REVIEW: TUCSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/KYOKO TAKEZAWA

posted by James Reel

    It’s been about a century since an all-Brahms concert was an interesting concept. Yet for the current cycle, Tucson Symphony music director George Hanson followed the gutless “Mostly Mozart” formula and plopped two fat Brahms warhorses into a single program, prefacing them with a tiny new piece by Jeffery Cotton. However stuffy and unimaginative the overall program may be, Hanson, the orchestra and violin soloist Kyoko Takezawa are delivering performances that make attendance worthwhile.
    First, the novelty: Jeffery Cotton’s new Flights of Fancy, a little curtain-raiser completed last year, loosely inspired by our often abortive but ultimately successful efforts to take wing. The modest Flights of Fancy is trivialized in the presence of the Brahms Third Symphony and Violin Concerto, but in a more appropriate context it would seem a strong little piece. It alternates a sweeping, slighly bluesy trumpet theme (expertly played by Ed Reid) with agitated material for the full orchestra. The style is a conflation of the inner movements of Samuel Barber’s Symphony No. 1, a lyrical idea threading through a scherzo in an affirmative, unashamed D major. Cotton, who hasn’t written for full orchestra for about a decade, makes adept use of the strings, brass and percussion, but at least in last night’s otherwise confident performance the woodwinds were inaudible except for the occasional flute/piccolo gesture.
    The Brahms Symphony No. 3 ends quietly, which is perhaps the reason Hanson placed it before intermission, saving the more extroverted Violin Concerto for last. But that’s not the only respect in which the symphony proves troublesome. It’s a tough work for an interpreter or a listener to figure out. From the oscillating harmony of the opening material, which dominates the entire symphony, are we to understand this as a storm-and-stress symphony, or a sequel to Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony? In remarks just before the performance, Hanson mentioned the connection between the F/A-flat/F motto of the first few bars and Brahms’ motto, “Frei aber Froh” (“Free but Happy”; “He was a bachelor,” noted the multiply married Hanson). But when he stopped talking and picked up his baton, Hanson proved less interested in freedom and happiness than in the music’s shadowy, dramatic potential.
    The only way to make the first movement sound pastoral is to play it fast, light and buoyant. Hanson took exactly the opposite approach; this was a dark, pliable, rather slow performance. Every detail supported this concept; for example, the cello pizzicati in the second subject, especially in the exposition repeat, had an ominous tread instead of the usual bouncy spring. Rather than seeming free, the music struggled against its baseline tether. A rich bass is essential to most of Brahms’ music, and we certainly got that here.
    The second movement featured some lovely, bucolic woodwind playing, and the third carefully blended warmth with melancholy. The performance of the final movement was quick, incisive and dramatic, an apt conclusion to what Hanson and the TSO proved is more than just a pretty little Romantic symphony.
    In the introductory section of the Violin Concerto, Hanson opted for nobility rather than passion or sweetness. The latter qualities were provided by soloist Kyoko Takezawa, a sensitive, lyrical musician who nevertheless wasn’t afraid to dig into the rustic Hungarianisms of the work’s finale.
    Takezawa is so petite that her Strad, in her hands, looks more like a viola than a violin. It certainly has a big sound, projecting easily into the violin-eating Music Hall. Takezawa has a graceful, fluid bow arm, which is mirrored in her playing, beautifully pure even into the high register. She indulged in a very few slides in the first movement, but generally avoided ear-catching details of phrasing, drawing expression more from her tone quality. Hanson and the orchestra supported her well—Lindabeth Binkley played the oboe solo at the beginning of the slow movement with particular felicity—and Hanson even kept the orchestra from covering Takezawa in the last movement’s coda, no small feat.
    So the TSO’s performance standards are quite fine; it’s the over-cautious programming that needs improvement.