Santa Cruz Symphony Opens Season
by
Lyn Bronson
Conductor John Larry Granger
On Sunday afternoon, September 29th, the Santa
Cruz Symphony under the direction of Maestro John Larry Granger launched its
2002-2003 season with an afternoon concert at the Mello Center in Watsonville —
and it was a blast!
It began with the stirring “Crown Imperial” (the Coronation
March for George VI’s coronation in Westminster Abbey) by William Walton,
continued with pianist Hans Boepple performing the Tchaikowsky First Piano
Concerto and ended with Ferde Grofé’s virtuoso work for orchestra, the “Grand
Canyon Suite.”
John Larry Granger has always seemed to have a knack for
presenting programs that really work, and this was no exception. At times the
Walton “Crown Imperial” sounded like “stiff upper lip,” British empire music for
a war film (something in the order of “The Guns of Navarone”), but as performed
by the Santa Cruz Symphony, it was both solemn and intensely moving.
Mr. Granger also has a knack for selecting excellent
soloists, and thus it was no surprise that pianist Hans Boepple turned in a
solid and exciting performance of that popular warhorse, the Tchaikowsky First
Concerto. Although this is a work familiar to everyone, when it is heard in an
outstanding performance, it still has the power to draw us in and envelop us in
its powerful rhetoric. Artur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz made landmark
recordings of this work in the 1930s and ‘40s that established standards by
which subsequent performances were measured. Today some virtuosos attempt to
outdo each other in velocity and power, while others give us mellow, laid back
performances (Ivo Pogerelich’s recorded rendition, verging on the eccentric, is
so slow and ponderous at times that the first movement cadenza sounds like a
Chopin Nocturne).
Mr. Boepple’s performance of this concerto revealed that he
was searching for musical effect in the music itself rather than using the
concerto as a virtuoso vehicle. Mr. Boepple found fresh new things to say in his
performance, which was intensely musical and always thoughtful. His shaping of
phrases in the lyrical sections was a revelation of fine instincts and good
taste. His lovely rendition of the first movement cadenza was startling in its
clarity and richness of detail that never hurried and made us enjoy every
moment. The same musical simplicity was obvious in his beautiful performance of
the slow movement.
This is not to imply that Mr. Boepple is not the complete
virtuoso, for he most certainly is. In the concerto’s last movement he went into
“warp drive” and blew us away with his fantastic energy and total technical
mastery. The blazing octave passage just before the coda was hair raising — I
can’t remember when I have heard so much sound coming out of a Steinway concert
grand. It was glorious!
The concert ended with virtuosity of another order as we
heard Ferde Grofé’s “Grand Canyon Suite.” This was virtuosity for the entire
orchestra, since just about everybody had something exciting to play. Often we
only hear the “On the Trail” section in pops concerts, thus to hear the suite in
its entirety was rather refreshing. Maestro Granger showed us how well the
orchestra could coordinate the special effects and tricky rhythms while running
the full gamut from the absolute softest to the loudest dynamics. While all the
principal players had their moments in the spotlight, special mention must be
made of the lovely extended solo by Concertmaster Kristina Anderson in “On the
Trail.” The string sections sounded quite striking in “Cloudburst.”
This concert will be broadcast on Sunday, October 13, at 10
am on KUSP 88.9 FM.
