Hooked on Symphonics:
The BPO outdoes itself with its 2006-07 season
By Joe Sweeney
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JoAnn Falletta.
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[What’s that, ball of testosterone that lives in my stomach? I have to say something negative about something? Or you’ll make me start watching wrestling again? OK, OK!]
One of the biggest names on the Pops Season Schedule is Neil Sedaka, the classically-trained pianist, famed Brill Building songwriter, and legendary performer. Sedaka will be playing a two-night stand with the BPO on November 10 and 11, which anybody would be stupid to attend, because Neil Sedaka sucks. I can’t really explain why he sucks, but just take my word for it. He does. Breaking up is hard to do, unless you’re breaking up with Neil Sedaka, because Neil Sedaka sucks.
[Have I appeased you? Can I start being nice now? Thank you.]
Here’s the good news: pretty much every concert on both the classical and pops schedules is worth the price of admission. On the classical side, music director JoAnn Falletta has put together a truly inspired season, placing universally known masterpieces alongside ambitious, lesser-known works and brand-new, locally focused material. The Opening Night Gala (September 16) is one of several can’t-miss evenings, featuring violin virtuoso Sarah Chang performing the ultimate violin showcase—Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons—along with Tchaikovsky’s Divine Comedy-inspired Francesca da Rimini and Ottorino Respighi’s symphonic poem Pines of Rome.
Once you get through the big-name shows, some seriously intriguing stuff crops up. The most immediately eye-catching bears the name “Beethoven and Bob Dylan” (March 3-4). What initially sounds like an ill-advised experiment promises to be a seriously beautiful thing, because it’s not an attempt to fuse Dylan with Beethoven. (Just try to envision an old guy in a beret reading the lyrics to “Subterranean Homesick Blues” while a dude in a tuxedo plays “Moonlight Sonata.” Super gross.) Instead, Falletta will lead the orchestra in Beethoven’s 4th Symphony, followed by composer John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan, sung by soprano Hila Plitman. While this is quite a risk for Dylan fans to take, I expect more than a few to take the plunge.
Two geographically-themed nights will be packed with real dramatic muscle. “Russian Nights” (March 31-April 1) will be anchored by another Tchaikovsky masterwork, his Romeo and Juliet overture. The piece’s love theme is probably the most famous ode to romance in music history, but in case you’ve never seen the movie, the ending is a bit of a downer: Romeo dies, just like he did in Titanic, and Juliet dies, just like she did in that remake of Little Women. The night’s closer will be Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 (The Year 1905), the musical interpretation of a government-sanctioned massacre that took place on January 9, 1905. Tensions between Czarist government and the Russian public reached a boiling point on this day, when armed forces killed hundreds of protesters outside of the Czar’s winter palace in St. Petersburg–resulting in the Bolshevik revolution and the rise of Lenin. Given the subject matter, Shostakovich’s 11th isn’t a lighthearted affair; the music invokes images of brutality and mourning, resilience and inspired defiance.
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The BPO cello section.
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[What’s that? I’m praising people too much again? I can’t help it; there’s nothing to lambaste.]
For me, the best and most unorthodox show of the season will be “Tchaikovsky’s 4th,” (December 2-3) which combines the breathtaking, borderline schizophrenia of the title symphony with Roberto Sierra’s “Concerto for Saxophones and Orchestra.” The monstrous saxophonist James Carter will join the BPO for the latter; his chameleonic talents have been a blessing to the world of jazz since his 1993 debut album. Because of his uncanny ability to tear up any chart you throw at him, his collaboration with an orchestra should be electrifying.
Equally kinetic will be resident conductor Robert Franz’s approach to Tchaikovsky’s 4th, a symphony written at an especially tumultuous period of the composer’s tragic life. A notoriously insecure, homosexual man, Tchaikovsky spent his life fearing social ostracism and its violent consequences, a fear that may have resulted in suicide. (Cholera was the original explanation, a diagnosis that is questionable at the very least.) It also didn’t help that he was critically lambasted on a regular basis.
Soon after beginning the work, Tchaikovsky decided to get married, both to allay the rumors about his sexual preference and give a shot of confidence to his tortured mind. Unsurprisingly, the marriage was an unmitigated disaster; after threats of suicide on both sides (including a failed attempt by the composer), a psychiatrist ordered Tchaikovsky to get a divorce. A year later, he completed the symphony. An exploration of mankind and the fates that befall us all, the work is a thunderhead of human emotion, the product of a musical genius pouring all of his misery and stubborn hopes into his creation. Tchaikovsky’s dreams of a better future are soaked into the fabric of this symphony’s fourth and final movement, a frenetically joyful explosion of brass and percussion.
For all of the wonderful classical programs, the most pleasant surprise is the pops season, which normally gives me a few reasons to start pouring the Hatorade. Principal Pops conductor Marvin Hamlisch has put together an entertaining, kaleidoscopic concert schedule, but for my money, nothing can touch Judy Collins, who joins the BPO for two performances (May 4-5). She’s one of the great voices of the twentieth century, not because of her range or improvisational abilities, but for her priceless, intangible quality-—an otherworldly sweetness that turns practically any song into a lullaby from mother to child. From her famous take on Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” to her incomparable renditions of Irish folk songs, Collins’ songs still sound fresh forty years later.
[Are you making fun of me for liking Judy Collins? You listened to Tesla when you were a teenager! Look, I got a great wife in spite of you, not because of you. You don’t own me!]
JoAnn Falletta and Marvin Hamlisch have given a pile of gems to Western New York, in the form of some killer concerts. But they’ve done more than that: They’ve taught me the meaning of friendship. It’s easy to criticize, to say that Neil Sedaka sucks, to look down your nose at the sheep that flock to his performances, to send him threatening letters and hang around outside his house. But I’ve learned that while it’s hard to avoid stalking Neil Sedaka, it feels good to be nice. So the next time you’re drunk with anger, try and say something nice about somebody. Or just make them watch Pay It Forward. It’s all in there somewhere.
Joe Sweeney is a Buffalo-based writer and musician whose album reviews are archived at www.angelfire.com/music5/sweeney/home.html.
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