Today's Birthdays

Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-1678)
Franz Krommer (1759 - 1831)
Sir Julian Benedict (1804-1885)
Charles Koechlin (1867-1950)
Leon Barzin (1900-1999)
Walter Klien (1928-1991)
Helmut Lachenmann (1935)
Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)
David Felder (1953)
Victoria Mullova (1959)
Hilary Hahn (1979)

and

Anders Celsius (1701-1744)
Charles Beard (1874–1948)
James Agee (1909-1955)
Marilyn Hacker (1942)
Bill Nye (1955)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

In the article that became Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Agee wrote: “A human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and who prefers that this should remain as it is, is a human being by definition only, having much more in common with the bedbug, the tapeworm, the cancer, and the scavengers of the deep sea.”

Today's Birthdays

Earl Wild (1915-2010)
Eugene Istomin (1925-2003)
John Sanders (1933-2003)
Craig Sheppard (1947)
Vivian Tierney (1957)
Spencer Topel (1979)

and

Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994)
Charles Schulz (1922-2000)
Marilynne Robinson (1943)

All-French program under Morlot travels from the sedate to spheres that scintillate

Conductor Ludovic Morlot made his debut with the Oregon Symphony last Saturday (November 19) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, leading the orchestra in a program of music by French composers that ranged from quietly sublime to wild exuberance. For the first half of the program, Morlot, Music Director of the Seattle Symphony since 2011, delved into the beautiful subtleties and stately music of Claude Debussy and Ernest Chausson. In the second half he moved into the flashier realm, collaborating with pianist Stephen Hough in a brilliant performance Camille Saint- Saëns Concerto No. 5 (“Egyptian”) before concluding the evening with an stunning interpretation of Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse.”

Hough has made an award-winning recording of all Saint-Saëns concertos under the Hyperion label, and played the Egyptian Concerto with the Oregon Symphony in 2001. So it was perhaps no wonder that he would again give an impeccable performance of the Saint-Saëns with the orchestra once again. Right off the top, Hough fashioned immaculate runs that sparkled with joy and, augmented by the orchestra, created surging phrases that glowed with warmth. In the second movement, he accented the Nubian love song with voicing that sounded as if a woodwind was playing with him. He tore up the keyboard in the last movement, cruising through tricky rhythms and polishing the filigree with élan. After finishing the piece, Hough was recalled back to the stage several times by the audience, and he then transfixed everyone with a simple, quiet encore, Jules Massenet's "Crépuscule ("Twilight").

The orchestra under Merlot’s direction gave Ravel’s “La Valse” a luminous performance with outstanding attention to dynamics and nuances, such as accelerating quickly and slowing down straight away, to give the music a fresh spontaneous feeling. Wonderful glissandos from the strings, gliding woodwinds, cranking contra-bassoon (Evan Kuhlmann), and snappy sforzandos were expressed with a genuine spirit de corps. The instrumentalists kept a keen eye on Morlot, who, conducting the piece from memory, got so caught up in the music making that he dropped his baton and ended up using his elbows, shoulders, and head to accentuate the swirl of the waltz into a riotous finale.

Debussy’s “Cortége air de danse” from his one-act cantata “L’enfant prodigue” (“The Prodigal Son”) received a marvelously intimate performance by the orchestra. Delightfully languid phrasing by principal flutist Martha Long highlighted the delicate nature of the music, making many listeners wish that the piece wouldn’t end so quickly.

Chausson’s Symphony in B-flat Major opened somberly with Wagnerian overtones that were terrifically expressed by the orchestra. After the orchestra broke into a spring-like melody, it seemed that we were clearly taken into the heart of French Romanticism, but the beautiful sonorities of second movement, “Très lent,” were sleep inducing and caused many heads in the audience to bow before being awakened by a glorious brass choir and the timpani. Principal clarinetist James Shields principal trombonist Daniel Cloutier, and principal trumpeter Jeffrey Work deserved praise for their evocative playing in the final movement, which ended in a stately and subdued way that was anticlimactic. It was fun to hear the little snippet of melody that Dvořák may have lifted directly into his Ninth Symphony (Morlot pointed that out in his opening remarks). But Chausson’s Symphony made me wonder about the direction of the piece – where did the music intend to go?

Outside of the Ravel, Morlot conducted with an economical yet evocative style that seemed to connect well with the orchestra and the audience. It would be terrific to get him back with a program that would go beyond the boundaries of his homeland (he was born in Lyon).

