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| Michael Mizrahi Photo by Andrew Chiciak |
Last
night at the Clarice
Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park, Maryland, the Prince George's Philharmonic ended
its 2012 - 2013 season at the top of one of the highest mountains of western
music. The two masterpieces are bookends of the Romantic tradition. Mozart's Piano
Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491 foreshadows the heart of romanticism while
Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in D Major, the Titan, gathers all of the soul of the
Romantic Era of western music in one giant structure summing up all that has
come since Mozart and setting the stage for the 20th century's musical offerings.
Michael
Mizrahi was the soloist for the Mozart Concerto. Mr. Mizrahi received his bachelor’s degree from
the University of Virginia, where his concentrations were in music, religion
and physics. He holds, in addition, master’s and doctoral degrees from the Yale
School of Music. Mr. Mizrahi's command of the piano is artful, brilliant,
informed, and virtuosic. All of these masterful qualities brought out the very
essence of the concerto form. The derivation of the word concerto is open
to many theories, one of which is highlighted by Mr. Mizrahi's and Mr. Ellis'
collaboratively nuanced interpretation.
The word
concerto may have arisen from the mixing
of two Latin words conserere (meaning
to tie, to join, to weave) and certamen
(competition, fight). The idea, brilliantly executed by the two Maestri along with the classical sized
orchestra, is a piece of music, concerto, in two parts with the soloist and the
orchestra alternating episodes of opposition, large scale counterpoint, cooperation,
and independence in the recreation of a great conjoined symphonic fusion.
Mr.
Mizrahi was able to switch from a concertante collaborator to a
spotlighted fiery soloist in an impossibly brief blink of an eye. One moment he
was in complete partnership with the wonderful woodwinds, the next producing
waves of sound from pulsating scales that can only come from a master of the
pianoforte. This extraordinary ability to switch seamlessly between roles demonstrated
the true place of the cadenza, a small piece of improvisation most times
obscured, but not this time. From the exploration of emotion in the 1st
movement's cadenza to the brief paraphrase of Beethoven homage to this piece in
the third movement's cadenza, Mr. Mizrahi was in control.
The conductor,
Mr. Ellis, continued his skillful ability to bring out the various sections of
the Philharmonic treating them as soloists in their own right; in the Mozart
they surely sparkled in a glittering, stellar performance. With some minor
tempo bumps that did nothing to subtract from the overall performance, the
orchestra demonstrated is proficiency, skill and art. I am still absorbing the
performance having come to the concert with my usual baggage of 40 plus years
of expectations based on previous renditions. I was delighted to be treated to
a performance de novo that served to
reacquaint me with the music as if for the first time - a rare treat in deed.
After
intermission it was time to tackle a peak in the summit of symphonic music. If
this was your first hearing, the experience could give you a sense of vertigo.
From the drone reminiscent in Beethoven's great
9th Symphony opening, to the sonic tsunami of the ending an hour later, you are
swept along through a musical process of creation made audible, sensible, and metaphorically visible. There are no
words to describe listening to this music, because it is felt in the soul not
circumscribed in the mind. You do not so much understand the music as stand
under the emotional weight of it.
The
titanic symphony of Mahler became last night a grand concerto concertante in the sense that I described above. The Prince George's Philharmonic and its
conductor, Mr. Ellis, were all at once soloists and partners in a great
endeavor that required every bit of skill and artistry they could muster. And they did.
The
heroic strings finished the season at the top. The woodwinds gave their all and
the brass shook their fists at the gods themselves. And lest we forget, the
percussionists' determination and proficiency capped the performance. How does one even begin to write a review of
such a performance? The answer is recognition of the talents, skill,
understanding, competency, and mastery of his instrument, the orchestra. Mr. Ellis
achieves excellence in performance by in part showcasing the
artistry of his orchestra allowing them to shine,
and in doing so creates masterful performances. He deserves the accolades due a
soloist last night.
If you
heard the concert you were rewarded spectacularly beyond all reason and
expectation. I only wish more Prince Georgians could hear the orchestra and
fill the seats. How is it that we complain so much about what we do not have
and give so little to what we do? The arts are a crucial, critical, integral
part of a calculus of quality of life, a
community without art is not alive. If
this county truly wishes to be more than just a place to survive, it must reach
out and support all the arts, for art defines who we are and who we want to be.
