Side by Side and Farewell with Sibelius and Smetana
There was a special “side by side” concert Wednesday morning at Music Hall.
The annual joint concert by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra had close to 200 players onstage -- including more than 100 strings -- each CSYO player paired on the same stand with his or her CSO counterpart (complete with page-turning duties).
There was an audience exceeding 2,000. (According to the pre-concert video, this is about 40 school buses-worth, though there were many parents and friends in addition to the young people in attendance.)
What made the concert truly special, however, was the final appearance by CSO music director Paavo Järvi at a side-by-side concert. This week marks the end of his tenure as CSO music director after a decade in the post. Järvi conducted the final work on the concert, “The Moldau” (major river of Bohemia) from Czech composer Bedřich Smetana’s “Má Vlast” (“My Fatherland”). The balance of the program was conducted by CSYO conductor/CSO associate conductor Ken Lam.
The concert was a debut for violinist and CSYO concertmaster Jacqueline Kitzmiller, soloist in the first movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. Kitzmiller, a senior at Walnuts Hills High School and a student of CSO principal second violinist Gabriel Pegis, is the winner of this year’s CSYO Concerto Competition. Her performance of the challenging work exhibited maturity, daunting technique and an endearing sound, beginning with the violin’s lengthy opening statement. She maintained a sweetness of tone that fit the introspective nature of the music, while meeting every technical demand. The CSYO winds and brasses handled their tasks well, and the augmented strings conveyed the dark soul of the work beautifully.
The theme of the concert, as Lam explained in remarks to the audience, was nationalism. In addition to “The Moldau” and the Sibelius Concerto, the combined orchestras performed Smetana’s Overture to “The Bartered Bride” and Sibelius’ “Finlandia” (initially performed without its title so as not to offend the Russians, said Lam, in a historical note).
The concert opened with “Finlandia.” With the full CSO and CSYO, it was a powerful and deeply moving reading that Lam made his own. There was nothing cliché about it, just majesty and dignity.
With over 100 bow arms in action, there was plenty of muscle in The Overture to “The Bartered Bride,” too, with its notoriously rapid string passages. Lam led with character, and there was a fine, energetic push at the end.
Järvi took over with “The Moldau,” where the winds bubbled up nimbly, the strings soared luxuriantly and the peasants danced merrily. After a brisk journey down the river, two emphatic crisp chords -- a Järvi trait -- brought both “The Moldau” and this most enjoyable concert to an end.