“Instrumentalist of the Year” and Buffalo favorite Augustin Hadelich plays Tchaikovsky as you’ve never heard it before.
THE BASICS: The TCHAIKOVSKY AND THE MERMAID concert, JoAnn Falletta conducting the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra with guest violinist Augustin Hadelich, at Kleinhans Music Hall on Saturday repeats this Sunday, March 20, at 2:30 pm at “3 Symphony Circle” Buffalo, 14201 where Porter Avenue, Richmond Avenue, North Street, and Wadsworth meet at a traffic circle. Visit www.bpo.org, or call 716-885-5000. Walkup tickets are available. Runtime: 2 hours 15 minutes with one intermission (full-service bar across the lobby in the Mary Seaton Room).
THE SHOW: You’ve got to figure: who’s better to judge performers than the musicians of the BPO? So, after a soloist performs at a high level, they usually wave their violin bows in the air. And occasionally, they break with professional decorum and actually applaud. But when a soloist gets walk-on applause, from the orchestra, you know this is someone they not only respect but adore. And this weekend at the BPO that’s Grammy Award-winning, Musical America’s “Best Instrumentalist of the Year” violinist Augustin Hadelich who came to play the Violin Concerto by Tchaikovsky.
And once again, as he has done so many times before, Hadelich lived up to his reputation. I’m struggling to come up with an analogy. There are great guitarists out there, but when I heard Eric Clapton or Carlos Santana, I knew they were better, even if I couldn’t say why. There are many great singers out there, but when I heard Renée Fleming or Audra McDonald, I knew they were better, even if I couldn’t say why. You can ask “what’s their secret sauce?” But you’ll never really know. Their sense of pitch, their timing, and the way they make the music their own, without showing off or adding special effects, are special in themselves. And Hadelich is one of those special players. He may not be a “classical household name” (yet) such as Itzhak Perlman or Gil Shaham, but people who know music know that he’s in that league.
Without a doubt, the Violin Concerto by Tchaikovsky could be the best concerto for an artist to play. It’s big and meaty, like the Brahms or Beethoven Violin Concertos, but it’s a little more romantic. On the other hand, it’s not as schmaltzy romantic as the Bruch or Korngold concertos, which are also very popular. And it fits perfectly into this concert lineup.
The evening began with a work announced from the stage by JoAnn Falletta – the “Melody” by the “People’s Artist of Ukraine” and “Hero of Ukraine” composer Myroslav Skoryk (1938-2020). According to Falletta, orchestras worldwide who have concerts this weekend, in conjunction with the International Federation of Musicians, will all be playing that very same work. It’s very melodic music that I imagined could have been either the score to the opening or final credits of a big sweeping Hollywood blockbuster. The audience was asked to hold applause and in a moment of silence to remember the people of Ukraine.
Falletta also announced from the stage that the BPO is working on a benefit concert scheduled for Monday, April 4 (at 7pm) to aid Ukrainian refugees.
Following the “Melody” Falletta returned to the podium to conduct the world premiere of a new work by Kenneth Fuchs, a friend of hers whose music she conducted for a 2018 “Best Classical Compendium” Grammy Award-winning album. The 2020 work “Point of Tranquility” was inspired by a painting of the same name by American painter Louis Morris (1912–1962) in the Hirschorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institution (see it here).
It followed the “Melody” perfectly by offering an easily accessible work that featured the many sections of the orchestra with some performers sitting temporarily in principal positions including trumpeter Geoffrey Hardcastle and flutist Kasumi Leonard. We want more!
Too often, contemporary works have a sameness of sound. And I get it. On certain days, in certain works, a Mozart might sound like Haydn or Beethoven who might sound like Mendelssohn. It’s the “zeitgeist” or “what’s in the air” (or to be crass, what sells) but this work, “Point of Tranquility” by Fuchs, while also as easy on the ears, seemed refreshingly different.
After intermission, and again, in keeping with the accessible, sweeping, romantic sound of the Skoryk, the Fuchs, and the Tchaikovsky piece, we heard Alexander Zemlinsky’s “The Mermaid” which is a big tone poem inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson story. Chock full of leitmotifs there’s creepy music for “The Sea Witch,” thundering music for the “King of the Sea,” innocent bubbly music for “The Mermaid,” and heroic music for “The Prince.”
By the way, if you were wondering, violinist Augustin Hadelich last performed with the BPO in 2013 playing the Brahms Violin Concerto. In the past, he has performed at Chautauqua and was with violinists Tim Fain and Dennis Kim to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of local radio station WNED Classical in 2017. For years he played a 1723 Stradivarius violin owned by Buffalo philanthropists Clement and Karen Arrison who lend their violins to promising violinists through the Stradivarius Society of Chicago. On stage for this concert, Hadelich reportedly played a 1744 Guarneri del Gesu on loan from the Tarisio Trust.
You’d expect to hear that instrument play Tchaikovsky, but in the right hands, it can play anything! After the thunderous, spontaneous ovation for the concerto from both audience and orchestra, Hadelich played an encore, the “Louisiana Blues Strut” by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson which you can hear him play here.
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