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I could not contain my excitement last week that I would have the good fortune to hear the world's best flutist (no hyperbole) Emmanuel Pahud perform the world premiere of a new concerto by Italian composer Luca Lombardi with the Kansas City Symphony. 

Alas... alas... alas...

The evening began strong with Rossini's devilish Overture to La scala di seta.  For those unfamiliar with the piece, it is like a high octane Bugs Bunny cartoon with one of the most wicked oboe excerpts ever written. Kudos to Mingjia Liu for nailing the tricky passage - he rightfully received whooping applause from the audience.  I couldn't help but wonder if the tempo was a bit brisk, however. 

That issue would come back to plague the rest of concert.

With Beethoven's Symphony No. 8, critical musical issues began to rear their ugly heads.  The brass playing was imprecise with many entrances under pitch, missed, or showing faulty articulation.  Articulation issues struck the woodwinds as well with staccato notes played much too short.  They were all tongue and no pitch.  There was no sense of arrival at the cadences of the first movement, as the ensemble wallowed in a dynamic range seemingly consisting only of mezzo-forte and forte.  The bowing choices in the second movement were baffling, and over-reliance on up-bows seemed to get in the way of natural ease for playing and so it was plodding instead of dancing. 

The triplets in the cellos, under the trio of clarinet and horns, were the lone bright spot in the third movement, but again, the tempo was too fast.  The fourth movement reverted back to the lack of dynamic contrast that plagued the first.  Balance issues were also present as the subject was overwhelmed in the fugato sections.  Tempo was out of control.  In watching the string players' bows, it was evident that they were unhappy (most likely due to the tempo) and many of them glossed over Beethoven's printed accents. 

I was hoping that Luca Lombardi's piece could save the concert and that the orchestra would regroup during intermission.  Consider my hopes and dreams dashed.  Emmanual Pahud is, and was, amazing.  The three-movement concerto just did not do him justice.  The first movement was flawed by out-of-tune timbral exchanges in the orchestra and had Pahud reaching his high tessitura too soon.  There was nowhere for his glorious, hall-filling sound to go after his upper limits had already been reached.

Trying to base an entire concerto off a three-note motive was gutsy.  And it could have been done successfully - however Lombardi did not provide enough aural breadcrumbs for the listener to trace his development.  Instead he relied on divergent, stylistically opposed juxtapositions that confused rather than elucidated his material. 

For instance, a string microtonal cluster would lead to quasi-jazz riffs followed by an African log drum/caxixi ostinato, all within the space of a few bars.  [Critic's note - For more effective use of divergent stylistic combinations see Luciano Berio's Sinfonia, Giya Kancheli's Symphony No. 5, Dana Wilson's Piece of Mind, etc.] 

The second movement was the most musically successful and best performed.  Pahud's breath sounds were taken up by breath sounds of the ensemble flutes and natural harmonic glissandos emerged out of the diaphanous texture.  A too-tight wind machine and some questionable mallet choices in the percussion were obtrusive, however.  The wind machine would have benefitted from being played offstage; that way, the palettes would have blended more. 

The third movement began with a gimmicky, but effective use of a modern musical take on "Anything you can do, I can do better." Pahud was literally spitting notes at various sections of the orchestra.  That section would then respond in kind.  It was fun and the subsequent use of Pahud's multiphonics and tongue rams were integral to the movement and not treated as the all-too-common "extended technique afterthoughts."  The concerto's concluding moments were ruined by some overenthusiastic clappers who jumped in before Pahud's final notes.  I feel the concerto warrants multiple listenings, however, and more rehearsal time.  It certainly has a fine champion in Pahud and Lombardi's ideas may coalesce better over time and exposure. 

Pahud followed the concerto with an encore from Carmen, perfectly suited to showcase his sense of lyricism and pristine tone.

I am at a loss for words to describe the final moments of Friday's concert.  After five minutes of listening to Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, I turned to my concert-going partners and said, "What the hell are we listening to?"  "Hell" is apt.  Francesca da Rimini is an overlong muddled mass of scales and predictable sequences made all the worse by Stern's insanely fast tempo, flubbed brass entrances, uncoordinated accelerandos, inelegant wind playing, and the palpable anger in the strings.  I felt like I was sitting in the Second Circle of the Inferno along with Dante's Francesca while listening to Tchaikovsky's musical aberration. 

Hopefully the upcoming weekend without a full concert will allow for Stern and the KC Symphony regroup. 

I am very hopeful for some good Crumb, Beethoven and Copland on the March 5 weekend...


REVIEW
Kansas City Symphony
Stern Conducts Beethoven & Tchaikovsky
with Emmanuel Pahud, flute
Friday, February 19 at 8 p.m. (Reviewed)
Saturday, February 20 at 8 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
11^th and Central, Downtown Kansas City, MO
Sunday, February 21, at 2 p.m.
Yardley Hall, Carlsen Center
12345 College Boulevard, Overland Park, KS
www.kcsymphony.org

 Top photo by Sheila Rock.

By Lee Hartman

Editor-in-Chief; Traditional and New Classical Contributor

Lee Hartman holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (D.M.A., M.M.) and the University of Delaware (B.M.). At the University of Delaware, he received a Dean's Scholar position enabling him to pursue an individually designed academic program combining music education and composition. At the University of Missouri-Kansas City he served for three years as the Assistant Director to Musica Nova, the conservatory's new music ensemble, while teaching a variety of composition classes.

In 2007 he was invited to both the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík, Iceland and the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China to give lectures and master classes in composition. In the summer of 2009, Hartman served as an orchestra manager for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Aspen Opera Theater Center for various performances. He serves on the National Executive Committee of the Society of Composers, Inc. as Submissions Coordinator. His primary composition instructors include James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Paul Rudy, John Beall, and Jennifer Margaret Barker. He currently teaches music theory at the University of Central Missouri and general music classes at Park University having previously taught at UD (2007–08) and UMKC (2006–07).

His compositions can be found at http://www.leehartmanmusic.com