I was lucky enough last week to attend two concerts. Both offered hard-won moments of renewal in a week that was already too busy and too hectic. It was a week that left me exhausted, the culmination of a month of intense and often exhausting events and activities, and yet I would not change a thing. Everything that was done needed doing, and the ability to do it is a gift.
Tuesday night the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra opened their season with guest Monty Alexander. Monty Alexander's joy at playing, his deft way of working with straight jazz and Jamaican sounds, of finding and expanding on the jazz roots of reggae, were joyful and profoundly powerful. The energy on the stage flowed into the audience, and for long stretches of the 3-hour concert, it felt like the entire audience in the Bijou Theater was actively smiling, if not dancing in their hearts. The energy in the hall was quieter toward the end, not due to a loss of interest but simply because the price of a three-hour concert in the middle of the week is high for many; the mostly 20-somethings around me in the balcony started seriously peeling out around 10:30. Mr. Alexander did apologize, at the end of the intermission, for getting carried away with the music, and for playing too long.
Did I regret staying? No. Was I tired on Wednesday? yes. But I got to hear Alexander's surprisingly moving rendition of Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry". And I continue to think that if we could all have something in our lives that we loved so much that we got carried away to a place outside of time and obligation, and even age, the world would be an entirely different place.
There was a brief moment on Wednesday, when, tired from the previous day's excess and flustered by a last minute addition to my calendar, I considered not going to the Wednesday night opening of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra's Concertmaster Series. I did go however and I was happy to have done so. The music offered a sense of calm, and revitalization, that although completely different than quiet time at home, was just as effective and necessary. It did not hurt that two of the pieces being performed were particular favorites.
The concert was held in the great hall of the Knoxville Museum of Art, which proved to be a perfect venue. The presence of the art, the excellent acoustics, and the sense of the place, simultaneously intimate and expansive, enhanced the performance, which was also thrilling in its own right. Concertmaster Gabriel Lefkowitz opened the program with Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances, which were excellent, and an added bonus was being treated to an encore performance of the powerful 3rd dance: Topogó / Pe loc.
One of the things that struck me about the concert, was in fact, that all three of the works presented contained within them a particularly powerful intropective and contemplative movement, and yet the theme of the concert was neither contemplative nor melancholy. The Bartok contains within it this introspective moment, but generally the dances are more vibrant. This was followed by the Brahms' Horn Trio in E-flat Major, a work which simulates the stages of of mourning, and which sat at the center of the concert. The 3rd movement, the Adagio, is particularly contemplative and the performance here was heartfelt and introspective. But the Brahms work is deft, and generally light-handed in its handling of grief, and the final moment is filled with the joy of acceptance.
The concert ended with Cesar Franck's Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano, one of my favorite works. It was written as a wedding present and it is, in fact anything but melancholy, although it is not romantic in the grand scale. It is an incredibly personal and powerful, work, and to me it seems to be more about the transcendent power of love rather than more immediate, romantic, love. I find Franck's music to be filled with a kind of breathless joy, a joy that we, in this modern age, tend to allow ourselves to experience far too rarely. Once again, it is the 3rd movement that is the more introspective one, improvisatory in nature, with beautifully yearning contemplative solo passages, which Lefkowitz expressed beautifully.
The conclusion of the work was a trifle less ecstatic and soaring than I would have preferred, but still beautiful. But then again, I have been spoiled by being able to hear a few truly great artists perform this piece; my complaints may be uniquely my own, and not really related to the performance at hand. These niggling thoughts, arising as they do out of a cultural bias which aims more toward striving and criticism than acceptance, did not lessen my enjoyment of the concert however. The performances were very good and the ensemble played very well together. The piano passages in the Franck, in particular, are notably difficult.
It was a joy to be able to attend and in many ways a very personal experience of the music. But music always has that potential, if we let it. George and I listened to Bartok's Romanian Dances, arranged for violin and piano, on our first date. (Our second date was to see the German Film Das Boot, go figure.) And as I said, the Franck is a favorite for its transcendence, for the way Franck has of combining the intellectual with the purely physical response in a way that seems to lead toward something greater. This concert, in particular, seemed to fill some inner resource that needed filling, and I am grateful.
