The Chooi Brothers Take Over Kleinhans
The Chooi Brothers Take Over Kleinhans
Also The Everly Brothers, Violas, and Gen. Burgoyne’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Human memory is a funny thing. It includes the big moments - the birth of a child or the death of a loved one - along with the occasional small, forgettable moment somehow retained and later coming to mind, unbidden.
In Summer 1985 I drove from Lawrence, Kansas to Waco, Texas in the company of a young woman with whom I was well acquainted. I recall turquoise toenails on the dash and endless waves of heat radiating from Oklahoma highways.
The car radio’s heady brew of vein-throbbing, bug-eyed, end-times evangelism had exhausted its ability to charm us; I desperately sifted through the spiral cassette display at a truck stop. I managed to dig out The Everly Brothers Greatest Hits and by the time we hit Dallas we sung a passable “All I Have To Is Dream.”
During a silence, my companion stared out at the dusty middle distance and said, “it’s because they’re brothers. That’s why they sound so good together.”
So it was with the Chooi Brothers Friday morning (May 3, 2024) with BPO Concertmaster Nikki and his brother Timothy, as they performed Bach’s Concerto in D minor for Two Violins and String Orchestra (BWV 1043).
Prokofiev
Timothy Chooi’s bright tone was a good match for Prokofiev’s shimmering Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major (Op. 19) (1917), which preceded the Bach Double Violin Concerto. Although Prokofiev was a Modernist Concerto No. 1 is based on a modified Italian Renaissance (read Vivaldi) musical structure, three movements (fast-slow-fast). Bach used the same form in his Double Violin Concerto.
Hilary Hahn’s 2013 performance of Prokofiev’s Concerto with the RTVE (Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra) can be heard here.
Coffeehouse Bach
In the period leading up to Johann Sebastian Bach’s birth in 1685, virtually all music was commissioned by church authorities to accompany public displays of religious orthodoxy. The domination of religious establishments over music composition began to give way in the Renaissance, which recognized music’s remarkable ability to arouse powerful human emotions.
Although we take this for granted today, the notion that music could have non-devotional uses was initially challenged as dangerous by the Roman Catholic Church; in 17th Century Lutheran Leipzig, however, music as secular art found fertile ground.
In 1729, Bach was made director of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig, a municipal music association of students and professional musicians founded by Georg Philipp Telemann. The Collegium gave free concerts every Friday at the Café Zimmermann, one of the largest and most popular coffeehouses in town.
Bach now had an audience and a venue for secular and instrumental works, inspiring the famous Coffee Cantata (above) and his Double Violin Concerto (1730). Three intervening centuries seemed to melt away as Symphony Circle phased into Leipzig’s 14 Katharinenstrasse for a quarter of an hour.
Nikki’s warm, dark tone complemented his brother as the Chooi Brothers wove Bach’s sublime tapestry of fugues to rapturous ovations. As someone once said, “it’s because they’re brothers. That’s why they sound so good together.”
You can hear Bach’s Double Violin concerto performed by the Netherland Bach Society in 2019 here. I have written about Bach in this space here and here.
I found the Chooi Brothers’ encore, a melodramatic rendering of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” a questionable choice, more Andre Rieu than BPO. I was in the clear minority, however, as the audience called Nikki and Timothy to the stage for two additional curtain calls before the intermission.
One final note: the program omitted mention of harpsichordist Abigail Rockwood who anchored the Concerto and flawlessly performed Bach’s demanding keyboard part without a conductor (Baroque orchestras had none).
Violas Instead of Violins
The concert concluded with Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 in A Major (Op. 16), his first symphonic composition. Brahms idolized Beethoven and found himself in a trauma freeze when he tried to compose for orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth still ringing in his ears (I imagine a young rock band, nervously awaiting their debut backstage, when they hear “OK. You guys are on right after Jimi Hendrix”).
This was the BPO’s debut of Serenade No. 2, which eschews violins in favor of violas, thus placing Principal Viola Caroline Gilbert in the Concertmaster’s Chair.
The violas, oboes, and bassoons achieved a lovely, mahogany-wood sound which I have never heard from the Kleinhans stage. The gentleman from Rochester sitting next to me summed it up perfectly as we filed out; he leaned over and said, “I didn’t miss the violins at all.”
A 2020 performance of Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 performed by the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra can be heard here.
Gen. Burgoyne’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
In 1777, British Redcoats sought a decisive victory in its war with France for North American hegemony in a three-pronged attack with three separate armies converging near Albany. We now call this the Battle of Saratoga.
In a stunning victory for the Patriots led by Benedict Arnold, British General Burgoyne was forced to surrender his army; this persuaded Louis XVI to supply the American side, thus securing the future of our promising young republic (after 230 years it would be a shame if we were to throw it all away for a fascist criminal determined to shred the Constitution. That’s just me, though).
In 2005 composer Behzad Ranbaran was commissioned to compose an overture in celebration of the victory at Saratoga; it opened Friday’s performance. Filled with trumpet fanfares and lovely horn parts, I found this short, post-modern composition delightful.
The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance repeats tonight, Saturday May 4, 2024 at 7:30PM, Kleinhans Music Hall, bpo.org. It’s worth the drive.
In fact, I have a suggestion about what you can listen to in the car.
I'm failry certain I know the owner of those toenails.