TFC with Sopranos Camilla Tilling and Carolyn Sampson led by Bramwell Tovey (StuRosner)

Right to the point: there are two performances remaining, one tonight, and one on Tuesday, January 31^st. You should go.

At Symphony Hall last night the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Bramwell Tovey with three excellent soloists and John Oliver’s redoubtable Tanglewood Festival Chorus presented but one work — the 10-movement Lobgesang, or “Song of Praise” Op. 52 by Felix Mendelssohn. A more enriching experience at Symphony Hall would be hard to imagine.

This concert was the second of six Friday evening events called “Underscore Fridays” by the orchestra, which begin at 7:00 PM and feature from-the-stage introductions from orchestra members, and end in time for a generous — and gratis — food and wine buffet for the entire audience and performers, so the two constituencies can meet and schmooze post-concert. This is part of the orchestra’s earnest outreach efforts to begin to break down the traditional barriers that normally exist between audience and performers and also help make BSO concerts more accessible to their audiences. The many enthusiastic participants last night indicated that this gesture was very well received.

The orchestra’s experience with Mendelssohn’s remarkable score is limited. The BSO first played it while “on the road” in 1890 with its then-Music Director Arthur Nikisch, who had brought his orchestra to Old City Hall in Pittsburgh for a single performance on a Monday evening. In recent history, Seiji Ozawa conducted this music in subscription concert presentations in April of 1988. That’s all until this week’s revelatory concerts.

Revelatory? Yes, indeed. In his charming pre-concert introduction from the stage, 21-seasons veteran violist Edward Gazouleas told the audience how the orchestra’s reacquintance with Lobgesang was akin to visiting one’s cellar and stumbling across a long-forgotten bottle of extraordinary wine. In looking at the bottle, one remembered the occasion of having received it, but the contents had remained untasted until it was now finally opened, savored, and immediately recognized as superb — a wonderful gift finally realized.

And as fine wine is best enjoyed with appropriate vessels — fine crystal stemware, for instance — so too is music best appreciated when the vessel presenting it is of equal caliber to the notes printed on the page. The Boston Symphony Orchestra is certainly that vessel, and its many felicities of brass, woodwind, and strings — so aptly showcased in last week’s “conductorless” ensemble offerings — were united under the inspired leadership of Bramwell Tovey, a musician of impeccable taste.

Tovey, whose experience is worldwide, was first seen at a BSO performance at Tanglewood last summer where he led a very highly regarded performance of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in its composer’s intended grand opera version. When Riccardo Chailly unfortunately joined this season’s long list of cancelling conductors, Tovey was deputized to lead the concerts which Chailly had originally programmed. Frankly, it would be hard to imagine the absent Italian having had a greater success in presenting this remarkable music than Mr. Tovey’s, so strong and fluent was the latter’s leadership last night. He has fully internalized this wonderful score, and the forces on stage were “with him” for the span of the evening.

The 31-year-old Felix Mendelssohn wrote his Lobgesang in June, 1840 for a Lepzig festival that celebrated the 400^th anniversary of Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type and development of the printing press. Europeans felt then that this remarkable innovation, which, among many other possibilities allowed the words of the Lutheran Bible to be printed and then disseminated throughout the Christian world, was a symbol of German high-mindedness and worldly cultural enlightenment — erleuchten, “to cast light upon,” as the German text has it in a tenor aria. Such an invention at that time would have been equal in impact to the recent creation of the internet, suggested Maestro Tovey in his eloquent pre-concert talk.

Lobgesang’s wonderfully inventive score calls for a full classical orchestra, plus organ (handsomely played by James David Christie in these performances) and three vocal soloists. Well matched in timbre and musicianship were the two sopranos, Carolyn Sampson and Camilla Tilling. John Tessier, stepping in for yet another last-minute cancellation, was the lyric-voiced and sweet-toned tenor. While of these three, the Swedish soprano Tilling projected the most authentic-sounding declamation of the German language; together they formed an earnest and fully competent trio.

