A Voyage Into Deep Space with the Charlotte Symphony
May 20, 2024
By Lawrence Toppman
My favorite moments of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra’s (CSO) last concert of the 2023-24 Classical Series were the final 30 seconds.
The offstage women’s voices in the “Neptune” section of “The Planets” had died away Saturday, but guest conductor William Eddins stood statue-still on the Belk Theater podium. And stood. And stood some more. Nobody in Belk Theater dropped a beer cup or snapped a photo or even spoke. Finally, when he felt we’d digested the cosmic trip we’d just taken, he turned around. Applause rained down.
“The Planets” capped an evening begun by two composers with North Carolina ties, following Jeremy Lamb’s “A Ride on ‘Oumuamua” and Caroline Shaw’s “Observatory.” Holst’s suite was the crowd-pleaser, designed to woo even spectators who had first heard the symphony at last weekend’s MERGE concert and ventured into the mainstream. (I’m told some did.) Lamb’s 12-minute piece was the heart-warmer, Shaw’s 20-minute view of deep space the ear-opener.
You felt, hearing all three, that you’d been somewhere new. Eddins even re-thought tempos for “The Planets.” He let “Mars” build gracefully to its monumental force and gave “Venus” flowing beauty, rather than languid allure. “Jupiter,” which Holst subtitled “The Bringer of Jollity,” started at a ponderous Falstaffian waddle but soon made merry with more vigor.
The sentimental favorite of the evening and a satisfying aural trip came from Lamb, who sits in the cello section of the CSO. ‘Oumuamua, a Hawaiian word roughly meaning “scout,” became the first interstellar object detected passing through our solar system.
Its 2017 visit inspired Lamb to write a piece for string trio, which he expanded for full string orchestra. His thoughtful comments in the online program book – sadly, inevitably too small to read easily on any cellphone – explained how the music’s flow might reflect the sensations of someone riding this object. (Or, perhaps, of the object itself; some people feel an otherworldly entity created it.)
The strings played attractively in unison, pulsed tremulously – messages from space? – and played contrasting rhythms in the Philip Glass manner, but more gently. Not surprisingly, the middle section held a long-breathed melody for Lamb’s instrument, played tenderly by principal cellist Jonathan Lewis. We stopped in mid-air, so to speak, as ‘Oumuamua bid farewell.
The Greenville-born Shaw’s quasi-whimsical, perhaps intentionally unclear comments in that same guide didn’t help much with “Observatory.” But I didn’t need them. After three titanic chords, she ambled amiably around the sonic universe, from a semi-march episode to solos by piano, viola and clarinet to three- and four-note themes tossed gracefully around the orchestra.
Bits of music from famous composers — a Brandenburg Concerto, Sibelius’ Second Symphony — reminded me that NASA launched the space probe “Voyager” in 1977, bearing music from around the world that extraterrestrials might someday hear (including a different Brandenburg Concerto). It’s now the counterpart to ‘Oumuamua, the human-made object farthest from Earth, so perhaps Shaw’s piece might be a quirky bookend to Lamb’s.
Holst wasn’t thinking of actual planets, or course, but of astrological significance. His Mars was the Bringer of War, his Mercury the Winged Messenger. Eddins freshened our understanding of each one, with an especially poignant Saturn – the Bringer of Old Age – as the weightiest section, almost stopping time in spots.
Eddins’ slightly swift tempos for Neptune (the Mystic) sent the voices of the Charlotte Master Chorale sailing rather than floating into space at the end. Then came the profound, prolonged silence I so often wish for at the end of a satisfying concert but so seldom get.