Review: Oregon Symphony closes its season with sublime Mozart Flute Concerto and Mahler's Fifth

The Oregon Symphony wrapped up its 2022-2023 season with a well-balanced concert of music by Mozart and Mahler (June 10) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. The orchestra’s principal flutist Martha Long delighted the audience an outstanding performance of Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 1, which was followed by a thoroughly heart-stopping and inspiring Mahler Fifth Symphony under the baton of Music Director David Danzmayr.

The mellifluous and smooth sound that Long fashioned for the Mozart concerto was absolutely perfect, and she excelled in shaping each phrase. Even as the first movement (Allegro maestoso) perked along, she gracefully etched its passages with lovely dynamics. She even delivered the downhill and uphill runs of the cadenza with an enchanting poetic arc. The lyrical nature of the slower second movement (Adagio non troppo) suggested light breezes and the third (Rondo: Tempo di menuetto) made me imagine a bird fluttering from branch to branch. Such was the evocative playing of Long. It was able to take this listener out of the concert hall.

In response to the sustained, enthusiastic applause that followed her performance, Long was joined by her colleagues, assistant principal flutist Alicia DiDonato Paulsen and piccoloist Zachariah Galatis, in an encore, the bright and bubbly last movement of “Flutes en Vacances” (“Flutes on Vacation”) by Jacques Casterede. That got everyone into the mood for a picnic, and it brought down the house a second time.

The stage at The Schnitz was stuffed wall-to-wall with musicians. The super-sized ensemble included 7 horns, 12 violas, 10 cellos, and 8 double basses. With Danzmayr ardently urging the assemblage onward, the result was a thrilling rollercoaster of a ride that took listeners very high, very low, very near, very far, and everything in between. In short, the performance was spectacular.

From the get-go with Jeffrey Work’s trumpet calls, orchestral outbursts, and sounds of trudging and pleading – the orchestra put listeners through an emotional wringer in the Trauermarsch. The sudden attack into the Stürmisch bewegt, mit grösster Vehemeng section announced by huge cry from the violins and delved into a seesaw of mood swings – sometimes introverted, sometime extroverted – before delving into a big melodic line from the cellos as if to assuage things – but couldn’t. The following Scherzo lightened up the situation a tad, but that section continued to express a mixture of bombastic surges and intimate withdrawals. The impeccable playing of Jeff Garza, principal horn highlighted the movement, and it ended with a wild explosion of colorful sound that would have signaled the end of most symphonies – but not Mahler. With his solemn and heavenly Adagietto, the orchestra dished up delicious helpings of longing that were layered with dynamic contrast, and it all finally wound down and subsided quietly into the double bass section. That left the Rondo – Finale with its fugue and sprawling lines and ecstatic, barn-burner of an ending. The last measures of the piece transported patrons with a joyful, glorious soundscape that just lifted them out of their seats with spontaneous ovations.

The comprehensive and emotive leadership of Danzmayr made the journey through the wilderness of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony a complete and resounding success. Given his terrific handling of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony a month earlier, Danzmayr is turning into a master of Mahler’s expansive and very demanding visions, and that helped to make the concert a life-enhancing experience. Maybe Mahler’s Sixth will be coming up for Danzmayr and the orchestra in the near future.

The concert was also marked at the very beginning by an acknowledgement of members of the orchestra for their years of service. Joseph Berger, associate principal horn, has clocked his 35th year with the ensemble.

Today's Birthdays

Napoléon Coste (1805-1883)
Joseph Joachim (1831-1907)
Richard Rodgers (1902-1979)
Arnold Shaw (1909-1989)
Sergiu Celibidache (1912-1996)
George Lloyd (1913-1998)
Giselher Klebe (1925-2009)
Robert Xavier Rodriguez (1946)
Philip Fowke (1950)
Thomas Hampson (1955)

and

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
Eric Ambler (1909-1989)
Mark Helprin (1947)

Today's Birthdays

Friedrich Silcher (1789-1860)
Toti Dal Monte (1893-1975)
Karel Reiner (1910-1979)
George Walker (1922-2018)
Ruth Schönthal (1924-2006)
Anno Moffo (1932-2006)
Hugh Wood (1932-2021)
Daniel Asia (1953)
Nancy Gustafson (1956
Magnus Lindberg (1958)
Robert King (1960)

and

James Smithson (1765-1829)
Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906)
Helen Keller (1880-1968)
Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)
Lucille Clifton (1936-2010)
Alice McDermott (1953)

Today's Birthdays

Big Bill Broonzy (1893-1958)
Hugues Cuénod (1902-2010)
Wolfgang Windgassen (1914-1974)
Giuseppe Taddei (1916-2010)
Syd Lawrence (1923-1998)
Jacob Druckman (1928-1996)
Claudio Abbado (1933-2014)

and

Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)
Walter Farley (1916-1989)

Today's Birthdays

Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956)
Arthur Tracy (1899-1997)
Bill Russo (1928-2003)
Kurt Schwertsik (1935)
Carly Simon (1945)

and

Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926)
George Abbott (1887-1995)
George Orwell (1903-1950)
Sonia Sotomayor (1954)

Preview of Makrokosmos extravaganza published in The O

 My preview of this five-hour concert of new music is available in Oregonlive. I think that it will appear in print in the Sunday edition. Beethoven (who did a four-hour concert of his music on December 22, 1808) would have been proud of Stephanie and Saar for assembling this extravaganza.

