Yo-Yo Ma founded Silkroad in 1998 to promote multicultural artistic collaboration and exchange. The spirit of that project imbued the Tanglewood program he curated on Sunday afternoon, entitled ‘We The People: Our Future Together’ and featured two longtime members of the organization’s Silk Road Ensemble: Kayhan Kalhor and Osvaldo Golijov. The future was emphasized in a passing of baton and bow with the BSO’s two Assistant Conductors, Anna Handler and Samy Rachid, and two young cellists performing works written for Ma himself.
John Tavener’s Mahámátar, a mantra was written as the soundtrack to a Werner Herzog short, Pilgrimage. Each tolling of the tubular bells sparks changes in key and dynamics as the cello plays the same wailing chant over and over while the soloist improvises an accompaniment often with the chorus holding sustained notes in the background. The soothing tempo remains constant but changing keys and dynamics trace a course from dark and quiet to bright and louder. The women of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Chorus (another taste of the future) stood in with angelic radiance for the usual boys chorus. Tavener wanted to create a sense of spaciousness. This performance achieved something like that by amplifying Arooj Aftab. The conductor has little to do but give cues and indicate dynamics, so Handler phrased the flow with her extended arms, cradling the music. Yo-Yo Ma achieved the same sense of intimacy as Aftab, charging the repeated mantra with feeling as the two of them locked eyes and oscillated.
Kalhor’s Venus in the Mirror took shape in response to the bloody “Women, Life, Freedom” protests in Iran in 2022 as “an ode to peace and a celebration of a 25-year friendship with Yo-Yo Ma“. In three movements, it extends the celebration of friendship to the instruments themselves – kamancheh and cello – which are distant relatives, their kinship most audible when playing together. Karen Ouzounian's robust playing contrasted with Kalhor’s more restrained and ruminative approach. Improvisation also figured here, giving freshness to the dialogue. The final movement was the most striking as propulsive forward motion gave way to distress, then the tolling of bells and an elegiac lamentation, the two instruments intertwining or playing in unison before trailing off into eloquent silence.
Golijov’s Azul is written in his typical polyglot style with Baroque and Jewish cantillation (particularly in the closing section, Yrushalem) being the most prominent influences. Hints of Bach waft through the cello’s sweeping cadenza central to the third section, Transit, and an homage to Couperin, which recapitulates material from Golijov’s Tenebrae, informs the fourth. Golijov even manages a majestic Adagio in the form of a Chaconne in Silencio, and further follows Baroque practice in his ‘21st-century continuo’ of percussion and hyper accordion. Percussionists have license to use their exotic array of instruments as they see fit. That license was put to good use in Silencio, which opened with a colorful evocation of the sounds of the rainforest. At other times, they created a kaleidoscopic, celestial aura backlighting the cello.
Since joining the BSO three years ago, Christine Lee has also become a valued voice for classical music on social media. She plays with flair and poise and a ripe, honeyed tone. Her highest achievement was the sense of serene transcendence achieved in Silencio through a sustained, slow-motion tempo and smooth legato. Rachid eloquently conducted this sprawling score and its sprawling forces, striving to maintain Baroque clarity amongst the thicket of instruments. The only minus was the inaudibility of the hyper accordion, which is supposed to be amplified but wasn’t. Lee joined the three continuo members for a colorful encore, Villa-Lobos’ O trenzinho do caipira.
