REVIEW: Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja put on a show with Shostakovich.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra, led by its principal conductor Edward Gardner, made a stop at Segerstrom Concert Hall on Friday night as part of a U.S. tour that also takes them to Carnegie Hall. A good-sized crowd showed up to hear this venerable ensemble, founded by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1932. It is generally considered one of the great orchestras of the world. But as impressive as Friday’s performance was, that crowd wouldn’t have been talking about the orchestra on the way home.
The soloist, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, would have been the subject on hand. Blame the London Phil for inviting a guest who outshone them.
The concert served as the 71st season opener for the Philharmonic Society of Orange County. It’s going to be a big year for the classical presenter, with several major orchestras — including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic — appearing, as well as an array of starry soloists and chamber ensembles. Hooray for the Philharmonic Society.
Friday’s agenda was a curious one in a way. When Russian orchestras play in America, they bring along some Russian music, the French orchestras play something French, the Germans German. British orchestras don’t seem to do this as much for some reason (later in the season the London Symphony plays Rachmaninoff and Mahler). Why not treat us to Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Britten or some other chap? Instead, the London Phil played Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky.
Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja delivered an impassioned, quirky and highly personal performance of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No 1. Photo courtesy of Philharmonic Society of Orange County / Drew A. Kelley
Kopatchinskaja, described as a Moldovan-Austrian-Swiss violinist, is indeed hard to pin down. Call her a wild animal, call her an experimentalist, but don’t call her a hidebound virtuoso seeking note perfection. She seems to take the printed score (in this case Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1, which she plopped on a stand in front of her, very un-virtuoso-like) as a mere starting point for her adventures, not the end, and proposes, according to her program bio, “to get to the heart of the music, to its meaning for us — now and here.”
To tell you the truth, this listener isn’t quite sure Kopatchinskaja is his cup of tea, but there can be no denying that she could put this piece across, and then some. Written in the 1940s, Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 is one of his so-called “desk drawer” pieces, suppressed by the composer until the mid-1950s, after the death of Stalin and the subsequent thaw in Soviet culture. It is agitated, morose, convoluted, dissonant, gritty, suffering, a lonely cry from the wilderness, and definitely not the type of thing a well-dressed (ok, medium well-dressed) opening night audience would embrace wholeheartedly.
Embrace it they did, however. Kopatchinskaja threw herself into it with such complete abandon there was no stopping it. In the bleak opening movement, she established herself as the wounded protagonist of the concerto, producing moaning, droopy sounds on her instrument, even playing out of tune at times, on a broken violin, as it were.
She laid into the troubling ferocity of the fast movements with such vehemence that one worried a bit for the precious violin. Vibrato was used expressively — sometimes absent, giving notes hollowness, sometimes aggressively, supplying anxiousness. Ugly was just another expressive tool in her toolbox.
She stomped her feet, she turned to the orchestra like a rock guitarist to his drummer, she flailed bow and body, wiggled hips, stood completely still, staring into emptiness — in short, she acted out the piece as well (there were a few giggles near me, more in astonishment than anything else).
In case the previous description makes Kopatchinskaja sound like a violinist covering up for technical deficiencies, no, she’s got plenty of skill. She just uses it differently.
Gardner and the ensemble supported her nicely, almost matching her energy while generally giving her enough space to be heard and move about. The audience went crazy for it. Kopatchinskaja had accomplished what she set out to do, which was to get the Shostakovich across — to us.
A movement from Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations" was the only work by an English composer on the program. Photo courtesy of Philharmonic Society of Orange County / Drew A. Kelley
After intermission, conductor and orchestra, left to their own devices, pulled out a warhorse, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. What luxury in the strings (who played and breathed as one), what creaminess in the woodwinds, what burnish in the brass, what a sound. The polish was palpable, in every phrase, every nuance, every fortissimo and pianissimo and hemidemisemiquaver. Call it the Rolls Royce version of this score. Nor was rhythmic energy lacking, though it was efficient more than effortful.
With this well-oiled machine purring, it remained for Gardner to merely point up the wonders here and everywhere, with snazzy and stylish ministrations.
Somehow, however, it didn’t add up to an unforgettable performance. There was something missing, perhaps a certain Russianness, or perhaps the strongest feeling. Maybe it was that it followed in the wake of Kopatchinskaja.
The concert opened with the obligatory contemporary piece, Tania León’s “Raíces,” 15 minutes of short motifs tossed about the orchestra, leaving the listener to connect the dots. There were pretty bird sounds, ethereal floating, mysterious rattles, jagged edges, lots of major chords amid the convolutions. Interesting and pretty in its way, like it or not, it didn’t make for an especially apt calling card.
After the Tchaikovsky and cheers, an encore: some British music finally, the “Nimrod” movement from Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.” Now this was beautiful and perfect. Wish there could have been more of it.
London Philharmonic Orchestra
ARTISTS
Edward Gardner, violin
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin
PROGRAM
Tania León: “Raíces"
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
When: 8 p.m. Oct. 11
Where: Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 650 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Classical music coverage at Culture OC is supported in part by a grant from the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism. Culture OC makes all editorial decisions.
