Prokofiev, Ravel, McFerrin, and Beethoven: Bobby McFerrin, cond. and vocalist, Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 28.04.2007 (BJ)

 

It was fascinating to compare the traditional symphonic segments of this program with the half-hour or so of improvisations that Bobby McFerrin treated us to. As is often the case when musicians closely associated with jazz, folk music, or other genres tackle what for want of a better word we call “serious” or “classical” music, they tend to pay so much respect to its supposedly formal traditions that they end by sounding more Catholic than the Pope (or more capitalistic than converts from communism). One typical example was Benny Goodman, whose Mozart, though beautifully executed, was strait-laced in the extreme.

When Chick Corea, a few years ago, recorded some Mozart piano concertos, the result was tedious in exactly the same way. The interesting thing, however, was that the orchestra that partnered him was conducted by Bobby McFerrin–who showed himself to be confidently at home in the classical tradition, rather than, like his soloist, visiting from afar. While McFerrin maintains his connections with musics across the stylistic board, he remains a perfectly adept–if visually somewhat unconventional–symphonic conductor, and the pieces that began and ended his evening with the Seattle Symphony were performed with more than ordinary taste and style. Indeed, McFerrin earned especial approval by observing all the two composers’ indicated  repeats, even in the da capo of the minuet in Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony, where many fully paid-up members of the Historically Informed Performance conducting elite are accustomed to cut and run. The amusing part of his approach, however, was the degree to which he stuck to concepts that might these days be termed old-fashioned. An attempt by members of the audience to applaud after the first movement of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony was nipped in the bud by a firm admonitory wave of the hand. And McFerrin had actually reseated the orchestra, reverting to the essentially 20th-century organization with all the violins on the audience’s left and the cellos and basses on the right, in preference to the more genuinely traditional left-right split of the violins now practiced by the Seattle Symphony and other major orchestras.

I thought the Beethoven a shade coarse in texture, and there were moments, for example under the (beautifully played) horn parts in the central trio of the minuet, where the line of the lower strings could with advantage have been more clearly projected. But, except for an arguably sluggish interpretation of the composer’s “Allegro vivace con brio” marking for the first movement, this was a thoroughly enjoyable reading of the work, capturing the wit of the not-very-slow movement and the grace of the minuet, and at once powerful and athletic in the finale. The Prokofiev, meanwhile, was judiciously paced throughout, allowing the subordinate theme of the first movement in particular the time it needed to realize the composer’s requested “eleganza,” and the playing here had more refinement than in the Beethoven.

But in any case all this, together with a polished but slightly stiff performance of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, seemed rather old-hat in comparison with McFerrin’s vocal (and corporeal) improvisations. His range of at least four octaves is produced with uncanny clarity and accuracy of pitch, sounding more like the product of a chamber organ than like any merely human expression. As a man, moreover, he simply exudes good humor, by the exercise of which he was able to dragoon this eminently respectable audience into joining in with a variety of lusty vocal exclamations. At first some resonant and rhythmic thumps on the McFerrin chest were the only additions to the McFerrin voice, but gradually audience participation and some pretty fancy footwork were added to the mix. One number encompassed (my wife assured me) the entire soundtrack of The Wizard of Oz in ten hilarious minutes, and Ave Maria, with McFerrin supplying the accompaniment to a somewhat speculative audience projection of the tune, had to be heard to be believed. It was all great fun, and a more than welcome diversification of the sometimes stuffy atmosphere of the standard symphony concert.

 

Bernard Jacobson