Herald Times (Jacobi) Previews: Stravinsky, Verdi anniversaries marked with musical performances at IU

04.15.2013 | Jacobs School of Music

Stravinsky, Verdi anniversaries marked with musical performances at IU

By Peter JacobiH-T Columnist
April 14, 2013

A pair of significant concerts this week honor significant anniversaries.

This afternoon at 3 in the Musical Arts Center, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Krzysztof Urbanski, pay us a visit to perform Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” which had its premiere, a much-written-and-argued-about one, in Paris 100 years ago.

On Wednesday evening at 8, also in the Musical Arts Center, the William Jon Gray-trained IU Oratorio Chorus, Concert Orchestra, and four soloists, all led by David Effron, present Giuseppe Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem” (Requiem Mass), in honor of the composer’s 200th birthday.

Both events are free. What more can you ask?

ISO and Stravinsky

The Indianapolis Symphony’s visit is a double celebration. Six or seven months ago, who would have thought it? Orchestra management and musicians were at a stalemate in contract negotiations. The season was in doubt. So was the future of the orchestra as an artistic ensemble of quality, what with calls for severe reductions in size, pay, and schedule.

But a new contract came to be. A campaign to find funds from new supporters succeeded. Conductor Urbanski made no effort to flee the chaos, praiseworthily determined to remain loyal to his orchestra. A new CEO, Gary Ginstling from tatt_JacobiUrbanski_0414he Cleveland Orchestra, came on board. The season was saved. The future gained at least a foothold. And here we are with two reasons to celebrate: (1) The ISO is in the spring of a solid season at home in the Hilbert Circle Theater, and (2) Today, it is making time and effort to visit us, thereby reviving a welcome tradition of stopping by once a year.

Says the ISO’s Ginstling: “IU pride runs deep within our organization, as 20 of our very own musicians hold degrees from the Jacobs School . We see the concert as an opportunity to reconnect.”

Says Jacobs School Dean Gwyn Richards: “It is always an event when the ISO comes to IU, giving the community, our students, and our faculty the opportunity to hear it in person and to interact with the musicians. It is so generous of them to fit such a concert into their crowded schedule and to share so freely of their gifts.”

Most unlikely this afternoon is a repeat of what happened at the first performance of the ballet a century ago, a historic scandal. Stravinsky recalls: “Mild protests against the music could be heard from the beginning. Then, when the curtain opened . the storm broke . I left the hall in a rage . The music was so familiar to me. I loved it, and I could not understand why people who had not yet heard it wanted to protest in advance. I arrived backstage in a fury. There I saw Diaghilev switching the houselights on and off in the hope that this might quiet the hall. For the rest of the performance, I stood in the wings behind Nijinsky holding the tails of his frac, while he stood on a chair shouting numbers to the dancers, like a coxswain.”

We’ll see no dancing, of course, but what we’ll hear the ISO play has long come to be an accepted musical masterpiece. Applause and cheers are a more likely response than the above.

Verdi Requiem

Some have called the Requiem Verdi’s opera without scenery. He himself referred to it as a concert piece, not one designed specifically to be performed in church, even though it’s been offered in churches and all sorts of venues, sacred and otherwise.

David Effron says that, for him, the work is a “loved one,” a “favorite,” a “masterpiece” by “my favorite composer, who had an enormous talent to combine words and music so that they fit like hand in glove. More than any composer, Verdi consistently came up with the right music for the text. He had such a special affinity for putting music and words together. In the Requiem, he had the drama of life and death, and he made the most of it, leaving us vocally, musically, with an opera on the grandest of themes.

“It is incredibly draining to rehearse and perform,” Effron continues. “It takes physical and emotional energy. As we’ve worked during the past few weeks to prepare, I’ve seen tears in the eyes of our soloists and some of the choristers. They seem to be so deeply moved. Think of it. Verdi was an agnostic but could express feelings of faith so profoundly that we are moved, whether Catholic or not, religious or not. I’m so grateful to be conducting it.”

