Fairfax Symphony wraps season with a celebration of Zimmerman and a Strad
Kit Zimmerman and Chee-Yun were soloists in Jonathan Leshnoff’s Concertante for Two Violins with Christopher Zimmerman conducting the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra Saturday night. Photo: Daniel Mears
There is a difference when someone speaks to you instead of speaking at you. Similarly, some musical ensembles value sharing of thoughts about the compositions they play as a way of enhancing listeners’ concert experience.
That was the case Saturday evening at Center for the Arts at George Mason University, when the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra opened the evening with composer Jonathan Leshnoff on stage, welcoming the audience and providing background on the East Coast premiere of his Concertante for Two Violins and Orchestra. The soloists were Chee-Yun and Cristian “Kit” Zimmerman, son of Fairfax music director, Christopher Zimmerman, in a program marking the conductor ‘s 15th season leading the ensemble.
Leshnoff recalled that discussions about the composition began three years ago, between himself and conductor Zimmerman at Artie’s in Fairfax. The orchestra’s board chairman, José “Pepe” Figueroa, commissioned the music in honor of the “Figueroa Strad” and in memory of his father, Pepito Figueroa, a master teacher and violinist in Puerto Rico.
In 1945, a Stradivarius was for sale. Violinists rushed to New York to audition to have the privilege of purchasing the instrument. The widow of its owner was so impressed with Figueroa that she vowed he was the only person who would own the violin. The 40-year-old lacked the money for its purchase; however, a page-one article about his plight appeared in Puerto Rico’s leading newspaper. Donations poured in and the magnificent instrument had a new owner, who played it for more than 50 years.
The Figueroa Stradivarius is now being sold, with the proceeds going to the people of Puerto Rico, still recovering from Hurricane Maria.
With two solo violinists representing multiple lives of the Figueroa Stradivarius, built in 1686, the piece begins somberly, with a soloist playing an introspective melody in the instrument’s lower register, sounding much like a viola.
The second soloist joins with variations on the melody, in a slightly higher register. While the two pass the melody between them, the movement avoids the call and response that marks many compositions for two violins. Indeed, Leshnoff has the soloists playing together almost continuously.
The middle movement is a bright scherzo, with the violinists exchanging mischievous pizzicato lines, though the fun ends abruptly almost as soon as it begins, after perhaps two minutes.
The final movement contains the sort of virtuoso high-register music featured in traditional violin concertos. Representing the end of Pepito’s tenure with the instrument and the excitement surrounding its future, the final movement centers on a sprightly, ascending-scale figure.
The two soloists and several orchestra members trade the melody between them, with flutes, harp and clarinet taking the lead, though Leshnoff has the violin soloists, playing constantly, perhaps reflecting the indefatigable Figueroa, who played and taught until hours before his death, at 94, in 1998.
Despite their arduous roles in the concertante, Chee-Yun and Kit Zimmerman also offered a demanding and relatively lengthy encore, an arrangement by Iggy Yang of Fugata by Astor Piazzolla. Early on Chee-Yun broke a string, though an incredibly quick pivot and exchange of violins with orchestra violinist Jessica Mun meant barely a note was missed. Both the Leshnoff and encore elicited rousing ovations from an enthusiastic audience.
While the Fairfax winds, brass and percussion had prominent moments in the Leshnoff and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, the evening’s final work, it was mostly a string-rich program, perhaps a violin-dominant one.
That idea was established immediately, when Fairfax’s violins confidently opened the program with the luxurious lines of Sir Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for Strings. Zimmerman adroitly directed the strings through the fugal composition, highlighted by the violins’ carefully nuanced dynamics and solos by concertmaster David Salness.
Composed rapidly and not long after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony often is considered Shostakovich’s revenge against a dictator who ruined years of his life.
The massive first movement is as long as the following three combined. Thought to be a portrait of the authoritarian Soviet regime, it begins with a lengthy, contemplative string melody. Again, the Fairfax violins demonstrated their prowess, dispatching complex figures gracefully. Another highlight was Dean Woods, the principal bassoonist, who elicited a rich, sparkling tone during several solos.
Zimmerman and the orchestra were at their best during an athletic reading of what he called the “brutal” second movement, perhaps the composer’s portrait of Stalin. Zimmerman’s brisk tempo was an excellent choice for this scherzo, filled with warlike brass figures and loud, martial snare drums.
Contrasting the scherzo was what Zimmerman called an “awkward” waltz. Eventually moments of happiness peak through in the final movement, harbingers of hope for the Soviet people, though the concluding bars of piccolos and flutes, screaming at the top of their ranges, and loud figures in the timpani recall the military drums and brass of the scherzo.