--

PS: After exchanging email with Jim Fullan at the Oregon Symphony, I found out that name of the encore that Hough played. So I've corrected the review to reflect that.

Today's Birthdays

Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991)
Virgil Thomson (1896-1989)
Sir John Drummond (1934-2006)
Jean-Claude Malgoire (1940)
Håkan Hagegård (1945)
Yvonne Kenny (1950)
Gilles Cachemaille (1951)

and

Andrew Carnegie (1835- 1919)
Helen Hooven Santmyer (1895-1986)
Lewis Thomas (1913-1993)

Today's Birthdays

Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
Norman Walker (1907-1963)
Erik Bergman (1911-2006)
Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)
Maria Chiara (1939)
Chinary Ung (1942)
Tod Machover (1953)
Jouni Kaipainen (1956)
Edgar Meyer (1960)
Angelika Kirchschlager (1965)

and

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)
Margaret Anderson (1886-1973)
Nuruddin Farah (1945)
Arundhati Roy (1961)

PSU Opera superb in world premiere of "The Place Where You Started"

Hannah Consenz

It is a rare day when a college music department presents the world premiere of an opera, and even rarer still that such a production would be timely, relevant, and superbly done, but Portland State University’s opera program brought it all to fruition with its performance of “The Place Where You Started” on Friday, November 18th at the Lincoln Hall Studio Theater. Written by Mark Lanz Weiser with a libretto by Amy Punt, “The Place Where You Started” deftly handled themes that dealt with love, loss, illegal aliens, and fear. Delivered by six singers and a pianist, the music subtly blended dissonance with harmonic lines and worked naturally with the outstanding stage directions of Kristine McIntyre.

The story begins with Meredith, a screenwriter who lives with her boyfriend Steve, a computer programmer. While Meredith struggles to write a romantic script for a vapid vampire movie, she gets pressured by her agent Samantha to write compelling dialog as quickly as possible to meet the studio deadline. Between bouts of writer’s block, Meredith meets her gardener Macario, learns about gardening and finds that they both have an abiding interest in literature. She also finds out that Marcario is an illegal alien from La Paz, Bolivia where he had been a professor. In the meantime, Brianne and Brendan, friends of Meredith and Steve, think that Meredith’s interest in Macario has become an affair. Brendan admonishes Steve to report Marcario to the immigration authorities, and because he fears losing Meredith, Steve makes the phone that dooms Macario to deportation.

Hannah Consenz sang the role of Meredith with terrific conviction, bringing the audience into her character’s conflicted world. Darian Hutchinson created a poignant and understanding Macario. Grace’s Skinner played the self-assured, cell-phone wielding Samantha to the hilt. Alexander Trull’s Steve had a spot-on shallow geekiness. Saori Erickson marvelously conveyed the overbearing parental concerns of Brianne. Adam Ramaley upped the ante as Brendan. Both Erickson and Ramaley also excelled as movie actors and as immigration agents.
The intimate confines of PSU's studio theater worked exceptionally well for the singers. Only Trull’s voice sounded strained. All of the singers found their pitches despite relatively few noticeable leading notes. The piano was expertly played by Chuck Dillard, who was also the Music Director of the production.

Mike Gamble’s evocative projections enhanced the production with excellent visual cues, such as portions of the movie script that Meredith was working on. One of McIntyre’s best directions involved Meredith typing and mouthing the words of her characters (Lucinda/ Erickson and Roland/Ramaley) as they sang them.

According to the program notes by PSU Opera’s director, Christine Meadows, “The Place Where You Started” was written with Rossini-like speed by Weiser. Weiser, a member of the music faculty at the University of southern California’s Thornton School of Music, wrote the opera in a few months, somehow finding time to collaborate his efforts with those of librettist Amy Punt, a playwright and essayist who lives in Los Angeles. The libretto is not dry. It moves all over the place, incorporating humor, poetic language as well as harsh accusations to move the story. The story speaks incredibly well to our time, and our current political scene in which fear of people from the "wrong" countries is on a steep rise.

The opera ends on a hopeful note with Meredith finding Marcario somewhere south of the border. The ending made me wonder if the story would have more impact, if Meredith and Marcario didn’t meet again.

In any case, PSU Opera is taking its production of “The Place Where You Started” to China, where it will be performed at Soochow University and the Suzhou University of Science and Technology. Kudos to Meadows and all involved in this effort. Hopefully, those performances will serve as a springboard for more productions of this remarkable opera.

