Tulsa Symphony brings in a guest to shake up an old favorite.
Tulsa Symphony Opening Night
September 9, 2023
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 — the one that goes BUM BUM BUM BUMMMM — has its detractors; I might be one of them. Listening to it is like being in a friend’s minimalist modern apartment: overly severe, too solid to get comfortable in, too blockish to find passage through. I’m too clumsy in here. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe those bum-bum-bum-bummms are there to remind us that some forces out there defy understanding – the way Beethoven couldn’t possibly have understood why he was slowly going deaf as he composed them.
The mood was appropriately intense, then, for opening night with the Tulsa Symphony.
With performances of Berlioz’s Overture to “Le corsaire,” op. 21, Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, op. 85, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, the evening opened, surprisingly, in a patriotic fashion. A timpani rolled into, for some reason, the American anthem, something I’ve never seen TSO or indeed any orchestra do to start a show — my date whispered, “Is this the Super Bowl?” — and the crowd leapt to their feet to put hands over hearts. I have hemorrhoids, so I stayed sitting.
Berlioz’s Overture was joyful, though tough in its frenetic opening. TSO’s army of violins particularly struggled to find unison in the first few seconds’ lightning-fast melodic runs. But the orchestra found their footing quickly, and the bulk of the short piece was pulled off well, alternatingly tender and complexly sublime.
Speaking of sublime, the guest performer for the night, Sterling Elliott—a 23-year-old Black cellist from Virginia who’s played with the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, among too many other heavies to list — stole the entire show the moment he came onstage for the Elgar. (Fans of the film Tàr would have recognized the piece’s gripping cello opening for which Lydia risks life and career for a young, unavailable cellist.) The piece was brilliantly executed, lofty and terrifying, but post-concert discussion of the evening likely centered around the moments after the concerto ended, in which Elliott began to speak, with no vocal microphone, barely audible.
The crowd bent their ears towards him. Snippets could be picked up: where he grew up (Newport News) and what his family listened to (classical, bluegrass, gospel, funk, “even a little country!”). Finally, when the hall was so quiet you could hear a horsehair shift, he began to play an unannounced piece: Mark Summer’s “Julie‑O,” a short, lilting song in which the cello is plucked and strummed in addition to the usual bowing. Maybe it was the excitement of the quiet, joyfully unexpected moment — deviation from the norm, after all, opens up the senses — but Elliott’s rendition of this piece was one of the more powerful solo string performances I’ve ever heard.
After a much-deserved standing ovation, the cellist exited the stage and Beethoven’s Fifth began. The first four notes are so ubiquitous that it was almost comical when they sounded. But the grandiose piece gripped me by the neck so quickly that any humor was quickly discarded in favor of thick German pathos.
I’m not terribly convinced by Beethoven; never have been. But TSO played the Fifth well to my ears and even occasionally moved me. The audience was so stoked with the piece (my neighbors were pumping their fists in time with the music) that they stood and clapped after the first movement: a minor etiquette faux pas that should be forgiven, considering the momentous nature of the movement’s ending. With the exception of one wrong horn note that jolted the audience out of its amazement in the third movement, the rest of the piece proceeded with grandeur and power. Guest conductor Marcelo Lehninger was a powerhouse presence to watch onstage, his sweeping movements appropriate to the tensions and releases of the music.
The bum-bum-bum-bummms aren’t that bad. I’d listen again. Really, in classical music terms, this is the Super Bowl.
Next for Z. B. Reeves: Annie Ellicott and NOLATET at LowDown
