New Jersey Symphony Present South Korean Work Inspired by Kafka

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 27 January 2025 14:34

Written by Jack Angstreich

Kevin John Edusei conducts New Jersey Symphony

At the splendid New Jersey Performing Arts Center on the evening of Saturday, January 11th, I had the unusual privilege to attend a superb concert presented by the New Jersey Symphony under the confident direction of Kevin John Edusei, in his conducting debut with this ensemble.

The program began auspiciously with an impressive account of South Korean composer Donghoon Shin’s compelling Of Rats and Men. In a useful note on the program by Laurie Shulman, she explains that:

Shin’s point of departure for the movements of Of Rats and Men were two short stories: Franz Kafka’s “Josefine, die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse’ (“Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk”) and the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño’s “Police Rat.”

The composer himself adds:

The first movement, “The Singer,” inspired by Kafka, begins with an oboe solo melody which represents Josefine's song. The melody continues throughout the movement, although it’s endlessly threatened by the orchestra tuttis [. . .] which have much wilder characters with darker pitches than the melody line. Bolanõ’s “Police Rat” . . . is a kind of metafiction based on Kafka’s “Josefine.” Pepe the Cop, the protagonist, is a police rat and nephew of Josefine. It’s a story that reflects fear and violence in our world. . .” “The Cop and Killers” begins with a bassoon melody representing Pepe. While the low register melody continues, many different musical fragments are superimposed on it and they affect each other.

The fabulous soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet then entered the stage for a magnificent performance of Maurice Ravel’s extraordinary Piano Concerto in G Major. The initial Allegramente movement opens quirkily but engagingly and jauntily, quickly evoking George Gershwin’s immortal Rhapsody in Blue; on the whole it is jazzy and virtuosic but with some moodier passages—it concludes forcefully. The Adagio assai that follows—it was inspired by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s unforgettable Clarinet Quintet—is exquisite and lyrical and ends softly. The Presto finale is propulsive, largely playful and frequently dazzling, closing abruptly and definitively.

The second half of the program was even more outstanding: a marvelous realization of the glorious Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43, of Jean Sibelius. The Allegretto first movement begins charmingly but soon acquires a greater urgency with moments of sheer majesty; it finishes gently. The ensuing Andante, ma rubato movement has considerable forward momentum but with slower, even pastoral sections. The incomparable Finale, marked Allegro moderato, is stirring and Romantic with a sweeping rhythm that is interrupted by mysterious, even eccentric interludes; it builds to an amazing apotheosis, concluding nobly and powerfully.

The artists were deservedly, enthusiastically applauded.

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