Former PSO concertmaster returns with klezmer concerto
In the fall, Pittsburgh’s orchestra visited Europe to strut the Steel City’s musical stuff in some of the world’s finest concert halls. Now, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is visiting the states and performing in New York, Boston, Chicago and more. Alas, they aren’t stopping in Pittsburgh, but one of their own — a former Pittsburgh player — is popping into Heinz Hall for a concert.
Thanksgiving is a time for family, and this weekend the orchestra welcomes former Pittsburgh Symphony concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley back to the stage for its annual Thanksgiving Tradition concert, where he’ll perform a klezmer concerto that he composed himself during his time in Pittsburgh: “Fidl-Fantazye:” A Klezmer Concerto.
“I didn’t see that there was something like this out there, and I wanted to bring this style to the classical concert stage,” Bendix-Balgley said.
PSO music director Manfred Honeck will conduct, and the program also features Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin and Cello in Bflat major and a selection of Strauss waltzes and polkas from Honeck’s native Vienna.
(The concerts are Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets begin at $20 at pittsburghsymphony.org.)
Bendix-Balgley’s father, Erik Bendix, is a highly regarded instructor of folk dance and taught workshops throughout America and Europe. When Bendix-Balgley was a child learning the violin, he traveled often with his father to workshops on Yiddish dance, where he’d hear bands like The Klezmatics and Brave Old World, from whom he developed a taste for this style of music.
“I’d pick up tunes, join in the back of the bands,” he said.
Klezmer music has roots in Europe among the Ashkenazi Jews. It’s a melodic style that uses a scale slightly different than the ones typically employed in Western classical music, as it borrows from synagogue music, the Roma peoples, European folk musics and other idioms.
“It can be incredibly joyful, but with a tinge of sadness and pain as well,” BendixBalgley explained.
“In the end, most of it is dance music, mainly for wedding or other celebrations.”
Parts of the concerto are improvised, which means Bendix-Balgley will be inventing bits on the spot. Many musical traditions involve improvisation, and classical musicians once performed with far more freedom than they do now, changing the music on the fly to impress listeners and create unique performances.
“That’s what Mozart would do,” BendixBalgley said. “That tradition has been lost over the years because we’re too concerned with what’s only on the page. That can be a bit stifling.”
He premiered the concerto in Pittsburgh in 2016 and has since performed it with other orchestras in the states and in Europe and Asia.
Bendix-Balgley served as concertmaster in Pittsburgh from 2011 to 2014. The “concertmaster” is the principal violinist of the first violin section, the liaison between conductor and musicians. They are the lieutenant generals to the conductor’s general, often the second highest-paid musician in an orchestra.
The Pittsburgh Symphony spent many seasons searching for a replacement and finally settled on violinist David McCarroll in June.
Bendix-Balgley’s tenure was relatively short as he won the position in the Berlin Philharmonic not long after arriving in Pittsburgh and decided to take the job.
What’s the difference in the two orchestras’ playing?
“I find that the Pittsburgh sound and the string playing is more European than most other American orchestras,” he said. “The actual wind and brass instruments are slightly different versions, so the differences are probably most pronounced in the brass sound.”
He also explained that since the Berlin Philharmonic plays more concerts in a year than most American orchestras, it has more members so that people can rotate on and off concerts to rest and split up the work load. Put another way, in Pittsburgh Bendix-Balgley was the only concertmaster. In Berlin, he shares those duties with another player.
“It’s a different model that requires a lot of flexibility in the orchestra to keep our own orchestral DNA and the sound,” he said. “More and more orchestras are becoming stylistically flexible. That’s something that’s becoming the norm for great orchestras everywhere and that’s a good thing.”
In Europe, audiences are returning quickly in the wake of the pandemic, though attendance isn’t quite what it used to be yet. (In the states, numbers are still down at many performing arts institutions, though they are returning.)
“People’s habits changed during the pandemic, something we should take seriously without freaking out,” he said. “We need to offer something that’s truly special that you can only get in the concert hall. Then, of course, they’re going to come back and bring their friends. If it can be replicated on a screen, why should they go to the trouble of going out?”