In his in prefatory remarks to the harp concerto, Brotons mentioned that Montsalvatge was one of his composition teachers. Like Brotons, Montsalvatge was born in Catalonia, Spain, and, according to Wikipedia, in addition to his composing, he was a noted music critic.
Completed in 1975, “Concerto Capriccio for Harp and Orchestra” is a three-movement work that presents a lot of challenges for the harpist. Mateo, an internationally acclaimed harpist from Seville, Spain, who now resides in Los Angeles, elevated the piece with her virtuosic talent.
The orchestra kicked things off with percussive sounds, including short glissando-like sweeps from the strings. With Mateo caressing the harp, she threaded dissonant and harmonic passages and during her cadenza would pop a note here and there to make it stand out. That movement accelerated to lighter – almost squirrely – segment and a snappy ending that elicited spontaneous applause.
In the second movement, Mateo created an ethereal landscape that was joined by the woodwinds and then by the strings. At one point, it seemed that she used the pedals to fashion a wavey sound, and later she complimented a phrase by rapping on the harp’s wood frame. The wah-wah sound from a muted trumpet accompanied her as she closed out that movement.
Mateo’s harp surged ahead in the final movement with lots of rhythmic complexity and humor that underscored the “capriciousness” of the piece, which, as a whole, seemed to shift, restlessly from one style to another and from one tune to another.
The appreciative audience responded with enthusiasm that Mateo back to center stage. She responded with a delightful encore, the first movement from Brotons’ “Harp Sonata,” which he wrote for her. She impressively played at the extreme ends of the harp and fashioned all sorts of intoxicating sounds that made me want to hear the rest of the piece
Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade: Symphonic Suite” received a solid and exiting performance by the orchestra. Urged on by the baton of Brotons, who conducted from memory, the orchestra painted the exotic scenes from “The Thousand and One Nights” with gusto. Concertmaster Eva Richey masterfully conveyed the lovely and seductive character of the main storyteller. Polished volleys from the horns brought the sea and Sinbad’s ship to the forefront. Evocative contributions by Principal Clarinetist Igor Shakhman and the woodwinds added wonderfully to the sonic canvas. The brass propelled the ship into the storm, and its destruction on the rocks drifted serenely into the horizon.
To open the concert, the Vancouver Symphony performed Daniel Kim’s “Dongchimi.” The background for this piece is very interesting. Kim, who is a Vancouver-based dentist and inventor, found a broken ukulele in his home that one of sons had abandoned. That melody, which Kim had written down, caught the attention of Brotons while he was visiting Daniel and his wife, “Stella” Hooja Kim.
Flexing his considerable compositional talent, Brotons took the melody that Kim wrote and orchestrated it into a lush, cinematic work. He made sure that the main theme was shared throughout the orchestra, and he inserted a pause so that the melody could be heard a second time but slightly differently. A thunderous bass drum and timpani combined to bring the piece to a triumphant end.
Kim came to the podium and gave Brotons a huge hug and thanked him for creating the orchestration. Afterwards, Brotons, with a smile, challenged Kim to write another melody since there’s no reason to stop with just one.
Speaking of challenges, the Vancouver Symphony has been making strong inroads to the youth in Clark County that the orchestra. So Hal Abrams, the orchestra’s Director of Development announced that the VSO Youth Orchestra has been formed and will make its debut this summer at the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival. That’s great news!
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