Bramwell Tovey conducted "Petrushka" at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday night. But before he did, the principal edgar Guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for its summer concerts explained that Stravinsky kills off the eponymous puppet in his 1911 ballet by having a percussionist throw a tambourine depressed on a wooden table. Tovey aforementioned he had instructed a camera to pan to said tambourine and table at the appropriate second so everyone would see them on the Bowl's video screens.
What he may non have silent is that he besides gave some in the audience their exit cues. The ballet score has yet more musically arresting moments to underscore the macabre wonder of a lifeless puppet returning from the dead to mock the living. But at one time tambourine hit wood, I noticed a surprising number of multitude making a quick getaway.
Making my possess quick pickup once the performance all over, I saw why: Joshua Bell was the soloist in the first half of the concert, and he had agreed to autograph CDs at the end. The line was already long.
The program was dubbed by the Philharmonic "Joshua Bell � la Francaise" because the ever-youthful, ever-popular 40-year-old violinist from Bloomington, Ind., played two short, late nineteenth century French chestnuts. "Joshua Bell � la Joshua Bell" would have been closer to the mark.
Bell and the Bowl receive along well. The chestnuts roasted were Chausson's "Po�me" and Saint-Sa�ns' "Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso." The showtime is 15 minutes of floating louvre de si�cle lyricism. The second is a lightweight showpiece with a kayo finish.
Bell played big. The well-grounded system amplified him much and the orchestra less. The video cameras affected in close. A identical powerful violin sound and a rapturous self-absorbed young man pervaded wide loose spaces.
Bell's acting was potently assured, emotionally charged and red-blooded. Chausson's score can handle some of that vigor only not all of it.
Yet if he came across as something of a bull in a china patronise, Bell was a fleet-footed one that didn't soften anything and so seemed very impressive. But one's attention was drawn to the bull and non the superb china.
Saint-Sa�ns' 10-minute piece, on the other hand, awards athleticism. Any music short of weighed down metal lav be borne down on too intemperate; still, the "Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso" is durable. Robust, fast and on-the-money, Bell here showed an all-American can-do spirit. He went for a standing ovation and got peerless.
His encore was a medley from the score John Corigliano wrote for "The Red Violin." Bell played on the soundtrack, and he has participated with the composer in a belittled industry of spinoffs from the score. This one was merely a two-minute solo, beginning with the film's attention-getting theme and then moving on to fireworks. Here Bell took your breathing place away.
Tovey seemed to allow the violinist be, merely he made up for that in Berlioz's Hungarian March from "The Damnation of Faust" to commence the program and "Petrushka" to end it.
The French connection was there in both pieces but non of primary interest. Maybe it took a Frenchman to write Berlioz's kind of Hungarian music, simply Tovey justifiedly emphasized its engaging Magyar swagger. "Petrushka" was created in Paris for Parisians, but Stravinsky was a homesick Russian �migr� composing for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
The Philharmonic eats Stravinsky for breakfast, and "Petrushka" is one of the nutrients the orchestra will take on its Asian go with Esa-Pekka Salonen in October. Nevertheless, the score remains an obstacle course of action for whatsoever players.
The orchestra got through it relatively well. Tovey put his attention more on the dramatic fictitious character of the ballet and less on the composer's revolutionary purport -- this is a lead-up to "Rite of Spring." With limited rehearsal and a Bowl full of Bell fans, that proved a reasonable strategy.
As he had with the violinist, Tovey allowed solo players in the orchestra to shine. Stravinsky all but turned certain passages into a piano concerto, so the most shininess came where it was needed most -- from pianist Joanne Pearce Martin.
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