Loggins-Hull, Barber, and Prokofiev at Severance

 

The lack of repertoire staples at this week’s Cleveland Orchestra concert, led by music director Franz Welser-Möst, did nothing to detract from the compelling performances or the audience’s enthusiasm.  

The opening piece was Can You See?, by Allison Loggins-Hull.  The short work is a contemplation on The Star-Spangled Banner - both the lyrics and the music, which was originally composed as To Anacreon in Heaven by British composer John Stafford Smith.  (I will interject that I don’t feel The Star-Spangled Banner is the best of all possible anthems for our nation, given that it commemorates a battle that was part of what was essentially a pissing-match with the nation that is today our closest ally, has lyrics that include “the hireling and the slave” and is needlessly militaristic.  America the Beautiful seems like a better symbol of our aspirations, but that’s just me.)  It begins with distant percussion which seems to recall the defense of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 which inspired Francis Scott Key’s poem.  From there the music is freely associated and the listener hears harmonies that recall Smith’s original, without directly quoting it.  The music was enthusiastically received, and the composer was invited to the stage to share in the ovation.  

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein then joined the orchestra for a captivating performance of Barber’s Cello Concerto.  The work’s opening movement contrasted a syncopated drive and searing lyricism, with thematic material that was challenging to present and to hear.  One can sense the composer flirting with the twelve-tone rows that he employed in his Piano Sonata, composed just a few years later.  Weilerstein’s phrasing of the contemplative central movement was something to behold.  The dancing third movement featured some stunning passagework in the cello’s treacherous upper register.  This is a work that should be presented more often (premiered in 1945, the Cleveland Orchestra didn’t perform it until 2013).  Weilerstein received a well-deserved standing ovation.

Prokofiev’s Fourth Symphony, which drew inspiration from his ballet score The Prodigal Son, premiered in 1930, then was extensively revised 20 years later, was equally riveting.  The revised version was performed this weekend.  For decades, Prokofiev was subjected to harsh sounding performances in an apparent attempt to drive home his music’s modernism.  Prokofiev, judging by his extant recordings, was not that kind of performer himself.  Welser-Möst and the orchestra, who have given compelling performances of Prokofiev’s Second, Third, and Fifth Symphonies (all recorded and available), delivered a convincing performance that proved that strongly rhythmic, even percussive music, need not be ugly.  The slow opening, almost as if a 20^th Century version of a Haydn symphony, is suddenly pushed aside for a series of rapid-fire string passages that propel the music headlong into conflict – only to be interrupted by a pastoral mood, then plunging forward again.  The second movement, with its clock-like episodes, again reminds the listener of Haydn, in this case the slow movement of his Symphony No. 101.  The third movement was classic Prokofiev, with motifs that sounded inspired by parts of his Romeo & Juliet ballet score.  The celebratory, slightly satirical finale, with its bouncing rhythm, led to a declamatory coda.  During the extended applause, percussionist Paul Yancich was brought forth for a separate bow and was cheered to the rafters.  As with the Barber Concerto, this work deserves to be heard more often.