February 23rd, 2022, Taylor Cline
Virtual concerts, which might have seemed insane to hear 3 years ago, have become a very popular and sometimes necessary form of listening that brings everyone together amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. These online symphonies push the limits of emotion and feeling through a screen while also showcasing the talent of many performing artists. This week I had the honor of listening to the University of Michigan’s Symphony Orchestra.
The concert opened with a piece entitled Songs of the Ice. This work brought you all over the place; from fast to slow, nearly silent to extremely powerful, and from one to all. The peaceful, majestic feeling that this work conveys sounded like the feeling of an enchanted forest at sunrise with the sun shining through the leaves. The work teleports the listener out of Hill auditorium and into this fantasy realm by conveying an astounding amount of emotion and vibrance through the music. The piece seems to tell a story from the first to the last note. The uplifting fantasy-feeling tone sets the mood for the night in a short amount of time. Immediately following the closing note, the entirety of the crowd broke out in thunderous applause
The second piece of the night, Violin Concerto (1905), completely flipped the mood of the show by going very dark, mysterious, and almost cold sounding. The entirety of this piece, though, was stolen by Arianna Dotto on violin. She was a featured soloist for the night who absolutely nailed every aspect of her performance. With the drastic dynamic changes, tempo changes, and even just the emotion behind it, you could tell that she was giving it her all and more. The symphony played an amazing supporting role for Dotto; knowing exactly when to quiet down, and when to come in strong and give the work its full rich sound. This piece began moving fast but with a dark mysterious sound and moving to the same tone but in a very slow tempo, emphasizing the note choice of the composer. This section is where Dotto was truly able to shine, with long flowing solos having minimal members of the orchestra playing pianissimo in the background and her confident stature and tone, this section of the piece truly shined. Concluding the adagio portion of the piece, a final allegro section tied up all of the loose mysterious ends and completely brought the listener full circle.
Finally, in conclusion for the night, the University of Michigan symphony performed an impeccable rendition of Symphony No.4 “The Inextinguishable” (1916). This piece tied together all of the previous pieces by capturing what to me felt like exactly what the essence of a symphony itself encapsulates. The dedication and hard work of the whole ensemble appeared in the spotlight while the piece flowed on through tempos both fast and slow.
The entirety of this show pushed the idea of teleporting this listener into an all-new area for each song. Every piece had a completely different mood that added drastically to this affect. The conductor did an impressive job summoning the emotions out of all of the performers and you could feel, even through the screen, how each and every performer was giving it their all and more. Because of this, it led to an astounding performance.
