Bignamini steps into the Pines for the NSO
Many of us were looking forward to this week’s, National Symphony Orchestra program – Ottorino Respighi’s Roman Trilogy – splashy repertoire which would be in Music Director Gianandrea Noseda’s wheelhouse. Unfortunately, he tested positive for COVID early in the week, and management scrambled to find a replacement, coming up with a fellow Italian; Jader Bignamini, Music Director of the Detroit Symphony.
Bignamini knew the pieces and jumped right in, leading two of them without a score Thursday evening. Detroit aside, most of his career has been in the opera house, and while his leadership could not be termed “inspiring,” it was focused and even self-effacing (symphony conductors are more acutely aware of the audience behind them than opera conductors who labor in the pit). For all its surface brilliance, the Trilogy isn’t that technically-challenging for a good orchestra, and the NSO gave Bignamini all he asked for.
He certainly could have asked for more, starting with the NSO’s perennial bugaboo, balances. Instead of a rapidly-shifting sonic kaleidoscope, we were too often assaulted by an undifferentiated “wall of sound,” the brass (the horns in particular) covering vast swaths of important string-writing. If I were King, I would force every conductor to listen to rehearsal recordings made from the orchestra seats; they are clearly not hearing what we’re hearing, and vice-versa. I will say it was a nice touch to have the buccine (ancient trumpet) parts played from the balcony in the second and third pieces, something that’s rarely done. But overall, this was business as usual at the NSO; fine individual playing but poorly-balanced.
The low strings set out a golden blend in the Pines near a Catacomb, and the yearning clarinet solos in The Pines of the Janiculum were superbly atmospheric. When the brass were supposed to dominate, such as in the Epiphany which ended the program, the effect was glorious. But sharpness of phrasing and anything involving cross-rhythms were either overlooked or buried in the clotted orchestral texture.
A pity, as this music, the cynosure of every orchestra musician and lover of high-end stereo systems, is so gloriously fun to play and listen to. Respighi’s orchestrations are spectacular, often overshadowing his melodic gifts (which admittedly fade a little in the Feste Romane). And certainly the audience enjoyed the clamor, the ovations extensive enough for Bignamini to give solo bows to each principal player and then to each section as a whole. Nice to see.
Photo by Scott Suchman.
