Page 367 - ASMF Marriner 100 Coverage Book

08 April 2024

Joshua Bell and The Academy of St. Martin In the Fields

at Davies Hall
Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Monday April 08, 2024 - 02:33:00 PM

Joshua Bell, Music Director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, brought his violin
virtuosity

to Davies Hall on Sunday, April 7 in a concert that featured Bell as violin soloist in Felix
Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. Also on the program was Robert Schumann’s
Symphony No. 2gh The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields is a player-directed orchestra in
which collegial values are foremost. In performing Robert Schumann’s 2nd Symphony here,
Joshua Bell did not conduct the orchestra from a podium but from the chair of first violinist.
This kind of player-direction has long been a hallmark of this orchestra, which was founded
by Neville Marriner back in 1958. Watching and listening to them perform at Davies Hall, I
was impressed by this orchestra’s cohesiveness and polish.

The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto ranks as many listeners’ favorite among violin concertos.
It is full of inspired melodies, performed here with passion by Joshua Bell on violin. This
work opens with only one introductory measure in the orchestra before the solo violin enters
with a wondrously lyrical theme of shimmering beauty. Then a countersubject is heard in
both the orchestra and solo violin. Later, another melody appears in clarinets and flutes, and a
brief cadenza for solo violin prepares the way for a recapitulation. The second movement, an
Andante, emerges without a break out of the closing phrase of the opening movement. After
eight bars of orchestral introduction, the violin enters with another luscious melody, one that
has been described by some as “other-worldly” in its beauty. As played here by violinist
Joshua Bell, this ravishing melody was indeed other-worldly. Next comes the final
movement, a lively, fast-paced one, which again emerges without a pause after the slow
movement. This work closes with a brilliant coda. Throughout this Violin Concerto, Joshua
Bell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields amply demonstrated their much-touted
cohesiveness and polish.

The work that actually opened this concert was the jazz-inspired piece Flight of Moving Days
composed in 2024 by Vince Mendoza. This work featured violinist Joshua Bell and drummer
Douglas Marriner, grandson of Neville Marriner. Solo violin and drums exchange many
ongoing dialogues in the course of this piece, which also involves the full orchestra.

After intermission, Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Opus 61, was
performed. This gloomy work was composed during 1845 and 1846 at a time when
Schumann was troubled by physical and mental distress. It opens with a piercing sound of
trumpets in the key of C, a sound Schumann found obsessively recurring in his head before
he began writing this symphony. This trumpet outburst becomes a kind of motto for the entire
symphony. The second movement is a Scherzo that includes two trios, one a tribute to J.S.