Chineke! Orcherstra, a medium-sized contingent (10-8-6-6-4 strings plus winds, brass, and percussion) of younger professionals resident in the UK, a part of the namesake basis, offers 40 live shows a yr there, “to offer profession alternatives for younger Black and ethnically various classical musicians.” This go to to Boston, the orchestra’s first for the reason that Covid shutdown, received cheers from a crowd that included a good-looking titer of racial and ethnic range three-quarters filling Jordan Corridor for the Celeb Collection. Applause after every motion mirrored their enthusiasm.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Othello Suite, op. 79 (1911), opened the live performance with a splash of orchestral and harmonic colour, in 5 actions — a quick fortissimo “Dance” in E minor, a waltzlike “Kids’s Intermezzo” in D minor, “Funeral March” in A minor with loads of augmented-sixth concord, “The Willow Tune” in G minor with a wonderful trumpet solo, and a “Navy March” in dotted-rhythm C main, with a 3/4 center part. All of those have been bracingly brief, as polished as any of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances, and refreshing, just like the pops numbers of Eric Coates with a tropical tinge.
Stewart Goodyear, a Canadian pianist born in 1978, appeared subsequent, taking part in his personal Callaloo: “a Caribbean suite for piano and orchestra.” The subtitle was as understated because the concerto was spectacular: “a mix of Calypso and Lisztian pianism,” in keeping with the composer’s terse and elegantly descriptive liner notes. Of the 5 actions: “Panorama,” “Mento,” “Afterglow,” “Cadenza,” and “Soca,” solely the primary and final concerned the bigger ensemble, quick, livid, sensible, and filled with putting harmonic colour. Goodyear’s virtuoso pianism flavored by film jazz as nicely, reminding me not a lot of Gershwin however of Morton Gould or Jerome Moross, or possibly Earl Wild, and with a tough edge that signified a brand new work of main significance. “Panorama” started with an explosive glissando assault, settling all the way down to critical melody, plus plenty of low-register keyboard grumbling with tambourine accompaniment; the composer writes, “I wrote my very own three themes, however introduced in components that may be acquainted to Calypso lovers,” and this author heard echoes of “Beneath the Bamboo Tree.” The second motion, with smaller accompaniment (strings, horns), was a piano toccata on a couple of notes. The third motion included overlapping metric patterns, nicely sustained by a Caribbean percussion background inside the low-register strings and woodwinds, and a well-articulated fading G minor glowing eventually in G main. The solo cadenza began small and have become monumental, with handfuls of close-position triads grabbed right here and there and flung about in Milhaud-like polytonal trend, interspersed with racing fingerwork in each register; the orchestra gamers watched its progress with startled smiles. It led on to the final motion, described as a “large finale of Carnival.” This motion was maybe too lengthy, with too many glissandi, however wild and loud, all the time thrilling, a critical piano-orchestra contest, constructing to large climaxes (there was a terrific cadenza for percussion ensemble) and culminating within the orchestra’s shout close to the top. The viewers cherished it and known as the pianist-composer again for extra bows. Will the large, vivid Callaloo turn out to be out there on CD?
After the intermission we braced for a much-talked-about work, the Symphony in E Minor by Florence Value, first carried out in 1933 and sometimes revived since, in homage to a recovered African American Renaissance. Comparisons are normally made with Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony in the identical key, for ok causes: the incorporation of African folksong, the brass chorale model within the gradual motion. There’s a lot to admire on this spacious, romantic work. The ponderous first motion options two major themes, the primary in E minor, the second in G main, each warmly pentatonic, with a totally skilled harmonic idiom deriving from the late 19th-century French orbit in addition to Czech, and a superb feeling for sonata construction. The second motion, in keeping with this system notes, “incorporates a sure-footed harmonically wealthy ten-part brass refrain,” however I feel possibly club-footed, due to the naive ostinato beat of bass drum and timpani in each bar; the concord is actually wealthy and even mature, and the sigh on the very finish, two notes for solo cello, is a grasp stroke. The third motion, a “Juba Dance” in quick 2/4 in lieu of a scherzo, principally hung round two harmonies, A minor and C main — the pentatonic scheme as soon as extra. This joyful motion and the Finale, in a whirling 12/8 E minor, have been extra profitable than the primary two, partially as a result of shorter and the proportions are higher. As a primary symphony influenced by Dvořák, this can be a worthy try that’s greater than mere imitation, pointing down the street to a maybe extra financial symphonic model.
Vibrant, muscular, and impressive, with a stable skilled sound, the Chineke! Orchestra performed with rapt consideration to their conductor, Andrew Grams. His directed pop-orchestra-style, demonstrative, choreographic, everywhere, and furiously imitative of particulars and registers, particularly shining within the Value symphony; within the finale he crouched and generally his baton reached his knees. However his outcomes have been all the time good, and the viewers agreed. They encored with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s ecstatic Danse Nègre. We sit up for the Chineke! return.
