Reviews

Symphonicity, Daniel W. Boothe, Conductor:
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
Sandler Center, February 18, 2018
Review by John Campbell

For an all-volunteer symphony orchestra and chorus the presentation of Beethoven's “Choral Symphony” No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is a very big undertaking. There were eighty-eight instrumentalists and a 124 member chorus. Dr. Nancy Klein of Old Dominion University was chorus master and led the Symphonicity Chorus combined with the Virginia Beach Chorale and forty-eight members of the ODU Chorus with Bobbie Kesler-Corleto accompanist. Sylvia Chappa was accompanist for the Symphonicity Chorus.

Without an intermission, the program opened with Jacques Offenbach's (1819-1880) Overture to La Belle Hélène (1864). It offers a melodious medley of favorite tunes from his once popular operetta. The opening waltz becomes heroic and later a march moving into a grand photo-finish at breakneck speed. All of this charming fun was dazzlingly well played by Symphonicity, led by their new (appointed June 2017) Music Director and Conductor Daniel W. Boothe.

The hall was well filled when Mr. Boothe, who is a polished, engaging speaker, thanked Dr. Nancy Klein for her preparation of the chorus and introduced Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. This towering masterpiece of western symphonic music was the first time a chorus was used in what had been an instrumental form only. The Chorus and four soloists sang An die Freude (Ode to Joy), a poem written by Friedrich von Schiller in 1785.

Many of our readers may recall that the title of this text was altered to be called Ode to Freedom when Leonard Bernstein led a concert in Berlin, Germany on December 25, 1989 to celebrate the “collapse”of the wall that had divided the city since 1961. East Berlin had been under the control of the communist German Democratic Republic. The orchestra was made up of performers from East and West Berlin and people of good will from around the world.

In the first movement we find mood swings from deep, philosophical brooding to intense rhythmic outbursts of energy. The opening introduction, with no feeling of rhythm or designated key, seems to immerse the listener in the struggle and frustration of a deaf composer seeking an anchor. Later we heard a fortissimo theme of power before a startling climax.

The rhythmic drive of the second movement is brusk and impatient, featuring the timpani with strings and woodwinds used percussively. By contrast, the music of the third movement is essentially unruffled and unhurried with a sweet flow and a minimum of disruption necessary for dramatic contrast. Mr. Boothe described it as a search for unconditional love. Near the end of the movement the hymn-like melody gives way to two fanfares for trumpets and drums, alerting us that something momentous is on the way, before the sound dies away.

In the fourth movement Beethoven attempts to go beyond the natural limits of instrumental sound to make words even before the singers begin. One third of this 90 minute piece is with soloists and large chorus. The soloists were Dr. Rachel Holland, soprano; Judith Burke, mezzo-soprano; Dr. John A. McGuire, tenor and Christopher Edwards, bass. Drs. Holland and McGuire are on the music faculty of Christopher Newport University. The grandeur of sound filled the hall and the audience's hearts with exultation, proving that indeed Symphonicity was ready for this challenge.

For people of conventional faith, the text may satisfy their need for a Creator who dwells above the stars. For others who see that life on earth is mankind's responsibility, the concept of brotherhood is even more important. The archaic, clunky text still inspires, even if it lacks the nuance of utterance for today's complex world.

One caution: music is politically neutral and during the Third Reich German hearts swelled to this music as ours do. We must be vigilant to maintain our purity of heart when we speak of brotherhood! It should be noted that Nazi Germany forbade performance of Beethoven's Ninth in the countries it occupied.

The DVD of Bernstein's “Ode to Freedom” is still available but you will miss the immediacy of the live performance of your Virginia Beach neighbors and Conductor Boothe who is building great good will in his first year in our city.

Symphonicity Plays Smetana, Strauss, Vaughan Williams, Vivaldi
Sandler Center, March 25, 2018
Review by John Campbell

In a program titled “Ode to Spring,” Conductor Daniel W. Boothe led his third concert as Music Director of Symphonicity, the all volunteer symphony orchestra of Virginia Beach. After the national anthem we heard “Vitava” (Moldau River) from a set of six tone poems titled Ma Vlast (My Fatherland) by Czech composer Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884). The dainty opening features a pair of swirling flutes and clarinets depicting two springs that feed the river. Then comes the famous main theme after which horns and trumpets introduce the heroic mood of a forest hunt. Folk-like music of a peasant wedding is followed by a nocturnal moon-lit dance. Then raucous music depicts a storm before it slowly winds down. The river theme returns but soon gives way to a reprise of the main theme with two emphatic notes signaling its end.

After applause Mr. Boothe exited and the beautiful, new podium was removed to clear the center space where Concertmaster Megan Van Gomple appeared with her violin, dressed in a flowing black evening gown with gold figures. She stood in the center of the now twenty-piece orchestra, facing the audience as she led Concerto No. 1 in E Major “Spring” from The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). The music depicts the countryside in spring with its flowing streams and the high trills of the violins' bird songs. Lightning and thunder develop but as the storm passes we hear the birds once more. Soft winds, wildflower meadows, a goatherd and his dog are evoked in the second movement. The last movement is a dance tune for the festival of the arrival of spring. Ms. Van Gomple's becoming concertmaster in 2011 set the orchestra on a path of growth in sound quality and this was a perfect demonstration of what has been achieved.

After intermission Mr. Boothe returned to conduct Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) A Pastoral Symphony, No. 3. This was a risky choice because the other pieces on the program were ebullient celebrations of spring while Vaughan Williams' third symphony is a requiem for his fellow soldiers who will never celebrate another spring.

There is no description of nature here, only four movements of comparatively slow, and melancholy quiet filled with personal musings. Maestro Boothe says of the composer: “I feel him in my bones.” On stage-right there was a stretcher (the kind Vaughan Williams would have carried during World War I) and a first aid kit with its red cross, and a few other items. As the music played, text from a soldier's letter home and old film clips were projected behind the orchestra.

The opening theme for basses and harp is accompanied by woodwinds in triads. The overall mood is one of great harmonic beauty, both diatonic and modal with an undercurrent of sadness. Contemplation in the second movement is even deeper than that of the first. Introduced by a song for solo horn, the remote character of his modal writing offers a plane of calm, eloquent beauty. The composer described the third movement as a “slow dance” with three ideas, one for trumpets and trombone, another for flute and a third for trumpet (taps).

The fourth movement offers slow, torturous music creating an atmosphere of somber, surface peacefulness. A wordless soprano voice (Andrea Kline Boothe) is heard above a drum-roll suggesting the infinite. The voice is replaced by muted strings that hint at the principal subject articulated clearly by woodwinds, horns and harp. Agitation is followed by an orchestral recall of the music of the solo voice. A mighty climax erupts but subsides. The voice returns with the orchestra offering quiet reverie—the same hushed beauty with which it began. The lamenting voice was echoing with the voices lost in those pastoral fields of France.

The last piece offered the gentle, swirling waltz tempo of Johann Strauss II's Frühlingsstimmen (Voices of Spring.) When it began, it seemed distant because I was still under the spell of the veiled grief of what we had just heard. The waltz performance was vivid and flowing but even the strong chords, the timpani drum-roll and the warm brass flourish of it triumphant end left me feeling resigned and divided.