MIchelle Cann and Alisdair Neale.
An historic premiere. Significant anniversaries and, in some cases, a final concert for several members of the orchestra. An orchestra program featuring works entirely by Black American composers, not presented in February, when one of those composers was in the audience. Another work performed by a Grammy-winning classical pianist.
Friday night’s final concert for the New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s 2022 – 23 Classics season at the John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts was loaded with significance.
The NHSO delivered an ecstatic, energetic performance under the baton of Music Director Alisdair Neale, with a program that offered the full range of possibilities for the symphony orchestra without including a “feature length” symphony. The formal, harmonic, and textural range of the program made the absence barely noticeable. Soloist Michelle Cann joined the orchestra for two single-movement piano concertos — one by Florence Price, and one by Helen Hagan, who is believed to have been the first Black woman to have graduated from Yale University.
The latter was especially significant; although Neale informed the audience that Hagan premiered the full piece herself with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra in 1912, the work audiences heard on Friday was considered a world premiere. This was in part because a two-piano arrangement of the first movement of Hagan’s concerto is considered to be the only surviving work by the composer. The piece heard on Friday was orchestrated from this two-piano reduction by Ecuadorian composer Dante Anzolini, who was in attendance.
To flip that around for a second: it is the only surviving piece because all the rest of her works, though admired in her lifetime, were not subjected to the same level of archival attention as her contemporaries. (Hagan passed away in 1964 at the age of 73.) Informational signs in the lobby detailed how some of that archival work is now being taken more seriously, and indicated some hope that more work by the composer will be discovered as that process continues.
Given the quality of the piano concerto, composed when Hagan was only 19, one sincerely hopes the effort is successful. Michelle Cann entered the orchestral texture with a virtuosic passage in double-hand octaves, leading the orchestra through some exhilarating harmonic development, clearly influenced by the harmonic invention of Chopin, but with a sense of surprise and play that nodded creatively at earlier classical writing. There were moments where Cann became the accompanist for the orchestra, and in the Lyman Center there were moments where the orchestration slightly overpowered some of the details in the piano part. But the work overall was an extraordinary display, with some continued moments of delight throughout.
The program began with Montgomery Variations by Margaret Bonds. The set of seven variations drew their melodic inspiration from a spiritual, in this case, “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.” A program note indicated the composer’s desire to avoid “over-development” of the melodies, and indeed in many cases the motif was immediately recognizable, whether it was the straightforward, 16-bar statement by the strings in the beginning, or the more vocal-like inflections of the trombone in the second movement. In the fourth movement it became a waltz with rich horn voicings.
In the fifth movement, the work became programmatic, reacting to the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama that stole the lives of four young girls. The spiritual melody was pushed into a major key, almost pastoral in tone, before an ominous interruption by the percussion section — a spare but powerful moment. The rich harmonization that followed as the melody returned was aching, and full of resignation.
At intermission, audience member Wendy said that this performance was her first time at the NHSO, and she was drawn to the historical significance of the program. She appreciated Neale’s introduction, and said she would definitely come back next year. Gabriela Rassi and Rina Goldfield were also first-time concertgoers. Rassi picked up on the emotional significance of the night for so many people in the orchestra and felt like “they were probably putting 150 percent into the performance.” Goldfield was impressed by Cann’s gestures as a performer, and felt that they helped her to feel the phrases as the music unfolded.
Cann returned to the stage after intermission to perform Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement, an excellent work given a revelatory performance on Friday. Cann performed this piece from memory, and Neale and the orchestra were in lock-step with her phrasing, an incredible display of musical synergy. The first chunk of the piece alternated piano and orchestra, only bringing them together with an energetic entrance by the low strings.
A quieter moment in the middle featured an extended duet between Cann and principal oboist Olav van Hezewijk. Cann showed a sense of restraint here that was quietly devastating, as van Hezewijk weaved a lengthy melody through this passage. The piano and orchestra were integrated in this work to an astonishing degree, and all performers made a seriously compelling case for this piece, which was new to this reporter.
Cann performed pianist Hazel Scott’s transcription of Rachmaninoff’s famous Prelude in C# minor as an encore, which bursts out of the opening chords into a high-tempo study of swing and syncopation. The surprise transformation had a palpable effect on the audience, and could be seen on the faces of many orchestra members as well.
Mason.
The program concluded with “A Joyous Trilogy” by composer Quinn Mason, who was called to the stage to perform the unenviable task of introducing his own piece, which he did with sincerity and enthusiasm. His enthusiasm was not misplaced. “Trilogy” was a dynamic, often ecstatic work, and the NHSO delivered its pulsing polyrhythms and shimmering textures with the confidence of a repertory workhorse.
It was as much a joy to hear Mason’s mosaic vision of the possibilities of the orchestra as it was to see the NHSO’s sense of section and ensemble in performing this complex music for the audience. Special mention should be given to trombonist Matthew Russo, who stood from his chair to deliver an elegaic solo in the second movement, and the entire percussion section, who between them juggled close to 15 instruments and both fueled and grounded the frenetic movement of the melodic motifs that gave the piece its texture.
Ultimately, Friday’s concert was a strong and deeply felt connection to the recent past, and a bold statement about the future of orchestra programming. One hopes other organizations are paying attention.
The NHSO performs with Principal Pops conductor Chelsea Tipton, II and vocalists Capathia Jenkins and Ryan Shaw in “Aretha: A Tribute” on June 2 at the Lyman Center, and with Angelique Kidjo and music director Alisdair Neale on June 10 at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Visit the orchestra’s website for more information.