Mendelssohn’s music is constantly engaging, but in fact much more than that. It is inspired, moving, ceaselessly melodic and involving, and heart-touchingly beautiful. In addition to this, it inhabits a lofty spiritual and philosophical plane with its text, drawn from the scriptures yet also reflective of its metaphoric celebration of the cultural enlightenment mentioned above. Lobgesang is neither a true “symphony” nor an oratorio — on the title page of the urtext Mendelssohn called it Lobgesang. Eine Symphonie-Cantate nach Worten der heiligen Schrift. The inability of some listeners to “classify” this music is perhaps part of the reason for this score’s undeserved obscurity. Critics savaged it after its premiere, unfairly characterizing it as an unsuccessful attempt to imitate Beethoven’s ninth symphony. While Lobgesang surely does harbor several moments that may reflect homage to that earlier score, it is also surely no weak sister to the Beethoven. Lobgesang is fully capable of making its own salient points. There has been, in my opinion, too much bickering about this score over the years, even up to today, and not enough LISTENING. “Too much unending praise” is a major carp. Indeed, Maestro Tovey wittily brought this up before the music began. He characterized the score as “unrelievedly joyful,” and those coming to the concert looking for “unsupervised introspection” would not find it here. I say, more unrelievedly joyful music is just what this dreary world needs now and again, especially now.

The performance was superb from beginning to end. Maestro Tovey conducted as a man eager to proselytize for this score, mining its subtleties, reveling in its exquisite successions of melodic invention, underscoring the music’s drama and illuminating its reverence. His equal partner in this, along with the BSO, was the full-throated Tanglewood Festival Chorus, shaping and savoring its every phrase, powerful and focused when demanded, quiet and prayerful when appropriate. Among many choral highlights were the strong projection of the powerful fugal entrances in movements VII and X and the dead-on intonation in the a cappella passages of the seven-voiced chorale Nun Danket alle Gott in movement VIII. The final entrance of the TFC men near the music’s conclusion, singing the music’s recurring trombone motive heard at the work’s very beginning and now reprised at its end, nearly caused me to jump out of my chair in gratitude for their rich, sonorous sound and sheer commitment to their text.

The words that begin and end this remarkable piece are “Alles was Odem hat, lobet den Herrn – Let all those who hath breath praise the Lord!” To that is appended: “Hallelujah!”

Don’t miss these performances!

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 32 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 32 years.

The difficulty, known by all present in the hall and keenly felt by every young player on stage, was not the music, but the missing presence of their mentor, the person who had rehearsed them, encouraged them and ultimately inspired them, their long-time leader Benjamin Zander, whom circumstances had forced to leave the Conservatory, as anyone who has read the news lately knows. You could read it on these young faces as they came on to the platform Friday night. Some looked tired, some sad, some dejected, some numb. Yet, there they were, on stage, ready to give what they could to a program of wonderful music. And, give they surely did.

The program that Zander had planned and rehearsed, which remained intact, was to open with the zippy and virtuosic Overture to La Forza del Destino by Giuseppe Verdi. Instead, the orchestra members decided to play, conductorless, the “Nimrod” movement from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. This orchestra has a long history with this particular piece. For years, at the end of the final concert of the orchestra’s season, Zander would proudly introduce to his audience those “senior”(!) members of the orchestra who were graduating and moving on to the beginnings of their professional careers. After these introductions, the orchestra would then end their season with “Nimrod,” leaving nary a dry eye in the house as a result.* As one might imagine, the associations for these players – the piece itself, so rich and moving, the composer, so purely British-sounding – and, of course, their conductor, himself British and so inspiring to them – were strong and compelling. At the time of Friday’s concert, I was unaware of this ensemble’s “history” with this music and was amazed with their ability to bring it off so well without a leader to guide them. Later, of course, aware of the recent circumstances, I was very moved by this tribute. Knowing now of the players’ familiarity with this music, it makes their homage to Zander all that more poignant.

But it was also evident that these players were ready to move on. Two estimable members of the NEC Orchestra Conducting faculty were deputized to lead each half of the original concert. Hugh Wolff, the Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood Director of Orchestras, NEC College, led a fiery reading of the Verdi overture, and an equally thrilling performance of the Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67. Each performance made no concession to the tender years of these players. Wolff’s tempi were brisk and demanding, exactly right from my point of view, and the players rose to the occasion with inspired musicmaking. Particular kudos are due to oboist Kelly Alexander, who played the famous cadenza in the Beethoven’s first movement with remarkable aplomb and beauty of tone, and to Sarah Purdy, clarinet, and Jacob Thonis, bassoon, each of whom brought clear-headed concentration and lovely timbre to their playing. Konrad Herath led a heroic ensemble of French Horns, and Jonah Ellsworth brought commanding concentration and section unanimity of sound and purpose to his leading of the ‘cello section. The progression from the Andante con moto movement through the Scherzo Allegro and its elided Allegro finale reminded me why this fabulous symphony is so justly popular. What an amazing construction it is! Special bravos go to Maestro Wolff, whose short-notice direction inspired such a committed performance. And, bless him, he played the fourth movement’s rarely heard exposition repeat.

