Review: A Night of Light and Color: Oregon Symphony’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Bruch Violin Concerto, and Anna Clyne’s Color Field

Photo credit: Oregon Symphony

Guest review by Thomas Meinzen

Amid Portland’s winter light festival, it seemed fitting that the Oregon Symphony began their Pictures at an Exhibition program (February 7) with the bright hues Yellow, Red, and Orange in the three-movement Color Field by Anna Clyne.

Clyne’s work references Mark Rothko’s 1961 painting Orange, Red, Yellow, in which bright, blurred rectangles appear to float off the page, each distorting how the audience views the color above and below. Likewise, Clyne’s first movement, Yellow, seemed to float into the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, with open chords and quiet, subtly shifting strings. Silvered with high notes of bowed crotales, Yellow conjured the spacious, ethereal feeling of early morning light.

Building in richness and grandeur, the movement introduced a Serbian folk melody in the deep movement of the basses, conjuring images of something great and old emerging from shadow into light. Adopted by the higher strings and winds, this melody lent the piece increasing shape and structure, while still maintaining the meditative impression of a great, open vista. In many ways, the piece captured the qualities of light in a way that was more tender and transcendent than the festival’s displays. Sometimes the description outshines the real thing.

Following Yellow, Red was joltingly fast and furious, with rumbling timpani and bass drums, strings screaming down scales, and declarations of fiery brass. Stampeding advances alternated with moments of calm, crescendo-ing to a bold, sudden conclusion.

Yet it was Orange, the third and final movement, that proved most captivating. The resonance and reverb of percussionist Stephen Kehner’s work on the glockenspiel was the signature of this movement, bookending it with a mystical sense of space and color. An incremental layering of voices began with the oboe and swelled to include nearly every member of the orchestra, bringing the open feeling of Yellow into conversation with the bold intensity of Red. This rounded out an exquisite, contemplative composition.

While the opener left listeners in quiet reverie, the Oregon Symphony truly fulfilled its duty to dazzle with Gil Shaham’s marvelous performance of the Max Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor. The Bruch showcased the delicate touch and remarkable fluidity and energy of the GRAMMY award-winning violinist.

Shaham’s notes emerged tenderly from a backdrop of gently held chords, rising through the orchestra’s sound and flying across virtuosic passages with ease and elegance. As conductor Daniel Danzmayr deftly guided the orchestra from swells of melody to sudden restraint, the clear tones of Shaham’s 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius soared into the hall, a vector of energy which carried the orchestra to new heights. Shaham himself seemed caught up in the concerto’s vigor, stepping forward into cadenzas and even bouncing on the balls of his feet during the triumphant Finale. And the audience was right there with him, rising to a long standing-ovation after the Bruch and again after Shaham’s encore, the Tempo di Borea and Double from Bach’s Violin Partita No. 1 in B minor—a brilliant display of dexterity, precision, and passion.

Photo credit: Oregon Symphony

 And yet, the night’s titular event was still ahead: Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arranged by Ravel). As Danzmayr shared, Mussorgsky wrote Pictures as a piano suite after attending an exhibition of the paintings of Viktor Hartmann in 1874, a fellow Russian artist and friend of Mussorgsky who had died the previous year. Never performed publicly in Mussorgsky’s life, Pictures was first published by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1886, and eventually arranged for orchestra by several musical luminaries, most enduringly by Ravel in 1922.

Although it abandons classical forms and was met with skepticism by Mussorgsky’s peers, Pictures at an Exhibition is renowned for good reason. With a bold brass entrance, its grand Promenade theme remains in the ear for days, an asymmetrical meter lending the theme a hook that belies its simplicity. And the whole ten-movement work tugs at the imagination, richly illustrating scenes ranging from the somber and pensive to the playful and strange.

The diverse voices and exposed moments of Pictures also provided a great opportunity for the orchestra to showcase each member’s individual talents and timbre. The haunting alto saxophone solo in The Old Castle was particularly evocative; the tight articulations of muted trumpets in Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle also revealed excellent control. Perhaps most impressive, however, was the performance of tubist JáTtik Clark: after a sensitive euphonium feature in Bydlo, he commanded incredible power in The Hut on Fowl’s Legs and the final expression of the Promenade. I kept looking for additional tubas, but those astounding decibels were all from Clark.

Beyond individual musicianship, however, it was the power of the symphony’s cohesion and collective might that brought down the house in the grand finale, The Great Gate of Kiev, which featured a massive bell from the Netherlands made especially for this concert and engraved for the Oregon Symphony. This final declamatory movement was towering and triumphant, concluding the night and garnering an immediate standing ovation. Under Danzmayr’s leadership, the Oregon Symphony continues to astonish and delight.

Thomas Meinzen is a composer, pianist, writer, and ecologist. Thomas studied music composition and orchestration with John David Earnest and Eric Funk. He has worked across the U.S. and Costa Rica as an avian field biologist and currently teaches natural history, ecology, arboriculture, and music through several local nonprofits, in addition to coordinating Portland tree-planting efforts with Friends of Trees. An avid bicyclist, birder, and public transit advocate, you can find his writing at greenbirder.substack.com and music at thomasmeinzen.bandcamp.com.