By Robert Croan
For his second concert as artistic and music director of the Symphony of the Americas (seen Nov. 10 in Broward Center’s Amaturo Theater) Luke Frazier offered a program of the Three B’s of classical music: Bach, Beethoven and Brahms at the Keyboard. That sounded trite at first, and the epithet may have been intended to attract a wider audience, but the substance of the event was unique and thoughtful — not at all a stale collection of classical music’s greatest hits.
Each of the three works on the program was a reinvention of an older piece sifted through the sensibility of a later composer: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Orchestral Suites, composed in the 1730s, rearranged by Gustav Mahler for the New York Philharmonic in 1910; Ludwig van Beethoven’s Rondo for Piano and Orchestra, originally intended as a finale to his Second Piano Concerto in 1793, but discarded, to be completed by composer and pedagogue Carl Czerny in 1829, two years after Beethoven’s death; and finally, Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1, written in 1861 for piano, violin, viola and cello, arranged for large symphony orchestra (the Los Angeles Philharmonic) by Arnold Schoenberg in 1937. In every case, while the arrangers did not alter the actual notes, the transformation was essentially a new composition.
Bach’s music was out of style through most of the 19th and early 20th centuries, in part because the developing modern symphony orchestra did not have the right instruments, and also that the idiom was foreign to audiences of that time. In the premiere performance of the Mahler arrangement, for example, the harpsichord was replaced by a doctored-up Steinway piano, the new score also allowing for the use of an organ instead. At this concert Frazier conducted from a real harpsichord — a small one, with a lovely sound when heard on its own, but unfortunately inaudible when the rest of the instruments were playing.
Mahler chose four familiar movements —– two each from the Suite No. 2 (BWV 1067) and Suite No. 3 (BWV 1068), and maintaining the original scores, altered the phrasings and articulations in ways that allow us to hear the music in a new way. Thought-provoking, if not necessarily an improvement. After a shaky beginning to the Overture from Suite No. 2, the SOTA players got it together, with Frazier a clear, precise leader, even conducting with his head while his fingers were on the keyboard. Throughout, his interpretations let the music speak for itself, with moderate tempi.
The Rondeau from Suite No. 2 could have been zippier, but flutist Emilio Ruttlant did his solo part with fleet showmanship. The familiar movement known as “Air on the G String” (from Suite No. 3) was a highlight, with Mahler’s unorthodox articulations adding to the expressive mix, while the trumpets brought a welcome sense of jubilation to the closing Gavotte (from Suite No. 3).
Most challenging — and the players under Frazier rose valiantly to their challenges — was Schoenberg’s arrangement of the Brahms. The iconic 20th-century composer, best known for his 12-tone and atonal works, claimed that he felt the need to rewrite it because Brahms’s original instrumentation did not come through clearly. This is a rare instance where, arguably, the re-arrangement is an improvement on the original. The chamber music version is murky at best, and Schoenberg’s colorful, ever-imaginative orchestration brings the music to life in a totally new way. Frazier conducted with respect for the new technical complexities, giving individual soloists and sections of his orchestra chances to come through. An example that remains in my mind is the piquant xylophone contribution (from percussionist Mark Perez) in the second and third movements.
The 9-minute Beethoven Rondo is a less consequential piece, but pianist Mary Anne Huntsman played it with competence and fluidity, encoring, right before intermission, with a most appealing rendition of George Gershwin’s Embraceable You — a virtuosic arrangement for piano by the late and great Earl Wild.