On January 15th, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jonathan Bloxham and world-renowned French violist Antoine Tamestit were guests at De Bijloke in Ghent. A varied program featuring works by Ida Moberg, Joseph Haydn, Bohuslav Martinů and Antonín Dvořák. Light, water, earth and fire.
They opened with Sunrise from an orchestral suite by Finnish Romantic composer Ida Moberg. Light from the far North, rarely performed, a radiant prelude by a female composer. Haydn's thirty-ninth symphony bears the title "tempesta di mare", a storm at sea. In the minor key of G, it's one of his early works under the influence of the Storm and Stress-movement of the second half of the eighteenth century. The Antwerp Symphony plays beautifully accurate, but with smaller orchestras it often sounds sharper, more taut, with better balance between strings and winds. The water should splash in your face during the storm, with a boat on the rough seas. With ten first violins, it sounds like a steamship that the storm has little grip on.
Masterful viola
Less common than violin or cello, with less repertoire, the viola has fought its way over the past decades and claimed a rightful place among other solo instruments. Antoine Tamestit graces the program with his viola held in front of his face. Radio Klara also devoted considerable attention to Tamestit throughout the week with some classics from the viola repertoire. Especially in the first half of the twentieth century, famous composers such as Bartók and Hindemith paid more attention to the viola.
One of the most intriguing works for viola and orchestra is the Rhapsody concerto by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. Less well-known than his countryman Leoš Janáček, he is rarely performed. Martinů's musical language is highly personal and very distinctive. After just a few notes you can tell it's Martinů. Quirky, contrary, permeated with syncopations, often frenetic, gripping, then again poignantly lyrical, neither strictly tonal nor atonal. I often find it overwhelming, earthy music. Since I discovered Martinů some thirty years ago, he has held a special place in my listening life. Certainly this evening's work, the masterful Rhapsody concerto for viola and orchestra.
Poplarwood
On his website, Antoine Tamestit tells about his instrument, no less than a Stradivarius from 1672 from the Swiss Habisreutinger foundation. He has had it on loan for fifteen years, a great honor. Stradivarius built hundreds of violins and cellos, but only a dozen violas. Tamestit also plays on the first viola that Stradivarius built. It sounds clichéd, but what richness and finesse, what sound projection! The back or rear plate, Tamestit tells us, is by the way not made of maple, as in violins, but of poplar, as in cellos. That resonates better, you can hear it all the way to the back seats of the concert hall.
Many listeners love the violin for its singing high tones. The viola too can sound lyrical in the upper register, but on viola you can do something that's barely possible on violin. A viola can make you growl and rumble in the depths. The viola combines the richness of both violin and cello.
Slavic fire
After the intermission comes Dvořák's seventh symphony. His most well-known symphony is undoubtedly the Ninth, the New World symphony. Some claim that the Seventh is the best work of the most famous Czech composer. You can hear the melancholy of someone who has left his homeland, yet you feel the fiery Slavic soul. You also hear the symphonic construction that he admired so much in Brahms. With Beethoven and Brahms you find yourself in an ideal world of energy and hope, with Dvořák I always hear nature, the Bohemian forest. The Antwerp Symphony Orchestra delivers a fine performance, although the Bijloke concert hall often falls short acoustically, which prevents the brass instruments from always coming through clearly. It sometimes sounds a bit diffuse; it might help if the wind section sat a bit higher at the back.
A fun anecdote is connected to Dvořák's Seventh. During the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's first tour in 1961 with conductor Zubin Mehta, the lights went out during the third movement. What happened? Everyone just kept playing and Mehta conducted on in the dark... When the lights came back on, thunderous applause erupted. Perhaps a tip for the technicians at De Bijloke?