What stirred Verdi was the death of the Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni, whom he admired as a national literary hero. “If men worshipped men,” the composer declared when he received the news, “I would have knelt before him.” He told his publisher: “I have not the heart to be present at his funeral. I shall come later to find the grave, alone and unseen, and perhaps . I may have a proposal to make to you as to how his memory should be honored.”

Verdi is said to have made his way to the grave. As for the proposal, it was to compose a Requiem Mass for the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death. “It is a heartfelt impulse, or rather a necessity,” he told the Mayor of Milan, “to do all in my power to honor this great spirit whom I valued so highly as a writer and venerated as a man.” The score came to be, as did the performance in May of 1874, with a chorus of 140, an orchestra of 100, and four of his favorite singers as soloists. Verdi conducted.

Says Maestro Effron about Wednesdays’ performance (to be repeated two days later at the Palladium in Carmel: “We’re excited. I hope we do it justice.”

Herald Times Music review (Jacobi): Performances put spotlight on faculty, student soloists

04.05.2013 | Jacobs School of Music

WIND ENSEMBLE AND CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Music review: Performances put spotlight on faculty, student soloists

By Peter JacobiH-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
April 5, 2013

So much pleasure during concerts by large Indiana University ensembles comes from soloists, both students and faculty, who take the spotlight to reveal their significant talents. Take as prime examples Tuesday evening’s program by the Wind Ensemble and Wednesday’s by the Chamber Orchestra, both events in Auer Hall. Three specialists excelled and earned vociferous ovations. They did so on very different instruments and in very different pieces of music.

Appearing first with Stephen Pratt and the Wind Ensemble was Otis Murphy, the remarkably gifted faculty saxophonist, on hand to help introduce a new work, written for him, “Elevator Music” by locally based composer David DeBoor Canfield. It proved an uninhibitedly raucous exercise meant to honor and to reflect: to honor the soloist by relating his first name, Otis, to the title word “Elevator,” meant as a pun to signify the elevator manufacturing company that has been a local presence for decades; to reflect, through the score, the mechanistic nature of our age. The music gave Murphy virtually no opportunity to do his usual sax soothing, but he had floods of notes to conquer quickly and quixotically. That, as expected, he surely did.

Later on Tuesday, along came Curtis Prichard, a Jacobs School doctoral candidate and winner of a student concerto competition, who revealed his mastery of the euphonium, this through battling and vanquishing a Concerto for Euphonium and Wind Ensemble by the British composer Martin Ellerby, a concerto with three movements that severely tested lip power, breathing and finger flexibility but another movement, a Rhapsody, that one gratefully acknowledges allowed Prichard to guide his instrument mellifluously through more lyrical paths. This listener yearned for more of the Rhapsody and less of the others, impressive though all of it was, technically speaking.

On Wednesday, the soloist was violist Laurent Grillet who took on, brilliantly, the Concerto in D Major for that instrument by an Austrian contemporary of Mozart, Franz Anton Hoffmeister. Here, music, musician and instrument gloried in one another and came to serve one another in an Allegro that uplifted, an Adagio that lilted, and a Rondo that amused. Competition winner Grillet knew how to make the most of the concerto’s melodic and harmonic delights. One noted, also, how lovely was the quality of tone he produced on that viola of his.

Speaking of soloists, one could say that the twelve musicians gathered on the Auer stage to open Wednesday’s Chamber Orchestra concert were soloists as much as they were ensemble members. Under the fastidious guidance of guest conductor Carl St. Clair, they performed Paul Hindemith’s 1922 Kammermusik No. 1, a brash item suggestive of Stravinsky, Ravel, jazz, ragtime and the dance band music the composer played as a young performer. The musicians had opportunities to show their mettle, especially in a slow movement featuring limpid and soul-laden solos for clarinet, bassoon and flute, resplendently accomplished by Joseph Weber, Daniel Snedeker and Stephen Hynes.

The returning and always welcome St. Clair concluded the Chamber Orchestra program with an exuberant and snap-crackle-pop account of Schubert’s popular Symphony No. 5 and its multitude of beguiling themes.

