Photo provided Columbus Indiana Philharmonic Artistic Director David Bowden conducts during Saturday’s Beethoven-themed concert.
David Bowden, artistic director of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic and the Philharmonic Chorus is in his 35th and ultimate year with the orchestra and chorus. His mission statement from the very beginning was to serve music.
“It is not to serve me” he stated Saturday at the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic’s concert titled “Joy! Beethoven’s Ninth.” It is not to serve the orchestra, or the board, it is not even to serve you the audience, he told the crowd.
”It is to serve music,” he said, and that is what the Columbus Philharmonic, the guest soloists, and the Columbus Philharmonic Chorus splendidly did in Saturday evening’s concert.
From the first time David Bowden entered the stage a true feeling of warmth, love, and respect came over the newly and beautifully renovated Columbus East Robbins Auditorium. The audience, the members of the Philharmonic and the Philharmonic Chorus came together for a concert of music celebrating human relationships in joy, love and brotherhood.
Bowden made a dedication of the evening’s concert to the memory of Helen Haddad, his friend and a staunch supporter of all music and music education projects in the Columbus community.
The orchestra from the start of the evening showed a remarkably and beautiful basic quality of sound with a very significant balance between strings, winds and percussion. There was a consistency of precision throughout that can be attributed to the individual quality of the members of the orchestra and certainly to the vision and drive of the conductor.
Likewise, the Philharmonic Chorus was a cohesive group of singers dedicated to exquisite sound quality and unity with a rather amazing diction awareness. A quartet of soloists were Rachel Holland, soprano, Jane Dutton, mezzo-soprano, Joseph McBrayer, tenor, and Michael Hewitt, bass-baritone.
The concert began with “I was Glad” by C. Hubert Parry. A short work, celebratory and processional in style, has been performed in many settings. The soloists and chorus along with the orchestra gave the right spirit and enthusiasm warranted by the work.
“The Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music,” Bowden stated in his first concert in 1987 with the then-Pro Music Orchestra “demonstrates what I hoped will be the chief characteristic of my work here.” The work opens with a beautiful solo violin played with great sensitivity and nuance by Marisa Votapek, concert master accompanied by harp, muted strings, and horn in evocative expressions of the beauty of music.
The Ninth Symphony of Beethoven was first performed in 1824. It is said that Beethoven stood beside the conductor of the orchestra to give appropriate tempi. At that point, he was totally deaf. With his back to the audience he did not hear the tumultuous applause at the end of the performance until someone turned him around to see the enormous audience enthusiasm.
The first three movements are orchestral along with the opening of the fourth movement. The first movement is in typical sonata-allegro form. Beethoven at the end of his life used traditional forms but with different compositional techniques. There were basically two themes. The strings and winds were often in dialogue done very well by the strings and winds of the Philharmonic. The mood changes from heroic to a more lyrical part were very effectively done in this performance.
The second movement, a scherzo-trio movement, Bowden chose to take very fast. It was a right tempo for me and accomplished very effectively.
The Adagio reverses the order in which the works two principal tonal centers appear. In the first movement D and B-flat then in the adagio movement B-flat and D. The movement has an extended use of variation form, yet another typical form of the period. Beethoven treats the three variations uniquely and they are quietly and beautifully performed by the orchestra.
In order to effect a transition to this unique chorale finale, Beethoven relived the creative process – first terror and emptiness; then a survey of previous movements; the theme from the first movement; then a theme from the Adagio; and a suggestion of the folk song motive. Finally the forging of a new idea – the famous joy theme which is part hymn, part folk tune, and part symphonic subject. Beethoven then turned the symphony into song.
Song in this concert comes from the remarkable quartet of soloists. They are an extraordinary quartet of beautiful singers who blended along with the chorus in many interplays of quartet and chorus throughout. The Philharmonic Chorus was a highlight of the performance. It’s blend of voices was consistent and varied in the emotional demands of the text.
The choral balance with the interplay of chorus, soloists, and orchestra was in many ways amazing.
The movement begins with orchestral passages from the full orchestra. The themes mentioned above are interspersed with orchestral recitative passages coming to the folk song first in orchestra recitative then in full orchestral compliment which is then interrupted by the voice of the baritone soloist. He sings “O friends, not these sounds! Let us strike up something more pleasing. Joy – the joy of brothers.” These ideas are then taken by the soloists and chorus in the most dramatic and emotional setting of the “Ode to Joy” work of German poet Friedrich Schiller.
Schiller finally writes,
Do you fall on your knees, millions?
Do you sense the Creator, world?
Look for him beyond the canopy of the stars
Beyond stars he must dwell.
These works are so relevant today. Those suffering from political tyranny in the Ukraine and continued racial injustice are all brothers. This is the cry today. We must bond as brothers to create the joy intended by our creator. This message in the last movement of the Ninth Symphony is that strong message for today.
