Cincinnati Symphony at the Cathedral Good as Gold

Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk

Everything about Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk's golden jubilee concert Sunday afternoon at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral was golden:
   The sanctuary of the church, with its Corinthian columns and gold-tiled mosaic of Christ commissioning the apostle Peter, the music by Johann Sebastian Bach  (the gold standard in music) and members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati's foremost cultural treasure, led by music director Paavo Järvi.
   (As it turns out, the archbishop, who retired in August after 27 years as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cincinnati and is currently observing the 50th anniversary of his priesthood, loves Bach's music.  In his words of acknowledgment after intermission, he referred to the German hymn "Nun danket alle Gott" in sum of his life and work and the music in which Bach utilized it, complete with BWV numbers (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis or catalog of Bach's works).
   The Cathedral was filled to its gilded rafters, with extra chairs brought in to accommodate the overflow crowd.  "I wish the Cathedral were always this full," said Pilarczyk.  "Maybe we should have the CSO play every Sunday."

Paavo Järvi

   Interestingly, it was only the first time the CSO had ever performed at St. Peter in Chains.

Awadagin Pratt

Joining the CSO players in Bach's Keyboard Concerto No. 4 in A Major (BWV 1055) was pianist Awadagin Pratt, associate professor and artist-in-residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, another of the city's shining assets.
   The concert began with Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, a festive opener featuring CSO concertmaster Timothy Lees (with his violin tuned up a minor third for greater tonal brilliance), oboists Dwight Parry, Richard Johnson and Christopher Philpotts, and French hornists Elizabeth Freimuth and Lisa Conway.
   This delectable concerto filled the church with sound, though acoustically, the horns were inevitably favored in its reverberant space.  This was a problem in the first and third movements.  The fourth movement (Menuetto) fared better, especially in the two Trios -- for oboes and bassoon and oboes and horns, respectively.
   The slow movement (Adagio) likewise profited from its scoring for strings and woodwinds, with CSO principal oboist Dwight Parry alternating with Lees in an Adagio of plaintive beauty and grace.
   Pratt (who has recorded Bach extensively, including the Keyboard Concerto no. 4 with the St. Lawrence Quartet) also had reverberance to contend with, performing on a Steinway grand piano with the chamber-sized CSO (the 1738 concerto was written for harpsichord).  Still,  they made a joyful noise together.  The Larghetto was deeply felt, a moment of intense concentration and collaboration between Pratt and Järvi. 
   After intermission came a surprise, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt's "Wenn Bach bienen gezüchtet hätte . . ." (loosely translated "If Bach had been a bee keeper").  This was a natural for Estonian-born Järvi, whose family emigrated from Estonia in 1980, in part because of advocacy of Pärt's music, which had offended the Soviet regime.   This 1976 transitional work represents the composer reaching toward his ultimate stylistic voice, known and vastly popular today as  "tintinnabuli" (bell-like), "mystical minimalism."
   Bees?  Yes, you can hear them in the scratchy bowing of the strings, which conjures bees swarming.  The music also uses the B-A-C-H musical motif (B-flat, A, C, B-natural in German) and borrows from the Prelude in B Minor from book one of Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier."  The music is a carefully crafted collage that ends in a wonderful kind of arrival, as if the bees have flown home.
   The CSO comprised 29 musicians, including Michael Chertock on piano.  Balances again were challenging (the horns in particular) but the effect was stunning.   Järvi injected an added layer of meaning into it.  There was a touch of menace in the first part -- inevitability, perhaps?  The ending, however, was ethereal, capped by a long silence.   The performance was a CSO, and most likely, a Cincinnati premiere.

Randolph Bowman

The concert ended with Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 2 in D Major, BWV 1067, for flute and strings.  Sterling soloist here was CSO principal flutist Randolph Bowman, who ornamented his lines with considerable panache and beauty.  The work is a flute concerto consisting of an overture followed by a set of stylized dances.  It was performed in the "informed performance practice" style of today, with brisk tempos and pointed rhythms, though the CSO string players utilized discreet (rather than no) vibrato.
    Bowman played like a wizard, his flute somewhat effaced at times by the challenging acoustics, but mostly resplendent.  The dance movements, such as the two Bourees, showcased the flute against the strings to best advantage.  The concluding "Badinierie" was frisky and rapid in the extreme, and Bowman darted like a bird on the wing through the recesses of the cathedral.
   The concert was the fourth in this season's "Great Music in a Great Space" series at St. Peter in Chains.  The next concert, February 24 at 7:30 p.m., features the world-renowned Swedish Radio Choir in its U.S. debut.  For tickets and information call (513) 421-2222, or visit www.stpeterinchainscathedral.org