Via: The Boston Globe
By Jeremy Eichler | GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 10, 2014
When Osvaldo Golijov’s “St. Mark Passion” began receiving performances in this country in 2001, the piece seemed to blow in — to dance in? — from another world. Yes there was the visual spectacle, the charismatic drummers, the sight of a whirling capoeira artist just to the left of the conductor’s podium, and Jesus crucified before our eyes. But the piece’s now well-documented capacity to electrify its first audiences was about something much deeper than that.
The music of Latin America had of course long since found its way to the European-styled concert halls, but only after handing over its passport and dressing up in its Sunday finest. No one would mistake Copland’s “El Salon Mexico” for the actual music of the dance hall that inspired it.
But Golijov’s work had different aims and a different genealogy. It aspired to retell the Passion as a story lived and felt today on the Latin American streets. Golijov, who grew up in Argentina, brings in the music of those streets directly, often without a heavy authorial stamp.
The piece interweaves a kaleidoscopic range of Afro-Latin music but Golijov largely preserves the integrity of his sources while forging them into a dramatic arc, a kind of Passion parade that boils over at times into an unalloyed carnival.
The “St. Mark Passion” returned to Symphony Hall on Thursday night for the first time since Robert Spano led the BSO in the work’s American premiere in 2001. The shock of the new cannot be easily reprised, and this performance, also under Spano’s baton, did not carry quite the same electric charge that coursed through the piece’s earliest outings. But the sense of visceral rhythmic drive at this work’s core still retained its enthralling power, especially as attended to by Mikael Ringquist, Gonzalo Grau, and other guest artists performing here as Orquesta La Pasión.
The other star of the evening was the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela, whose singers also danced, shouted, crouched, stomped, and generally inhabited this music like a second skin. Unfortunately, they were not always optimally served by the amplification used in this performance, which made certain sections sound thin and at other moments provided an overdone sonic halo effect.
The moving “Lúa descolorida,” a setting of a Galician poem at the heart of this score, was delivered by soprano Jessica Rivera with just the right mix of interiority and tonal radiance. Biella Da Costa and Reynaldo Gonzalez-Fernandez also performed well as featured vocal soloists. The BSO brass section stepped up when called upon.
And Spano, for his part, led the work with sympathy and swagger, at one point joining the percussion players by slapping the rail of the podium.
Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Symphony Hall,
Also performing:
Robert Spano, conductor
Date of concert:
Thursday night (repeats Friday and Saturday)
By Jeremy Eichler | GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 10, 2014
A Visceral, Pulsing Play on 'Passion'
When Osvaldo Golijov’s “St. Mark Passion” began receiving performances in this country in 2001, the piece seemed to blow in — to dance in? — from another world. Yes there was the visual spectacle, the charismatic drummers, the sight of a whirling capoeira artist just to the left of the conductor’s podium, and Jesus crucified before our eyes. But the piece’s now well-documented capacity to electrify its first audiences was about something much deeper than that.
The music of Latin America had of course long since found its way to the European-styled concert halls, but only after handing over its passport and dressing up in its Sunday finest. No one would mistake Copland’s “El Salon Mexico” for the actual music of the dance hall that inspired it.
But Golijov’s work had different aims and a different genealogy. It aspired to retell the Passion as a story lived and felt today on the Latin American streets. Golijov, who grew up in Argentina, brings in the music of those streets directly, often without a heavy authorial stamp.
The piece interweaves a kaleidoscopic range of Afro-Latin music but Golijov largely preserves the integrity of his sources while forging them into a dramatic arc, a kind of Passion parade that boils over at times into an unalloyed carnival.
The “St. Mark Passion” returned to Symphony Hall on Thursday night for the first time since Robert Spano led the BSO in the work’s American premiere in 2001. The shock of the new cannot be easily reprised, and this performance, also under Spano’s baton, did not carry quite the same electric charge that coursed through the piece’s earliest outings. But the sense of visceral rhythmic drive at this work’s core still retained its enthralling power, especially as attended to by Mikael Ringquist, Gonzalo Grau, and other guest artists performing here as Orquesta La Pasión.
The other star of the evening was the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela, whose singers also danced, shouted, crouched, stomped, and generally inhabited this music like a second skin. Unfortunately, they were not always optimally served by the amplification used in this performance, which made certain sections sound thin and at other moments provided an overdone sonic halo effect.
The moving “Lúa descolorida,” a setting of a Galician poem at the heart of this score, was delivered by soprano Jessica Rivera with just the right mix of interiority and tonal radiance. Biella Da Costa and Reynaldo Gonzalez-Fernandez also performed well as featured vocal soloists. The BSO brass section stepped up when called upon.
And Spano, for his part, led the work with sympathy and swagger, at one point joining the percussion players by slapping the rail of the podium.
Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Symphony Hall,
Also performing:
Robert Spano, conductor
Date of concert:
Thursday night (repeats Friday and Saturday)
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