Beethoven, Symphony No 9:  Elizabeth Stoyanovich, cond., soloists, Bremerton Symphony Orchestra and Concert Chorale, Olympic College Chamber Choir,  Bremerton Performing Arts Center, Bremerton, WA, 12.5.2007 (BJ)

Sometimes–for example, when you think of comparing the Founding Fathers of the United States with the current president–it is hard to believe in progress. But consider this. It took seven years for Beethoven’s last and perhaps greatest symphony to make it onto the Paris concert stage, and even then it is said to have needed a full year of rehearsal before the conductor, François-Antoine Habeneck, was able to coax a satisfactory performance out of his Paris Conservatoire orchestra. A little short of two centuries later, the concert conducted on 12 May by Elizabeth Stoyanovich in Bremerton–not exactly a world capital of music on the Parisian scale–showed that it is now possible for 60 amateur instrumentalists and a slightly larger group of amateur choral singers to tackle this cruelly taxing score and produce a performance of high conviction and considerable splendor.

Why, you may wonder, do I burden the columns of an international web-site with matters of what might be called parochial interest? I do so because of a firm belief that musical life is pyramidal: you cannot have a healthy level of activity at the top of the heap without a healthy and widespread current of activity at more modest levels. This performance wasn’t perfect–though in any case I don’t think I’ve ever heard a perfect performance of the Ninth, and I’m not sure I should like it if I did: the work demands a certain sense of triumph over adversity to make its cosmic impact–but it was consistently serious, convincing in taste and style, often thrilling, and executed with a remarkable degree of all-round skill.

Elizabeth Stoyanovich, whose training included studies with Leonard Bernstein and at Tanglewood, conducted with all the assurance I have come to expect of her over the past two seasons. Indeed, she got a number of things right that I have heard some very famous conductors get wrong, such as the tempo relation between the initial statements of the Adagio and Andante themes in the slow movement, where moreover the violins, even if not always perfectly unanimous in intonation, avoided the vulgarity that can afflict  excessively impassioned projection of their decorative excursions. The woodwinds coped wonderfully with the relentless demands of their parts, as did the brass section, with particularly telling and nearly flawless contributions from the horns. And the timpanist, Gary Dahl, was exemplary throughout, playing his seditious little three-note exclamations in the scherzo vividly yet without the aggression that sometimes undermines clarity of pitch.

The vocal soloists got the finale under way in fine fashion. One forgivable nervous moment apart, bass Andrew Parks delivered his initial summons to action with impressive authority and well-focused tone, and managed the long phrase on “und freudenvollere” commendably in one breath, which certain more eminent singers have been known not to attempt. The tenor, Wesley Rogers, was equally impressive in timbre and conscientious in observing the momentary silences between the notes of his military march, and soprano Janeanne Houston and mezzo Lori Summers did well with their less extensive parts, Ms. Houston rising quite cleanly to her exposed top B natural near the end. Meanwhile the combined forces of the orchestra’s Concert Chorale and the Chamber Choir of the nearby Olympic College, trained respectively by LeeAnne Campos and Teresa Fraser, sang with gusto and a good deal of expressive power. There were a few words, such as “Kuss,” that could have benefitted from more characterful enunciation. But for the most part this was excellent choral singing, and in the 3/2 Andante maestoso on the words “Seid umschlungen, Millionen,” where Beethoven writes almost sadistically high notes for the basses, the male voices avoided any apparent sense of the strain that can make this passage sound painfully strangulated. Altogether, in a work where Schiller and Beethoven hymn the fellowship of all humanity, Bremerton’s stalwart musicians showed themselves fully worthy brothers and sisters of those who have scaled Beethoven’s symphonic peak around the world and over the years.

Bernard Jacobson