(Composer Philip Glass. Photo by Danny Clinch)
By Montague Gammon III
The Virginia Symphony Orchestra makes serious musical history later this month with “Echoes and Icons,” its second pair of classical concerts this season.
These performances are truly a big deal, probably the biggest event for the VSO since JoAnn Falletta took it to Carnegie Hall 29 years ago.
One of the two pieces on the September 25 and 27 programs is Antonio Lucio Vivaldi’s 1716-1733 (or thereabouts), very familiar and no longer history making “The Four Seasons.” Its opening bars are, according to VSO music director and the concerts’ conductor Eric Jacobsen, second only to the beginning of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony for sounding familiar.
“Seasons” artistic resonance extends to our era. Even the theme music to “Cheers” shows its influence.
In the comfortably familiar company of Vivaldi’s “Seasons,” Hampton Roads also gets the regional premiere of Phillip Glass’ Symphony 15, subtitled “Lincoln.”
To put matters in a deservedly more important context, we’re getting the world’s third ever performance of this most talked about, most eagerly anticipated and incidentally most politicized new classical work in recent memory.
Even more notably, these Virginia Beach and Newport News performances will produce the very first recording of this symphony, which is an eight-part mix of Glass’s music with Lincoln’s words, leading up to his departure from Illinois for the first term of his presidency. The great man’s words are variously sung and spoken.
“Not only will Virginia audiences be among the first in the world to hear the Glass,” Jacobsen said, “but this…first recording of the work…in essence beating out Chicago [Symphony Orchestra] and others…it’s going to be spectacular. I just can’t tell you what an honor it is.”
The words “exciting” and ‘excited” kept cropping up in Jacobsen’s comments.
It’s not just that Glass, who turns 90 at the end of January 2027, has long been one of America’s most influential contemporary composers, with multiple Grammy and Oscar nominations and a host of other awards. His output includes opera, symphony and chamber compositions, scores for film, Broadway, ballet and avant-garde theater, and collaborations with popular musicians as varied as Paul Simon, Mick Jagger, Brian Eno, and David Bowie. “Philip Glass is recognized as one of the great American composers,” Jacobsen remarked, saying that Glass is part of our cultures of “art song” and “popular culture” as well.
Yet Glass has never been as much in the public eye as he has been since, last January, he withdrew “Lincoln” from its planned June National Symphony Orchestra premiere at the Kennedy Center, commenting, “Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony.”
Jacobsen described, in a phone interview from his Orlando home, a flurry of requests from the biggest names among American orchestras for that newly arisen honor of premiering “Lincoln.” The Boston Symphony Orchestra got the nod, and gave “Lincoln” its first public performance July 5 at their summer home in Tanglewood, in Lenox, Mass. The second performance was July 31 at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, Calif., by the Festival’s resident Cabrillo Festival Orchestra.
Before the Kennedy Center cancellation, Jacobsen had leveraged his friendship with one of Glass’s management team to get VSO permission to play Symphony 15, and that turned into this rare opportunity for the orchestra.
Bass-baritone Davóne Tines is charged with singing and speaking Lincoln’s words. Jacobsen said of him, “His voice…is only surpassed by his incredible artistry. The guy is so beautiful in his gestural singing… you can’t help but be moved by it, especially when the words are Lincoln’s.”
To the question “Is this a really good introduction to Philip Glass?” Jacobsen immediately replied, “I absolutely think so.”
“Four Seasons,” Jacobsen said of Symphony 15’s 18th Century companion piece, “has all the virtuosic [elements of concertos] but also the beauty [and] the soulful”
Simone Porter will be the violin soloist in the Vivaldi, which is written as four separate concertos; Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, of course.
“She’s one of the greatest,” Jacobsen said of this long time friend and frequent musical collaborator. “She’s truly one of the unique younger violinists…Her playing is virtuosic and soulful. I think she’s someone who will continue and be one of the great soloists. It’s a dark sound and very unique. There’s a color in her sound that stands out among all the great violinists…artistically she’s a force to be reckoned with.”
“If you listen to her what I get is a color that is particularly attuned to her as a human being. It comes across as a darker sound; something that she has really crafted. She’s going for something that truly expresses what she is imagining the instrument can sound like [not “just a loud bright violin sound”].
“For the Vivaldi she’ll have a particularly beautiful way to paint each color that happens in each piece.”
So why the title “Echoes and Icons”? Vivaldi and Glass are both icons in the pantheon of great composers, Jacobsen pointed out. “Vivaldi’s piece has…for the last 300 years…been influencing others….[and] Phillip Glass…we’re going to see how his music evolves and echoes.” “And Abraham Lincoln, one of the most influential humans in history, period! His words are timely and powerful and he’s just one of the most powerful influences and we’ll continue to quote him over time.”
What would Jacobsen want people to know before attending? “The wow of the Vivaldi and the experience of how someone like Glass will think about the words of Abraham Lincoln.”
“Echoes and Icons”
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons & Philip Glass’s Lincoln Symphony
Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
Simone Porter, violin
Davóne Tines, bass-baritone
Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Philip Glass: Symphony No. 15, “Lincoln”
7:30 p.m., Fri., Sept. 25, Ferguson Center for the Arts, Newport News
2:30 p.m., Sun., Sept. 27, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach
757-892-6366