Review: Madison Symphony Features Cellist
Kirshbaum, MSO Also Performing Saturday, Sunday
Posted: 8:43 am CST November 21, 2009
By William R. Wineke
Special to Channel 3000Madison audiences are known for the generosity of their standing ovations -- but, sometimes, it's hard to know when to stand.Friday, for example, the Madison Symphony Orchestra featured cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, who played a haunting 22-minute piece, "Schelomo Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra" by Ernest Bloch, which ends in a long lamentation, one so somber that even the composer said "this work alone ends with complete negation, but the subject demands it."A work of music that ends with "complete negation" is not the kind of thing that brings an audience to its feet, not matter how brilliantly the artist plays. So, when Kirshbaum finished, about half the audience at Overture Hall rose for the customary ovation and the other half seemed to wonder what to do.His next work was Antonin Dvorak's "Silent Woods for Cello and Orchestra," which got off to a little bit of an awkward start as Kirshbaum and MSO Music Director John DeMain walked back onto the stage, only to have DeMain peel off and go back to the wings before admitting he didn't have the music. It was one of those great non-musical moments you share only if you attend the live performances.None of this is to detract from Kirshbaum, who played brilliantly. It's just that the music sometimes gets in the way of tradition.When he finished the first half of the program, the audience had no problem at all rising as one to applaud him through several bows.Kirshbaum is a Texas native who lives in London and works in California, where he holds the Piatigorsky Chair at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music. He also is the International Chair of Cello at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and is a member of the U.S. President's committee on the Arts and Humanities.The second half of the program featured Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, a work with features a number of familiar tunes and which puts every member of the orchestra to work, especially tympanist John Jutsum, who appeared to be having the time of his life pounding the drums and, seemingly, switching mallets almost between every bar.The symphony has a rousing finale and, this time, the audience had no trouble at all figuring out when to rise and clap wildly in appreciation of another night of good music. Kirshbaum and the MSO will perform again at 8 p.m. Saturday and, again, Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
Special to Channel 3000Madison audiences are known for the generosity of their standing ovations -- but, sometimes, it's hard to know when to stand.Friday, for example, the Madison Symphony Orchestra featured cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, who played a haunting 22-minute piece, "Schelomo Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra" by Ernest Bloch, which ends in a long lamentation, one so somber that even the composer said "this work alone ends with complete negation, but the subject demands it."A work of music that ends with "complete negation" is not the kind of thing that brings an audience to its feet, not matter how brilliantly the artist plays. So, when Kirshbaum finished, about half the audience at Overture Hall rose for the customary ovation and the other half seemed to wonder what to do.His next work was Antonin Dvorak's "Silent Woods for Cello and Orchestra," which got off to a little bit of an awkward start as Kirshbaum and MSO Music Director John DeMain walked back onto the stage, only to have DeMain peel off and go back to the wings before admitting he didn't have the music. It was one of those great non-musical moments you share only if you attend the live performances.None of this is to detract from Kirshbaum, who played brilliantly. It's just that the music sometimes gets in the way of tradition.When he finished the first half of the program, the audience had no problem at all rising as one to applaud him through several bows.Kirshbaum is a Texas native who lives in London and works in California, where he holds the Piatigorsky Chair at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music. He also is the International Chair of Cello at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and is a member of the U.S. President's committee on the Arts and Humanities.The second half of the program featured Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, a work with features a number of familiar tunes and which puts every member of the orchestra to work, especially tympanist John Jutsum, who appeared to be having the time of his life pounding the drums and, seemingly, switching mallets almost between every bar.The symphony has a rousing finale and, this time, the audience had no trouble at all figuring out when to rise and clap wildly in appreciation of another night of good music. Kirshbaum and the MSO will perform again at 8 p.m. Saturday and, again, Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
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