Author Archives: Gerald Elias

About Gerald Elias

Gerald Elias is an acclaimed author and musician. A former violinist with the Boston Symphony and associate concertmaster of the Utah Symphony, he has concertized on five continents as violinist and conductor, and his compositions have been performed throughout the United States. Since 2004 he has been music director of the Vivaldi by Candlelight concert series in Salt Lake City, and since 1989 a faculty member of the University of Utah. His award-winning Daniel Jacobus mystery series, based upon experiences gleaned from his lifelong musical career, takes place in the dark corners of the classical music world and has won extensive critical praise. Visit his website at www.geraldelias.com.

BRENTANO QUARTET PLAYED WITH PRECISION BUT LACKED PASSION

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BRENTANO STRING QUARTET, Libby Gardner Concert Hall, Oct. 6

Last night the Brentano String Quartet presented a wonderfully varied program of Mozart’s HuntQuartet, K. 458, Bartók’s Third and Elgar’s E minor, op. 83. Their performance was immaculately groomed, the result of years of painstaking collaboration. Unfortunately, though, they lacked the very humanity with which the music they so expertly played is fully imbued: the open joy of Mozart, the wild passion of Bartók, the restless pathos of Elgar. Grim and somber throughout, the Brentano had about as much cheer as a Mayan sacrifice.

Brentano String Quartet (Photo Credit: Peter Schaaf)

And here’s where the dichotomy between a CD and a live performance comes into play. When a musician, literally, grits his teeth, and whose facial tension was almost painful to watch (first violinist Mark Steinberg); stares antagonistically at the music (violist Misha Amory); or almost perpetually shakes her head “no, no, no” with an accompanying scowl (cellist Nina Lee) it tends to dry up the perception of any reservoir of positive feeling they, or the audience, have about the music. An occasional, smiling “yes, yes, yes” would have been a welcome relief.

That’s not to say musicians should be something that they’re not and put on an act. Playing any classical music, let alone string quartets, requires a level of concentration that makes brain surgery seem like a weekend hobby. There’s no room to play pretend. Yet, there’s no getting around the fact that part of a live-concert experience is visual. We see how the performers feel about their mission, and you can’t totally divorce that from what you hear. That’s one of the reasons live concerts are irreplaceable. And if music is ultimately subjective, if the goal for the performing musician is to move the listener, to enrich the listener’s life experience, then the simulation of elation in the minuet of the Hunt, for example, is not enough. A simulation, no matter how practiced or how polished, is not the real thing. I think the audience sensed that, and responded accordingly.

Despite the Brentano’s immaculate intonation, flawless ensemble playing and sweet, willowy tone, there was a troubling divergence of approach to sound production among the individual musicians. Each had markedly different bow technique, and the result was telling. For example, in the last movement of the Elgar a short phrase was passed with rhythmic precision from one musician to the other – viola, second violin, first violin, cello – yet each played it with a mystifyingly different sound, fragmenting what should have been a unified line. Furthermore, Steinberg played excessively at the weakest part of the bow (the point), and much of what he played up there, especially quicker passages, was all but lost to the listener. There’s something to be said for lightness in Mozart, but sometimes you just have to address the string at the lower half of the bow and press the damn thing down. Second violinist Serena Canin, when she had the opportunity to play out, for instance in the second movement of the Elgar, had an expressively rich sound, but far too often had to sublimate her better instincts when trying to balance with Steinberg. Amory’s viola sound, by far the most focused and projecting, was intensely convincing, especially in the Elgar and Bartók, which is ironic as he is the only one whose instrument faced away from the audience. Lee’s visual dramatizations did not translate well into the aural realm. Her sound lacked depth and clarity of articulation. (I sat in the third row and even there I had to crane to hear the beginnings of notes.) And those Stephen King cello glissandos near the climax of the Bartók Third, which should raise the hair on the back of one’s neck, elevated nary a hackle.

For a string quartet, the upside of two decades of meticulous work is the ability to realize an almost unimaginable level of cohesion among four different human beings, and there’s no guarantee a quartet will get there, ever. The Brentano has achieved it in spades, for example, in the inner voice interplay between Canin and Amory, which was a pleasure to behold. The pitfall in such long-term collaborations, as one might guess, is that in the drive to attain so much polish the performance becomes antiseptic. How does a group maintain spontaneity after playing the same thing for decades? How does it avoid sounding like a series of well-rehearsed sections, rather than an integrated whole? It’s a never-ending, challenging paradox, and one that any performing ensemble, including the Brentano, must consider. I missed the fresh, unbounded optimism in the Mozart. The visceral, latent danger in the Bartók (where was the “pop” in the patented Bartók pizzicato?). That Thomas Hardy sense of ghostly presence permeating the Elgar.

