Stay in the Loop
BSR publishes on a weekly schedule, with an email newsletter every Wednesday and Thursday morning. There’s no paywall, and subscribing is always free.
Jennifer Higdon Festival (third review)
Tom Purdom
The 'Higdon Festival':
Two flawed works and one gem
TOM PURDOM
At the end of the first section of Jennifer Higdon’s The Singing Rooms, the text by poet Jeanne Minahan reads, “Both are here, though you cannot be: that heat, that long shade of blue.” Up to that moment, Higdon’s score had stayed in sync with the restrained introspective nature of the poem. I was particularly impressed by the way the choral writing faded into the violin solo at the beginning of the section, and by the dark violin music that accompanied the choruses a little later.
But when the chorus reached the “Both are here” passage, it erupted into an outburst that sounded drastically out of proportion to the text. Were we supposed to be jolted by the revelation that someone wasn’t there? Even if we were, the sudden shout didn’t match the voice the poet had been projecting.
For much of the first half of The Singing Rooms, Minahan’s text couldn’t support the size and passion of the music. The mismatch didn’t clear up until the text began to deal with more cosmic concerns, as it does in the climactic next-to-last section, A Word with God.
The Singing Rooms is a complex work. As Steve Cohen notes in his review, it started out as a violin concerto, but Higdon ended up with something different when she added the chorus. Which element is supposed to be the center of attention— the violin or the chorus?
Who gets the last word?
I heard The Singing Rooms twice, since I attended the initial performance on January 17 and the January 23 concert that repeated both Higdon works premiered during the Orchestra’s three-week Bernstein-Higdon festival. The first time I heard The Singing Rooms, I followed the written text, as I usually do when I listen to choral pieces. Then I realized I was missing the chance to watch Jennifer Koh play a bravura violin concerto. The violin solo is primarily a frantic, high-speed workout for the violinist’s bow arm, but it includes poetic moments like the beautiful duet with the English horn in the Word with God section.
The violinist also gets to have the last word. The Singing Rooms ends with an evocative fade that rivals the subdued conclusions in some of Shostakovich’s best work, and Higdon assigns that final perfect moment to the violin. Koh pulled the last high notes from her instrument with a single prolonged down stroke that was perfectly controlled and hypnotically compelling.
The idle orchestra
The other Higdon work on the Orchestra’s festival calendar also suffered a serious weakness. Concerto 4-3 is billed as a concerto for orchestra and string trio, but it lacked the interplay between the soloists and the orchestra that normally characterizes a concerto. In most concertos, the orchestra interacts with the soloist and breaks up the star turn with pure orchestral interludes. Maestro Eschenbach spent half of this concerto standing on the podium watching the three young soloists do their stuff.
The members of the Time for Three bluegrass/classical trio are engaging young musicians who obviously enjoy working together, and Higdon gave them plenty of interesting things to do. But the concerto would have been much more effective if they had received more support from the large army standing by to assist them.
The Singing Rooms and Concerto 4-3 contain many good moments. But their weaknesses indicate that Higdon is still developing her approach to large-scale works that combine different elements.
Four poems about roses
The Higdon/Bernstein festival included one other Higdon piece, and that selection was a pure delight. The Network for New Music presented Higdon’s Bentley Roses at its January 16 concert and repeated it during their postlude to the January 23 Philadelphia Orchestra concert.
Bentley Roses consists of four poems about roses by James Whitcomb Riley, set for flute, piano and bass baritone. The vocal lines Higdon attached to the poems possess all the virtues of a reading by a great actor. They follow the natural flow of the language, without affectation, and they surprise you with unexpected touches, as an actor would. The flute and piano parts add just the right dose of color and atmosphere.
The baritone at both performances was Randall Scarlatta, a gentleman everyone should look forward to hearing. Scarlatta delivered all four songs with a good-natured manliness that fitted the texts and the vocal lines.
The other soloist who deserves some mention is mezzo Rinat Shaham, who sang the solo part in Leonard Bernstein’s Jeremiah (which I also heard twice, thanks to the Orchestra’s scheduling). Shaham owns a marvelous voice, and she could have relied on that alone and earned several rounds of applause. Instead, she delivered the climactic Hebrew texts as if she were playing the role of a priestess in a fully staged opera, and she stayed in character through the three or four minutes of pure instrumental music that follow the soloist’s last note. The result was a powerful statement that embellished the text and the music with the skills of an inspired actor.
