ROB DAVIDSON
Conrad Tao performs with New Jersey Symphony at NJPAC in Newark.
The “Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich” program title was as straightforward as it gets. But the pieces were something else.
New Jersey Symphony’s season finale teamed popular and adventurous 20th-century works of the colossal Russian composers, June 5-8 in Newark, Morristown, Princeton and Red Bank. Music director Xian Zhang explored all the shades between romantic and progressive of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (reverently known as the Rach 2) with guest pianist Conrad Tao.
It was a fitting end to a wide-ranging 2024-25 season, the Symphony’s 102nd, which looked to broad and mystical horizons through a mix of monumental masterworks and new pieces by up-and-coming mavericks.
At the June 8 performance at NJPAC, deft-handed soloist Tao was attentive to all the work’s copious demands. At age 30, he is close to Rachmaninoff’s age (27) when he premiered the work in 1901, playing in the soloist’s role himself.
Tao’s youthful exuberance gave the work brightness and immediacy. He sprang from the piano bench at times — for instance, during the great leaps of alternating octaves and chords at the beginning of the Scherzando. He sailed through the work’s technical demands — including the explosive maestoso section and the tricky più mosso section — with finesse. Personal touches, such as a jazz-infused filigree in the final crescendo of the Moderato, abounded. (Rach 2 invites experimentation; Rachmaninoff and his two leading interpreters, Horowitz and Ashkenazy, rarely played the work as written.)
But the piece was not all pyrotechnics, with sensitive playing by Tao in the slower, quieter solos of the Adagio and in the profound sections of the main theme, plus a meltingly gorgeous solo in the Adagio by concertmaster Eric Wyrick.
ROB DAVIDSON
Xian Zhang conducts at NJPAC.
Zhang was an impeccable accompanist; even the lightest piano work could be heard over the orchestra. This sounded more like the classic Rach 2s of yesteryear, lush with all the broad brushstrokes typical of Rachmaninoff’s early, romantic work. Thrilling rubato dramatically shifted the moods. The fermata at the end of the Adagio — the musical notation that indicates the note should be held until the conductor gives the cue — was taken almost attacca, moving into the Allegro without pause. It was breathtaking.
Tao got a standing ovation before his first bow. He reciprocated with an encore of his own jazz-infused transcription of Art Tatum’s 1953 solo version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by Harold Arlen. Even after the Rachmaninoff calisthenics, he had enough in the tank for technical wizardry and artistic dynamism. Rachmaninoff, who was a great admirer of Tatum, would have approved.
Whether or not by design, the ambiguous way that Tao announced the encore — by calling it “a seasonal selection” in tribute to Pride Month — felt like a poignant reference to Shostakovich’s dissident subtexts. The Fifth Symphony, after all, is famous for its coded message of defiance in the face of Soviet cultural policy. It was hard not to draw parallels to America at a time when the arts and artists’ rights are under siege.
Though Shostakovich wrote 15 symphonies, the Fifth, created in 1937 during the Stalinist regime, is his most popular and famous. Four years earlier, his opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” brought him to fame, but after Stalin saw it in 1936, he publicly rebuked the composer for being unpatriotic.
ROB DAVIDSON
Conrad Tao and Xian Zhang at NJPAC.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death and the debate continues: Was the Fifth an ideological turning point for the composer or a subversive anti-Stalinist message of condemnation? Whatever the answer may be, Shostakovich threw himself into creating a nationalistic-flavored piece of music that would appeal to the masses and rehabilitate his reputation. It worked.
It is neither conventionally beautiful nor innovative: There is melancholy, irony and a sense of the grotesque, including those chilling opening notes that evoke suffering and great struggle. Conductors often go about referencing the composer’s messages by stretching the Soviet eccentricities to the limits. Zhang had classic restraint, focusing on the expression and the work’s traditional tonality. The Allegretto scherzo, with its exaggerated waltzing tempos, is meant to evoke a comically provincial band with squeaky clarinets, but Zhang kept away from cartoonish extremes.
In the Moderato, she latched onto the movement’s obsessive rhythmic drive with urgency. There was a clear sense of unease; the twinkling celeste added to the fragility. In the march section, brass and percussion kept phrases sharp and short.
In the touching Largo, strings were warm and responsive in the choir-like passages, and showed great nuance in the soft and sustained pianissimos. After Robert Ingliss’ sensitive oboe solo, the cellos and basses responded with gravitas. Two harps added bell-like textures.
The triumphant Allegro is the key to the work’s subversive messaging, hinting at both anguish and joy. Aside from the morose middle section, the orchestra glazed over any excessive pessimism and gloom at breakneck tempos until they landed on optimism. Accented brass and a driving, percussive march gave a happy ending to both the work and the season. It was a celebratory occasion, after all.
The Symphony’s new president and CEO Terry D. Loftis came out to present this year’s Terhune Awardees (musicians who have served the orchestra for 25 years): Chris Komer (Principal Horn) and Andy Adelson (2nd Oboe/English Horn). He also announced retirees: David Fein, who served as percussion section leader for 46 years, and section bass Frank Lomolino, who served for 56 years.
The concert ended Zhang’s ninth season with the Symphony; she has three years remaining until she leaves to become Seattle Symphony’s full-time music director. She shared the stage with Loftis and shared warm memories about Tao, who made his Symphony debut in 2017 playing Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3. The two met in 2008 in Beijing, performing with the Juilliard Orchestra on a Chinese tour. Tao, an American musical prodigy, was only 14 at the time.
The concert showed what the Symphony does best: performing challenging but accessible works in a way that feels intimate, like one big family. Dynamite guest stars like Tao are the icing on the cake.
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