Friday May 5, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 18 |
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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
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Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra at Benaroya
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| Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra at Benaroya | |
| by Rod Parke
- SGN A&E Writer
As I sat in Benaroya Hall enjoying the technical excellence of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, I wondered why some of my life-long favorite works were not moving me. On the program were the last three symphonies of Mozart, played in chronological order, with the intermission coming after the 'Symphony No. 40.' The playing was impeccable and most musical. Tempi were on the brisk side. The orchestra sound was perhaps a bit mellow, lacking the bite that period instruments would have added. In fact, the strings were so smooth that I marveled at them. A slight distraction (and detraction) was the use of smaller-than-normal tympani that had a shallow sound. Perhaps they would have blended better with early instruments, but here they stood out in their lack of impact. The conducting of Roberto Abbado was graceful and full of nice phrasing. Balances were excellent. So, what was wrong? Why was this so un-involving? We learned the answer after the intermission. The house was poorly sold and many empty seats offered themselves. My partner Dale suggested we move from our seats at the back of the hall to two of the empty seats in the front row center. With an orchestra of mostly young players, we were seated only a few feet away from a most attractive concertmaster. Suddenly everything that was missing before was grabbing us into marvelous involvement with every detail of these miraculous works. Interplay between the first and second violins hit us in exciting stereo, and the brilliance of the players was inescapable. I reveled in the excited playing of the concertmaster, finding it utterly contagious, so that he pulled me into the music as never before. The problem with the first half had been simply that a chamber orchestra is not perfectly suited, no matter how excellent the players, to a large concert hall. By sitting so close, we perhaps lost the exact balance that the conductor intended, but we gained the intimacy that Mozart would have presented in his concerts in much smaller concert venues. (If you want to experience a similar intimacy with a superb performance, rent the movie "Eroica" about the first performance of Beethoven's third symphony, and play it with good sound equipment. It takes place in a private home, and a very exciting experience indeed!) |
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International Readers |
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2nd Annual WA State 05.19.06 IKEA
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