Today's Birthdays

Harry Partch (1901-1974)
Pierre Fournier (1906-1986)
Milton Katims (1909-2006)
Denis Dowling (1910-1984)
Terry Riley (1935)

and

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
John Ciardi (1916-1986)
Anita Desai (1937)
Stephen Dunn (1939)

Today's Birthdays

Carl Reinecke (1824-1910)
Mieczyslaw Horszowski (1892-1993)
George Russell (1923-2009)
Adam Faith (1940-2003)
James Levine (1943-2021)
Nigel Osborne (1948)
Nicholas Cleobury (1950)
Sylvia McNair (1956)

and

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)
Michael Shaara (1928-1988)
David Leavitt (1961)

Xavier Foley makes the double bass sing in Oregon Symphony concert

Xavier Foley, the newest member of Oregon Symphony’s creative alliance, made a strikingly impressive debut with the orchestra (June 5) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. The ultra-talented bassist wowed the audience with two of his own pieces plus Giovanni Bottesini’s Second Double Bass Concerto. The second half of the program surveyed the heavens with Gustav Holst’s “The Planets,” appealing extremely well an audience that almost filled the house – due in part to moving the Saturday performance (June 3) to the afternoon because of the Starlight Parade, which was routed through the downtown streets.

For the opening number, “Lost Child,” Foley quickly brought his double-bass to centerstage sans Danzmayr. With the spotlight on him, Foley coaxed a lovely, mellow sound. I could hear tinges of a Latin American rhythm but also slightly jazzy and some Bach-like influences. The brief solo (about three minutes) grew in intensity and boiled over before subsiding to a gentle ending.

Foley returned with the orchestra’s principal second violist, Chien Tan, to play “Justice and Peace,” which featured a string orchestra and four singers (SATB) under the direction of Danzmayr. “Justice and Peace” began with a long introduction by the strings, gradually picking up the tempo and a more rhythmic pulse – all of which was interrupted by a slap of a gavel on a bar stool (executed by violinist Ryan Lee). Foley and Tan responded with a quicksilver duet. Melodic lines from the orchestra were laced over with more speedy fingerwork by Foley and Tan and then broken up by the gavel here and there. The singers overlaid the sound with slave songs, but it was difficult to understand the words, except for “freedom.” A sense of urgency permeated the performance, and its conclusion drew enthusiastic applause from the audience

To switch things up, Foley came back to centerstage to play Giovanni Bottesini’s “Double Bass Concerto No. 2 in B minor.” Foley expressed the piece with committed flair, making each phrase super interesting – from the most delicate lines imaginable to the most demonstrative. He wheeled into the cadenza in the first movement with terrific verve that almost caused a standing ovation. In the lyrical Andante, he touched on a terrific conversation with the orchestra and took time to enjoy the brief, elegant cadenza. For the final Allegro movement, he delivered an array of fireworks that just triggered a cascade of applause from all corners of the house.

Foley’s encore, a wonderful rendition of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 was crystalline and flawless, and again drew a raves from listeners. So, he finally had to reappear next to the podium without his trusty bass to signal an end to his portion of the program.

After intermission, Danzmayr and the orchestra delivered an incisive and evocative performance of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.” With Jonathan Greeney and Sergio Carreno pounding on two sets of timpani, the Mars movement unleashed an unrelenting force that sounded like a herd of semis driving over the top of everyone in the hall. The Venus movement calmed everything down with pillowy breezes from the woodwinds, harps, and Jeff Garza’s horn. The strings and sparkly celeste created an enchanting Mercury. The broad British theme expressed in the Jupiter movement was laid into with gusto. Saturn received a thoroughly broody soundscape. Uranus delightfully careered about, accented with boisterous outbursts, and Neptune brought it all to an ethereal close with the voices of women (from the Portland State Chamber Choir and Thorn Choir) singing from offstage – sort of disembodied and, in the last measures, drifting far away.

