Kidane, Bartók, Scriabin, and screaming at Severance

Elim Chan continued her two-week guest stint with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall with an engaging program of music from the 20^th and 21^st Centuries.

The concert began with Daniel Kldane’s Sun Poem, composed in 2022 and receiving its first Cleveland performances this weekend.  The work is symmetrically constructed, starting with muted trumpets, gradually joined by other instruments.  Parts of the work reminded me of the minimalism of John Adams, and it  seemed more focused on layering textures than thematic development.  The work ended quietly, much as it began.

Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja then strode onstage in bare feet, wearing a red outfit for Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1 – composed in 1908 for a lover, but unpublished during his lifetime and unperformed until 1958, 14 years after the composer’s death.  I was unfamiliar with this concerto and surprised by the work’s blending of aching romanticism with modernity.  On a technical level, Kopatchinskaja played the work well.  She also put on a choreographic show that made Glenn Gould seem like a portrait of restrained normalcy.  I understand that certain mannerisms among performers can be unavoidable.  But this was pure circus act and drew attention to herself rather than the music.  Some in the audience responded positively to it, including a wannabe orator behind me whose eruptions reminded me of similar screaming I endured at a Ricky Martin concert in Las Vegas in 2017.  I wonder if he was a deranged groupie.  Kopatchinskaja played what she described as a “contemporary” work as an encore, which was a mix of catlike scratching on the instrument accompanied by grimaces and vocalizations from her.     

A sense of normalcy returned after intermission when Chan returned to lead Bartók’s  Dance Suite.  Fron 1923, this is a work of Bartók’s mature style: Modern yet not atonal.  Chan maintained perfect control over the rhythm, yet for all the propulsiveness in the work’s faster movements, the orchestra’s tone never became harsh, and the sections were all in balance.  This was about as suave as I’ve ever heard Bartók performed.

The final work was Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy, a work of mystical eroticism which provided an appropriate climax for the evening.  Chan’s interpretation was guts and glory, with no holding back – yet just when it seemed the potential of the orchestra was exhausted, they kept piling on more.  The last few minutes were a sustained musical orgasm.