When I was a kid, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf was among the 15 or so albums my parents owned – along with stuff by Burt Bacharach, Peter, Paul and Mary, and oddball soundtracks such as The War of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd. I remember hearing the almost unbearably beautiful violin theme of Wolf for the first time, and then hearing it again and again.
When I go to the Symphony, I find myself (or do I lose myself?) in a crowd of well-dressed strangers; and when I sit down to the music, I somehow find myself focused just as much on the shaded audience as the spot-lit orchestra. The amazing spectacle of the instrumentalists tearing into their work is only a surrogate for the subjective imagery the music creates in my head. Indeed, we are seeing the music and at the same time listening to what we watch. The inconvenient barriers between the senses melt away. Despite all the “squares” that may frequent the Symphony, the experience of going is as close to an acid trip as you can get without dropping something funny on your tongue.
The difference between a good instrumentalist and a great one – for some reason, I’m phrasing it here in the second person – is the difference between extolling your own virtues as a virtuoso and being so true to a symphony that you seem to be channeling it. Or, better yet, struck by its lightning. There is something spellbinding about the way a violinist carves violently – gorgeously – into the stillness, creating a sound so beautiful it’s as though he cut the air open and let perfection spill out. Such a rare talent is Gil Shaham.
It would be no exaggeration to say that Shaham’s playing on Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 absolutely rocked the house at Powell Symphony Hall last Saturday. Even those symphony-resisters out there– and I’ve occasionally been among their number (I’m a bit closer to the “would you please pass the jelly?” guy than the chauffer who asks for Grey Poupon) – could not help but feel as though they were on some aural, if button-down, equivalent of a thrill ride, strapped into their balcony seats for the breathtaking duration. In the hands of hacks, great composers wear the disguise of mediocrity. Here, Prokofiev was easily recognizable as one of the most distinctive melodists in all of classical music. Shaham was simply the man in front of the man behind the music. That sort of clarity is nothing short of genius.
Jordan Oakes is a local journalist who has written for publications such as St. Louis Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor. He has strong opinions that begin to atrophy if he doesn't exercise his right to express them. Tune in every Wednesday for another installment of Mediatribe - and if you missed last week's post, click here.
