LSO reaches multiple heights in Spanish extravaganza

Billboards and posters plastered around town told us that Friday’s (April 4) Lansing Symphony Orchestra concert had a Spanish theme. But they didn’t warn us that we’d need a megadose of Spanish fly to keep up with the multiple bursts of ecstasy maestro Timothy Muffitt and his extra-large orchestra were about to unleash.

The carnal exegesis wasn’t just the figment of a dirty mind. No less an authority than Barcelona, Spain-based composer Marc Migó, who made the trip all the way to Lansing to hear his thrilling 2024 work “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa,” practically spelled it out in a spoken introduction to his music.

Migó told the Wharton Center audience he was inspired by the look on St. Teresa’s face in a controversial work by the 17th-century sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini — a look that appears, to some observers, to be more indicative of sexual than religious ecstasy.

Migó said he would leave it up to the audience to decide which form of pleasure he depicts in the piece, but ... duh!

Does he think we’re made of stone?

To cinch the deal, Migó wrote in the booklet notes that music, unlike sculpture, can use the dimension of time to explore “a stimulating search of ecstatic processes,” and that’s just what he delivered.

A dry, catacomb-dark rumbling from the double basses and cellos gave off the feeling of waking from a deep sleep. Fragments of medieval plainchant and little tremors that sounded like birdsong coalesced out of the mist. Before long, the pulsations were coming from every direction and building to overwhelming force, not synchronously but with all the sections sloshing into and over each other like colliding storm fronts. The overall impression was a slipping away of control or the desire to control an irresistible force. When the paroxysm was spent, feather-delicate caresses of violin and woodwinds lulled the music back into deep sleep, this time in soft focus and aglow with contentment.

That doesn’t sound like spiritual ecstasy to me.

But the carnal biathlon wasn’t over. While smoking an imaginary cigarette in the afterglow, it was easy to forget what else was in store that night: the most famous example of a slow, relentless buildup to orgiastic release in the entire classical repertoire, Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro.”

For all its familiarity, “Boléro” is an audacious shocker when played live if the musicians are firing on all cylinders. For a performance to work, everyone has to pull and pull and pull on that famous melody that plays over and over again, like Ernest Hemingway’s old man reeling in that marlin, without letting the line go slack for a split second. That’s just how it went Friday, from the barely audible snare drum rattle at the outset to the collapsing galaxy of a climax. A masterful string of solo turns in the early-innings buildup included the welcome appearance of saxophone master Walter Blanding, on loan from MSU jazz studies, who contributed a juicy, well-lubricated turn at that famous melody. Principal bassoonist Michael Kroth had a hell of a night, with major solo turns in nearly every piece on the program, including “Boléro.”

In the most substantial piece of the evening, Édouard Lalo’s five-movement “Symphonie Espagnole,” guest violinist Chee-Yun was the perfect partner for an energized, extra-large (more than 85 strong) orchestra. This was a full-on symphony, a dark beast from the rugged habitat of Beethoven and Brahms, not a ballet pastiche or a virtuoso vehicle. Chee-Yun’s tone was confident, dark and warm, with almost zero vibrato. Listening to her was like cozying up to a fire. In spirit, and even acoustically, her instrument sounded like the mellowest of cellos, even in the high register. But she also shapeshifted according to the music’s whims, going dark in the slow movement and swimming up and down the scale in the finale like a silvery minnow. 

She also seemed to be having a grand time. No suffering for the sake of art here. After the first movement, she smiled at Muffitt and raised her eyebrows at concertmaster William Thain, as if to say, “This is going rather well, eh?” In such confident and skillful hands, it was easy to just relax and take it all in.

In the midst of such substantial fare, Suite No. 2 from Manuel de Falla’s ballet “The Three-Cornered Hat” offered the evening’s only chance to pull out the familiar grab bag of Spanish cliches. A festive fandango? Check. A fiery flare-up of flamenco? Check. Clicking castanets? Check.

But that’s not how Muffitt rolls. I’d eat my left shoe if he’s ever checked a musical box in his life. He brought a first-kiss freshness and an alert, erect dignity to de Falla’s well-worn Spanish gestures. He opened it up, gave it room to breathe and forced you to feel every fandango stomp in your sternum, to wipe the village dust from your face and blink from the glare of the Spanish sun. Still in the blush of ecstasy from the Migó, the orchestra played it as if this piece, too, was written in 2024.