Maestro Pratt’s repertoire for the well-playing Wind Ensemble also included “Vanity Fair,” a British music hall overture written in 1924 by Percy Fletcher with all the needed theatrical flair but not enough of a melodic touch; a rousing “Irish Tune from County Derry” by Percy Grainger; Walter Piston’s busy, bustling, but thematically anemic “Tunbridge Fair” (1950), conducted most conscientiously by doctoral candidate Jason Ham, and “Millennium Canons,” written in 2001 by last year’s Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Puts, a richly orchestrated celebratory paean in canonic form to the passage of time and to hope for the future.

The Wind Ensemble, like the Chamber Orchestra, did itself proud.

 

Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2013

Associate Instructor Paul Ghun Kim appointed Resident Conductor of Oregon Symphony

03.28.2013 | Jacobs School of Music

Paul-300The Jacobs School of Music congratulates orchestral conducting student Paul Ghun Kim, who has been appointed Resident Conductor of the Oregon Symphony.  The apointment of Kim follows a nearly year-and-a-half-long search by the orchestra.

“My teachers David Effron and Arthur Fagen guided me with paternal devotion to make sure I’m ready for any challenges ahead,” said Kim. “I thank them and the Jacobs School of Music for providing me with a training ground to thrive in.”

Kim is currently an Associate Instructor at the Jacobs School and the Music Director of the Indiana Youth Musicians. He holds a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from Rice University and a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from the Curtis Institute of Music.

His recent work with the Oregon Symphony impressed Music Director Carlos Kalmar who said: “Paul brings great musicality to the table, paired with excellent baton technique and great knowledge of the repertoire. He will be a great addition to our team, and I am excited that he is going to be the number two conductor for our wonderful orchestra.”

Read the press release >

Read a wonderful interview with Paul by The Oregonian >

REVIEW (HT – Peter Jacobi): Fine orchestra and intuitive conductor make music come alive

02.08.2013 | Jacobs School of Music

HeraldTimesOnline.com

IU SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND MALINA

MUSIC REVIEW: Fine orchestra and intuitive conductor make music come alive

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
February 8, 2013

Not all compositions inspired by the works of Shakespeare are worthy of the originals. There can be no doubt, however, that Prokofiev’s score for a ballet retelling of “Romeo and Juliet” is.

It begs to be danced, of course, but when played by a fine orchestra and intuitive conductor, it can stand alone as a brilliant celebration of that timelessly gripping Shakespearean tragedy of young love thwarted by an environment of needless hate. In the Indiana University Symphony Orchestra and its guest conductor, Stuart Malina, on Wednesday evening in the Musical Arts Center, the music certainly had a team to make this evocative music come alive, even without the yearned-for dancers.

Malina chose six sections from the two “Romeo and Juliet” Suites Prokofiev shaped from his total ballet package: the sinister, mood-setting “Montagues and Capulets,” establishing the emotional environment for the unfolding drama; the winsome portrait of “Juliet, the Young Girl”; the ravishing “Balcony Scene”; “The Death of Tybalt,” mirroring the duel with Mercutio and Tybalt’s funeral; the frothy “Folk Dance,” and the somber, concluding “Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb.” Each segment gained the power of suggestion, and all were played exceptionally.

Wednesday’s concert also featured an outstanding double bass player, Jacobs School of Music student Daniel Carson, who dared to take on one of the Giovanni Bottesini concertos, the Number 2 in B Minor, that this 19th century composer/double bass virtuoso wrote as a challenge for himself and future serious practitioners of the instrument. Carson had no problems conquering the intricacies — cadenza and all — poured by Bottesini into the opening and closing Allegros. And for the lovely cantabile melody of the in-between Andante, he supplied the sweet elegance of a cello’s tone, a goal to be aimed for but not so often achieved.

Malina opened the concert with an intoxicating, luminous reading of Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” an Impressionistic gem that’s become all too familiar but remains an aural astonishment when interpreted as sensuously as it was by the symphony, briefed and guided so deftly by their visiting maestro. Music director of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Florida Orchestra, Malina deserves a return visit.

Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2013

REVIEW: (HT) Community packs house for Joshua Bell and Cleveland Orchestra

01.25.2013 | Jacobs School of Music

HeraldTimesOnline.com

Music review: Community packs house for Joshua Bell and Cleveland Orchestra

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
January 25, 2013

The Cleveland Orchestra feeds on tradition and pride. One can tell by the musicians’ bearing, individually and collectively. One can tell by the seriousness in their demeanor and the passion in their playing. One can tell in how they respond to their conductor, their empathetic music director of 11 years standing, Franz Welser-Most.

It was a pleasure to watch and listen to them Wednesday evening in the Indiana University Auditorium, as they performed in a concert that was the centerpiece of their second campus residency. And it was gratifying that the Bloomington community came out for the event, providing the listeners what looked to this observer as a full house.

Of course, what helped attract the crowd was the promised presence of home town hero Joshua Bell who, as expected, delivered the goods, too: a most musical, radiant and fervent performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. That morsel served as the opening half of the program. After intermission, the Clevelanders took over, with a thrilling presentation of the Berlioz “Symphonie Fantastique.” The package resulted in two extended, cheers-seasoned standing ovations.

Bloomington certainly is not orchestra starved. Gown and town supply us with arrays of concerts, dozens upon dozens annually. But visiting ensembles have become rare. To have such a distinguished orchestra as the Cleveland is a major event. The visitors made sure to remind attendees that, indeed, the rare event was extra special, well worth the build-up and meeting, even exceeding, expectations.

Whether the Auditorium was the best venue for the Beethoven Violin Concerto is a question only folks who sat farther back in that big house than I can say. The work, though containing occasional fireworks, is often a vessel for quiet contemplation. The violinist is given opportunities to produce soft and seductive dynamics, which Joshua Bell surely took full advantage of. The middle movement, the Larghetto, with its introspective radiance, was produced lovingly. One hopes and trusts such intimacy of sound traveled to the more distant corners of the theater. The enthusiastic audience reaction at the conclusion of the performance would suggest it did.

Of course, there is majesty, too, in the concerto. Some of those moments, as interpreted by Bell, were absolutely breathtaking, such as in festive portions of the opening Allegro and in the effervescent closing Rondo. He also enriched the proceedings with expressive and appropriate cadenzas for each movement. Throughout all this, Welser-Most and the orchestra supplied custom-made collaboration.

The “Symphonie Fantastique,” a program piece with a story to tell, a tone poem ahead of its time, gained a brilliant reading, fully suggestive of what Berlioz intended to relate about a musician’s thwarted love affair, like the composer’s own but made more febrile and dramatic through opium-induced hallucinations and nightmares that cause the poor fellow to think he’s murdered the woman who rejected him, leading to his execution and a funeral attended by “specters, sorcerers, and monsters of every kind.”

The score is an aural wonder calling for reverie and bloodshed, for vivid description in sound along with a structure that keeps the episodic story intact. There are wonderful chances for soloists from within the orchestra to show off their talents, which all concerned did. And for the orchestra, this is a feast, on which the Clevelanders truly feasted. What one heard ranged from ravishing to voluptuous, from elegant charm to hair-raising fortissimos. Welser-Most worked to celebrate the music’s rebellious boundaries but wove them into a magic whole. The performance was gripping.

One hopes these esteemed visitors will come again.

REVIEW: (HT) Concert Orchestra: Saturday concerts bring cheers and applause from the concert-goers

01.22.2013 | Jacobs School of Music

HeraldTimesOnline.com

MUSIC REVIEWS: IU CONCERT ORCHESTRA

MUSIC REVIEWS: Saturday concerts bring cheers and applause from the concert-goers

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
January 21, 2013

Two items from Manuel de Falla’s opera “La vida breve” were sacrificed, but attendees listening to Saturday evening’s Concert Orchestra program in the Musical Arts Center shouldn’t have been too disappointed. In fact, they certainly didn’t seem so, considering the applause and cheering.

