording of the work.
The audience for this immersive experience in Wellington was disappointingly small. The large contingent of young people at its American premiere was mostly absent, although more emphasis on the environmental message from the composer might have changed that? “Life on earth first emerged from the seas,” Luther Adams has said. “And with the melting of the polar ice caps and rising sea levels, we may become ocean sooner than we imagine.”
A larger audience assembled a night later for the “Blues Symphony” concert. The opening work, Mari by American composer Bryce Dessner, showed a nice sense of the orchestra as an instrument but was ultimately underwhelming, and had me regretting the absence of any works by New Zealand composers in the three Immerse concerts.
The evening took off, however, with a firecracker performance of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Australian pianist Simon Tedeschi owned the keyboard, his virtuosic over-the-top playing seeming to channel Gershwin himself, who composed the work in a month in 1924 and then played solo piano in the premiere with improvisatory flair. Tedeschi has played the work many times and his playful exaggeration of every effect, including marvellous elasticity in the solos, was matched by de Ridder and the orchestra, who were all having a great time. From the fluid opening wail of Patrick Barry’s clarinet, the orchestral musicians found a jazzy flexibility throughout, the brass sections, wah-wah mutes and all, right in the groove of the music. The schmaltzy big tunes of the romantic middle section were full of character and the audience loved it all, demanding more.
Australian pianist Simon Tedeschi
…playful exaggeration in a firecracker performance
Photo credit: Keith Saunders
Tedeschi’s encore choice of Dave Brubeck’s Blue Rondo à la Turk was the perfect bridge to the second half of the concert, the big Blues Symphony of Winton Marsalis. The scope of the seven-movement work is no less than a journey through America’s musical history, from blues and jazz to hoedown and ragtime, with some Latin rhythms of mambo and samba, hat tips to Gershwin and Scott Joplin and all the swinging and shuffling of country and urban jungle.
Marsalis has talked about his struggle to fuse jazz and blues with classical music. As an astonishing performer on trumpet, he probably pulled the fusion off, but the hour-long Blues Symphony is not really “symphonic” except in length, determinedly based as it is on the 12-bar blues. The work is a great vehicle for orchestral and individual virtuosity, however, and the NZSO with the boundary-crossing de Ridder offered a blazing display. Standout solos from trumpeter Michael Kirgan, Dave Bremner on trombone and Barry again on clarinet were matched by the whole percussion section which dazzled with their hustle and versatility.
The seventh and final movement, Dialogue in Democracy, is a conversation at high speed, musical ideas tossed around in a spray of notes. Both orchestra and audience may have suffered from a little fatigue at this point, so intense had been the programme, but we all stayed the course and de Ridder and his players were rewarded by an enthusiastic ovation.
De Ridder conclusively proved his own versatility and panache with the third Immerse concert, a Sunday afternoon promoted as Beethoven’s 5th. The biggest audience of the three – more testimony, if needed, of Ludwig’s pulling power – gathered for the most conventionally constructed programme, Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture Opus 62 and his 5th Symphony, separated by a short work by a contemporary composer.
I was struck from the dramatic opening chords of the Overture by the big full sound the NZSO produces, even when reduced to classical proportions. For both Beethoven works there were just 4 double basses and 6 cellos, with upper strings likewise reduced, but they produced a strong and beautifully rounded tone. The dramatic chords of the opening dissolve into a lovely flowing and melodic texture and the whole Overture was given a well-paced and forthright performance.
Korean composer Unsuk Chin (b. 1961) called her short work subito can forza, meaning “suddenly, with force”. The work was commissioned for performance in 2020, the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, and with its title and throughout the piece Chin captures a composer who loved sforzando effects.
Korean composer Unsuk Chin
…her tribute to Beethoven is a witty sound-world full of wild shifts
Photo courtesy of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
The same dramatic C chords we heard at the beginning of the Coriolan open subito can forza, but they’re immediately covered by an unruly shower of percussion and then pianissimo basses followed by other strings. As a tribute piece it uses almost direct quotations of Beethoven’s music – was that the pianist from the Emperor Concerto climbing the stairs? – including a hint of the 5th Symphony and other ghostly references to the master. But, as the title suggests, Chin is really celebrating Beethoven’s love of dramatic and surprising outbursts, and perhaps his famously unpredictable personality as well, in a modern, witty sound-world full of wild shifts and chaotic effects. The appealing piece ends where it began, albeit gently, in C minor.
The concert and the Immerse Festival ended with Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, also in C minor. From the opening famous gesture, it was clear that de Ridder was taking the movement at a fast clip, his brisk pace barely slowing for Robert Orr’s lovely oboe solo and then off again, with great dynamic contrasts. A graceful and lovely second movement, Andante con moto, led to a nicely balanced Scherzo, showing off the exceptional competence of the orchestra at speed.
This fresh and energetic playing had a sense of dance about it, always moving forward and exaggerating dynamic effects, the pianissimo pizzicato so quiet the theme almost disappeared. A mighty crescendo took us without a break into the Allegro fourth movement, Beethoven breaking rules again with his unusual transition.
Beethoven wrote the 5th Symphony in his 30’s and though de Ridder is somewhat older than that, his interpretation struck me as that of a young man. As conductor and orchestra drove to the finish in perfect accord, it was clear the orchestra and the audience were enjoying de Ritter’s fine, coherent and speedy conception of the work. Beethoven’s long final cadence formed a very satisfying ending to a wide-ranging weekend of concerts.
NZSO Immerse Festival, Become Ocean, Blues Symphony and Beethoven 5 with André de Ridder (conductor) and Simon Tedeschi (piano). Wellington 28-30 July, Auckland 4-6 August 2023. More information and bookings here.