Concert Review: New York Concerti Sinfonietta

March 29, 2011

Brahms Concertos: Fingerboard and Keyboard

By MICHAEL SHERWIN

NEW YORK – A transcendent performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto and a brilliant account of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto were the highlights of a well-attended concert featuring three soloists at the Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village on March 24.

The concert also offered the unusual opportunity to hear Brahms’s Violin Concerto and a movement of his First Piano Concerto on the same program. It was the third in an ongoing series of concerto concerts presented this season by Julie Jordan of The Juilliard School Evening Division faculty.

As customary, a 41-player professional orchestra, the New York Concerti Sinfonietta, was on hand, expertly directed by guest conductor Per Brevig, also a faculty member of Juilliard. The performance was given in the acoustically flattering sanctuary of the historic, 178-year-old church.

Eric Silberger, soloist in the Brahms Violin Concerto which concluded the evening’s program, is presently participating in the Columbia University-Juilliard School Joint Program. At Juilliard, he studies violin with Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. Concurrently, he is graduating this year from Columbia University with a B.A. in Political Science.

Mr. Silberger’s riveting, rhapsodic performance of the Brahms exhibited extraordinary commitment and temperament. He played with complete security, flawless intonation, incisive bowing, beautiful tone, and expressive vibrato. Even when attacking the most forceful passages with ferocity, he never overloaded his instrument. His interpretation was majestic and exciting: dazzling in its technical command; heartfelt and touching in its emotional honesty. His phrasing was as natural as breathing. Conductor Per Brevig skillfully balanced the orchestra throughout so that it did not cover the soloist.

Silberger played the Joachim cadenza to the first movement with gypsy fire and abandon, while making it seem like an integral part of the work rather than an excuse for empty virtuoso display.

The interpretative integrity of Mr. Silberger’s Brahms evoked reminiscences of such "Golden Age" violinists as Nathan Milstein and David Oistrakh, abetted by the glowing timbre of the 17-century Andrea Guarneri violin on which Silberger performed.

When Brahms’s Violin Concerto was new – over 130 years ago – its apparent austerity and classical restraint were often misunderstood. A year after the concerto’s premiere, the composer Tchaikovsky wrote a letter to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, in which he scornfully stated, "The opening of the concerto…is an admirable pedestal for a statue; but the statue is lacking, we only get a second pedestal piled upon the first." Tchaikovsky was wrong. Eric Silberger did indeed give us the statue; a heroic one, chiseled out of the finest marble and imposing in its proportions.

Mr. Silberger’s interpretation of Brahms’s Violin Concerto was not only an example of recreative art of the highest order; it ennobled the concerto itself, reconfirming its stature as one of the greatest of all violin concertos. Silberger’s performance richly deserved the standing ovation that it received. Afterward, an audience member was overheard to remark: "How do you improve on perfection?"

Silberger, at age 22, may well be on the threshold of a major career. Currently, he is the only American to be simultaneously selected to participate in two prestigious, upcoming violin competitions: the International Tchaikovsky Competition in St. Petersburg and the Michael Hill International Competition in New Zealand. His future performances will be awaited with anticipation.

Earlier in the concert, Scott Baker performed the Rondo finale of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto. Born in Canada, Mr. Baker is something of a polymath. After 15 years of piano study, he trained as a toxicologist, and is currently a director representing health and environmental concerns for a major international industrial association. After a hiatus of some 25 years, Mr. Baker returned to the keyboard, studying at The Juilliard School Evening Division with Dr. Julie Jordan, and performing in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2007.

In the Brahms concerto, Mr. Baker adopted a somewhat smaller-scaled and more intimate approach than is usual. Foregoing thundering sonorities, he played with a good deal of subtlety, dynamic nuance, and no small amount of poetry. His tone quality was attractive, and he accented phrases and inner voices in an interesting way. When synchronization with the orchestra briefly faltered in the coda, the soloist recovered adroitly. Although occasional slight irregularities of fingering revealed to the trained observer that Mr. Baker is not a full-time pianist, it hardly detracted from his otherwise thoughtful and musicianly performance.

Next, concert attendees were afforded the chance to luxuriate in the lush, romantic sonorities of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, which contains (as does his Second Symphony) some of the most sensuous melodies ever conceived of by the human mind. Soloist Stephanie Matera earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Juilliard in the 1980s, where her teachers included Herbert Stessin and Beveridge Webster. Since 2006, she has studied with Dr. Julie Jordan in Juilliard’s Evening Division.

Ms. Matera gave a blockbuster performance. The fortissimos she produced from the Yamaha grand piano were startlingly powerful and resonant, while she had technique to burn. She showed that it isn’t the make of piano that counts, but the makeup of the performer who sits in front of it.

Rachmaninoff’s dense and challenging piano writing held no fear; Ms. Matera virtually vaulted into the teeth of technical difficulties, dispatching her octaves with a heaven-storming, "take no prisoners" approach. She demonstrated the truth of the old adage: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Instead of slowing down as the texture thickened and complexities mounted, she accelerated, tossing off the figurations like child’s play and ratcheting up the tension in a thrilling way.

Nor did she slight the lyrical sections, molding the rise and fall of the concerto’s yearning melodies with well-judged phrasing and expression. This was pulse-quickening Rachmaninoff, melding passion and virtuosity in equal measure. Per Brevig lovingly shaped the orchestral accompaniment, making the strings sound rich and opulent. In addition, the clarinet solo near the opening of the second movement was particularly outstanding. If, in the heat of the moment, there were a few places in rapid passages where coordination between piano and orchestra became untidy, it was of little consequence to the overall effect.

After adverse criticism of his First Symphony in 1897, Rachmaninoff fell into a deep depression and was unable to compose. Three years later, he was treated with hypnotherapy by Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who succeeded triumphantly. Rachmaninoff went on to write his Second Piano Concerto immediately thereafter and dedicated it to Dr. Dahl in gratitude. Since Rachmaninoff needed hypnosis to write his Second Concerto, it was appropriate that Ms. Matera delivered a hypnotic performance.

The evening’s program opened with an ebullient curtain-raiser, Mozart’s Magic Flute Overture. Per Brevig conducted with verve and vitality, displaying the agility of the orchestra’s string section, its characterful wind playing, and its mellow brass.

The final concert of the season in the "Julie Jordan Presents" series will be given at St. Joseph’s Church on May 3.

Michael Sherwin has held Rockefeller and Fromm Foundation Fellowships in music criticism. He has written for The Juilliard Journal, Musical America, and Wagner Notes.

View the photo album from this concert.

Recordings from this event

Attend the final Julie Jordan Presents series concert for the 2011 season on May 3.

For more information please visit the Julie Jordan Presents series website.