EIF: The Philadelphia Orchestra Plays Florence Price

Usher Hall - 26/08/22

The second orchestral concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s residency at the Festival under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin was presented at the Usher Hall on the night of 26th, with an imaginatively devised programme of great novelty.

The concert opened with a selection of three short pieces from Californian female composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, evocative of the music, instruments and culture of the Peruvian Andes.  These colourful character pieces, arranged by the composer for string orchestra from the original for string quartet, received the ultimate advocacy from the gloriously warm string sound of the Philadelphians, who clearly relished the opportunity to perform them for an appreciative Festival audience.

Szymanowski’s 1916 First Violin Concerto uses a large orchestra, with important parts for piano, celeste and two harps contributing to the lush orchestral textures, but never at the expense of clarity and never overpowering the Georgian soloist, Lisa Batiashvili, whose flawless tone sang seductively and sweetly throughout the performance.  The music is sensuous, passionate and ecstatic and benefitted from an evidently shared vision and understanding between conductor and soloist.  Performed as a single movement, but with 5 varied and clearly-defined episodes of different character including one longer breathtaking cadenza, it was a delightful impressionistic indulgence performed with consummate virtuosity and intelligent musicality.

There were two solo violin encores, neither of which I can identify.  A shallow podium appeared on stage behind the first violins and beside the orchestral piano.  With Yannick Nézet-Séguin seated at the piano and Lisa Batiashvili on the podium, the first encore was in the character of a very lovely Romance for violin and piano, possibly by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, as I was very much reminded of other similar works by him.  On a subsequent return to the front of stage to acknowledge the applause, the second encore, unaccompanied, energetic and fiendishly difficult, was in the character of a Georgian dance, the lezginka, though again that is mere surmise on my part.  Utterly breathtaking.

After the interval, the headline work of the concert, the 1932 First Symphony of African-American female composer Florence Price, is in an American Romantic style redolent of the New World Symphony of Dvořák, especially in the first movement with trumpet solos where Dvořák might have used cor anglais, so also very individual in character. The scoring includes tubular bells, glockenspiel and bongos, and also some higher-pitched timpani.  The hymn-like second movement features some fine writing for brass chorale and some lovely wind solos, especially for clarinet.  The third movement, Juba Dance, is an absolute swaggering romp with bongos and high-pitched timpani providing the rhythm.  The finale suggests an Irish jig, but cross-rhythms abound, so there is no doubt which side of the Atlantic we are on. The Philadelphians have championed this music and it couldn’t ask for better advocates. They own it and perform it with evident affection and glee – they certainly convinced the Usher Hall. The good news is that Price wrote over 300 works, including 4 symphonies, of which the Philadelphia Orchestra have recorded Nos. 1 & 3 already.

There were two encores: Price’s ‘Adoration’, with the character of a lyrical Romance for string orchestra, and a brisk Brahms’ Hungarian Dance, rounding off a great concert.

Cover photo: J Shurte

Donal Hurley

Donal Hurley is an Irish-born retired teacher of Maths and Physics, based in Clackmannanshire. His lifelong passions are languages and music. He plays violin and cello, composes and sings bass in Clackmannanshire Choral Society, of which he is the Publicity Officer.

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