Cancelations by guest soloists has been an off-and-on-again thing for the Oregon Symphony’s 2023-2024 season. This time around double-bass extraordinaire Xavier Foley could was unable to make his scheduled appearance to perform Gerardo Moreira’s arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s “Cuatros Estaciones Porteñas” (“The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires”). Ergo, behind the scenes, Clement So, Vice President for Programming at the Oregon Symphony, sprang into action and found up-and-coming violinist Simone Porter, who gave a gorgeous performance of the same piece in an arrangement by Leonid Desyatnikov at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on June 3rd.
Porter grew up in Seattle where she made her professional debut as a 10-year-old with the Seattle Symphony. The 28-year-old phenom now maintains an international schedule; ergo, the Oregon Symphony was lucky that she had an opening and knew the Piazzola like the back of her hand.
Piazzolla expressed the flavors of his hometown with a tango-esqe spin and – courtesy of Desyatnikov – occasional allusions to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” Porter fashioned numerous slinky-sounding zings and downward glissandos with elan. The piece offered lively contrasts between dissonant passages and more harmonious ones. Now and then, scratchy sounds gnawed at the texture of the music, adding to the colorful atmospheric collage that Porter and the orchestra created under the energetic baton of Music Director David Danzmayr.
Keeping the first half of the concert in South America, the orchestra presented the world premiere of “De mi tierra” (“Of my land”) by Giancarlo Castro D’Addona. D’Addona, who is from Venezuela where he was a start trumpeter in the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. Now living in Portland, D’Addona has been making a name for himself as a composer, and one of his most recent compositions was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel.
In his introductory remarks, Danzmayr said that one might imagine a city park in Venezuela where lots of people are engaged in daily activities. “De me tierra” certainly reflected a very active soundscape right from the get-go with congas, guiro/guira, and timpani leading the way. Boisterous waves of sound emanated from all parts of the orchestra with some tricky high notes for Principal Trumpet Jeffry Work. It was easy to imagine kids at play, people selling goods, and a festive air. Though the piece briefly quieted down a bit, it had a toe-tapping optimism that was infectious.
Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”) only has two movements, but they were played with exceptional passion in which every note, every phrase had an extra special significance. The double basses expressed a throbbing urgency. The horns and brass choirs glowed. The strings spun pure lyric beauty and the woodwinds cast a plaintive spell.
The orchestra under Danzmayr pulled out all of the stops for Richard Strauss’s Suite from “Der Rosenkavlier” in an arrangement by Artur Rodzinski. The opening bloomed with the horns leading the way into a robust romantic dalliance that might not have much difference to listeners who didn’t know the story of the opera. The lovely waltzes evoked a bygone era, and there was much passion in the music making except that one point an unexpected noise erupted when – I think, a clarinet reed – didn’t cooperate during a stirring forte passage. No matter, the orchestra, including evocative solos by Concertmaster Sarah Kwak and the principals created an enticing sonic-scape that made this reviewer want to see the opera.
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