Bruce Hodges attends the performance of Jennifer Higdon, Sibelius and Prokofiev at Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson Hall 27 October 2024
Since 2003 the trio Time for Three has caused a sensation in the classical music world. Its unique combo – two violins and double bass – has helped revolutionise concert programmes and sparked composers’ imaginations worldwide. One of these is Jennifer Higdon, who responded with Concerto 4-3, given its premiere in 2008 with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
In three movements, inspired by rivers that run through America’s Smoky Mountains, the work is tinged with appealing strains of bluegrass. Higdon includes many extended techniques, with which she evokes squeaking mice and electric guitars, among other effects – all of which the trio of strings reproduced with gusto and humour.
For their first encore, the threesome encouraged audience participation for a suave arrangement of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’, the 1967 song popularised by Frankie Valli. A second encore, ‘Joy’, was written by the trio (Nicolas Kendall and Charles Yang on violins, and Ranaan Meyer on double bass) and finished their set on a high note of bonhomie.
To open the afternoon, Osmo Vänskä and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra offered a stirring reading of Sibelius’s Finlandia, and after the interval came Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony. Both showed the sheer expertise of the Curtis string sections, as we’ve come to expect from this august institution.
BRUCE HODGES
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