Denève opens New World Symphony’s season with powerful wartime remembrances

By Lawrence Budmen

Stéphane Denève led the New World Symphony’s season-0pening concert with narrator Daisy Ridley Saturday night in Miami Beach. Photo: Alex Markow

The 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Holocaust are the focus of the New World Symphony’s “Resonances of Remembrance” series that will run throughout most of the 2024-2025 season. 

For the orchestral academy’s opening concert Saturday night at New World Center, artistic director Stéphane Denève led a work by co-founder and artistic director laureate Michael Tilson Thomas centered on one of the classic Holocaust documentations and a 20th-century symphonic milestone by Shostakovich. With war raging across the Middle East and the Ukraine and the rise in antisemitism and hate crimes in the United States and globally, the evening’s music carried additional relevance.

Tilson Thomas’ From the Diary of Anne Frank is a score for narrator and orchestra. The text from the famous diary of the 13- year-old Frank, written while her family hid from the Nazi authorities for two years in the Netherlands, was partly chosen by actress Audrey Hepburn who narrated the 1990 premiere. (Frank and her family were eventually betrayed and arrested by the Nazis in1944. Anne died of hunger and disease at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her father Otto Frank was the only family survivor, and. later, published his daughter’s diary.) 

Despite her young age, Frank was a gifted writer and diarist. Her words continue to have potent emotional impact. Indeed, the power of Frank’s writing carries the 40-minute work, avoiding repetition or tedium.

Tilson Thomas’ music, in many ways, resembles a film score but a highly effective one. With occasional artistic patterns and excerpts from the original written manuscript projected on the hall’s wall spaces, the score enhanced the power and pain of Frank’s text. 

A fanfare-like opening presages skittery string and wind figurations and violin and cello solos that form a prelude to the narration. After initial suggestions of the Americana sounds of Copland and Bernstein, the musical aura turns somber as Frank proclaims “we are balancing on the edge of an abyss.” Ridley spoke more quietly as Frank described going into hiding. The ominous pounding of two timpani accompanied Frank’s description of the “march of death” surrounding her. An extended trombone solo and string dirge preceded the girl’s wondering why the world was at war with solo flute seeming to echo her question. 

A burst of animated instrumental color and touches of impressionism animate the coming of spring and Frank’s love of nature, both experienced through the windows of her hiding place and her hope to see it again in the future. Frank’s optimistic words of belief in people’s goodness are shadowed by a soaring climax. Dark brass chords shadow her final unfinished “Dear Kitty” (the imagined person to whom she addresses her writings) as those words were projected in multiple languages, reflecting the diary’s world wide publication and impact. 

Adorned in a black gown and wearing a facial body microphone, actress Daisy Ridley (best known for srecent films in the Star Wars franchise) was a direct and eloquent narrator, never veering into melodramatic excess.

Denève drew every ounce of lyricism, pathos and joy in Tilson Thomas’ orchestral palette. All sections and first-desk members played at fever pitch, and the score’s tragic heroism and musical discourse were richly served. Ridley, Denève and the players received a prolonged standing ovation.

Photo: Alex Markow

Whether Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor represented the composer’s surrender to Soviet cultural orthodoxy (after withering criticism of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) or a defiant testament against totalitarian censorship hardly matters in the light of musical history. The score stands as one of the great symphonies of the 20th century and one of the composer’s most often performed creations. 

Denève’s deliberate pacing of the initial Moderato allowed instrumental details to emerge with crystalline clarity that often are submerged in the symphonic fabric. Wind timbres were tangy and the four horns strong and accurate. There was a sense of natural flow in the secondary subject and Denève brought a real sense of terror to the dark martial figure, building the big climaxes in gradual layers. The movement’s final bars emerged eerie and unsettled with stellar violin and trumpet solos.

The opening lines of the Scherzo found the seven basses crisp and emphatic. The satirical aura of Shostakovich’s ballet compositions was vividly evoked and the central folksy violin melody given extra thrust. 

A mysterious noise, perhaps caused by a hearing aid, caused Denève to take a prolonged pause before the slow movement. (Both that sound and the conductor’s comments to the audience were not audible from this listener’s seat.) 

The Largo is the symphony’s wrenching heart and, when he finally commenced the movement, Denève gave full weight to the  anguish and agony beneath the notes. From first bar to last, he maintained an unbroken line and the intensity of the playing never abated. The transparent dynamics ranged from whispered pianissimos to the fierce harshness of climactic salvos.

The first notes of the finale came like a shock with the principal theme vigorously stated and the movement’s forced gaiety vitally portrayed. Denève’s breakneck tempo proved highly effective, allowing greater contrast to the mid-movement episode and the slow crescendo leading to a rafter-ringing coda.

Although there were 32 new fellows in the ensemble’s ranks, the level of cohesion and polish in the playing was admirable in every respect, not least the five percussionists. The entire concert was a distinctive and exciting opening to the season and the Remembrance series.

The New World Symphony repeats the program 2 p.m. Sunday at the New World Center in Miami Beach. nws.edu

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Sun Oct 6, 2024
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