After intermission, David Loebel, Associate Director of Orchestras, NEC College led two movements from Michael Gandolfi’s seven-movement The Garden of Cosmic Speculation and, for good measure, Claude Debussy’s La Mer.

The two Gandolfi movements – “The Zeroroom” and “Soliton Waves” – impressed with this composer’s usual high-minded creativity and energy, and made one want to dash on-line to order Robert Spano the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s CD of the entire piece. I haven’t always been this taken with Gandolfi’s work, and it was heartening to see him in the audience, attentive and appreciative of the hard work this ensemble put forth in realizing his music. He seemed quite happy with the results, as did the audience, which gave him a strong ovation. Though the YPO made this music “sound easy,” this was tricky and demanding repertoire.

The evening came to an atmospheric and brilliant close with a finely paced reading of Debussy’s La Mer. Maestro Lobel led precisely and clearly with many an encouraging smile to his players. Though by now fatigue surely must have been weighing upon them, they rose to the occasion with a remarkable performance. The famous cello divisi section of the first movement was played with uncommon rhythmic accuracy and beauty of tone, and the woodwinds played with flexible fluidity and attention to detail. The huge string sections (19 first violins, 20 seconds, 17 violas, and 16 ‘cellos) were attendant to every nuance urged from them by Debussy and Maestro Loebel. And what a plush sound they made!

Perhaps inclement weather contributed to the surprisingly small audience size? Bostonians need to come out and support this worthy ensemble in greater number than were present this past Friday. These players deserve all the support they can muster. I was amazed to learn that the NEC Preparatory School, of which the YPO is the elite ensemble, sponsors ELEVEN separate orchestras! New England should be very proud of its remarkable Conservatory.

Leaving Jordan Hall, I remarked to my concert companion that events such as this renewed my tottering faith in “the younger generation.” Go next time (June 1, 2012 – FREE admission!), and hear for yourself – you’ll be very glad you did.

* Special thanks to Ellen Pfeiffer, NEC Public Relations Manager, for this detail.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 31 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Putnam is a violinist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and is also the founder and director of CCMS. O’Riley is a gifted pianist whom one hears infrequently as a recitalist, perhaps due to his admirable efforts as the host/chief “enabler” of the NPR/PBS broadcast programs From The Top,  a hugely entertaining showcase for youthful musicians. O’Riley travels all over the country in search of kids with outstanding classical music talent; he then provides them an enormously important launch pad by his broadcasts and often accompanies the kids from the piano. For this alone he deserves a medal of some sort, as he is nurturing the performers of classical music’s future. Sunday offered the opportunity to hear O’Riley as a soloist and a sonata collaborator, and in these he proved quite a talent indeed.

His and Putnam’s program opened with Gabriel Fauré’s melodic and engaging Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in A Major, op. 13. This music, not played nearly often enough, is a gem of the repertoire. Its many charms disguise particularly challenging parts for both players, challenges not completely met in this performance. While there was pleasing give-and-take, this sonata requires more nuance and color and firm arrivals at climaxes than was offered. A wider range of color would have been nice, as there was a curious monochromatic feel to the performance. The piano, a venerable and very brightly voiced New York Steinway, was simply too bright for this music. Perhaps it was voiced more for the music to follow? In any case, the instrument worked against allowing a truly French effect to permeate the unique sound world of Fauré. The performance was accurate, to be sure, but a bit earthbound. Fauré surely should soar and sing. Yet, one is grateful for the rare opportunity to hear this wonderful piece, and the few quibbles mentioned above did not diminish the enjoyment of the audience, whose applause was genuine and heartfelt.

