By Márcio Bezerra
The Palm Beach Symphony continued its parade of world-class performers on Dec. 10 with Leonidas Kavakos performing the Violin Concerto by Johannes Brahms at the Kravis Center.
It is truly remarkable that, since the arrival of conductor Gerald Schwarz, this “3.0” version of our local orchestra has been able to engage internationally acclaimed soloists such as Kavakos, a true giant of his instrument. This is a privilege usually reserved to the big-league ensembles from Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia or Los Angeles.
His collaboration with Palm Beach Symphony was nothing short of outstanding. He made his 1734 Stradivarius sing beautifully in the lyrical passages of the second movement. He also played with contagious rhythmic drive the finale, performing the Hungarian-style theme with the freedom of a street player and the technique of a virtuoso.
And that is what is truly remarkable about Kavakos’s playing. He is able to sound flawless and spontaneous in the most challenging passages. He is a complete artist and the way he worked with Schwarz and the musicians of the Palm Beach Symphony, especially in the detailed approach they took in the first movement, speaks to his artistry.
It was great to see so many young string players in the audience and the soloist really got a standing ovation (not a walking one) to which he obliged with another superb rendition, this time of the bourrée from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 1 (in B minor, BWV 1002).
Continuing with his tradition of promoting contemporary American composers, Gerard Schwarz opened the program with Rainbow Body by Christopher Theofanidis. Composed in 2000, the meditative work is based on a chant by medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen and explores the many timbral possibilities of the orchestra, mostly in an effective, if Hollywood-like, manner. The strings of Palm Beach Symphony sounded particularly lush in the beginning of the work and principal soloist Claudio Jaffé played his intricate solo passage with aplomb.
The second part featured Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 (in D minor, Op. 70), one of his most ambitious, as he tried to emulate Beethoven in building a work based on motivic development. It is somewhat ironic, therefore, that the work’s most popular passage is its third movement, which bring us back the composer’s facility in writing tuneful melodies to the fore. The orchestra delivered a satisfying reading, although the constant applause of the audience between movements brought in an unwanted distraction. Perhaps an announcement could be made before the start of the concert, requesting people to hold their applause until the end of multi-movement works.
Another issue, and this is a more serious one, was the many mics seen on the stage. At first, I thought that they were there to record the unique moment of a collaboration with Kavakos. That is, until the speakers started rattling in some of the louder brass passages of the Dvořák. One can only hope that this was a one-off experiment, not to be ever repeated. To be sure, the orchestra sounded natural for most of the time, but that is not what one expects when going into a theater to hear the symphony. No wonder the brasses did not overwhelm the strings this time. But, please, please Maestro Schwarz: Remove the mics once and forever!