This week I swapped my Boston Symphony Orchestra ticket from Thursday to Saturday, also swapping sides of the balcony. I usually sit over the violins, but this evening I sat over the cellos, giving me an open view to the percussion section. Percussionists were in full force tonight, with five players for Australian composer Brett Dean's trumpet concerto, Dramatis Personae, and six players for Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.
Andris Nelsons opened the concert with Tchaikovsky's overture-fantasy Hamlet, which had thematic links to the other works. The middle movement of Dean's concerto is entitled 'Soliloquy', and Stravinsky's ballet score ends with the self-sacrificial death of a young maiden (Ophelia).
Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger played the 2013 world premiere of Dramatis Personae in Austria, and has since played the local premieres in England, Germany, and now Boston. The first movement, 'Fall of a Superhero', pits the soloist against his arch-enemy, the orchestra. The orchestra wins. The entire concerto is an exploration of sound textures: at one point the timpanist places an upside-down cymbal on his kettledrum and beats the cymbal while pumping the pitch pedal. The third movement, 'The Accidental Revolutionary', shows the composer's sense of humor; the finale sounds like a Salvation Army band playing the march from Symphonie fantastique on a runway, tying up air traffic for the entire northeast corridor.
The Rite of Spring lets two timpanists give nine kettledrums a good thumping. I'm glad I had a direct sightline to the rhythmic display.
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