O’Riley introduced the next selection, Franz Liszt’s entertaining Réminiscences de Don Juan (after Mozart’s Don Giovanni), LW A80. Showing the enormous charm that has informed his broadcasts, O’Riley characterized the forthcoming music as Liszt’s encapsulation of three essential elements of the Mozart opera, though not in the opera’s original order of events: “Hell, Girl (seduction thereof), and Party.” This, he explained, better suited the dramatic exposition of Liszt’s transcription. With that, O’Riley began tearing into the fearsome challenges Liszt throws at any mere mortal who dares to play this fiendishly difficult music. Hell’s fires raged, the Girl was suavely and successfully courted, and the Party was definitely festive as projected by O’Riley’s blurred hands ranging from the top to the bottom of the keyboard, and surely all the notes in between. The piece is so over-the-top that it inspires occasional amusement in the listener in the midst of the torrents of sound. O’Riley was largely successful in his essay of this somewhat crazed work, though signs of fatigue began to appear as he approached the final measures. No wonder, after all. The piece is a monster that fully challenges all comers. Well-deserved bravos punctuated the applause at the music’s end.

After intermission, O’Riley returned with three more Liszt transcriptions, two of which were odes to spring: Robert Schumann’s Frühlingsnacht and Franz Schubert’s Frühlingsglaube, both original songs given Lisztian feathery filigrees of sweetness and light. These were a welcome a contrast to the stormy bombast of the Don Juan heard earlier. O’Riley then offered a unique presentation of Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. Because Liszt had set only the Liebestod, apparently, and not the Prelude, O’Riley went in search of a suitable transcription of the Prelude. He found it in a very abbreviated setting by the virtuoso German pianist/composer Moritz Moszkowski. Still not satisfied with Liszt’s setting of the Liebestod’s final measures – Liszt had omitted Isolde’s final cadential notes – O’Riley pluckily added these essential notes to Liszt’s score. So what O’Riley offered was his “amalgam” of the Wagner Prelude and Liebestod – a transcription fashioned from the music, O’Riley noted waggishly, of “Wagner, Liszt, Moszkowski, and O’Riley.” It was very effective. One wished for a bit more of the Prelude, but most of the Liebestod was there, and O’Riley’s emendation of Isolde’s crucial cadential notes indeed did help the finale. Kudos to Christopher for construction and performance!

Wendy Putnam returned to the stage and offered a powerful performance with O’Riley of Johannes Brahms’s seminal Sonata No. 3 in D Minor for Violin and Piano, op. 108. Here both artists seemed more at home than in the Fauré, and this music was the more successful collaboration of the afternoon. Rife with rich Brahmsian melodies, and in the finale, virtuosic and fiercely single-minded focus, this sonata presents a variegated and thoroughly accurate portrait of the composer’s creativity as he inhabited his mature years. O’Riley and Putnam were up to the work’s every challenge, and thus aptly closed an extremely rewarding concert in Concord.

The CCMS’s next concert on January 15th at 3:00 offers the opportunity to hear the BSO’s new first-chair harpist Jessica Zhou in music by André Previn, Camille Saint-Saëns, and John Williams.    

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 32 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 32 years.

James Morris and Raphael Frühbeck (Stu Rosner photo)

Wagnerites, perfect and less so, hie thee to Symphony Hall today and Saturday! There you will witness a superb concert of excerpts from Die Meistersinger, the likes of which one rarely encounters, so high was the level of execution on the part of all parties on stage on Thursday, November 3rd.

Mustering with élan, heartfelt musicianship and full authority the considerable forces before him on Symphony Hall’s extended stage was the BSO’s favorite visiting maestro Raphael Frühbeck de Burgos, whose leadership over the past two weeks only further cements the notion that this man belongs in Boston on a more permanent basis than present. The sound of the orchestra was startlingly European – rich, round, full, not a trace of harshness, beautifully blended, strikingly colored and textured. The large assemblage of singers in John Oliver’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus was precise in tuning, rich in timbre, marvelously uplifting and thrilling when singing forte or more, moving and heart-touching when quietly reverent. James Morris, bass-baritone — one of the world’s leading interpreters of Wotan in Wagner’s ring cycle in opera houses world-wide — imbued his reading of Hans Sachs with subtlety and nobility. Clearly suffering from some kind of vocal stress, by evening’s end he was struggling to maintain his high notes, though not one whit of his characterization was wanting. Singing from the rear of the stage, tenor Matthew DiBattista was a bright and soulful David. And TFC member Cindy M. Vredeveld triumphed with brilliant tone in her brief but memorable appearance as Magdalene.

