HOMAGE TO SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS

Czech Philharmonic

Rudolfinum

October 8

Gardiner led a heartfelt tribute to his colleague.

According to no less than an authority than Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Czech music had no better advocate and friend than Sir Charles Mackerras. “More than any other individual, he’s the reason every opera house in the world wants to do Janáček now,” Gardiner told a standing-room only crowd that turned out to honor Mackerras at the Rudolfinum Friday night.

Czech music fan Mackerras.

A celebrated conductor who fell in love with Czech music while studying in Prague in the late 1940s, Mackerras died in London in July, at the age of 84. A full list of the concerts, recordings and musical scholarship he devoted to promulgating the Czech canon would fill pages – and in fact did in Friday’s program book. Mackerras was above all a Janáček enthusiast. Years later, recalling the first time he heard Kaťa Kabanova, at the National Theater in Prague, he said, “That was an incredible experience...it changed my life.”

The tribute program that Gardiner conducted was a sampler of the five major Czech composers: Dvořák, Smetana, Suk, Martinů and Janáček. It followed Mackerras’ tastes, which was a treat. Typically, the latter three get only minor or occasional space on programs, with the lion’s share of time and energy devoted to Smetana and Dvořák. That was reversed, to great effect.

The concert opened with Dvořák’s Carnival overture, followed by the “Šarká” section from Smetana’s Má vlast (My country). Gardiner cranked up both to maximum volume, leaning heavily on the percussion to infuse them with energy and exuberance. There was only one rehearsal for the performance, and it showed most in these two pieces, which were a bit ragged around the edges and almost too boisterous at times.

In his remarks to the audience – after apologizing that he couldn’t speak in Czech, as Maestro Mackerras did – Gardiner allowed that his preferences are for the pastoral strains in Czech music. That was evident in the third selection, Suk’s Fairy Tale (a suite from his music for the play Radúz and Mahulena). Gardiner slowed down the tempo and drew some very nice colors and nuances from the orchestra, aided by fine solo work from violinist Miroslav Vilímec.

Martinů’s Symphony No. 6 (Fantaisies symphoniques) is a delightful piece of music, another of his inventive mash-ups of classical techniques and modern sounds. It threatened to run away from Gardiner a couple times, but he kept a nice balance, opening up the strings and horns in particular and giving them a chance to breathe.

The concluding work, the finale from Janáček’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen, was Gardiner’s finest moment. He showed a great feel for the music, which flowed like a forest brook under his baton, rippling and shimmering, evoking the sweet, poignant atmosphere of the opera. It was hard to hear baritone Ivan Kusnjer at times, at least in the balcony, but that was only a minor distraction in what was otherwise a soaring rendering of an unabashedly emotional selection.

And speaking of emotional, the orchestra was clearly playing from its collective heart, with unusual warmth and enthusiasm. It was wonderful to hear. Equally touching were the memories that viola player Jaroslav Ponděliček shared with the audience, recalling how Mackerras would still be going strong when the orchestra members were worn out from a full day of rehearsal, prompting them to call him “nezničitelný” (indestructible).

During rehearsals with the orchestra last year, Ponděliček said, Mackerras told several members of the ensemble, “This is the last time.” Was he being wistful, or did he have a premonition? No one knows. “It’s a haunting feeling,” Ponděliček said. “And tonight it’s too late, he can’t hear us anymore. Or can he?”

DAVID ORLOWSKY TRIO

Spanish Synagogue

October 7

Defying definition: Popp, Orlowsky and Dohrmann.

Klezmer music is an incredibly elastic form that can be stretched to accommodate a wide range of other genres, as this very talented German trio demonstrated last night. Ranging across classical, jazz, pop and traditional Eastern European music, they play a bright, catchy synthesis of sounds that’s hard to classify – and they’re proud of it.

“A lot of people who come to our concerts say, ‘We don’t know where to put your music,’” a talkative David Orlowsky said early in the first set. “We call it chamber world music, with more emphasis on the ‘chamber’ part.”

That means a lot of soft passages, delicate solos and rhythm changes and breaks that demand careful listening. The band can open up and swing when it wants to, especially on a piece like Goldfinger, a take on the James Bond soundtrack that employs New Orleans-style jazz riffs. But the trio’s tastes, and talents, run in a more sophisticated vein: lay down a melody, build it one instrument at a time, develop the complexity, pick up the tempo, take it to a peak and then snap the whole business to a sudden stop for a couple beats before dropping the song back to a soft purr.

It takes good musicians to pull this off, and this threesome has both the chops and the pedigree. Classically trained guitarist Jens-Uwe Popp, who draws some interesting sounds from his instrument by occasionally rubbing rather than strumming the strings, played for many years with Giora Feidman, giving the trio a solid klezmer grounding. Contrabassist Florian Dohrmann studied with the great German bass player Dieter Ilg, and it sounds like it; he plays with intelligence and style, anchoring the sound with solid, shifting rhythms layered with tasty jazz licks. If his pieces last night were any indication, Dohrmann is also a pretty nifty songwriter.

Orlowsky is the Kenny G of klezmer. He’ll bend an occasional note or end a fast-paced piece with a squawk, but mostly he plays smooth and sweet, with a sound that flows from his clarinet like melted butter. In the band’s publicity photos, Orlowsky is dressed in all-black with a tuque, like some street gang tough. But in person he comes across more like a choir boy, personable and chatty, explaining all the song titles to the audience in perfect English.

Most of the music was from the band’s new release Nessiah, with a few songs from earlier albums and some traditional klezmer in the mix. The audience preferred uptempo numbers like Gra and Balkanplatte, but musically the most interesting selections were those that allowed the band to showcase their songwriting and solo performance talents, like the triptych Durch Nacht und Wind/Nessiah/Aer.

And the setting was inspired – not just for the natural fit of klezmer music in a synagogue, but the clarity of an acoustic trio in the space, and the incredibly rich, ornate interior, a perfect visual complement to the sound. The only off-note was the glaring sponsor billboards mounted on either side of the band. Those are no doubt contractually obligated, but they seemed like a crass intrusion on some otherwise magical moments. Close your eyes, however, and you were transported to some lovely places.