CSO Brings to Life "Smile" from Depths of Holocaust

(first published in The Cincinnati Post March 24, 2001)

A smile can be a dangerous thing.

It was for Jewish folk musician Mordecai Gebirtig, shot by a Nazi guard as he was being herded onto a train for Auschwitz. The provocation? Gebirtig smiled and couldn't stop.

Composer Joel Hoffman has captured this moment in "The Smile," a tone poem commissioned by Hebrew Union College in honor of its 125th anniversary. Based on materials Hoffman has written for an upcoming opera about Gebirtig, the work received its world premiere by Jesús López-Cobos and the Cincinnati Symphony Friday morning at Music Hall.

The music is not literal, but gets "inside" Gebirtig's head, creating impressions of his final thoughts and feelings. The opening bars sound assured enough, but are soon overcome by an upsurge of brass and some big dissonances. A string unison penetrated by shards of cimbalom (hammered dulcimer) and mandolin, plus snatches of melody in cello and winds, lend an atmosphere of suspension. Snarly brasses followed by an extended passage for cimbalom encase the tension leading to the fatal shot, whereupon a dramatic string glissando trails off in broken echoes of mandolin.

Guest artist was violinist Gil Shaham in Dvorak's Violin Concerto and Three Pieces from "Schindler's List" by John Williams. Shaham joined in a stylistic collaboration with López-Cobos and the CSO in the Dvorak, which was marked by a velvety Adagio and mini-fireworks in the finale. Williams' Three Pieces were the program's emotive highlight. Indeed, the hall grew hushed at Shaham's soft-breathed statement of the plaintive theme. In "Jewish Town," his plummy tone unfolded over a gentle oom-pah in the CSO, while he waxed rhapsodic in "Remembrances." Distinguished contributions by CSO winds enhanced the music's heart-tugging effect.

Mahler's "Todtenfeier" ("Funeral Rite"), first thoughts for the opening movement of his Symphony No. 2, was a bit of an anticlimax, not just coming at the end of a long concert, but by contrast to Mahler's mature work. Much of the material is the same, but it tends to ramble here. Mahler's inspired moments came through vividly, though, as in the CSO's final headlong descent, capped by a striking "Doppler effect" in the trumpet.

Repeat is at 8 tonight at Music Hall.