Houston Chronicle
By Chris Gray
March 4, 2019
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Even a last-minute substitution couldn’t spoil Christoph Eschenbach’s latest return to Houston.
In his 11 years at the helm of the Houston Symphony, from 1988 to 1999, the German-born conductor helped uplift a city still reeling from the oil bust while guiding the orchestra to newfound financial stability and international acclaim. Houston’s perpetual gratitude is set in stone, literally, in the form of a plaque a few feet from Jones Hall’s doors.
The maestro’s many trips back since leaving to direct several European ensembles, not to mention the Philadelphia and National Symphony orchestras, have come couched in suitably heroic headlines. This one, though, threatened to be overshadowed by the sudden cancellation of violinist Leila Josefowicz — a star bright enough to earn co-headlining status in the program’s title, “Eschenbach and Josefowicz.”
Further complicating matters (just a little), the piece at hand was longtime Los Angeles Philharmonic leader Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto, which was written especially for her.
But intriguing opportunities arise when months of planning go out the window with just two days’ notice. Here it came in the form of Jennifer Koh, a virtuoso in her own right who navigated Salonen’s complex composition with elegance and aplomb.
Split into four movements, the 30-minute concerto is not for the squeamish; indeed, when it was over it felt like the audience didn’t quite know what to make of it. At least part of that must be built in: Salonen cultivates an atmosphere of illusion and uncertainty, leaving the soloist to sift through a surreal soundscape that would tax any performer’s resourcefulness.
Koh, a Chicago native who helped St. Vincent salute Phillip Glass at last December’s Kennedy Center Honors, did not seem at all reticent to be stepping into Josefowicz’s heels, sometimes attacking her violin, others caressing it. In the otherworldly opening movement, “Mirage,” her frenetic scraping across the fingerboard offset airy chords in the strings and isolated notes of harp, piano, and percussion. Later, muted bleats issued from the low brass — dispatches from a dream.
If anything, that feeling increased during the second movement, “Pulse 1.” Soft tympani strokes and high harmonics evoked a sense of latent dread and foreboding; Koh, whose bow rarely ceased moving, seemed as though she was feeling her way through a palpable orchestral mist. Trumpets flickered in and out briefly, like a beacon, only to be snuffed out as Koh’s violin grew so faint as to be imperceptible.
Full of agitation and chaos, the subsequent “Pulse 2” marked a 180-degree shift from the previous movement: here her staggering violin was forced to dodge the deafening Stravinsky-esque eruptions of brass and stray missiles lobbed at her by the percussion section, including a full-fledged trap kit. Small wonder much of the ensuing finale, “Adieu,” returned to the first movement’s woozy vibe, like everyone was still in a daze.
Late in the piece, though, it finally gained a measure of confidence and cohesion by surrendering some of its inscrutability. Perhaps Eschenbach, who would turn conspiratorially to the soloist every so often, and Koh had finally divined a way out of Salonen’s shadowy and treacherous web — by sailing straight through the upper reaches of her violin’s register.
On his most recent trip to Houston — two years ago this month — Eschenbach conducted an all-Bruckner program. This weekend’s performance closed with the same composer’s Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, an exemplar of the late Romantic period that has been somewhat overlooked in the modern repertory, but might be cast aside altogether if not for the likes of Eschenbach.
Now 79 and the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate, the maestro is something of a Bruckner specialist. Later this year he will take over as music director of Konzerthausorchester Berlin, a fitting position for someone who as done as much as anyone alive to nurture and expand the musical legacy of his fellow central Europeans.
This weekend, the Fourth Symphony made for a sterling affirmation of Eschenbach’s rehabilitative efforts. Completed in 1880 after six years of revisions, it is impossibly dense, more than an hour long, and yet eminently rewarding.
Bruckner himself, widely recognized as one of Austria’s best organists and then a professor at Vienna Conservatory, deemed it his “Romantic” symphony. Helpfully, he appended all sorts of medieval imagery to the program notes — breaking dawn, singing birds, galloping horsemen, etc. — and tied it all together with a stuttering theme that is equal parts royal fanfare and fox-hunting call.
For his part, Eschenbach obviously relished the chance to lead such a merry chase. His left hand drew alchemy out of various soloists, while his baton-clutching right maintained a steady but understated pulse for their colleagues. During a crescendo he might sweep his entire upper body from first to third, as it were, and in moments of great intensity both hands shot over his head.
His expressions are so intuitive it’s possible to imagine pressing some sort of imaginary internal mute button and having no trouble at all visualizing the Fourth — a work so full of grandeur, nobility, excitement and (indeed) romance that it dissolves any lingering inhibitions and sweeps the listener back to Bruckner’s imaginary kingdom.
Similarly, it’s hard to imagine a more regal homecoming for one of Houston’s most distinguished musical knights.
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