Hannah Consenz and Darian Hutchinson

Today's Birthdays

Pierre Du Mage (1674-1751)
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
Jerry Bock (1928-2010)
Vigen Derderian (1929-2003)
Krzysztof Penderecki (1933)
Ludovico Einaudi (1955)
Thomas Zehetmair (1961)
Nicolas Bacri (1961)
Ed Harsh (1962)

and

Paul Celan (1920-1950)
Jennifer Michael Hecht (1965)

Weimann and PBO excel with Handel organ concertos

Guest Review by Phillip Ayers

First, a disclaimer: I am not an instrumentalist unless, as one of my teachers reminded me, my voice is an instrument. But I've played piano and organ, and even cello. In college, I had to take private violin lessons because the required string methods classes clashed with my practice teaching schedule. (I have to admit that that semester of violin lessons taught me more about correct intonation than I'd ever learned from voice lessons and from singing in various choirs from the age of nine.) Yet I love listening to instruments play, in both solo and ensemble settings.

In more than choir I have sung in, the director has admonished us, especially when we were performing a joyous work, to let the audience know by our facial expressions and even bodily movements the joy we were experiencing as singers of great music. On Friday (November 18) at First Baptist Church, I watched as the ensemble players in the Portland Baroque Orchestra quite naturally, it seemed, enjoyed the music they were playing. It made an impact upon me, and I daresay upon the audience who heard such gorgeous music as we did. The PBO is anything but a dour group of professionals.

Alexander Weimann, the guest conductor and soloist, is an unabashed professional and played most everything flawlessly in the two Handel organ concerti and in another concerto by C.P.E. Bach. His continuo playing in a Concerto for Bassoon by Capel Bond, another 18th century composer, was first-rate. Weimann also shone brightly in one of Mozart's "Epistle" sonatas for organ and strings and in a sinfonia to one of J. S. Bach's cantatas. The point I wish to make here is that Weimann so obviously enjoys playing this music and bringing it to life for the audience. He pays close attention to it all, and from my vantage-point in the balcony directly above him, I could not help but notice his facial expressions as he got involved with the music. From time to time, he would raise one hand to conduct the ensemble players, sometimes both hands if not at the keyboard – no easy feat, believe me.

It was pertinent that the program opened and closed with Handel organ concertos. It opened with Op. 4, No. 3, HWV 291. Movements from these concertos were often played in between portions of Handel's oratorios or operas. And often entire concertos were offered in that context. One can imagine an 18th century London audience, hearing a premier performance of Handel's latest work, and being treated to a little gem of an organ concerto now and then. It must have made for a long evening, but we have to realize that this was long before the days of electronic reproduction and broadcasting. As Weimann notes in the program, Handel was "reanimating a practice he had used in his early oratorio "Il trionfo del tempo" in 1707, during his Grand Tour to Italy. Later in London, when playing and directing his organ concerti, he had found the perfect forum to excel as composer-performer in one."

No. 3 in Handel's first set of concerti is delightful in every respect. The organ is a solo instrument, rather in the manner of a first player in a group of peers, as Weimann says. It is written in the style very much like an Italian concerto grosso (a group of soloists, often referred to as concertino, pitted against a larger group, the ripieno). The listener readily saw that Handel, like most Baroque composers, freely borrowed from other works, as part of this concerto is identical with a trio sonata of Handel's.

Nate Helgeson, a very tall and young bassoonist, subtly played Capel Bond's concerto. Bond was organist at St Michael and All Angels parish church, that later became Coventry Cathedral. He knew Handel's oratorios well, having directed some of them, and was clearly influenced by Handel's adept use of the bassoon's more lyrical tenor register. Weimann notes, "the galant bassoon concerto in four movements gives us a charming picture of the wider musical scene in England at the time."

As Weimann notes J.S. Bach "had four genius musicians we know of amongst his children [twenty in all]." Everyday life can't have been easy." Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, one of his sons, came up with over fifty keyboard concertos, without always being specific about the intended instrument, be it harpsichord, pianoforte, or organ. This work features marvelous cadenzas, well executed by Weimann. The first movement is varied, full of surprises, with tricky keyboard work. There is lively dialogue between violins and organ in the third movement. Throughout are many chromatic passages with contrasting dynamics. C.P.E.'s music is decidedly in the more "Classical" genre than the Baroque and at times, the listener wonders how far the son roamed from the father! But I think Papa would be proud of how his son's music developed, though he died when his son was thirty-six.

