From the Schermerhorn
Heroes, Sorceresses, and Symphonic Revolutions
Sometimes you go to a concert expecting one thing, and leave having experienced something completely different from those expectations—and if you are lucky, the difference is a good thing! On Friday, May 15th, I attended the Nashville Symphony’s performance of Beethoven’s Eroica expecting the familiar pleasures of Beethoven’s revolutionary symphony and Edgar Meyer’s virtuosity. Instead, the evening’s greatest surprise came from the program’s opener: Samuel Barber’s Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, a work of chilling psychological intensity. Of course, the Beethoven was fantastic (it’s the Nashville Symphony, obviously!) and Edgar Meyer’s virtuosity was astonishing, but Barber’s piece struck me with a chilling awe!
Barber’s work was adapted by the composer from a ballet that he wrote for Martha Graham in 1946 that tells the Greek myth of the sorceress Medea. She is a scorned woman who turns to filicide in order to garner revenge against her lover, the hero Jason. It is a dark, disturbing tragedy that has long engaged the attention of artists. As Barber described the adaptation: “Tracing her [Medea‘s] emotions from her tender feelings towards her children, through her mounting suspicions and anguish at her husband’s betrayal and her decision to avenge herself, the piece increases in intensity to close in the frenzied Dance of Vengeance of Medea, the Sorceress descended from the Sun God.” Instead of a programmatic retelling of the story, Barber’s score focuses on a 20th century perspective on the story, emphasizing the emotional development (or implosion) of maternal care and love into jealousy, vengeance and hatred.
Here we have the same tense, expansive harmonies in the strings that made the Adagio for Strings famous, played magnificently by the strings under concertmaster Peter Otto, providing comfort and then dissonant confrontation to the lovely melodies in the reeds. From this emerges a chaotic rhythm that further undoes the calm, leading to Medea’s killing frenzy. Conductor Brett Mitchell was patient with the composition, allowing the frequent nostalgic backward glimpses within the frenzy to heighten the conflict. With a huge orchestra, organized by rhythmic cells and marked by immediate shifts in texture, the piece is distinctly Stravinskian. The most unsettling moment came near the end, when the low brass, piano, low reeds and strings complete a three-note chromatic descent as the orchestra gasps in horror at what has been done; chilling.
Next up was Edgar Meyer’s Double Bass Concerto accompanied by a pitched percussion instrument constructed from PVC piping by NSO percussionist Sam Bacco. Needless to say, part of the stage looked like my garage does during a particularly challenging plumbing project! As always, the clarity of line, and poise with which Meyer articulated his melodies was beautiful. He and Bacco often ran at the same incredible speed through long, complicated microtonal lines, together, while the orchestra remained in a tuned place, creating two distinct aural worlds. The most remarkable moments, however, were not in the virtuosity but in the lyrical lines—they positively sang and created a drama one would not imagine to be possible for that instrument. It was wonderful, yet there was a lot to take in at one hearing, I’m anxious to hear the promised recording!
At this point came intermission—it was fun to see the visual artists in the foyer of the Schermerhorn painting, the building is truly becoming a space for the community.
After the intermission, it was time for the Beethoven. Apart, perhaps from Richard Wagner’s Tristan chord, there probably isn’t a more loaded harmony in western classical music than the simple pair of Eb triads that open Beethoven’s Third symphony. In his previous symphonies, Beethoven engaged with his predecessor F.J. Haydn’s tendency to create long slow introductions that prepare a dominant harmony and heighten the arrival of the symphony’s primary theme. Beethoven’s first symphony introduction spanned 10 measures, while his second an enormous 30. Yet, quite famously, his third symphony establishes key and breaks the silence with two enormous, rude, fascinating orchestral strikes in Eb major.
As the symphony was first dedicated to Napoleon, then generalized (in a very “Joseph Campbellesque” way) to an unnamed hero schema, the potential to create a programmatic interpretation has always been very difficult for me to restrain. Since my undergraduate music history courses, I’ve always imagined those two chords represent the infant hero (Napoleon) being lifted in the air by his father. The two chords were sparkles in the eye of the infant, whose heroic life was about to begin.
Mitchell’s interpretation, however, brought something different to mind. The tighter chords, played faster and more staccato, abrupt and disconcerting, made me think not of Napoleon, but instead of Beethoven (no less a hero to me!) clearing the desk of his predecessors, a sweep to the left for Mozart, and a stronger one to the right for Haydn. It made me think of Kuhn’s revolutions and the incommensurability of paradigm shifts. Beethoven’s approach to the introduction, both formally and programmatically, was no longer applicable to the rubric by which Haydn and Mozart judged their own compositions. It simply plays by different rules. A new era had dawned, for Beethoven it would be the Heroic era, but for us, the Romantic. Wonderful thoughts to have in downtown Nashville on Thursday night, two centuries later!
The rest of the symphony proceeded in a beautiful manner. From the famous ‘early’ horn entrance to the colossal coda of the first movement and the triumphant close of the finale, Mitchell sustained both architectural clarity and dramatic momentum. By evening’s end, Beethoven’s revolution felt newly dangerous again—a fitting conclusion to a program that began with Barber’s vision of psychological collapse and ended with the birth of musical Romanticism, bravo Maestro Mitchell!
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Joseph E. Morgan is a father of two, husband, teacher and recovering guitarist in Middle Tennessee.
That’s such a great way to describe it. I’ve had similar experiences with live music, and it’s always the unexpected moments that stick with you.