PPO VI: Romantic Brahms

Violinist Odin Rathnam

Featuring:

Odin Rathnam, violin

Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra

Olivier Ochanine, conductor

Programme:

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

Richard Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde

Claude Debussy Clair de Lune from Suite bergamasque

Johannes Brahms Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77

The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra welcomed violinist Odin Rathnam during their Romantic Brahms concert held at the Meralco Theater. For this evening, the orchestra led by its principal conductor and music director Olivier Ochanine, prepared a lineup that brought out the romantic in everyone.

The first two pieces performed that night were inspired by tales of ill-fated lovers. First was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture which was based on the William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the second one was Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from the opera Tristan und Isolde. This opera was inspired by Gottfried von Strassburg’s tale of Tristan which was adapted from the Tristan and Iseult legend. The Tchaikovsky really set the mood for the night as Ochanine deftly weaved the themes, making the violent section of the Montagues and Capulets seem as if swords were actually clashing before things eventually lead to the climax of the extremely popular romance theme. But everybody knows how Romeo and Juliet ends and the music reflected that, with a funeral march almost at the very end before the romance theme took over telling everyone that love conquers all, even death. While the Tchaikovsky piece was more accessible and familiar, Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod was more esoteric. I think that one had to know what a Tristan chord is and to put it into context on how revolutionary that ambiguous chord was at the time of the work’s premiere to fully appreciate the music far beyond of what one just hears. But for me, the piece sounds incomplete without a soprano singing the Liebestod.

Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune from Suite bergamasque was a nice and fitting, late addition to the evening but the theater’s acoustic inadequacies didn’t bring out the brilliance of the piece’s orchestration by André Caplet. The beauty of the melody as it gets passed on from one solo instrument to another was lost in the dryness of the theater.

Odin Rathnam and conductor Olivier Ochanine

Then, it was time for Odin Rathnam to take to the stage with Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77. Odin, an imposing figure, made a full sized violin look like a ¾ model in his hands. And probably also because of this, it looked like he made easy work of the Brahms concerto which is known as one of the war horses in a violinist’s repertoire. And his performance of this concerto gave me another opportunity to deconstruct the work’s complex first movement. As expected, the audience seeing how Odin made a concerto performance look like a walk in the park, showered him with thunderous applause which were actually calls for him to do an encore. And Odin obliged with the Sarabande from Violin Partita No.2 in D minor, BWV 1004 by Johann Sebastian Bach and the Allegro from Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Op. 7 by Francesco Maria Veracini.

During the meet and greet after the concert, I asked Odin if he performed with the now infamous Bartolomeo Calvarola violin, worth around $100,000 that he had lost (and was eventually recovered) in a bar almost a decade back. He said in good humor that he brought a different and less inexpensive violin with him this time. But the way he sounded that night didn’t betray any signs that he played with a lesser valued instrument.