The Austin Symphony Orchestra is Ahn Point
Trio proves ‘Good Things Come in Threes’
I suppose the Pied Piper lives here, or at least many of his co-conspirators do. Music is why I love living in Austin, Texas, and I’ve found that other audiophiles flock to this city for the same reason. This weekend I listened to a performance by the Austin Symphony Orchestra and the Ahn Trio.
The program for the evening was titled “Good Things Come in Threes” — and indeed they do; the program boasted music by Edvard Grieg, Beethoven and Antonín Dvořák.
In terms of composers, these names are each taken off the Classical Music greatest hits album. Seeing all three on the same itinerary is something akin to going to a karaoke bar and hearing renditions of songs by Queen, The Beatles and Billy Joel. They are artists we know and love, and even if the performance isn’t perfect – like a guy with a few too many Lone Stars in him to remember anything but the chorus to “Piano Man”– it can still win an audience’s heart rather effortlessly.
Just calling ‘em as I see ‘em, and make no mistake: I am not complaining. It’s refreshing to know what’s good and get it all at once – a rarity in this cruel, cold, chaotic world of increasingly more obscure, unsettling and unpredictable sounds. And for that ASO, I thank you.
The Ahn Trio
In their long list of accomplishments, the Ahn Trio has played for the Obamas, which in my book means they’ve been anointed with a level class and culture that seems to have left the world sometime around the year 2016.
Friday and Saturday, the Trio joined the orchestra for a performance of Beethoven’s Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano in C Major, Op.56. The group is normally composed of the three sisters and Juilliard alumni, Lucia (piano), Maria (cello) and Angella (violin), but this weekend Azusa Hokugo stepped in for Lucia at the keys.
Before the concert, the Trio stood for an interview in front of us listeners who are cuckoo enough for this kind of shindig to arrive half an hour early. They offered two pieces of wisdom to the sea of aspiring musicians living in Austin, Texas:
The pomp and circumstance of the symphony is only the tip of the iceberg in comparison to the hard work and devotion that is required of a professional; trudge forward for love of the craft, not for the reward. And:
Find your voice and wield it.
I was curious how this advice might manifest in their performance of the Triple Concerto.
You see, Reader, I am a Beethoven fangirl to the highest degree. I find his life story absolutely fascinating; his compositions to be a direct translation of the most vulnerable parts of the human soul into sound. As a synesthetic listener and a hippy, a succinct summary of my respect for Beethoven is: “I can really just feel this guy’s music, man.”
To give justice to his work as a performer is to try to capture lightning in a bottle; not only because of the emotional depth, but because of his blatant disregard for what other musicians describe as “humanly possible.” I imagine his daily defiance of what should have been a career-ending disability made him less sympathetic to these complaints; they fell on deaf ears you might say (badum tss).
With the Triple Concerto, Beethoven seems to have been particularly cruel to the cello in this way, but I like to think that he was creating an opportunity.
It is easy for the piano or violin to overpower either of the other two instruments – the cello is the least vocal of the three and susceptible to fading into the background. In this piece, the cellist has the chance to scream in the spotlight; metaphorically and perhaps even literally because of the difficulty of the work they’re having to do.
It’s not surprising that there were moments when my attention gravitated to Maria’s work specifically. A phrase came to mind repeatedly that I think is mostly reserved for guitar players: This girl shreds.
The Triple Concerto deals with less heavy and complicated emotions compared to Beethoven’s other pieces. After witnessing the Trio’s performance, I wonder if this was intentional to allow room for the performers to project their own voices – and how fitting for this then to be played by the Ahn Trio.
I think music at its finest functions as an aural Rorschach inkblot test – an audience member is no longer just witnessing people pulling strings, tapping keys, or blowing into horns, but is subjected to an extraction of their own emotions and forced to reckon with them. Friday evening I felt I was witnessing a play with the violin and cello embodying two characters having an ongoing conversation. The piano represented the tone of the relationship between them, and the orchestra as the external world. I won’t bore you what my inkblot test said, but I felt impacted by the story the musicians gave life to. I think that means it was a good show.
The Trio cemented their rank as masters of their instruments in their encore (Ahncore, in this case), the title of which I could not hear over the standing ovation. It was a completely different tone and style: jazzy, modern, even Southern sounding – with Maria once again shredding and at times playing so emphatically that the instrument wandered from string territory into percussion.
If Beethoven was a conduit of emotion as a composer, I believe the Ahn Trio are conduits of their own souls as artists – we’re fortunate to have them visit our city, which I think speaks volumes to the current quality of our symphony.
The Austin Symphony Orchestra
The Austin Symphony Orchestra may be “the city’s oldest cover band,” but it is up-and-coming if you talk to any local die-hard classical music fan, which statistically is a retiree, but on occasion a hoity-toity tweenybopper from Houston or Dallas.
The orchestra’s performance of Grieg’s Lyric Suite, Op. 54 and Dvořák’s Symphony s No.7 in the same night speaks to their ability to wear different hats and change them quickly. Grieg was a Norwegian composer whose work delved into fantasy, with a movement of Friday’s piece famously titled “March of the Trolls.”
If Grieg’s sound is a Tolkienian fable, Dvořák’s 7th is a period drama, taking direct inspiration from scenes in his own life as a Czech in the 19th century. To move an audience through both worlds in one evening, you not only have to understand music as a language, but be an expert at code switching. As the live music capital of the world, I think many Austin musicians are, and that’s reflected in its symphony.
An ASO string player’s other gigs during the week can range from honky tonk to heavy metal. Peter Bay may be a Classical conductor, but there is evidence he also suffers heavily from Beatlemania; two symphony performances in the last two seasons pay high respect to the work of Paul McCartney, along with Bay’s mop top haircut.
My point: The Austin Symphony is unlike others because its musicians aren’t just in it for the reward of being part of a highbrow symphony; they’re here because they love music itself and this is the place where the Pied Piper has led them, not just as co-conspirators but as listeners. Few other cities can boast that, which is why I feel particularly lucky to regard ASO as my local symphony.
