Photo courtesy of Strathmore. Twelve Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic at Strathmore.

Published on: Wednesday, November 18, 2009

By David Cannon, Sentinel Arts Critic

The Music Center at Strathmore may have been one day late, but they celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in grand style with a concert by the world renown “orchestra within an orchestra” with the Twelve Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic.

It was also a concert for divergent tastes. Let’s say you like classical and your guest likes pop. Fine, the Twelve Cellists opened with Bach and ended with Elvis and Ellington. Strathmore is open to all types of music, and they covered most of the musical genres in a single evening.

The concert was also a crash course in playing the cello. Usually used as the tenor voice in an orchestra, the cello has a wide range. That allowed the voices in the opening Bach fugue to sound clear and easy to follow, and it made the opening of the excerpts of Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” sound ethereal with several cellists playing in their upper most range.

The first half of the concert was classical and, given the Berlin Wall anniversary, the pieces covered a wide range of time periods and countries, but most had a theme dealing with human freedom. The “Song of the Birds” by Pablo Casals, complete with twittering bird effects, was played by Casals’ himself at the United Nations, while the yearning of Verdi’s “Ave Maria” was self explanatory. Perhaps the biggest surprise was “The Resurrection of the Angel” by Astor Piazzolla. Best known for his symphonic tangos, this Piazzolla piece was far more meditative, although dance rhythms often lurked just beneath the surface. 

The second half of the concert was where the Twelve Cellists let their hair down (and classical is the original long-hair music). Here were light classical and “pops” pieces that the cellists played as well and as energetically as the earlier classical scores. It was also where the cello was played in a variety of different ways.

The opening piece was Boris Blacher’s “Blues, Espagnota and Blues Philharmonica.” Definitely a modern piece, but it was also very tongue-in-cheek as it played with blues and dance styles in a very progressive setting. It also had the cellists doing a lot of unusual performance techniques. At one point, several were strumming their cellos like guitars, while at other times slapping the top and side of their instruments for a percussive effect. There was also a humorous moment when the cello at one end of the stage started a pizzicato effect that “traveled” all the way over to the other end of the stage, like a “wave” one normally sees at a sports event.

That adventurous approach to playing a cello was showcased in most of the remaining pieces of the program, from a lovely arrangement of “Love Me Tender” to the col legno (playing with the back of the bow) effects in Duke Ellington’s “Caravan.” There was the jazzy effects of Gershwin’s “Clap Yo’ Hands” to the most effective piece of all, a piece of cinema music by the under appreciated Ennio Morricone. His “Man with a Harmonica” repeated a simple phrase that went from calm landscape painting to an episode of increasing fear and tension. 

It was an evening of short works and bon-bons, and did not have a major work to anchor the program. The closest was Francis Poulenc’s “Figure Humaine,” but that was a suite of eight very short pieces and probably the least memorable work on the program. Still, it was a memorable concert celebrating a world-changing historical event – and the festivities carried over into the short encores that ended the programs.

Coming up at Strathmore in the next few weeks will be two nights of “Ballroom with a Twist” on Nov. 20 and 21, and later the “Temptations and the Four Tops” on Dec. 9. Then Strathmore’s debut of “Take Joy!,” a new work to celebrate the holidays on Dec. 18 and 19.

For more information, call 301-581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.