Conducting from memory, Frühbeck de Burgos opened his concert with delectable Haydn: the rarely-encountered Symphony No. 1 in D (1757 or 1759), complete with keyboard continuo elegantly played by John Finney, and the familiar Symphony No. 100 in G, “Military,” conducted at its 1794 premiere in London by the composer to great acclaim, so much so that he was obliged to repeat the work a week later. The non-pareil playing of the BSO in this music — so elegant the strings, so characterful the winds, so integrated the percussion —reflected the taste and informed professionalism with which Frühbeck led, betraying only a bit of “old-fashionedness” in today’s early-music informed milieu with his slowed cadences at the end of movements. However, those cadences were without exception played perfectly together, with no hint of indecision or raggedness. It was heartening to observe the smiles among the first violins as the music progressed. How could one not smile? Old-fashioned or not, give us more Haydn of this elevated sort, please!

Remarkable the ease with which Maestro Frühbeck moved from this elegant Haydn to the considerably different stylistic demands of Wagner! From the familiar rich chords and vigorous counterpoint which imbue the Meistersinger Prelude to the dramatically startling organ-enriched entrance of the chorus embodying the congregation of Nürnberg’s St. Catherine’s Church, it was immediately evident that this was to be a memorable Symphony Hall occasion. I mention Symphony Hall, because it too played a significant role in the evening’s many felicities, just as it had least week when Maestro Frühbeck de Burgos led his vivid reading of Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben. While it is not new news to any concertgoers that Symphony Hall is one of the great edifices in which to hear music, the truth of this was brought home to me all the more forcefully these past two weeks. I had attended Colin Davis’s extraordinary London Symphony Orchestra concert of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in New York’s several-times- rebuilt Avery Fisher Hall only a couple of weeks ago, and I was reminded there, when presented with its overly bright and quite unreverberant acoustic, of how fortunate we are to hear music in Symphony Hall, whose peerless acoustics enhance any performance within its walls. And then, of course, we have the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which too rarely plays Wagner these days. This is a GREAT Wagner orchestra – one of the finest exponents of that composer’s many instrumental demands, memorable whenever it plays his music. James Levine knew this; I remember his thrilling complete Dutchman several seasons ago. And so did Colin Davis; his searing Ring excerpts many years back still resound in memory.

But enough of history. May I once again urge listeners of the present to go to Symphony Hall and hear one of this season’s surely-to-be-most memorable BSO concerts? The Meistersinger excerpts went from strength to strength. Those familiar only with the famous Overture will be bowled over by the ongoing richness of invention in this remarkable opera. Those who know this work well will be gratified to hear this remarkable score played with such panache in such a noble interpretation.

I had written earlier the following in response to Tom Delbanco’s BMInt review of Frühbeck’s Schumann/Strauss concert last week:

“…Last night RFdeB and the BSO outdid themselves. The brass, and especially the orchestra’s immensely gifted concertmaster Malcolm Lowe were at they very top of their game. But, so was everyone on stage last night – the woodwinds, the percussion, and the BSO’s fabulous strings – what a night they all had. While it may be heretical to some, why doesn’t the BSO just go ahead and sign up this world-class conductor right now? The orchestra ALWAYS plays beautifully for him, his repertoire is vast and deep, his high-minded approach to music-making is unimpeachable. He is a true old-world musician steeped in authentic tradition, something that is increasingly rare. He’s not a hot-shot young man, it’s true, but he conducts with great energy and love every time he mounts the Symphony Hall podium. His rapport with soloists is a joy to observe – the give-and-take last night between him and Gidon Kremer was obvious and salutary. RFdeB’s regular visits to Boston and Tanglewood have been consistently rewarding. If he isn’t interested in being considered for Music Director, which would be understandable, I surely hope the BSO Management would offer him a Laureate position such as has been bestowed on our other great world-class visitor Bernard Haitink. Whatever happens, we should be sure that Boston remains a welcome home away from home for him.”

Enough said. Don’t miss this week’s Haydn/Wagner BSO concert!

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 31 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 32 years. Spectrum Singers’s upcoming concert is on November 12.