After the concert I went home and watched a 40-year-old video of James Brown sing and dance on the Soul Train television show. Maybe the classical music concert hall is not ready for that level of raw, unrestrained passion, but on the other hand, it might not hurt.

WELL-TRAVELED BAGGAGE: A SEASONED VIOLINIST GETS SENTIMENTAL ABOUT HIS BSO EXPERIENCE

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Gerald Elias

I don’t generally get maudlin over luggage. But after the final bows of Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Asia tour in May, I locked my wardrobe trunk and gave it an affectionate pat. This tour may well have been the brass-clad behemoth’s swansong.

Built like fortresses, BSO’s 25 trunks could last forever. Lined up backstage like dominoes, each one accommodates four musicians with two drawers and a clothes-hanging nook. Since many concert halls lack sufficient changing facilities for a hundred musicians, the trunks become makeshift dressing rooms.

Officially, only concert-related clothing and accessories are allowed in trunks. Unofficially, people have stuffed them with souvenirs, food, and drink. One BSO musician achieved fame (or infamy) by packing peanut butter and tuna to save meal money on tours. Skippy in Paris! Long ago, my No. 11 compartment was the domain of former colleague Gerald Gelbloom, who once forgot he’d packed a Carnegie Deli doggie bag of smoked fish until discovering it months later while readying for the next tour. Fortunately, the passage of 35 years has erased all offending olfactory traces.

If trunks could talk, what stories they’d tell! They crossed the Atlantic on the Île de France in 1952 for the BSO’s first European tour. And again in ’56 when Charles Munch and Pierre Monteux conducted 29 concerts in 35 days. In 1960, they departed for a mind-numbing 36 concerts in 26 cities from Japan to New Zealand. In 1979, there was a history-making, one-week sprint to China, when Beijing and Shanghai were clogged with bicycles, not smog and BMWs. Unlike any BSO member ever, only the wardrobe trunks have seen it all.

And what changes! In 1979, the nondescript, blue Mao uniform was China’s sole fashion. Now, Gucci and Deng Xiao Ping stand shoulder to shoulder in China’s pantheon of heroes. Shanghai is a futuristic cityscape of cloud-piercing skyscrapers, and within spitting distance from our Guangzhou hotel no fewer than eight, massive, semi-built monoliths were sprouting simultaneously. In comparison, Tokyo, a megalopolis of over 20 million, felt like a gracious, welcoming sea of tranquility where one could even find a subway seat, occasionally.

The seven-concert tour was a resounding success, whether Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, or Mahler were on the program. Chinese audiences were loud and rambunctious, and conductor Charles Dutoit needed to lead the musicians off the stage to terminate the adulation. Japanese audiences demonstrated appreciation more by longevity than volume, continuing to applaud until Maestro Dutoit returned to the stage to wave good-bye—after having changed into his street clothes.

Yet, the successes were bookended by barely averted disasters. Only three weeks before departure, venerable Maestro Lorin Maazel bowed out with health concerns. Someone of equal stature had to be found within days or the tour would be canceled. Any replacement had to satisfy not only the orchestra’s demanding artistic concerns but also tour sponsors and concert presenters. Miraculously, managing director Mark Volpe and artistic administrator Anthony Fogg pulled a rabbit out of the hat in the person of Dutoit, who heroically leaped into the breach without a single alteration of three heavyweight programs. So tight was his schedule, Dutoit arrived in Boston from Cologne the morning of our first rehearsal, and after the final concert at Suntory Hall in Tokyo he literally left the building for Narita Airport before the applause had died.

The other near miss occurred when Japanese customs officials refused entry of our instruments (packed in official cargo trunks) from China. The reason? Elephants. Until the ban on ivory, that’s what the tips of good string-instrument bows were made of. Now, importing or exporting any ivory whatsoever necessitates navigating a Byzantine regulatory labyrinth, which, as it was discovered, varies from country to country. Desperate communications flew between the BSO, the U.S. Embassy headed by Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, and the Japanese government. Ultimately, reasonable heads prevailed, resolving the snafu a few hours before the curtain went up.

But the curtain is coming down on our cumbersome wardrobe trunks, elephants of a different kind that weigh about 200 pounds empty. Worse, they lack wheels, making hauling them from concert hall to concert hall a backbreaker. Trunks are individually lifted onto dollies and truck-loaded. The process is reversed upon arrival at the next hall. For air transport, they’re grouped on pallets, wrapped in plastic, strung up like a Brobdingnagian pork roast, and then hoisted onto the plane. If stage manager John Demick’s budgetary wishes come true, the new 21st-century replacements will be smaller, lighter, and rollable. Eminently sensible. Still, as doors to the future open in Asia, when the lock on old No. 11 snapped shut, I sensed I was closing a colorful chapter of Boston Symphony’s illustrious past.

(Republished with the consent of Berkshire Magazine.)