Williams with Eastman in Concert:

By Nathan Henninger

On Sunday, April 29 my girlfriend and I drove nearly 400 miles from Long Island to Rochester New York, just across the water from Toronto where I was born, to the Eastman Theater. John Williams was to receive an honorary doctorate for his lifetime contribution to music from the school that invented the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in the late fifties, the same school where the late Howard Hanson, starting in the 1920s with the patronage of Mr. Eastman and the Kodak film company, for over forty years developed a preeminent American academy for the highest level of musical excellence. Like Copland and Bernstein, Hanson created a singular American Romantic vocabulary in his distinguished career as a composer and conductor, but with a decidedly more Nordic sound. The Eastman School came into the cutting edge in the past century with many liberated concepts for music, and was a leader in its most potent way as a model for music as education -- including such concepts as music in medicine and the importance of music as community outreach. The Eastman Theater, built in 1921 (?) and restored in 1971, declares upon its European-style Chariots of Fire-age facade a dedication to the people "of the community."

The entire theater is like an opulant paean to the 1920s, to the movie palaces of the gilded era of Hollywood. A golden temple to music -- the acoustic ceiling above the players resembles great brass scales of an immense sleeping Dragon or a knight's chest of armor. The walls are of stone block, like the foot of a Greek temple, and above them are sets of columns framing long tapestries in relief, of mythological scenes of music from "idyllized" settings of a lost Camelot. Heralds with bright orange flags trumpet upon the steps of a castle, drawing your immediate attention to just left of the stage; an organist plays to the right of the stage, her head slightly turned to a listening group of friends in an outdoor field, accompanied by a viol de gamba and fiddle. Along other frieses are scenes, all connoting different mythical uses of music in literature, from the hunt, the forest, a knight looking back to the call of musicians, a shepherd playing to his flock, a lover playing his recorder to the damsel in her tent, an animated dream-like woman, dancing to the music of her attendants.  Together these banners reminded me of the scene from Hook, when Robin Williams' Peter first enters his old, dusty childhood room after many years, and he sees along the ceiling trim the painted scenes from Never Never Land and we hear those mysterious sea sounds....

The ceiling is gorgeous and brings to mind all the theaters and university graduation halls of that era, with floral gold-leaf concentric rings and the zodiac depicted along one of those rings. Drinking fountains in the lounge are of brass, with large brass fish hanging out into each basin. I thought of how well the building preserved a lost era, a lost particular yearning for the past and future as it was then, a lost Europe through the lens of an anxious America, all in this old comforting gaudy grandeur... As cupid and psyche played out their love drama in a lobby "storyboard" (designed for Napoleon in 1814), the gilded busts of Beethoven and Bach, whom Schumann dubbed the "daily bread" of musicians, peered out upon the audience from the stone walls.

I always love to see Williams conduct! He is a wizard, put simply -- now more than ever -- and this time I sat 4 rows behind him, to his immediate left, in a house full of people who adore him. He can make you feel as if he has been communicating to you alone, but then you turn your head, and it is staggering how the private way you are feeling so exhilarated and moved, in your own memories, is shared by an entire flock of attentive thousands.

I had read an article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Newspaper (4/27) on a bulletin board in the school's main Kilbourn Hall yesterday about how Williams was looking forward to working with "idealistic talent" at Eastman. The word "idealistic" became the word in the article to describe Williams' vision and the spirit of what can be done, of what is possible, in music. His body of music, therefore, is what Eastman is all about, in other words, of stretching what is possible. When I asked my girlfriend what she thought he might have meant by "idealistic" talent, she thought he meant the age of the players in the Eastman Philharmonia, the idealism of younger players as opposed to older, paid ones. Perhaps it is how, in the beginning, or that spirit of beginning, there is more of the palpable feeling that things can be inspired at the highest, even purest level. Maybe this is a contrast to a veteran or studio orchestra that, while flawless, cannot have that certain "idealistic" character to its sound. I thought -- in a cynical moment -- does this mean they will be amateurish?