There was, after all, more music of a Spanish flavor, all of it exhilaratingly played by the orchestra, thanks to the astute and sensitively discerning leadership of conductor Arthur Fagen. And there were, in the program’s center, repeat performances of Joaquin Rodrigo’s evocative Concierto de Aranjuez, with a pair of exquisite interpretations by two young women who apparently tied as winners of a recent student concerto competition.

Their appearance deserves further explanation. The two soloists, Natalie Salzman and Alexandra Katelyn Mullins, are studying the harp in IU’s Jacobs School. The Rodrigo Concierto was originally written for guitar and orchestra, not harp, and as that, the piece is best known. But at the request of Nicanor Zabaleta, the 1940 original was, in 1974, transcribed by Rodrigo himself for harp. So, the harp version has come down to us with official approval.

Both Salzman and Mullins took Rodrigo’s lead, thereby contributing to the argument that their instrument serves the music. Indeed, they proved, through carefully designed and beautifully articulated interpretations, that the harp can honor the score. Actually, it was rewarding to hear the work twice, particularly that gripping, highly emotional second movement, the Adagio, to which both musicians gave a hauntingly elegiac quality. The orchestra’s collaboration added to the impact.

Maestro Fagen began Saturday’s concert with Emmanuel Chabrier’s “Espana: Rhapsody for Orchestra,” a Frenchman’s dazzling tone painting of Spain as a land of bright colors and catchy rhythms. He closed it with four infectious dances from de Falla’s ballet, “The Three-Cornered Hat.” Throughout, the orchestral work was tautly controlled and lush in sound. The conductor had sought and achieved exuberant readings that tumbled excitingly, often furiously forward, while also exuding gobs of atmosphere.

Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2013

REVIEW: (HT – Philharmonic) Philharmonic ends on high note

12.07.2012 | Jacobs School of Music

HeraldTimesOnline.com

MUSIC REVIEWS: Chimes of Christmas and IU Philharmonic

Philharmonic ends on high note

By Peter JacobiH-T Reviewer
December 7, 2012

The fall orchestra season ended Tuesday night with a splendidly played concert by the IU Philharmonic, on this occasion conducted by someone new to us, David Hayes, whose significant work titles include director of orchestral and conducting studies at the Mannes College of Music in New York, music director of the Philadelphia Singers and member of the conducting staff of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Hayes appeared to fit right into his duties as guest conductor. The orchestra paid him heed, much to the benefit of the repertoire: Alfred Schnittke’s “(K)ein Sommernachtstraum” (“No Summer Night’s Dream”), a send-up of Shakespeare and Early Music that begins with a demure minuet and builds into sour and screechy chaos before returning to how it began; Alexander Glazunov’s A Minor Violin Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, “Pathetique.”

The Schnittke was played with appropriately outsized flair. For the Glazunov, violinist Rena Kimura joined the orchestra. She produced the sweetest and purest of tones with her instrument and drew from a voluptuous score, including an extended and ecstatic cadenza, all the necessary musical colors; hers was a fine performance. Tchaikovsky’s eloquent “Pathetique,” his symphonic farewell, his yearning call for continued life, his reluctant acceptance of death, received a most persuasive reading, during which Maestro Hayes intriguingly reconsidered emphases and tonal fusions in several major themes.

Who knows, but if his visit was meant as an audition for the vacancy that David Effron’s coming retirement will create, he impressed.

Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2012

REVIEW (HT – Symphony Orchestra) Doctoral candidate a hit in solo with orchestra

11.16.2012 | Jacobs School of Music

HeraldTimesOnline.com

MUSIC REVIEW: SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND SHAKIROVA

Doctoral candidate a hit in solo with orchestra

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
November 16, 2012

In an 11-day span, pianist Gulrukh Shakirova, a doctoral candidate in IU’s Jacobs School, has given three public performances, each and all of which proved she’s quite the talent.

Two Sundays ago, she scored at the Mu Phi Epsilon Founders Day concert in Auer Hall, with notable interpretations of music by Respighi and Scriabin, the latter a sonata of exceedingly complex design. Last Sunday, during a program by the International Vocal Ensemble, she upheld the glories of music from Uzbekistan, her homeland, even playing a couple of her own compositions, sweetly poignant ones at that.