J. S. Bach's cantata BWV 35, "Geist und Seele wird verwirret" ("Spirit and Soul become confused," an interesting theological concept), was composed shortly after Bach was in the position of Kantor at Thomaskirche in Leipzig. The two parts of the cantata begin with elegant concerto movements for solo organ, woodwinds and strings. These two movements delight the ear, as do all of Bach's concertos. This particular cantata is written for solo alto voice and orchestra, with the organ prominently heard throughout.

Another Handel work performed Friday, Trio Sonata Op. 2 No. 5, shares an identical Allegro movement with the organ concerto heard earlier in the program. Another part is from an aria from Handel's opera "Rinaldo." Baroque composers always borrowed from themselves (and others), so this should be no surprise. This was performed by two oboes, played by Stephen Bard and Brandon Labadie, with Helgeson returning as bassoonist, and organ.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once said that "The organ … is in my eyes and ears the king of all instruments." He wrote for organ, but not extensively, and what has survived to this day includes seventeen delightful sonatas that were written to provide a respite for the priest between the Kyrie and Gloria and the Gospel in introduce the Epistle reading for a Roman Catholic High Mass. Hence, their moniker "Epistle Sonatas." Weimann and two violins and bass performed one of them, in C Major, KV 336. In these sonatas the organ is not always prominent, but it is in this one and it is utterly delightful.

As noted above, the program closed with the first concerto for organ and orchestra in Handel's Opus 7. In this work, there is plenty of liberty for the soloist to improvise in the first movement, a set of variations on a ground. Before this work was performed, Weimann announced that it would be in an alternate version in three movements, rather than five, as in the printed program. The first movement was a tema ed variazione (theme and variations), the second an adagio with a remarkable "walking bass," and the finale a Bourée.

In Weimann's informative and witty program notes he speaks personally of his fascination since childhood with the church organ. "Its countless pipes, keys, often multiple keyboards, the pedal, sometimes more buttons and switches ... than on the flight deck of a big aircraft; the fact that it challenges the whole body and all available mental skills to master the tricky task of coordinating all limbs … clearly, my attraction to this particular instrument was initially boyish, but it still persists, and today I am very excited to share my passion with you in a program of some of the finest writing for solo organ and orchestra." I am most happy to report that Alexander Weimann delivered! Many in the audience could readily identify with Weimann's passion, including this reviewer.

A nice corollary of the evening was talking with Cliff Fairley, now retired from the Bond Organ Co., the maker of the small three-rank instrument that was used in this performance. Fairley was largely responsible for its crafting and was obviously thrilled to hear his opus used as a solo instrument. He and I sing with the Bach Cantata Choir and this very organ is used as a continuo instrument, but once was featured in a performance of another Handel concerto, "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale," Opus 4, No. 13 of Handel's played by John Vergin.
-----
Post Script: As admitted above, my foray into organ playing once took me down the path of a dare to myself that I would one day play Handel's Organ Concerto, Op. 4, No. 1 in g minor. And, in my fifties, I actually accomplished it! It was a sort of gift to the organist in my parish (I am a cleric) at the time, who was celebrating his 20th anniversary in the post. I gathered together the string quartet from the local high school that included his daughter as the first violinist, and imported his son, an excellent string bass player, to form an "orchestra," really a quintet. I played the organ solo, doing reasonably well, sweating all the while and taking the tempos slower than I'd heard on recordings. But it brought me the greatest joy, so much that I hope for that kind of joy for anyone, involved in music-making or not!

Today's Birthdays

St. Cecilia
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784)
Edgard Varèse (1883-1965)
Hoagy Carmichael (1899-1981)
Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999)
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Gunther Schuller (1925-2015)
Jimmy Knepper (1927-2003)
Hans Zender (1936)
Kent Nagano (1951)
Stephen Hough (1961)
Sumi Jo (1962)

and

George Eliot (1819-1880)
André Gide (1869-1951)

And from The Writer's Almanac:

It’s the feast day of Saint Cecilia, who was the patron saint of musicians because she sang to God as she died a martyr’s death. She was born to a noble family in Rome near the end of the second century A.D.

It wasn’t really until the 1400s that people really began to celebrate her widely as the patron saint of music. Then, in the 1500s, people in Normandy held a large musical festival to honor her, and the trend made its way to England in the next century. Henry Purcell composed celebratory odes to honor her, and the painter Raphael created a piece called “The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia.” Chaucer wrote about her in the Second Nonnes Tale, and Handel composed a score for a famous ode to her that John Dryden had written.

Today, Saint Cecilia is often commemorated in paintings and on stained glass windows as sitting at an organ.

