Gabriel Weber
Staff Writer
While recently appointed Mischakoff Taylor Concertmaster Chair Sharon Roffman has had plenty of solos this season, tonight marks her official debut and introduction to Chautauqua for her first year in the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.
At 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater, Music Director and Principal Symphonic Conductor Rossen Milanov leads the CSO, along with Roffman as soloist, in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, followed by Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 44.
Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major is one of the most demanding pieces for a soloist in the repertoire, Milanov said, which made it all the more impressive when that was the piece that completely blew away the concertmaster audition committee last year.
“Everybody that was on the committee was so impressed (with Roffman’s audition) because of the level of playing, the imagination and the originality of the reading of the piece,” Milanov said. “It was not very difficult for me to choose and say, ‘Sharon, I really would love to do the Tchaikovsky this year because you have such an interesting point of view, and I would be very happy to be a part of that.’ ”
Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major is more than 30 minutes long; Roffman first learned its solo when she was 14 years old. Two years later, she won a competition that allowed her to play the concerto five times with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Her sheet music is decades old; held together by tape, it is littered with notes from her four main teachers — Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein, Peter Winograd and Robert Lipsett.
“I can hear their voices in my head,” Roffman said. “It’s definitely a combination of looking back and also understanding how far I’ve come — because I definitely, definitely don’t play it the same way that I played it when I was 14.”
Additionally, Tchaikovsky leaves dynamic markings, like passionate or sweet, that Roffman has been paying special attention to; she has been forcing herself to practice with the music, since she tends to play it from memory. Roffman feels any originality comes from bringing yourself into whatever piece you’re playing.
“My first responsibility, I feel, is to the composer to really do exactly what he or she wants, and that actually, funnily enough, opens up a lot of interpretation. Sometimes people start to — especially with a piece that’s so often played — play it like everybody else, and they become kind of habitual,” Roffman said. “The other thing about this piece is, because it’s so virtuosic, people tend to play it like a showing-off kind of piece. Actually, it’s quite tender.”
Roffman remembers feeling surprised by how out of breath she was last time she played this solo, even though she was pregnant at the time. In consideration of the sheer physical demand, Roffman began going to the gym many months ago to build up her stamina.
“That’s the kind of virtuosity that it is — it’s athletic,” she said.
Initially, she thought it would be fun to perform something new. However, as there are about 20 concerts within the two-month span of the CSO’s season, the time frame to practice alone is limited; after dropping her son off at the bus for Children’s School, she has two-and-a-half hours to play violin until picking him up again.
“What’s challenging for me is that we have so many concerts; I have a different role as being the concertmaster, and there’s so much music to learn for that that I have to really juggle my time,” Roffman said.
If the concerto was like climbing a mountain, Roffman said, the first movement is moments of excitement and reflection, as if a hiker spotted a rogue deer or enjoyed singing birds while on their way up. The second movement is as if they’re stopped in a snowy meadow for a bittersweet period. In the final movement, the hiker has gotten to the top of the mountain — and skis all the way down.
“In the last page of the violin part, the orchestra has a big tutti, meaning when the orchestra is all together, and it’s like starting this engine. That’s the part where I felt my heart pound out of my chest. In the last concert I played, I felt like I was having a heart attack. You’re just flying down the mountain — you just feel the wind in your hair,” Roffman said. “You’d have to really, really mess it up to not get a huge ovation at the end because the music itself is so exciting.”
Following Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, the CSO will play Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 for the first time ever. Composed from 1935 to 1936, it is among the few works Rachmaninoff wrote while exiled from Russia after the Russian Revolution.
“There are few things that are expected. Because in almost every work that Rachmaninoff composes, he had this obsession with this medieval chant called “Dies Irae,” or “Day of Wrath,” which Berlioz uses in his ‘Symphonie fantastique,’ ” Milanov said. “There are millions of uses here by other composers, and it was kind of like symbolizing the Day of Judgment. But in the case of Rachmaninoff, he uses this tune in almost every piece.”
An offshoot of Romantic style, many progressive composers wouldn’t dare write music like that as it was considered “old-fashioned,” even as Rachmaninoff was attempting to be modern so he wasn’t siloed from his time.
“It’s just emotionally rich and immediate,” Milanov said. “The piece is very, very generous in terms of what he gives to the audience in expression and composition.”
