Did anyone else notice the lovely gesture that took place about 15 minutes into Tuesday's "Salute to Youth" concert at Abravanel Hall? Amy Greenwood, who had just been given a bouquet following her performance of the opening movement of the Rachmaninoff's "Second Piano Concerto," was the one who showed up to present the evening's other Amy, Amy Brough, with a bouquet after her performance of the first movement of the Strauss' "Oboe Concerto."
It got me thinking about how much else has been passed on over the years at this annual Utah Symphony Deseret News-sponsored event.For there was one of Amy Brough's teachers sitting in the orchestra that was now accompanying her, at age 17, in one of the most beautifully played performances of the Strauss I have ever heard, a marvel of airborne fluidity. If there were any squawks here, they came from some of the younger members of the audience.
Similarly, when Rosalie Lund had finished playing - in her case a wonderfully incisive view of the first movement of Brahms' "Violin Concerto" - who should appear with flowers but her little sister, wearing the Lund family concert dress, which has likewise been passed down from one performer to the next. (Even Rosalie's violin used to belong to her teacher.)
But in music, as in nearly every other art, we always build on the accomplishments of others, something that at this concert was literally true from first note to last.
Because for the first time music director Joseph Silverstein chose to bracket this Thanksgiving-week program with parts of the same concerto. Thus, the 19-year-old Miss Greenwood's Rachmaninoff, remarkable for its strength and solidity, here pointed the way to 18-year-old Elena Cho's fluency and brilliance in the finale, which brought the concert as a whole to a resounding conclusion.
In between came the Strauss and Brahms, themselves bracketing Dustin Gledhill's grandly scaled Prokofiev, here the first movement of the "Piano Concerto No. 2." From a pianistic standpoint, this was perhaps the toughest piece on the program, but he took it in stride, capturing not only its sardonic wit but its easeful lyricism. And he's only 16.
These were followed by the scamper and bite of Kate Marriott's Walton, here the scherzo from the "Viola Concerto." And again, there was another former teacher backing her up in the viola section.
The chief backup came from the podium, however. Because even with his right arm in a sling following shoulder surgery, there was Silverstein, singlehandedly (in this case, his left) directing the orchestra.
Along the way, he and they projected everything from the nocturnal moodiness of the Rachmani-noff and chamber-music textures of the Strauss to the distinctively jazzy syncopations of the Walton.
But they also projected something else, namely the care and commitment that make a program like this work, inspiring yet another generation of players. In fact, if you looked closely, you could have seen several former "Salute to Youth" soloists in the orchestra.
That's the Utah tradition. Pass it on.