On Wednesday evening, in the Musical Arts Center, Shakirova soloed with the IU Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Effron. She was a hit, to put it mildly, the audience springing to its collective feet and shouting approval after her completed path through one of Mozart’s most admired piano concertos, the Number 20 in D Minor, K.466.

Not for a moment was there doubt that here is a formidable pianist who possesses not only totally assured technique but also an already well-sculpted and mature artistic soul. Her finger work was pristine. Her phrasing was elegant. She attacked and caressed the keys at will, her will, though, never deviating from loyal service to Mozart.

Perceptively, Shakirova caught the forward-looking nature of the music, the enhanced expressiveness of the K.466, which held back its popularity when first performed but has increasingly made it a fan favorite since the composer’s lifetime. In her performance, one heard the score’s opening sadness, its sense of longing, blended precariously with tension; then — in the middle movement, a Romanze — an aria-like theme bewitchingly lyrical; then an Allegro assai, shifting dramatically but also more happily to its conclusion. The pianist’s emotional involvement seemed total, and did the cadenzas used have original elements of her own making? They were fitting and beautiful.

Maestro Effron and the orchestra complemented their soloist most effectively. Earlier, to open the program, they played the Overture to Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” with zest and carefully calibrated pacing. The opera’s three main characters were present: the brooding Dutchman, the affectionate Senta, and the surging sea.

Wednesday’s program ended with Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony, reportedly one of the conductor’s favorites. He treated it as such. He made the Symphony treat it as such. Together, they shaped a performance riveting enough to match the impassioned music. Somber passages, those of grandeur, those intense, those relaxed, ultimately those joyous were persuasively realized. What’s more, a spacious symphony was spaciously played. Once again, the audience responded effusively; the response was deserved.

Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2012

REVIEW: (Chamber Orchestra) Segal’s nurturing presence leads to sparkling concert

10.15.2012 | Jacobs School of Music

HeraldTimesOnline.com

Music Review: IU Chamber Orchestra

Review: Segal’s nurturing presence leads to sparkling concert

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer
October 12, 2012

It was good to welcome Uriel Segal back. After an absence from campus, on Wednesday evening, he led the Indiana University Chamber Orchestra in a highly satisfying concert, one that resulted in extended and warm applause from the audience gathered in Auer Hall.

Segal seems, over the years, to have had a particularly comfortable relationship with the Chamber Orchestra. That was once again evident on this occasion.

His nurturing presence brought continuing response, positive response, from the musicians. They played as a body. They played with confidence. They played with conviction. All that was clear evidence the maestro had both trained and teased them: trained them to master the repertoire and teased them to accept his interpretive decisions.

The program began with a trifle, Carl Maria von Weber’s Overture to the one-act comedy, “Abu Hassan.” It ended with the far opposite of a trifle, Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, his last one, known as the “Jupiter.” In between, Segal and the orchestra turned to a 20th century charmer, Benjamin Britten’s 1937 Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge.

The Weber overture lasts less than four minutes. A frothy little piece it is, bouncing swiftly along and requiring a touch as light-footed as can be and buoyant, too, qualities that the Chamber Orchestra delivered.

The Britten Variations are scored for strings. They honor his teacher, a lesser-known British composer who recognized young “Benji’s” talent and took him as his only student. Their artistic relationship obviously worked; the student’s fame came to far exceed that of the master.

In tribute to what Britten knew Frank Bridge had taught him, he took a theme from Bridge’s Three Idylls for String Quartet and from it composed an introduction and 10 variations.

The theme itself bears a softness, an aura of nostalgia, quite likely reflecting Britten’s feeling of gratitude for his mentor. The Variations remind one of Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.”

