By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson in Mevasseret Zion, Israel
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
Concerts of classical music are usually fairly serious affairs. One wears appropriate clothing, behaves in a suitable manner and listens to the music played by the orchestra or chamber ensemble with attention and interest.
But the concert of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra that we attended last week was different from the usual kind of event. It started with a rousing performance of Khachaturian’s ‘Masquerade’ suite, which deploys all the brass and percussion that the orchestra can muster. The five pieces that comprise the suite are familiar to most people, as they often accompany circus performances and arouse associations of clowns fooling around and falling down. It was difficult to remain serious as the various parts of the orchestra produced the jolly sounds under the vigorous leadership of the young Israeli conductor, Michael Hering.
Poulenc’s concerto for two pianos also sounded as if the composer was poking fun at the audience and the two soloists, Tomer Lev and Nimrod Meiri-Haftel, who were seated at two opposing instruments and appeared to be engaged in a musical duel, each one seeking to respond to the cheeky notes played by the other, with the orchestra putting in its own little asides from time to time. Here, too, it was difficult to keep a straight face as the music progressed to its climax with a series of pianistic flourishes.
A more serious note was provided by the performance of an unfinished concerto for two pianos by Prokofiev. Tomer Lev, a well-known Israeli pianist, introduced the piece, informing the audience that he had been working on completing the concerto for the last ten years. He described how, at the end of Prrokofiev’s life, Stalin had caused his music to be ostracized because it did not accord with the ‘positive spirit’ of Soviet society. As far as I could tell, the concerto, ably performed by Tomer Lev and Berenika Glicksman, was true to the style of Prokofiev and ended with an admirably Prokofiev-like flourish. All three soloists belong to the group known as Multipiano, which performs individually and together, on one, two or three pianos.
The final work in the concert was Ravel’s ‘Bolero.’ This is such a well-known piece of music that at any given moment it is being played in one form or another somewhere in the world. But to see and hear its full symphonic performance is a special experience, as it builds up gradually from an almost imperceptible tapping on the drum (beautifully played by a female tympanist placed at the front of the orchestra) to the fortissimo braying of the entire orchestra at its climactic end. We tend to forget what a genius Ravel was in deploying an orchestra, as exemplified by his orchestration of Moussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition,’ which was written originally for the piano.
As a final encore, all three pianists sat together at the same piano and played another jolly piece (for six hands), which I was unable to identify, but it seemed as if they were all having fun and enjoying the experience. All in all, we left the concert hall feeling cheerful and encouraged at having been able to enjoy so many aspects of the music we had just been privileged to hear.
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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson is an author and freelance journalist home-based in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion, Israel.