Symphony strikes just the right tone in season opener

By Lawrence Cosentino

The Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra weighed back in on the mid-Michigan cultural scene with the season’s first MasterWorks concert on Sept. 22, squarely facing a new uncertainty about the proper role of art, sports and entertainment in American life.

It has been hard to suppress a certain embarrassment, even resentment, as the country’s cultural and showbiz institutions contribute their trained voices and camera-ready faces to a raw outpouring of lamentation like professional mourners at a private funeral.
But when the GLSO string players sat down to play American composer George Walker’s delicate "Lyric for Strings," surrounded by empty chairs usually rocked by the blare, boom and whistle of their colleagues, the moment had a quiet dignity and resolute sadness that struck just the right tone for a grieving mid-American city.

On balance, the evening was an effective demonstration of the virtues of resuming business as usual, the power of music to scoop the muck from the soul and restore the natural flow of thought and emotion. With the exception of brief remarks by GLSO General Manager Judith Moore, a moment of silence, and spirited renditions of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America" before and after the program, the symphony stuck to its published program, announced long before the tragic events of this month.

No doubt the decision was made largely for logistical and economic reasons, but the effect was nevertheless reassuring. After all, Lansing in 2001 is not Leningrad in 1941, when its coughing, bandaged Philharmonic struggled to rally a bombed and starving city besieged by Germans, or Berlin in 1945, when Nazis themselves shuddered to the doomsday duet of Wagner and Russian artillery - or even the New York of earlier this month, when Kurt Masur replaced the Philharmonic’s gala opening with Brahms’ "German Requiem" as the ashes of the World Trade Center swirled upward.

The GLSO’s professionalism showed that as often as the muses have been dragged off to wars and funerals, they do their most effective work at home.
In deference to Moore’s remarks, conductor Gustav Meier eschewed his customary grand entrance and instead seemed to materialize on the podium, a reassuring symbol of the continuity of culture in mid-Michigan. Within seconds his shoulders were again jerking to-and-fro, wisps of silver hair caroming off his forehead, and the season began in earnest with a near-flawless performance of Beethoven’s "Overture to Egmont." The rare combination of precision and excitement achieved by the orchestra throughout the evening suggests that Meier has reached a new level of communication with his musicians. The Beethoven revealed a dark muscularity in the string section that gave the whole symphonic organism a thrilling, leonine majesty. A formidable phalanx of gleaming French horns lined the back of the hall like the artillery of the angels, blasting out Beethoven’s message of brotherhood, freedom and defiance of tyrants to a new century.

Unfortunately, the programming serendipity that inspired and soothed the Wharton Center audience with the music of Beethoven and Walker ran out when Russian violinist Alexander Markov took the stage to play the Paganini "Violin Concerto No. 2." Nearly everything about Markov, from his permed locks and haughty stance to his erratic intonation and visible impatience to rush to the flashy parts, jarred with the spirit of the evening, gave the impression that he would just as soon be doing his double-stopping and presto-plucking in front of a full-length motel mirror.

At one point the glockenspiel played one high note over and over in what seemed to be a last-ditch effort to nudge Markov’s instrument into the sweet spot, but to no avail. The gentleman in front of me reached quietly for the hinge of his jaw.
But that, of course, was not the home team’s fault. The evening ended with a spirited account of Tchaikovsky’s "Francesca da Rimini," which further demonstrated GLSO’s ability to summon up wild sonic storms, sunset-gold rays of melody, and crashing, cyclonic climaxes.
The next concert in the series is Oct. 27. Call 487-5001 for tickets.