To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.
To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here.
Two flawed works and one gem
TOM PURDOM
At the end of the first section of Jennifer Higdon’s The Singing Rooms, the text by poet Jeanne Minahan reads, “Both are here, though you cannot be: that heat, that long shade of blue.” Up to that moment, Higdon’s score had stayed in sync with the restrained introspective nature of the poem. I was particularly impressed by the way the choral writing faded into the violin solo at the beginning of the section, and by the dark violin music that accompanied the choruses a little later.
But when the chorus reached the “Both are here” passage, it erupted into an outburst that sounded drastically out of proportion to the text. Were we supposed to be jolted by the revelation that someone wasn’t there? Even if we were, the sudden shout didn’t match the voice the poet had been projecting.
For much of the first half of The Singing Rooms, Minahan’s text couldn’t support the size and passion of the music. The mismatch didn’t clear up until the text began to deal with more cosmic concerns, as it does in the climactic next-to-last section, A Word with God.
The Singing Rooms is a complex work. As Steve Cohen notes in his review, it started out as a violin concerto, but Higdon ended up with something different when she added the chorus. Which element is supposed to be the center of attention— the violin or the chorus?
Who gets the last word?
I heard The Singing Rooms twice, since I attended the initial performance on January 17 and the January 23 concert that repeated both Higdon works premiered during the Orchestra’s three-week Bernstein-Higdon festival. The first time I heard The Singing Rooms, I followed the written text, as I usually do when I listen to choral pieces. Then I realized I was missing the chance to watch Jennifer Koh play a bravura violin concerto. The violin solo is primarily a frantic, high-speed workout for the violinist’s bow arm, but it includes poetic moments like the beautiful duet with the English horn in the Word with God section.
The violinist also gets to have the last word. The Singing Rooms ends with an evocative fade that rivals the subdued conclusions in some of Shostakovich’s best work, and Higdon assigns that final perfect moment to the violin. Koh pulled the last high notes from her instrument with a single prolonged down stroke that was perfectly controlled and hypnotically compelling.
The idle orchestra
The other Higdon work on the Orchestra’s festival calendar also suffered a serious weakness. Concerto 4-3 is billed as a concerto for orchestra and string trio, but it lacked the interplay between the soloists and the orchestra that normally characterizes a concerto. In most concertos, the orchestra interacts with the soloist and breaks up the star turn with pure orchestral interludes. Maestro Eschenbach spent half of this concerto standing on the podium watching the three young soloists do their stuff.
The members of the Time for Three bluegrass/classical trio are engaging young musicians who obviously enjoy working together, and Higdon gave them plenty of interesting things to do. But the concerto would have been much more effective if they had received more support from the large army standing by to assist them.
The Singing Rooms and Concerto 4-3 contain many good moments. But their weaknesses indicate that Higdon is still developing her approach to large-scale works that combine different elements.
Four poems about roses
The Higdon/Bernstein festival included one other Higdon piece, and that selection was a pure delight. The Network for New Music presented Higdon’s Bentley Roses at its January 16 concert and repeated it during their postlude to the January 23 Philadelphia Orchestra concert.
Bentley Roses consists of four poems about roses by James Whitcomb Riley, set for flute, piano and bass baritone. The vocal lines Higdon attached to the poems possess all the virtues of a reading by a great actor. They follow the natural flow of the language, without affectation, and they surprise you with unexpected touches, as an actor would. The flute and piano parts add just the right dose of color and atmosphere.
The baritone at both performances was Randall Scarlatta, a gentleman everyone should look forward to hearing. Scarlatta delivered all four songs with a good-natured manliness that fitted the texts and the vocal lines.
The other soloist who deserves some mention is mezzo Rinat Shaham, who sang the solo part in Leonard Bernstein’s Jeremiah (which I also heard twice, thanks to the Orchestra’s scheduling). Shaham owns a marvelous voice, and she could have relied on that alone and earned several rounds of applause. Instead, she delivered the climactic Hebrew texts as if she were playing the role of a priestess in a fully staged opera, and she stayed in character through the three or four minutes of pure instrumental music that follow the soloist’s last note. The result was a powerful statement that embellished the text and the music with the skills of an inspired actor.
To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.
To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here.
Sign up for our newsletter
All of the week's new articles, all in one place. Sign up for the free weekly BSR newsletters, and don't miss a conversation.
