RIDGEFIELD SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA – Saturday, September 29, 2007
Reviewed by Courtenay Caublé
With an attractive stage presence, an impressively
sensitive and thorough grasp of his scores, and an equally
masterful baton technique, young Jonathan Schiffman managed
a performance at the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra’s initial
2007-08 concert last Saturday evening at the Anne Richardson
Auditorium that the three remaining contenders for the
orchestra’s currently vacant position of Music Director will
find themselves challenged to better.
Maestro Schiffman’s all-orchestral program, billed as
“Brilliant Beginnings,” featured the first symphonies of
Ludwig van Beethoven and Gustav Mahler, with the orchestra
massively augmented for the late Romantic Mahler work.
Often sounding essentially imitative of earlier
neo-classical symphonies to modern ears in routine
performances, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major took on
larger dimensions under Maestro Schiffman’s direction. His
reading, replete with attention both to often-overlooked
rhythmic and tempo subtleties and to subtly dramatic dynamic
contrasts, vitalized the musical flow. For example, his
handling of the first movement’s “traditional” slow
introduction revealed both harmonic and melodic qualities
far beyond the merely imitative, his somewhat
livelier-than-usual second movement tempo invoked an
intrinsic jauntiness that foreshadowed artful unity in the
subsequent variations, his choice of tempo and overall
approach to the rapid third movement “Menuetto” managed to
suggest the livelier spirit of the scherzos that would
replace the traditional minuets in later Beethoven
symphonies without rendering the designation “Menuetto” a
complete misnomer, and his treatment of the obvious bow to
Haydn’s trademark “tricks” at the opening to the last
movement made the “trick” more than that, provoking a smile
while at the same time heightening tension in anticipation
of the finale’s spirited romp. The whole performance was an
unblemished success.
In a French interview after his recent appointment as Music
Director of the Orchestre Lyrique de Région
Avignon-Provence, Schiffman gave credit to Ivan Fischer for
having alerted him to the importance to a conductor of
behind-the-scenes rehearsal technique, not only in
communicating an interpretation, but in inspiring his
musicians to listen to each other and work together like
chamber music performers. And that sort of approach and
preparation seemed to have paid off Saturday evening, not
only in the Beethoven symphony, but in the Mahler as well,
where, even with the more-than-doubled ensemble size, there
were too few minor glitches to make a difference, with the
orchestra and its leader melding as if for chamber music.
The reading was expressive, unified, and forward moving from
the quietly dramatic opening measures to the dramatically
overwhelming final ones, where Mahler stipulated that the
entire augmented horn section (eight French horns is all on
this occasion) were to stand up for added effect.
At the end of this fine concert the whole audience imitated
those horn players, rising for a prolonged and well-deserved
standing ovation, complete with bravos.
The RSO’s next program, an all-Russian one set for Saturday,
December 8, will feature conductor Gerald Steichen (the
second of the RSO’s “Four Fabulous Finalists”) and pianist
Joyce Yang for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
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