Britten indicated on a copy of the published score that each variation represented part of Bridge’s personality. What he also did was show off his skills and his knowledge of styles that other composers of the time — Stravinsky, Bartok, and the 12-tone crew — were using. One hears sad variations, an Adagio and a “Funeral March” that mark a personal tragedy, the loss of his mother. One hears a whimsical, Shostakovich-like March, a bi-tonal waltz parody (“Wiener Walzer”), an “Aria Italiana” calling Rossini to mind, a “Bourree Classique” bringing neo-classicism into modern parlance, and more. The Variations end with a Fugue that matches the best.

Segal had the Chamber Orchestra strings working beautifully as a team. The performance had grace and grandeur, accord and ardor and wit. As for Mozart’s magnificent “Jupiter,” here, too, one benefited from those very same qualities, provided, of course, by the full orchestra. Eloquence was present in its reading, as were both expressiveness and restraint.

Quite rightly, the audience cheered this sparkling and adroitly crafted performance.

Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2012

REVIEW: (Concert Orchestra, Fagen) Conductor and players capture nature of music

10.09.2012 | Jacobs School of Music

MUSIC REVIEW: IU CONCERT ORCHESTRA, BAKER AND TCHAIKOVSKY
Conductor and players capture nature of music

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
October 9, 2012

Conductor Arthur Fagen chose the cerebral and the visceral for his program with the Indiana University Concert Orchestra in the Musical Arts Center Sunday evening.

The cerebral was contributed by Claude Baker, the Jacobs School-based composer of always interesting music, this time a piece called “Marchenbilder” or “Fairy-Tale Images.” The visceral, in this case meaning deeply versus crudely emotional, came from Tchaikovsky, his well-known Symphony Number 4. They made for an intriguing combination, particularly because the orchestra, intuitively led by Maestro Fagen, played them both so very well.

Baker wrote “Marchenbilder” on request, in 2005, from Mario Venzago, then music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of that institution. How ironic that just a few years later, Venzago is long gone from the scene, after squabbles with management, and the orchestra is, at the moment, in crisis mode, with contract negotiations between players and management in increasingly bitter stall. It’s a sad and shameful state of affairs that citizens and leaders in Indianapolis should quickly strive to solve, lest the ISO lose its stature and, quite possibly, its current music director, the talented young Krzysztof Urbanski.

Here in Bloomington, fortunately, we’re getting plenty of orchestral music, and it has been uncommonly good throughout a string of programs this year and season, including Sunday’s. Baker’s composition proved a provocative opener. Instigator Venzago had suggested that the requested composition be designed to partner Schumann’s “Rhenish” Symphony, the Third, at a future planned concert. Baker, in program notes, says he expanded on that request by building a work that compliments all four of Schumann’s symphonies and more.

He happens to be a composer who often uses musical quotes, and in “Marchenbilder,” one can hear hints of Schumannesque content and style in brief glimmers of exposition. In addition, he explains, the work’s three movements are meant to honor pieces for viola, including ones by Brahms (the Sonata Opus 120, Number 1) and Berlioz (“Harold in Italy”).

But never mind all that. What matters is Baker has shaped an interesting and sagaciously orchestrated composition, one that speaks subtly versus clamorously, in controlled manner rather than extravagantly. It is contemplative instead of action-filled; the music moves along judiciously. Whatever fairy tales Baker had in mind are of a subdued nature, a touch surreal, a touch mysterious. The music prompts thinking, not emotional release. Fagen and the orchestra gave “Marchenbilder” a properly refined and cleanly articulated reading. Strings and woodwinds, called upon to do the heaviest lifting, lifted nobly.

Tchaikovsky’s verbal explanation for his Fourth Symphony addresses fate, personal despair and loneliness and, in the final movement, offers counsel: that to solve unhappiness, one should forget oneself and indulge in the joys of others. The music, developed not only in movements but segments, weeps and wails and mulls dreamily and dances and struggles and shouts and, ultimately, rejoices. There is no holding back in this score.

Sunday’s performance certainly did not hold back either. Conductor and players captured the febrile nature of the music. In so doing, however, they did not lose sight of boundaries; the structural weavings Tchaikovsky so craftily created remained in place, proportioned and weighed for maximum impact. Form was observed, making the symphony’s excitable substance all the more powerful.