The answer -- no way. They created, quite simply, the best performance of Williams music I have ever heard. Except for a few odd cracked notes (and there were hardly any), there was absolutely nothing to jar you from the sound of the CD recordings we all treasure. In fact, the attention and priority given to musical detail and balance of forces, the intonation, the group discipline and the overall musicality in the playing was far superior to anything I ever hear on soundtracks. It was a revelation. The music is so intricate, complex and architecturally brilliant, just so in its brain massage-like knowledge of aural "pressure points" -- I felt like Williams is a hypnotist! He seems as if he is constantly surprising and tricking you -- to great delight! -- drawing your attention here as he pounces on you unexpectedly there. I have to admit that since I have never sat this close before, my impression of the man since last year has grown a lot.

He is visibly stronger and more fit/compact than from Tanglewood a year ago. I kept referring to my girlfriend how big he seemed up there, like "human thunder" I would say, probably at ten times during and afterward. When he conducts, he stretches his body a lot -- it is all very physical, moreso than I had appreciated -- and I thought he looked like he had captured the orchestra in a grueling yoga session. But part of that is due to the masterful athleticism and grace of the music itself: When the music soars and the players are in such beautiful tandem, the entire stage swells as if it is a giant Dragon breathing in and out together with giant lungs. He "paints" with his hands and baton in front of himself as he conducts, reveling in the sound and the ideas he adores. And he does plenty of humorous stuff in front of the players, too, (and for the audience) to animate the character he wants in the sound and in the mind of player and listener.

Some of the concert was very standard -- the little "I have to go to sleep" hook he's done for years at the end after the encores (which included the best performance of Star Wars Main Theme I have ever heard, hands down -- what white-heat enthusiasm!), the talk between numbers with his thoughtful manner and cordless mike, little vignettes and repeated jokes from other concerts -- he can be like a rock band on tour, repeating the same bits in Philly as in New York and L.A., etc. But that's okay, I don't really concern myself if he comes across as a bit rehearsed in his speaking -- the man's a composer, and former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (R.-Wyoming) was the man they brought to speak from Faulkner. (The Reivers was the highlight for me and my girlfriend -- what a brilliant score and fascinating, evocative integration between music and the spoken word!)

Williams was gracious in receiving his honorary degree at intermission and seemed to think his stewardship there for the weekend was to add cache to Eastman -- and not the other way around! But I think I was wrong about that attitude: Williams was genuinely grateful for the early recording of his work for winds recorded by Eastman university players decades ago, and he was so supportive of the school's reputation, its mission, that I came away admiring him for his speaking so well to it in complimentary terms, even if the truth is that it needs no compliment, it simply is one of the greatest music schools in the world. He wanted us to know that he would have come even if there were no honorary degree involved. He had done a workshop for Eastman composers earlier that day. I guess I had hoped he would have spoken more to the history, about Howard Hanson, at least once, who was like a ghost hanging out in the room -- the E.T. Flying Theme was the only piece Williams did not speak about before playing in the concert, and I thought he could have spoken about Hanson, as Hanson is the fountainhead of everything that happened to make Eastman what it is today and was the composer of Romantic Symphony, the work Williams acknowledged years ago as inspiration for the style of his E.T. score.

One feature I loved about the concert was the way Williams chose pieces that allowed two students to solo (Keiko Forrey, cellist, in Angela's Ashes; and Alexandra Cutler-Fetkewicz, violinist, in Schindler's List). He was generous in acknowledging all soloists and the ensemble as a whole, and was very gracious with Senator Simpson, who was a huge hit with the crowd -- what a terrific natural actor! The hall, for all its inspired, eccentric qualities, has sumptuous, full sound, perfect for the concert.

We left Eastman shortly after the Raiders' March encore, as parents and students merged back into Kilbourn for congratulations and photographs, and we started the long night journey home, hot chocolates in hand. As I left and drove across upstate New York toward Albany, I thought about this magician, on top of his game and talent to the degree that it is almost terrifying, so complex and brilliant, so staggeringly egotistical and humble in turn, so larger than life and astoundingly original -- that you can't help but feeling that you don't quite understand where he's coming from, and you don't really need to to enjoy his engine -- the source of Star Wars galaxies, Jaws-like terror and Schindler's List-like compassion in turn is powerful, indeed, and it is really about something that is understood, that is possible in the psyche. And that alone makes me and thousands more sit like pupils up close when the opportunity arises. How lucky we are to have a teacher!

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