Benedetti, CSO dazzle in U.S. premiere of Simpson Violin Concerto
Cincinatti Business Courier
By Janelle Gelfand – Courier contributor
Jan 14, 2022 Updated Jan 14, 2022, 7:35pm EST
Violinist Nicola Benedetti soared fearlessly through the agitated finale of Mark Simpson’s Violin Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on Friday, and cheers erupted in Music Hall. It was a thrilling finish to a substantial new piece that seems destined to enjoy life long after these performances.
The CSO morning concert, which opened with the U.S. premiere of Simpson’s Violin Concerto, was led by the orchestra’s associate conductor François López-Ferrer, who stepped in this week for music director Louis Langrée. Langrée has contracted the flu, the orchestra said. The program also included Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” Suite, and Ravel’s “La valse.”
Simpson’s new concerto is massive in scope. Commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra (which gave the world premiere in a livestreamed performance last April), the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, WDR Sinfonieorchester and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, it is nearly 40 minutes in length. For Benedetti, for whom it was written, the concerto called for almost nonstop virtuosities and there was frenzied playing throughout by both soloist and orchestra.
Simpson is a gifted young British composer, whose haunting oratorio, “The Immortal,” was premiered at the May Festival in 2019. He began his Violin Concerto before Covid-19 shut down the world. As he, and everyone else, endured the pandemic lockdowns, the piece became his personal response to the worldwide crisis.
Many composers have written music in response to crises in history. In a YouTube interview for the London Symphony, Simpson said of the pandemic, “I was a witness to it, really, or kind of a vehicle for it.”
If you followed his program note, the concerto unfolded as a kind of tone poem for violin and orchestra. He cast it in five unbroken movements, opening with a “Lamentoso” – a lament for the pain and suffering experienced throughout the pandemic. The second movement referred to pent-up energy that he could not release during lockdown. The third was a love song “tinged with moments of darkness.”
He scored it densely for a large orchestra, several times using the brass to make bold statements. The extensive percussion section included timpani, drums, castanets, glockenspiel, bongo drums, gongs, bells, whip and harp.
Benedetti’s performance was a tour-de-force, both technically and emotionally. Not only was she utterly committed to the music, but she performed with relentless intensity from beginning to end and made it look effortless.
The opening theme of the “Lamentoso” was rhapsodic, featuring sliding notes and a slightly exotic melody. Against Benedetti’s violin, the orchestral canvas was bright, with fleeting colors in winds and brass and tremolo in the strings. As the violinist’s music became more daring in the “Dance,” the orchestra provided busy textures and intense punctuations. Benedetti was frequently in dialogue with the percussion section, trading phrases in the highest register of her instrument against insistent drumming and whip cracks.
The heart of the work was the third movement, which opened with a sighing motif in low brass and winds. Here Benedetti’s playing was impassioned, as if coming from somewhere deep inside. A gong summoned a darker, mournful turn. In the all-too-brief lyrical moments, the soloist displayed a big vibrato and a glowing tone.
A brilliant cadenza formed the fourth movement. The violinist began in high harmonics with murmurings, trills, glissandos and left-hand pizzicatos. Then the composer seemed to throw in every kind of technical challenge, like a Paganini etude, with one treacherous passage after another. The finale, a tarantella, was supercharged. The orchestral score included a rhythmic march with castanets and cacophonous, brass-filled climaxes. Benedetti’s playing dazzled in every moment of it.
López-Ferrer and the orchestra were fine partners, and the conductor was careful not to overpower the soloist, though I would have liked to hear more of the strings. Listeners were instantly on their feet, and the composer was present to share in several bows.
After intermission, López-Ferrer led rewarding performances of Strauss and Ravel. Son of the late Jesús López-Cobos, former CSO music director, he has been making his way in the orchestra world with some success. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (in composition), he is also a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The orchestra played magnificently for him in Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” Suite. López-Ferrer captured the sweep of this glowing work, from the adrenalin-charged horn calls and youthful exuberance of the opening to the sumptuous “Rosenkavalier” waltzes. Orchestral soloists shone throughout, including principal oboist Dwight Parry and principal trumpet Robert Sullivan in the presentation of the silver rose music.
Ravel’s “La valse” offered a different take on a Viennese waltz, representing the end of an opulent era after the First World War. Leading both works without a score, López-Ferrer sparked vivid, expressive playing.
The CSO repeats this concert at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 15 in Music Hall. Tickets: 513-381-3300, cincinnatisymphony.org.
Janelle Gelfand's work is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.