ISO's season-ending toast: A fifth of Beethoven, a strong cocktail of Gershwin

ReMȁrkable results in Beethoven

He knew everybody was eager for the Beethoven Fifth, so Jun Mȁrkl kept his post-intermission remarks from the podium concise. The Japanese-German conductor, who becomes the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's music director in September, first had some thanks to offer. 

He praised the orchestra's members in both musical and personal terms. He wrapped up with compliments to the audience, making the obvious but necessary point that the best the ISO has to offer comes out only when there are people in the Hilbert Circle Theatre seats.

And there were plenty of them Friday night, as the 2023-24 Classical Series drew to a close. The program of works by Beethoven, George Gershwin, and British composer Hannah Kendall will be repeated at 5:30 this afternoon. 

A wise senior music critic once told me and a gaggle of newspaper newbies something designed to check any loftiness we might be cultivating when we write about major repertoire: "Remember there will always be people who are hearing Beethoven's Fifth for the first time." I'm not surprised there seem to have been a fair number of those at the Circle last night, and I will try to avoid being lofty here.

If I point out a few details that impressed me about the performance Mȁrkl conducted, I feel confident that all those attending were probably impressed by them too. The sound was marvelous in all respects, full and balanced. For the past two weekends, the concerts the music director designate has conducted have positioned the orchestra on risers, a somewhat uncustomary practice here.

But acoustic subtleties, while beneficial, can't bring about a desirable musical effect without shared rapport between podium and players in a terraced seating arrangement, together with a well-regulated urgency in matters of communication. The Beethoven symphony had that from the first, with the famous first movement making sure its building blocks never receded from view. 

The second movement, Andante con moto, exemplified the conductor's carefully distributed tempo adjustments. They were never fussy, but rather helped slight variations in pace reinforce the significance of frequent changes in dynamics: The louds and softs had something to say besides the starkest of contrasts. The gentle cast of the music thus had an undercurrent of restlessness, suiting the expressive unity of the whole work. (Though I'm not one to tut-tut applause between movements, this is a case of preferring silence after that famous first movement to permit appreciation of its links to what follows.)

The scherzo (third movement) restored and extended the electrifying novelty of the Beethoven Fifth when it was new in 1808. We can still hear that today in performances like the ISO's. To indulge briefly in the vernacular, the cellos and basses really rocked the Trio. The spooky suspense of the scherzo's main section got the outright assertiveness of the Trio set in stark relief against it. ISO patrons have not often enjoyed the vigor and richness of tone the current lower strings are capable of. 

In consequence, the linked finale exploded in splendor, its impact spread high and deep with the addition of piccolo, contrabassoon and three trombones. The triumphant feeling had unceasing consistency, and the balance of forces that had been notable from the first made good use of a broader canvas. That's essential for this music to deliver on the promise of ta-ta-ta-DAH that has made that figure iconic among the public at large, even those unaccustomed to classical concerts.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet, intuitive Gershwinite

Before intermission, the chance to savor Gershwin's Concerto in F in a mainstream classical program was enhanced by the presence of French-American pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet to offer a dashing interpretation of the solo role. Thibaudet's remarks in the pre-concert Words on Music gave ample testimony to his admiration for this concerto. 

Perhaps a reason for its conventional consignment to pops programming has less to do with Gershwin's immortality as a songwriter than to this simple fact: The Concerto in F does not sound even faintly European. Up until recently that meant it couldn't possibly belong in the company of "the three B's" and other composers whose art has shaped the classical tradition from the Old World.

Thibaudet and the orchestra exulted in Concerto in F's perpetually brash and sometimes wounded Americanness. For instance, there's a lovely theme in English horn and strings with piano commentary to which Thibaudet imparted a heavy, but never distorted, rubato feeling. That means he varied his phrases in timing so that they would deliberately work against the pulse of the other instruments. Yet it all hung together. That was among the touches that gave the performance an improvisatory aspect (which Thibaudet also celebrated in his Words on Music comments). 

As for the orchestra's contributions, their spirit can be summed up in Mark Grisez's juicy performance of the second-movement trumpet solos.  They had the right weight of melancholy and the longing for something better that's so rich in the tradition of American popular music. The finale sported the varied pep and curiosity of the big-city life the composer knew so well. The rhythmic acuity of soloist and orchestra was breathtaking, but was projected as if it were simply second nature to everybody involved.

Friday's performance featured, as I knew it would, the excitement of an immense gong crash at the finale climax, with the orchestra buildup stunningly halted. Inevitably, it brought to mind the biggest ISO gaffe in my memory: a pops performance of Concerto in F in the 1990s when the percussionist assigned to the tam-tam forgot to crest that moment and conductor Erich Kunzel's cue was met with a baffling silence, brief though it was. I hope that player has since found success in another field.

This weekend's concerts opened with the ISO's first performance of "The Spark Catchers," a ten-minute tone poem with literary inspiration behind it by Kendall, who now lives in the U.S. Its rhythmic jumpiness and zest heralded in the composer's own language the lively interplay of the Gershwin piece. Its main energy was moderated by a less tense middle section that wove in the figuration and momentum of the main material, whose very sparkiness lit up the ensemble in preparation for the masterpieces to come. 

My prediction: Mȁrkl's podium invitation for the audience to come back next season is certain to be accepted by new and old fans alike.