Music, Untweeted
As a follow-up to yesterday's article about the NSO's Twitter experiment on Thursday, Rebecca J. Ritzel kindly furnished a Web-only review of the rest of the show.
Of Chang and Chinrests
by Rebecca J. Ritzel
Violinist Sarah Chang came to Wolf Trap Thursday dressed for drama, and she got it.
The accomplished soloist walked onstage in a single-shoulder fuchsia mermaid dress, looking every inch like a femme fatale whose dance card was already full. Little did she know that to get through the Mendelssohn concerto, she was going to need help from the NSO’s gallant assistant concertmaster, Ricardo Cyncynates.
The first movement of the Mendelssohn may be the most fiendish in the violin repertory. Just a measure of intro from the strings and—bam—the soloist enters, with nary a rest for 14 minutes. Chang may have dropped a few notes from the opening passage, but she was very much in command, serving as the emotional fulcrum on which the entire orchestra turned from menacing to melancholic.
It was in once of those menacing passages, midway through the movement, that the shoulder rest came flying off Chang’s violin, breaking into two pieces and landing with a clatter in the cello section. No cellists were injured, but Chang shot the first violins a desperate glance.
(read more after the jump)
If the missing pad inhibited her playing, Chang didn’t let it show. Instead, she tore through the cadenza (Mendelssohn’s original) articulating a perfect swell of music with each bow stroke. What followed that Herculean effort was a hand-off worthy of an Olympic relay race: in roughly 8 measures, Cyncynates passed his shoulder rest to Chang. She popped it on—luckily, it fit—and went right on playing.
The final movement flowed like a torrent, with Chang slicing nearly faster than Emil de Cou and the NSO could go. And when she threw back her bow for a final time, she staggered backward, beaming with a mix of shock and exuberance. This was not the visage of a consummate professional. This was the face of a prodigy who at 14 played the same concerto with the New York Philharmonic, but at 28, seemed just as astonished to see people standing and cheering for her.
—Rebecca J. Ritzel
By
Anne Midgette
|
August 1, 2009; 12:00 PM ET
| Category:
local reviews
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