Music is always a journey through time, and some performances can span centuries within an evening.
The Santa Maria Philharmonic Orchestra’s last concert of the 2017-18 season was April 28, and though the evening’s music was finished around 9 p.m., sounds from across the generations came to the eager ears there. From the Viennese opera house of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) to the decidedly more modern work of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), Maestro Michael Nowak led everyone on a journey meant to elicit the name of the program: Fierce Passions.
The first half of the concert opened with the aforementioned Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute, a most familiar piece of orchestral music. Nowak is quite wise in his programing, and starting with an audience favorite gets the crowd warmed up and in the zone to listen.
The orchestra didn’t need any such warm-up and was on point with the dynamic piece from the first iconic bars. The darting, fugal string melodies chased one another, hopping from string section to string section.
Mozart truly knew how to write for each section of the orchestra, and his attention to the woodwinds was laser-focused, but so was the focus of the philharmonic’s woodwinds. You could hear the polish on these instruments as they formed the dynamic aural architecture that Mozart is known for, like a Swiss clock of sound.
Following the first piece was the entirety of Robert Schumann’s (1810-1856) “Symphony No. 3, Op. 97,” an early Romantic-era work still steeped in the Viennese tradition. The work required an additional group of French horn players to join the stage after the Mozart piece, illustrating the symphonic development the Romantic era is known for. There are also five movements to this symphony, whereas three was the standard at the time.
Much of this piece harks back to Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770-1827) “Symphony No. 6,” the “Pastoral” symphony, as Schumann paints a tonal landscape of a trip down the Rhine River in present-day Germany. Schumann was definitely paying homage to his great inspiration, but also choosing from a wider range of colors and contrast with his musical pallette.
While Schumann was pushing the boundaries of his time, Nowak and the Santa Maria Philharmonic were firmly setting theirs as interpreters of the finest orchestral composition. There doesn’t seem to be any work beyond the ensemble’s reach, but it’s precisely because of the care and attention that everyone heaps on each piece, from the maestro to the concertmaster all the way to the back row.
Speaking of the concertmaster, the April 28 concert was the last with longtime Philharmonic Concertmaster Sharon Cooper serving in the crucial role. Philharmonic Society Board President Jed Beebe thanked Cooper in the opening of the concert, giving her an award and keepsake for her time with the orchestra. Cooper spoke as well, thanking the society and audience for years of merry music making.
Cooper has quite a job in keeping the orchestra in tune—there was even a quick tuning between movements of the Schumann—especially for the closing number of the night.
After a fun and refreshing intermission with cookies and coffee, Nowak and the orchestra welcomed cello soloist Jon Walz for a rousing rendition of Shostakovich’s “Cello Concerto No. 1, Op. 107.”
Walz is an LA-based cellist who does plenty of solo and ensemble work and is currently the principal cellist with the Los Angeles Opera. He brought an impressive energy to the concert hall on April 28, which was all channeled through Shostakovish’s incredible showpiece.
The first movement of the concert clearly communicates the style and influence that Shostakovich was celebrated for in Soviet Russia, and Walz’s emotive interpretation captured the raw, fierce energy the composer was going for. The piece is considered one of the hardest works for cello, and it’s easy to see why. Walz’s hand shot across the neck, his bowing arm sawing aggressively for the melismatic passages, achieving double and triple stops and other virtuosic feats.
The last three movements of the work are performed without pause, including a long section where the cellist plays unaccompanied. There’s so much said in those sections, about struggle, about pain, about passion and triumph. Walz, with the careful accompaniment from Nowak and the ensemble, didn’t miss a beat either rhythmically or emotionally, right up until the abrupt conclusion of the piece.
As the name of the concert implied, Nowak and the Santa Maria Philharmonic delivered a journey of “Fierce Passions” from across the centuries and ended the season strong.
Managing Editor Joe Payne is ready for his next musical journey. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 3-10, 2018.
