A "Caribbean" Premiere
Mystical Trinidad

Thursday, March 17, 2005
By Paul M. Somers

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Vassily Sinaisky (conductor), Hilary Hahn (violin). Stewart Goodyear: Caribbiana (premiere), Barber: Violin Concerto, op. 14; Rachmaninoff: Symphony no. 2 in E minor, op. 27. Prudential Hall, Newark.

The protean Stewart Goodyear, already well-known for his improvised cadenzas as a piano soloist, has now begun to put himself forward as a composer. The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's "Sound Investment" program commissioned him for a work using substantial forces. The title, [Caribbiana,] itself led to a new experience for most listeners, for Goodyear's experience of Trinidad is far from the carnival atmosphere most northeastern Americans (and that includes the composer's native Canada) legitimately have as a reconception - "Caribbiana" is, after all, an August calypso festival.

But Goodyear's work is mostly mysterious, evoking nature far more often than dance. In passage after passage we are immersed in a magic world in which darkness is punctuated by woodwind solos or glittering swatches of piano and glockenspiel color. Yes, dance music is heard in snatches, but it is more like a distant intrusion into the primeval atmosphere of the island's Asa Wright Nature Reserve, where many of Goodyear's childhood memories reside.

Those wondering what happened to the kind of Latin influence we have come to expect since the emergence of that music into our concert halls during the past decade, understandably miscalculated Goodyear's intentions. For one thing, island music is a lot different from that of Central and South America. But what Goodyear is telling us in this work is that there is something more rooted in nature on the island than is made obvious by those who focus more on folk-dance as an ethnic expression. When Goodyear finally gets to dancing in the final section of his eleven-minute tone poem, the dance has emerged from a primal mystery which gives it depth of a different kind than that which informs most Latin dance-based music we hear. At first I thought it was a simple matter of Goodyear himself miscalculating the title and thus creating an unmet expectation. But upon further consideration it seems to me that perhaps the title itself is an opening to consider a new way of perceiving the fullness of the word "Carribbiana."

Conductor Vassily Sinaisky had the tone poem down completely. A new American work was something to be given full value, not blown off as some other foreign guest conductors might do. The orchestra, though themselves perhaps baffled by the unmet stylistic expectation, played what Goodyear had written with care and musicality.

When reviewing Hilary Hahn this writer is always tempted to extremes - the reviewer's sin of backing oneself into a corner. Words like "most" or "best" come so naturally that it takes some discipline to remember that there are other wonderful violinists practicing the art who communicate at a high level. After all, just among soloists with the NJSO I'll never forget Midori playing the Berg Concerto or Gil Shaham just last season playing the Dvorák. But then here came Ms. Hahn to play that most sublime of all violin concerti, that of Samuel Barber. She plays as if radiating an inner light. Perhaps it is the Quaker aura in Philadelphia where she studied. But there was a rare radiance to her tone and a level of expression to her sense of not only the details of phrasing but of the long line of the whole work. The audience was gathered in from the first note. Even with raw weather outside, there was a silence in Prudential Hall that was so profound that it almost completely eradicated the usual volley of soft-passage and between-movement coughs. The slow movement was hands down the most moving of any concerto by any player so far in my experience. Of course the future might bring something even more astonishing, but I can happily await that future while remembering the complete hush of the audience - rather like a Quaker meeting with a violinist present.

Of course Ms. Hahn made more of the blistering *perpetual motion finale than sheer technical display. This was musical expression as the reason for technique: shapely, accurate, and with an uncompromising tempo.

Conductor Sinaisky, whether he knew the American concerto already or not, was very sensitive to both music and soloist. The rchestra, which is certainly familiar with the work, reached into its depths as certainly as Ms. Hahn, not merely supporting her but joining her in creating a moving experience.

Cheers immediately erupted as the audience stood as one. Hahn, having been brought back to the stage several times, put her violin in place to play an encore. Those who have experienced her before, knew it would be Bach, and it was: the Allegro from the Sonata no. 3.

The audience loved Sinaisky's way with Rachmaninoff's Symphony no. 2. They applauded at the conclusion of the lengthy work after having already audibly responded to both the beginning and end of the well-known *"Allegro molto scherzo."

The controversy was within the orchestra, several of whom approached me to voice their opinions. Some loved Sinaisky's classical approach in which the score took on a Mendelssohnian leanness in which the composer's most romantic impulses were allowed their say but within clearly set bounds. Others missed the bath in rubato-filled emotionalism, wondering if the conductor was a true Russian.

It was a rip-roaring performance, even lacking the schmalz. I understood where the rubato-loving contingent was coming from, but it was refreshing to hear the classical forms emerge so clearly from within the emotive superstructure.

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