The week that just was

This didn’t look like it would be an interesting week, which just goes to show that it really is difficult to make predictions – especially about the future.

The week started with some really horrible news. One of the longest-serving members of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus was murdered by her ex-husband in the parking garage across the street from the hall after last Saturday’s concert. She had been a member of the chorus for almost 30 years, and was currently also the chorus’ librarian as well as German diction coach. Obviously that shook everyone up, even those members of the orchestra who didn’t know her personally (and many did).

The repertoire for this week didn’t look very promising; Schumann’s first symphony, Borodin’s On the Steppes of Central Asia, and the Tchaikowsky concerto with Hilary Hahn, all conducted by Jun Märkl, whom none of us knew or had ever seen. I was looking forward to hearing Hilary do Tchaikowsky; she’s been here at least three times in the past decade and is a great favorite of the orchestra's. But she’d never done anything as standard as the Tchaikowsky concerto with us.

In addition, we had one of our talking concerts on Thursday, for which we were to substitute the last two movements of Tchaikowsky’s Pathetique for the Schumann. Even though there were five rehearsals in all, it seemed like a lot of music to cover.

We didn’t get off to a very promising start. Tuesday’s rehearsal was dominated by everyone’s bewilderment over the weekend’s events and how even to talk about it amongst ourselves. In addition, much of the orchestra had been off last week (Bach B minor Mass), and those that were off didn’t seem very happy about not being off anymore. And then the conductor was rather more talkative than some in the orchestra appreciated. So Tuesday was a little grim.

But things rapidly improved. Märkl turned out to be a real find, and someone that I hope has already found a place on our short list for future music directors. He was very clear, had the kind of pulse that causes all kinds of things to fall into synch naturally, and found more music in both Schumann and Borodin than I ever knew was there. He gave Hilary a very good accompaniment as well. And the orchestra sounded tremendous for him.

I was curious about what Hilary would do with Tchaikowsky, and my curiosity was rewarded. Most violinists treat the Tchaikowsky concerto as a bottomless pot to be filled to the brim with schmaltz. She didn’t. For one thing, she played exactly what was in the score (including a couple of meno tempi that I didn’t even know were there, even though they were written in the score as large as life). I realized afterwards that I had never heard the Tchaikowsky played exactly the way he wrote it down.

For another, while she has a wonderful sound, it’s not the kind of fat vibrato one is used to hearing in Russian music. And, of course she was technically flawless, although that really understates her technical ability. To say that it’s perfect doesn’t really overstate matters. She’d get to something hard or risky, and it wouldn’t even cross anyone’s mind that she might miss it – that’s how perfect her technique is. It’s just barely possible that she’s not got the cleanest and most accurate technique in the annals of violin playing, but I’ve never heard anything like it, live or on recordings.

Lastly, she really insisted – in the nicest possible way – on getting a good accompaniment, which surprisingly few soloists do. She wanted the orchestra with her rhythmically, and she wanted the orchestra under her dynamically. And she got it; I’ve seldom heard this orchestra stay that much under a soloist so consistently.

But I found myself not really convinced by her version of the piece, which surprised me, as I hadn’t felt that way about the previous times she’d played with us. I spent all week trying to figure out why. The best I could come up with was that she was trying to find more in the piece than was actually there. She was making wonderful and interesting phrases all over the place. But it’s not that kind of piece. In a funny way, her great strengths as a musician – her intelligence and imagination – were not really relevant to the piece, and even got in the way. One doesn’t think of semplice and Tchaikowsky as ever being coupled – but I think that’s what it needs. Perhaps that’s why the last movement consistently worked the best, because all it needs – all there’s time for, really – is technique and a kind of inexorable rhythmic stability, which of course she has in spades.

All of which may only show that the reasons for something not working can be every bit as interesting – and even as positive - as the reasons for when it does all come together.