Orchestra closes season with ‘Beauty Amid Chaos’

Guest conductor hails from Ukraine

By C lifton J. Noble Jr. Special to The Republican

The Springfield Symphony Orchestra concludes its 20222023 season on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Symphony Hall under the direction of guest conductor Theodore Kuchar. The concert, “Beauty Amid Chaos,” includes music by Antonin Dvorak, Jean Sibelius, and Ukrainian composers Anatoly Kos-Anatolsky and Thomas de Hartmann.

Among other posts worldwide, Kuchar has served for decades as the principal conductor of two of Ukraine’s most famous orchestras, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine. He appeared at the University of Massachusetts on tour with the latter ensemble earlier this season, playing de Hartmann’s “Violin Concerto.”

On this occasion it is de Hartmann’s “Cello Concerto,” featuring guest soloist Matt Haimovitz, that is at the center of the evening’s music-making. Haimovitz taught for a brief period at UMass; he currently teaches at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal and is now the first-ever John Cage Fellow at The New School’s Mannes School of Music in New York City. A student of Leonard Rose at The Juilliard School, Haimovitz made his debut at age 13 as soloist with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic. He has gone on to receive many Grammy Award Nominations, and blaze his own unique trail as a performer and recording artist. Haimovitz recorded the de Hartmann “Cello Concerto” last year in Germany, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the MDR Symphony Orchestra at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

Composed in 1935 during the rise of the Nazi regime in Europe, the “Cello Concerto” reflects the darkness of its time, illuminated by the unquenchable goodness of the victims of that darkness. It was first performed in 1938 by the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky, with Paul Tortelier the soloist.

De Hartmann was himself an enigmatic figure, shaped by the contrasts imposed upon him by his often turbulent life. He was born in Ukraine in 1885 into an aristocratic family and died in 1956 in New York, shortly before a concert of his compositions was to be presented at New York’s Town Hall. He exhibited prodigious talent by age 5, and by his 20s, de Hartmann was among the best-known composers at the turn of the 20th century. His ballet “La Fleurette Rouge” was an early triumph. Featuring dancers Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, and Michel Fokine, the performance was favorably received by the Russian musical elite Tsar Nicholas II attended the performance, gave it his seal of approval, and allowed de Hartmann to defer his military service and pursue a full-time musical career.

A bewildering whirlwind of artistic and spiritual relationships and collaborations brought de Hartmann into the orbits of artist Wassily Kandinsky and mystic Georgi Ivanovich Gurdjieff. He and his wife Olga followed the latter luminary for more than a decade, engaged in a search for spiritual enlightenment and producing music to accompany Gurdjieff’s teachings.

De Hartmann continued to compose, emboldened by Kandinsky and his circle to seek new musical forms and new sounds, even while serving in his regiment in the Russian army in World War I. The de Hartmanns narrowly escaped the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, fleeing through the Caucasus to Tblisi, following Gurdjieff from there to Constantinople and eventually to Paris. The Nazi occupation of France displaced them once again, though composition continued (for a time in an abandoned building). During this time, de Hartmann completed the opera “Esther” and several concertos.

In the 1950s the de Hartmanns relocated to New York City, where Thomas de Hartmann died of a sudden heart attack in 1956. Olga spent the remainder of her life promoting her husband’s music, and died at age 94 in 1979.

That music blends high-octane romanticism with unapologetic modernist dissonance in ways that cannot fail to compel and communicate. With performances of his symphonies, concerti, and songs clustered into a single concert season, it is cause for celebration that the singular music of this under-appreciated Ukrainian genius is finally emerging from obscurity.

As a companion to the “Cello Concerto,” Kuchar and the SSO will play “Ukrainian Dance” from the ballet “Sochyne Krylo (The Jay’s Wing)” written in 1956 (the year of de Hartmann’s death) by fellow Ukrainian Anatoly Kos Anatolsky.

The evening opens with Dvorak’s “Carnival Overture,” written in 1891 as the second in his “Nature, Life, & Love” trilogy of overtures. The composer conducted the first performances of the trilogy the following year in Prague and at Carnegie Hall in his new adopted home in New York, where he had been invited to run the new National Conservatory of Music, to great critical and audience acclaim.

Jan Sibelius described the first movement of his “Second Symphony” as “the most joyful I have ever written.”

Between that joy and the triumph of the finale, audiences have consistently responded to Sibelius 2 as their favorite of his seven essays in the genre. Tickets, ranging in price from $15-$70, may be obtained for Saturday’s concert on the SSO website, www. springfieldsymphony.org or by calling the box office at 413733-2291.

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Harpoon brews two new lagers for good cause

IT’S BEEN A WHILE since we mentioned Boston’s Harpoon Brewery, and I just received some noteworthy news that will remedy that.

Harpoon, which was the brewer of New England’s original IPA, just released two new lager beers, with sales of each going to aid both military families and first responders: Harpoon’s new American Flyer Light and American Flyer Lager. One dollar of each case sold will support area groups, with American Flyer Lager benefiting Fisher House Foundation, and American Flyer Light helping Folds of Honor.

Fisher House Foundation operates a network of 94 comfort homes where military and veteran families can stay at no cost while a loved one is receiving treatment. Folds of Honor is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides educational scholarships to the spouses and children of military members who have fallen or been disabled while serving in the U.S. armed forces. Beginning in 2022,