?Daniel Hath­away

When we first saw the Akron Sym­pho­ny's pro­gramme for Schu­bert and Steel, we thought that the third Bran­den­burg Con­cer­to, the Schu­bert ninth sym­pho­ny and a con­cer­to for steel­pan and or­ches­tra might make for un­like­ly bed­fel­lows. Per­haps some sub­scribers thought so too, as the crowd in EJ Thomas Hall seemed a bit sparse last Sat­ur­day night. If so, they opt­ed out of a re­al­ly in­ter­est­ing evening, which def­i­nite­ly pro­vid­ed some­thing for every­one. Though the stage was full of mu­si­cians warm­ing up 20 min­utes be­fore cur­tain time, there were none to be seen as the clock struck eight and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Phil Walz pre­sent­ed a cer­tifi­cate of ap­pre­ci­a­tion to Made­line Bozzel­li, pres­i­dent of the Akron Sym­pho­ny Guild, who spon­sored this event. In­stead, the Bran­den­burg 3 or­ches­tra was off­stage tun­ing up and all came on­stage to­geth­er to take places near the front edge of the stage. Six cel­los sur­round­ed Christo­pher Wilkins on the podi­um, and the rest of the slight­ly re­duced string sec­tion stood to per­form. This clever bit of stage­craft helped send the sound out in­to the au­di­to­ri­um as well as mak­ing it very clear which in­stru­ments were play­ing which lines.

Bran­den­burg 3 splits vi­o­lins, vi­o­las and cel­los in­to three groups each, and as mo­tives were tossed back and forth among the nine sep­a­rate lines (the bass­es have a tenth to them­selves), it was as though some­thing like The Wave went back and forth through the en­sem­ble. The per­for­mance was quick-paced and full of vi­tal­i­ty that nev­er flagged yet nev­er felt pressed or hur­ried. Mae­stro Wilkins solved the eter­nal prob­lem of what to do with the sec­ond move­ment (two chords) by giv­ing con­cert­mas­ter Alan Bod­man a lit­tle ca­den­za be­fore rip­ping in­to the fi­nale. No harp­si­chord here, and none need­ed. Dur­ing the stage re­set­ting, Wilkins brought steel­pan vir­tu­oso Liam Teague out for a lit­tle demon­stra­tion and in­ter­view. "Are you a clas­si­cal guy?" Wilkins asked. Teague said he start­ed out play­ing recorder in high school, took up the steel­pan and lat­er learned to play vi­o­lin. He demon­strat­ed his so­pra­no steel­pan with a lit­tle Trinida­di­an ca­lyp­so. "Makes me want to take off my shoes," Wilkins said.

In Jan Bach's Con­cer­to for Steel­pan and Or­ches­tra that fol­lowed, Liam Teague showed him­self to be a first-class mu­si­cian. Not on­ly is he in com­plete con­trol of his in­stru­ment and its many pos­si­ble ef­fects, but he has a qui­et­ly el­e­gant way of play­ing it that be­lies the ob­vi­ous dif­fi­cul­ty of the con­cer­to's so­lo line. The piece be­gins with a lit­tle di­a­logue be­tween glock­en­spiel and steel­pan in which the soloist grad­u­al­ly breaks out of an in­creas­ing­ly colour­ful or­ches­tral tex­ture and be­gins to dom­i­nate the pro­ceed­ings. As the first move­ment (Re­flec­tions) moves along, the mu­sic be­comes more ag­i­tat­ed and rest­less amid brass chorales and glock­en­spiel and chime peals. Fi­nal­ly the soloist breaks free en­tire­ly with a stun­ning ca­den­za. Here, Liam Teague pro­duced a dizzy­ing ar­ray of ef­fects from the pan (made out of a 55-gal­lon steel drum), some­times re­vers­ing his sticks for echo ef­fects and al­ter­nat­ing be­tween two and three sticks for more in­volved chords, be­fore fi­nal­ly re­join­ing the or­ches­tra.

The sec­ond sec­tion (Toc­ca­ta) was, as the name im­plies, a non-stop es­say in per­pet­u­al mo­tion that had Teague's sticks fly­ing through com­plex and jazzy syn­co­pat­ed rhythms. The con­cer­to is an ad­mirable piece, full of colour and in­ci­dent, rich­ly scored and high­ly sen­si­tive to the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the steel pan as a so­lo in­stru­ment. In one hi­lar­i­ous episode, Liam Teague played lit­tle riffs on the steel­pan, dar­ing prin­ci­pal per­cus­sion­ist Lar­ry Snider to im­i­tate him on that biz­zare in­stru­ment called the flexi­tone. As an en­core, the mes­merised crowd got to hear an un­named piece ded­i­cat­ed to Teague's new agent, Pamela Par­sons. Then as a sec­ond en­core, Mae­stro Wilkins brought Teague back to play an arrange­ment of Schu­bert's Ave Maria as a prayer for Haiti. So Schu­bert and Steel came to­geth­er in yet an­oth­er fas­ci­nat­ing way that evening. Af­ter in­ter­mis­sion, the full or­ches­tra came to the stage for an el­e­gant per­for­mance of Schu­bert's Great C Ma­jor Sym­pho­ny, con­duct­ed by Wilkins from mem­o­ry.

Though as a song com­pos­er, Schu­bert was ca­pa­ble of cre­at­ing whole lit­tle worlds in the space of a few min­utes, as a sym­phon­ist–at least in this case–he some­times had dif­fi­cul­ty know­ing when to wrap a move­ment up. Thus Wilkins' brisk tem­pos and his abil­i­ty to keep things in mo­tion were valu­able traits in tonight's per­for­mance. The horns did them­selves proud from the open­ing notes, and all the wind soloists made love­ly con­tri­bu­tions to the lyri­cal sec­tions. Cel­los bloomed in the slow move­ment though flex­i­bly. The Scher­zo was fast and light and the tran­si­tion from a slight­ly slow­er mid­dle sec­tion to the reprise was flaw­less. And the fi­nale, where Schu­bert the melodist seem­ing­ly can't let go of a good tune, went by at an ad­mirable clip.