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Manfredini (1684-1762)
Étienne Nicolas Méhul (1763-1817)
Frank Heino Damrosch (1859-1937)
Jennie Tourel (1900-1973)
Walter Leigh (1905-1942)
Sir Peter Pears (1910-1986)
Hans-Hubert Schönzeler (1925-1997)
Pierre Thibaud (1929-2004)
Libor Pešek (1933-2022)
Pierre Amoyal (1949)
Christopher Norton (1953)

and

Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop (1844-1924)
Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970)
Billy Wilder (1906-2002)
Joseph Papp (1921-1991)
Meryl Streep (1949)
Elizabeth Warren (1949)

Sweeping preview of the Chamber Music Northwest festival - in OAW

Oregon ArtsWatch asked me to write a preview that was more of a survey of the entire Chamber Music Northwest Festival. So I took a slightly different tact and interview the festival's amazing husband-wife artistic directors, Soovin Kim and Gloria Chien, and then tried to give the piece some kind of structure that would cover all five weeks of events. Well, without writing even more text, it is impossible to cover everything that this festival offers. I hope that you enjoy reading my CMNW preview all the same.

Today's Birthdays

Henry Holden Huss (1862-1953)
Hilding Rosenberg (1892-1985)
Harry Newstone (1921-2006)
Lou Ottens (1926-2021)
Lalo Schifrin (1932)
Diego Masson (1935)
Philippe Hersant (1948)
Judith Bingham (1952)
Jennifer Larmore (1958)

and

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1972)
Donald Peattie (1898-1964)
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)
Ian McEwan (1948)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1890. Richard Strauss's tone-poem "Death and Transfiguration" and "Burleske" for Piano and Orchestra were given their premieres in Eisenach, at a convention of the General German Music Association, with the composer conducting and Eugen d'Albert as the piano soloist in the "Burleske".

Today's Birthdays

Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792)
Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)
Wilfred Pelletier (1896-1982)
Chet Atkins (1924-2001)
Ingrid Haebler (1926)
Eric Dolphy (1928-1964)
Arne Nordheim (1931-2010)
Mickie Most (1938-2003)
Brian Wilson (1942)
Anne Murray (1945)
André Watts (1946)
Lionel Richie (1949)

and

Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948)
Lillian Hellman (1905-1984)
Josephine Winslow Johnson (1910-1990)
Vikram Seth (1952)

Chamber Music Northwest preview in The Oregonian

 My preview of the CMNW festival is now published in Oregonlive here. It will be in the print edition this Friday.

Today's Birthdays

François Rebel (1701-1775)
Johann Wenzel Stamitz (1717-1757)
Carl Zeller (1842-1898)
Alfredo Catalani (1854-1893)
Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915)
Guy Lombardo (1902-1977)
Edwin Gerschefski (1909-1988)
Anneliese Rothenberger (1926-2010)
Elmar Oliveira (1950)
Philippe Manoury 1952)

and

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Pauline Kael (1919-2001)
Tobias Wolff (1945)
Salman Rushdie (1947)

Today's Birthdays

Antonio Maria Bononcini (1677-1726)
Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831)
David Popper (1843-1913)
Sir George Thalben-Ball (1896-1987)
Edward Steuermann (1892-1964)
Manuel Rosenthal (1904-2003)
Eduard Tubin (1905-1982)
Paul McCartney (1942)
Hans Vonk (1942-2004)
Anthony Halstead (1945)
Diana Ambache (1948)
Eva Marton (1948)
Peter Donohoe (1953)

and

Geoffrey Hill (1932-2016)
Gail Godwin (1937)
Jean McGarry (1948)
Chris Van Allsburg (1949)
Amy Bloom (1953)
Richard Powers (1957)

Today's Birthdays

John Wesley (1703-1791)
Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Hermann Reutter (1900-1985)
Einar Englund (1916-1999)
Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006)
Sir Edward Downes (1924-2009)
Christian Ferras (1933-1982)
Gérard Grisey (1946-1998)
Derek Lee Ragin (1958)

and

M. C. Escher (1898-1972)
John Hersey (1914-1993)
Ron Padgett (1942)

Today's Birthdays

Niccolò Vito Piccinni (1728-1800)
Helen Traubel (1899-1972)
Willi Boskovsky (1909-1990)
Sergiu Comissiona (1928-2005)
Lucia Dlugoszewski (1931-2000)
Jerry Hadley (1952-2007)
David Owen Norris (1953)

and

Geronimo (1829-1909)
Joyce Carol Oates (1938)

SoundsTruck NW article - interview with the Greeneys up on OAW

 The newest venue in the Pacific Northwest is now officially open. My article on Oregon ArtsWatch gives you a taste of what SoundsTruck NW is all about.  

Today's Birthdays

Franz Danzi (1763-1826)
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Ernestine Schumann‑Heink (1861-1936)
Guy Ropartz (1864-1955)
Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981)
Sir Thomas Armstrong (1898-1994)
Otto Luening (1900-1996)
Geoffrey Parsons (1929-1995)
Waylon Jennings (1937-2002)
Harry Nilsson (1941-1994)
Paul Patterson (1947)
Rafael Wallfisch (1953)
Robert Cohen (1959)

and

Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)
Saul Steinberg (1914-1999)
Dava Sobel (1947)