REVIEW: TUCSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/GEORGE HANSON

posted by James Reel

    Shakespeare has provided great fodder for composers over the past couple of centuries. The plays’ passions are strong, the plots and characters familiar, and they easily translate into highly effective music in the grand Romantic manner, music that can tell a tale even without benefit of Shakespeare’s words.
    Not all efforts to transform Shakespeare into music are equally successful, though, and last night’s Tucson Symphony Orchestra concert under George Hanson began a bit weakly, gathering strength piece by piece.
    Richard Strauss’ Macbeth is by no means a tale told by an idiot, but what it signifies is open to question. Strauss’ music doesn’t really resonate with the action, characters and setting of the Scottish Play; the work could just as easily be titled King Lear or, for that matter, The Song of Roland—anything with a bit of tumoil and regal pomp. This is the composer’s very first symphonic poem (although it was published later in the series), and while it’s smudged with many Strauss fingerprints, it hasn’t really taken on the mature Strauss polish; it sounds like something by one of those young composers in the early 20th century imitating Strauss until they could find individual voices (Szymanowski’s Concert Overture comes to mind).
    Hanson seemed a little reluctant to throw himself fully into the piece; he drew expertly judged dynamic swells from the orchestra in the opening section, but he didn’t maintain the headlong sweep this score requires if it’s going to hold together. The various components—trumpet fanfares, ominous woodwind phrases, string tremolos—rarely cohered, and conversely the periodic interruptions weren’t sufficiently volcanic. This was a performance on the verge of becoming effective, falling just short of success. The next time Hanson conducts Macbeth the interpretation will surely be more settled, but in truth this is not a work that bears frequent repetition.
    In contrast, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet holds up to almost anything, and it was in good hands last night. Hanson emphasized the contrast between the creamy, legato Friar Laurence theme and love music and the bite of the conflict music, although this latter lost some of its edge in the tense, quiet passages.
    The best music and performance of the evening came after intermission, with selections from Prokofiev’s ballet treatment of Romeo and Juliet. In part because of Prokofiev’s native dramatic-romantic sensibilities and in part because Prokofiev had the luxury of telling the story over the course of two and a half hours, this is by far the most varied, richest and truest translation of Shakespeare into music, full of longing, rapture, humor and violence.
    Hanson and the TSO found it all in the 45 minutes of the score they offered, a well-chosen selection that followed the action of the story and included all the ballet’s major themes. The performance may not have been perfect—woodwind and brass balances, for example, weren’t always ideal—but it was full of character and the confidence that was lacking in the Strauss. One example of how well the performance worked: Hanson whipped the orchestra mercilessly throught the swordfight music leading to the death of Tybalt, while maintaining a solid bass line. For once this passage sounded urgent and dangerous; taken more slowly, it can seem more like cartoon music (as can similar material in Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky).
    Hanson and the orchestra played these two Romeo works just five years ago; the next time they prepare a Shakespeare program, I hope they’ll dust off something different, and something stronger than the Strauss. For starters, TSO performances of Dvorák’s Othello, Tchaikovsky’s Hamlet and Berlioz’ Roméo et Juliette are long overdue.