Spring Break
A symphonic afternoon
Last Friday's concert seemed like a stolen moment during what is for most still part of the workday.
by Hannah Kirsch
Deputy Editor
Arts | 3/4/08
Posted online at 11:56 PM EST on 3/3/08
/ Last updated at 7:03 PM EST on 3/3/08
A Friday afternoon at the symphony has an almost giddy feel to it. The weekend hasn't actually begun, so there is no gravitas of a nighttime excursion, and those of us in the audience who aren't retirees have that slightly adolescent pleasure of slipping away from the work week just a little early. At the Boston Synphony Orchestra concert in Boston Feb. 15 at 1:30 p.m., I even overheard one pretty, middle-aged woman confess to her companion that she hoped this was good because she had rescheduled a lunch meeting for it. She didn't regret her choice.
The first note of the Sibelius violin concerto was dissonant, and when Vadim Repin played it, the fate of the world hung on that one note, held just too long for comfort before blessedly collapsing into the tonic. The first movement moaned and wept, the brilliant accompaniment heightening the emotion pouring from the soloist.
The Adagio di molto melted on the ear like fine chocolate does on the tongue. Sibelius, a failed professional violinist, threw into this second movement all he wished he could have expressed on his own instrument. The swelling and falling waves of music are wonderful on recording but in a concert hall were nothing less than mesmerizing.
I was actually worried as Repin touched up his tuning before the third movement, a leaping, frenetically and forcefully optimistic romp. The richness of the first two movements could be ruined, I thought, if the same heady melancholy couldn't be converted to rollicking motion. But from the start, the orchestra and soloist together launched into an almost flailing display of sound. I am glad Repin's performance was pristine, but not flawless; the fiendishly difficult piece would have been inaccrochable, as Gertrude Stein put it, without a few intonation errors in those double stops. As it were, the eminently inconsequential inconsistencies almost kept the concerto's emotion in check through the last shining note. I was and am floored by the power of Repin's playing and the beauty of the piece.
The first note of the Sibelius violin concerto was dissonant, and when Vadim Repin played it, the fate of the world hung on that one note, held just too long for comfort before blessedly collapsing into the tonic. The first movement moaned and wept, the brilliant accompaniment heightening the emotion pouring from the soloist.
The Adagio di molto melted on the ear like fine chocolate does on the tongue. Sibelius, a failed professional violinist, threw into this second movement all he wished he could have expressed on his own instrument. The swelling and falling waves of music are wonderful on recording but in a concert hall were nothing less than mesmerizing.
I was actually worried as Repin touched up his tuning before the third movement, a leaping, frenetically and forcefully optimistic romp. The richness of the first two movements could be ruined, I thought, if the same heady melancholy couldn't be converted to rollicking motion. But from the start, the orchestra and soloist together launched into an almost flailing display of sound. I am glad Repin's performance was pristine, but not flawless; the fiendishly difficult piece would have been inaccrochable, as Gertrude Stein put it, without a few intonation errors in those double stops. As it were, the eminently inconsequential inconsistencies almost kept the concerto's emotion in check through the last shining note. I was and am floored by the power of Repin's playing and the beauty of the piece.
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