Today's Birthdays

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
Coleman Hawkins (1904-1969)
Bernard Lagacé (1930)
Malcolm Williamson (1931-2003)
James DePreist (1936-2013)
Idil Biret (1941)
Vinson Cole (1950)
Kyle Gann (1955)
Stewart Wallace (1960)
Björk (1965)

and

Voltare (1694-1778)
Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944)
René Magritte (1898-1967)
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991)
Marilyn French (1929-2009)

Today's Birthdays

René Kolo (1937)
Gary Karr (1941)
Meredith Monk (1942)
Phillip Kent Bimstein (1947)
Barbara Hendricks (1948)

and

Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014)
Maya Plisetskaya (1925-2015)
Don DeLillo, (1936)

Preview of "A Soldier's Tale" in The Columbian newspaper

Yesterday, The Columbian newspaper published my preview of Stravinsky's "A Soldier's Tale," which will be performed as part of the Vancouver Symphony's chamber music series. That concert will take place on Sunday, November 20th, at 3 pm at Kiggins Theatre in downtown Vancouver (WA).

Today's Birthdays

Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663-1712)
Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859-1935)
Jean‑Yves Daniel‑Lesur (1908-2002)
Géza Anda (1921-1976)
Maralin Niska (1926-2010)
David Lloyd-Jones (1934)
Agnes Baltsa (1944)
Ross Bauer (1951)

and

Allen Tate (1899-1979)
Sharon Olds (1942)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

On this date in 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was four and a half months after the devastating battle, and it was a foggy, cold morning. Lincoln arrived about 10 a.m. Around noon, the sun came out as the crowds gathered on a hill overlooking the battlefield. A military band played, a local preacher offered a long prayer, and the headlining orator, Edward Everett, spoke for more than two hours. Everett described the Battle of Gettysburg in great detail, and he brought the audience to tears more than once. When Everett finished, Lincoln spoke.

Now considered one of the greatest speeches in American history, the Gettysburg Address ran for just over two minutes, fewer than 300 words, and only 10 sentences. It was so brief, in fact, that many of the 15,000 people that attended the ceremony didn't even realize that the president had spoken, because a photographer setting up his camera had momentarily distracted them. The next day, Everett told Lincoln, "I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

There are several versions of the speech, and five different manuscript copies; they're all slightly different, so there's some argument about which is the "authentic" version. Lincoln gave copies to both of his private secretaries, and the other three versions were re-written by the president some time after he made the speech. The Bliss Copy, named for Colonel Alexander Bliss, is the only copy that was signed and dated by Lincoln, and it's generally accepted as the official version for that reason.

Today's Birthdays

Jean‑Baptiste Loeillet (1680-1730)
Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941)
Amelita Galli‑Curci (1882-1963)
Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985)
Lillian Fuchs (1901-1995)
Compay Segundo (1907-2003)
Johnny Mercer (1909-1976)
Don Cherry (1936-1995)
Heinrich Schiff (1951)
Bernard d'Ascoli (1958)

and

Louis Daguerre (1787-1851)
W.S (William Schwenck) Gilbert (1836-1911)
George Gallup (1901-1984)
Margaret Atwood (1939)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes cameo debut in "Daughter of the Regiment"

The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post reviewed Washington National Opera's recent production of Donizetti's "The Daughter of the Regiment" in which Supreme Court Justice and avid opera fan Ruth Bader Ginsburg played the Duchess of Krakenthorp, a small speaking role, at the Kennedy Center. Both articles have photos of RBG in period costume.

Today's Birthdays

Ernest Lough (1911-2000)
Leonid Kogan (1924-1982)
Sir Charles Mackerras (1925-2010)
David Amram (1930)
Gene Clark (1941-1991)
Philip Picket (1950)
Philip Grange (1956)

and

Shelby Foote (1916-2006)

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski recovering from stroke and surgery

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Conductor Laureate of the Minnesota Orchestra is in stable condition after surgery following a stroke on Sunday. Skrowaczewski, age 93, is scheduled to lead the Dallas Symphony next weekend. He led the Oregon Symphony in concerts last November.

