Review: Midori and La Mer headline an invigorating concert

There's no debate over the technical brilliance of the violinist known simply as Midori.

There is no questioning her intelligence and generosity: Years ago, she wrote her doctoral thesis on pain even as she pursued a rigorous — probably painful — concert performance schedule. Long before she founded her Partners in Performance organization to bring classical music to rural areas, she was flying around the country, giving one-day performances for schoolchildren in mid-level cities such as Fort Wayne, That's, in fact, how this writer first saw the then-14-year-old star. This week, she gave a master class to string students at Artis—Naples, the kind of attention that makes a powerful difference.

So it was a treat to see Midori for her second time at Artis—Naples, performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Naples Philharmonic.

Still, her version of this popular concerto is different from that of her colleague virtuosi such as Sarah Chang and Maxim Vengerov. Even at her most emotive, Midori plays a cooler, more introspective version, aided by that deeper-voiced 1734 Guarneri del Gesu violin. (It's an "ex-Huberman," which tells you it once had the same owner, violinist Bronislaw Huberman, as the Stradivarius Joshua Bell plays -- formidable instruments, both).

Watching her throw off effortless trills and arc her bow over the strings in lightning time is seeing a magic show. And no performance is going to suffer with the Naples Philharmonic behind it. Sibelius intentionally eased the orchestra into the background when the violin had a featured part, and then pulled the throttle to maximum for the orchestral interludes. It was a tough mudder course for every section, handled with vigor by the musicians and guest conductor Joshua Weilerstein.

Perhaps the Sibelius orchestration is why both soloist and orchestra seemed to playing with virtuosity, but not as a team, at least to these ears. Those who have similar questions have another opportunity to have them answered; there's a Saturday night performance as well. (See information box.)

One last word on the star: Midori is modest as well: She simply slipped through the crowd Thursday at intermission to take her place at a stand offering her CDs. 

The second half of the concert was a juxtaposition of the sea as a menacing force and a mesmerizing, living creature. It opened with "Four Sea Interludes" from the opera "Peter Grimes." Some of us — and we're sure to get complaints about this — think those moments are the best part of the opera's forbidding tale, and they don't get played enough. 

Britten seemed to use the strings as the force of the sea itself, with woodwinds racing over it in whitecaps.There's the echo, like lapping waves, of various sections until church bells, here an ominous human intervention, begin to chime. In its illusively named "Moonlight" sequence, there's danger and tragedy, marked by the forging of jazz and cries from the brass. 

It was followed by Debussy's "La Mer," one of the most beloved of the French composer's works, so evocative of visuals that it's referred to as impressionist. 

Weilerstein, a bouyant conductor who bounds out on stage, talked about the contrast of the two works and offered an intriguing perspective on them. Since The Baker Museum is, sadly, closed for this season, he invited concertgoers to enjoy these two works as the city's "musical art museum."

Masterworks with Midori

Who: Violin virtuoso performs Sibelius violin concerto with Naples Philharmonic, Joshua Weilerstein, guest conductor.

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov.18; prelude talk at 7 p.m.

Where: Hayes Hall, Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., North Naples

Tickets: $15-$72 

To buy: 239-597-1900 or artisnaples.org