National orchestra delivers solid performance

Guest conductor leads review of European masters

St. Joseph’s Church rang with the music of the 19th century on Friday evening. The Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra delivered a distinguished performance of European masters conducted by one of Poland’s best-known conductors, Jozef Wilkomirski. In the second half of the program the LNSO was accompanied by Polish organist Andrzej Bialko.

The capacity crowd could not have been more appreciative.

The concert began with the overture from the opera Paria, composed by the 19th-century Polish composer Stanislaw Moniuszko. It has a nice, easy-going melody, though somewhat reminiscent of movie soundtracks from the 1950s. Moniuszko is little-known internationally, but in Poland he is renowned for his revolutionary operas and romantic songs based on popular poems.

The second piece was quite different from the first ­ not easy to listen to given its lack of melody, but very interesting. French composer Francis Poulenc wrote the piece for organ, strings and timpani in 1938. The contemporary composer’s style was best described in the concert program as a “journey that ranges between Bach and the fairground.”

Poulenc incorporated different styles of organ music, many which sound familiar at first, only to be completely changed into something new a few beats later. The combination of instruments was also very rare. In the Concerto for Organ, String and Timpani, the rhythm changes constantly as does the style ­ varying from baroque to liturgical to romantic to atonal music, and then back to baroque.

The final and most challenging part of the program was the 45-minute Symphony No. 4 in E Minor by Johannes Brahms. The melancholy symphony, composed in 1884-85, is a true masterpiece. The final Allegro Energico seemed to have been the most difficult passage to perform ­ a fascinating composition of an eight-tone melody, varied 30 times.

Considering that the LNSO is only three years old, the concert was extraordinary. The overall performance was harmonic, the wind instruments didn’t get too carried away by their natural volume, and the musicians followed the different rhythms with discipline.

A few small mistakes could be heard, but the enthusiasm of the musicians spread to the audience, who applauded the performance. The program was interesting in its makeup, but the pieces would have been better served with a pipe organ, rather than the electric one used.

Wilkomirski turned the performance into a special event. He has spent 50 years conducting orchestras across the world. One of the LNSO’s own conductors, Wojcieh Czepiel, was a student of Wilkomirski and brought the conductor to Lebanon for this performance.

Wilkomirski is a perfectionist ­ and was of course not free of criticism when talking about the orchestra and the performance last Friday.

“The most important thing (for) an orchestra is its sound,” he said. “The sound is elaborated over many, many years.”

Wilkomirski founded an orchestra in southern Poland 24 years ago.

“After five, 10, even 15 years I was still not happy with the sound,” he said. “Now I can say that the orchestra is becoming quite good.”

To have tradition and continuity ­ what he identified as two essentials for quality sound ­ is easier said than done. Lebanese orchestra members are mostly young, inexperienced musicians from across the world: Ukrainians, Rumanians, Polish, Armenian and Lebanese work together, and all of them bring techniques from different music schools. Also, there is a great fluctuation of musicians, in an area where continuity is so important.

“All these factors make the work particularly difficult,” said Wilkomirski, who has worked with the musicians for just five rehearsals. He added that national particularities are a big challenge, not only for young musicians but also for world-famous conductors ­ even Germany’s Herbert von Karajan.

“He’s my idol,” Wilkomirski admitted, “and he knew how to perform Beethoven. However, once I saw him on TV conducting Tchaikovsky, and I switched it off because it was so bad.”

Looking back, Wilkomirski said he decided that Brahms was probably too difficult for the young orchestra, though he chose the piece himself.

“When working with an orchestra, there has to be a long-term plan with increasing degrees of difficulty,” he said.

However, he said he loved the young musicians’ enthusiasm: “I could feel that they really wanted to play. They rehearsed a lot on their own and worked in the group with great concentration. And these are the best preconditions of all.”

Certainly, the most striking part of the performance was their enthusiasm and will to perform such a difficult symphony, which made it worth listening to.

“For me, Brahms is a god,” Wilkomirski said. “He made the best symphonies in the world.”

When talking about the Polish composer Moniuszko, Wilkomirski was far less patriotic: “He composed nice melodies and was important for the Polish people during a difficult period of time, but he is not one of the great geniuses.”

Much work lies ahead for the national orchestra but ­ as Friday’s fine performance attests ­ it is already greatly appreciated by its home audience.

Christina Foerch, Special to The Daily Star