Today's Birthdays

Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831)
W. C. Handy (1873-1958)
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
Burnet Tuthill (1888-1982)
Lawrence Tibbett (1896-1960)
Earl Wild (1915-2010)
David Wilson-Johnson (1950)
Donald Runnicles (1954)

and

George S. Kaufman (1889-1961)
José Saramago (1922-2010)
Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
Andrea Barrett (1954)

Portland Youth Philharmonic delivers dynamic world premiere of Svoboda’s Second Symphony with élan

The scene outside the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Saturday evening (November 12th) was the one of the most unusual ones that I have ever witnessed. A police vehicle filled with anti-riot police was positioned right by the front doors of the hall and loudspeakers told anti-Trump protesters to move away from the Park Blocks or they would be arrested. The air was tense, but as I entered the lobby of the concert hall, the atmosphere relaxed and brightened considerably because it was the opening night of the Portland Youth Philharmonic’s 93rd season. On the stage were 108 young and very talented instrumentalists who were busily reviewing a myriad of passages from the music that they were about to perform. I was impressed by the focus of the musicians, who were gearing up with intensity for a program of music by Wagner, Bruch, and De Sarasate, plus a world premiere of Tomáš Svoboda’s Symphony No. 2 (Op. 41).

In his remarks to the audience, Music Director, David Hattner, told how a Camerata PYP successful premiere of Svoboda’s “Folk Concertino for Seven Instruments” led to the opportunity to play his Second Symphony. Svoboda, a prolific Czech-American composer whose work has received a Grammy nomination, wrote the symphony in 1963, but it had never been played because he fled his native country in 1964 to come to the United States, and that caused the premiere to be cancelled.

Consisting of four movements, the Svoboda’s Second Symphony opened with some massive sonic textures that involved the entire orchestra. Periodic whams from the bass drum added to the din, which then vanished, leaving a menacing fog of sound that was punctuated by the snare drum. Delightful conversations among the woodwinds with wandering flute lines alternated with another series of loud, expansive, and tragic-sounding passages that involved the entire orchestra. The initial measures of the second movement were somber and quiet, allowing for beautiful sonorities between Concertmaster Fumika Mizuno and Assistant Concertmaster Daniel Tang. The romantic theme transferred to the flutes and oboes before being handed off to the viola (Co-Principal Samuel Zacharia). Ominous, throbbing sounds from the orchestra threatened the lovely melody that had been established, but the romantic sensibility returned and after a plaintive clarinet solo (Principal Alex Lee) closed the movement in a gentle, restful state. The third movement began with a propulsive drive that crecendoed and decrescendoed against a highly-wire line of violins. Mutterings from the brass developed into larger blasts that were followed by an extended pizzicato line from the bass violins, and the movement ended with a line that was slowly built into a huge crescendo. The fourth movement featured a lovely bassoon solo, lots of intricate phrases for the woodwinds, a gorgeous melody for the strings, a fanfare for the brass, explosive sounds from the timpani, and a brief excursion for the piano before fading quietly away.

The audience responded with enthusiastic applause, not only for the outstanding performance by the orchestra, but also for Svoboda, who was sitting in the lower balcony with his wife, Jana Demartini. As Hattner suggested in his introduction, the music did seem to fluctuate between an expression of love and the fear of militarism and oppressive authority – with love surviving it all in the end.

Violist Samuel Zacharia, winner of PYP’s soloist competition, gave an outstanding performance of Max Bruch’s “Romanze.” He brought nuance to the piece, playing with a sweet tone and shaping each passage with impeccable taste. The orchestra accompanied him with terrific sensibility.

After intermission, the orchestra blew the listeners away with Pablo De Sarasate’s “Zigeunerweisen,” which usually features a violin soloist. But for this concert, Hattner divided up the soloist’s part so that 19 of his budding violin virtuosos had a crack at a devilish passage. Besides the fleet filigree, the musicians deftly negotiated combinations of double stops, pizzicatos with both hands, and glissandos. The exchange of the soloist’s line was handed off seamlessly with each violinist standing up quietly to play. Their performance was a flat-out foot-stomping crowd pleaser, and I think that the audience would have enjoyed hearing it a second time.

The concert opened with a robust performance of the Prelude to Richard Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” The ensemble played it with gusto, but the only problem was a balance issue caused by the fact that there were so many strings. But wow, the strings sounded terrific!

Kudos again to the PYP, and the ability of young musicians to make great music. Perhaps a recording of Svoboda's symphony by them will be available in the near future.

Today's Birthdays

Annunzio Paolo Mantovani (1905-1980)
Petula Clark (1932)
Peter Dickinson (1934)
Daniel Barenboim (1942)
Pierre Jalbert (1967)

and

Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946)
Georgia O'Keefe (1887-1986)
Marianne Moore (1887-1972)
Ted Berrigan (1934-1983)