“By the numbers” describes the compositional schemes of Michael Gandolfi (b. 1956) and Michael-Thomas Foumai (b. 1987), both of whom gave helpful and informed pre-performance explanations of their music from the stage. Gandolfi’s Of Angels and Neurones, dating from 2009 but having its first Boston performance, came from the composer’s fascination with research related to the brainwave patterns that occur during the five stages of sleep. In his excellent program notes, available on the NE Philharmonic’s website, he pays particular homage to the work of Dr. J. Allan Hobson, in particular that researcher’s From Angels to Neurones: Art and The New Science of Dreaming (2007). Gandolfi’s music is set in seven continuous sections, each with a title such as “Stage Wake,” “Stage II (K-complexes and Sleep Spindles),” “Stage V – REM Sleep.” Each of the seven sections’ music was driven by the composer’s observation of charts of brainwave sleep-pattern printouts. This may sound a bit “out there” to the reader of these lines, but Mr. Gandolfi’s musical reflections of these brainwave charts were consistently engaging and entertaining, especially with the help of the composer’s program notes in hand. His sound characteristics are of an active American neo-classic style, quite diatonic, played in this case in a long uninterrupted arc of about twenty minutes duration. I found the music skillfully constructed, admirably orchestrated, and clearly descriptive of its brainwave charts. The orchestra gave a bright and presumably accurate reading of this lively music, with Pittman and Maddon giving incisive and readable direction from their respective positions.

After this bracing opening, Pittman moved to the first of the two 1945 compositions of the evening, the Piano Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra (1945) by Béla Bartók. Stephen Drury was the admirable soloist, whose playing of this last work penned by Bartók was pellucid, accurate, wonderfully nuanced, fiery and atmospheric. Yes, all of that, for this work asks for all of this and more. Often cited as the most accessible of the composer’s three piano concertos, it is nonetheless filled with abundant demands of the pianist’s virtuosity and imagination. Bartók’s great interest in Hungarian folk music is audible in the work’s first and third movements, and Drury played those moments with great dash and élan. The second movement is notable for its inward direction, its chorale-like writing reflecting the composer’s“Andante religioso”; here, as elsewhere, Drury and the orchestra were hand-in-glove in their exposition of the score. The concerto’s third movement was left unfinished because of the composer’s unfortunate and untimely passing, due to leukemia. The composer’s apprentice Tibor Serly appended the movement’s final seventeen measures, following Bartók’s sketchy notations, with, some claim, help from Eugene Ormandy. These and all of the pure Bartókian measures were sparklingly essayed by Drury, who surely made as strong a case for this wonderful music as one could imagine. Enthusiastic bravos from the audience rewarded him and Pittman.

After intermission Michael-Thomas Foumai’s The Light-Bringer (Symphony No. 1) (2010) was given a strong reading. As Mr. Foumai’s program notes state,“The title of this piece is taken from the translation of Lucifer’s Latin name, meaning Light-Bringer…The work is based on manipulations of the Number of the Beast, 666 (Revelation 13:17-18) …for the purposes of this work I understood it as being a representation of Lucifer. The number six is embedded within the structure ….”

This music was the winner of the New England Philharmonic’s admirable annual “Call for Scores,” and it too exhibits a very solid construction of compositional elements and canny orchestration, relying heavily on block sonorities. Echoes of the styles of music by Alan Hovhaness, Leonard Bernstein, Carl Ruggles, John Adams, and Silvestre Revueltas were apparent to me, though Foumai’s music is clearly his own. Of brief duration, it packs a wallop, and it was intriguing to listen for the composer’s permutations of the number 6 permeate the music as the work progressed.

Pittman chose Stravinsky’s challenging 1945 Symphony in Three Movements to close the evening. The orchestra gave a brave reading of this difficult score. It was clear to me, though, that this thorny and immensely tricky to play music was a bit too much of a challenge for this intrepid band, especially at the end of such a very demanding program. That being said, these players are a brave bunch, and they managed to skate through with a minimum of mishaps. Kudos is due to them all for taking it on. And as was the case throughout the entire evening, Pittman led with great clarity and assurance. This evening, for the most part, all the numbers added up.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 31 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 32 years. Spectrum Singers’s upcoming concert is on November 12.

This is a requiem unlike any other before or since, and its far-ranging influence can be seen and felt in other composers’ requiems, most obviously Verdi’s Manzoni… and Benjamin Britten’s War….

Of all the requiems, the Berlioz remains for me the most questioning, the most doubting, the most overtly fearful of death. The strange chordal resolutions throughout, the halting choral language of the opening pages, the far-spaced flute/low trombone moments heard later in the work, the quiet sets of tympani drumming their unsettling tattoos at the very end, the brasses’ pitched battle of half-step pitches with the unwilling-to-move chorus and orchestra near the end of the Lachrymosa – all these things lend this work a haunting and haunted sense of ambiguity. ‘Will there actually be a positive response to the plea “Dona nobis pacem”?’ is the mood created at the end. And, of course, the positively apocalyptic Tuba Mirum never fails to conjure terrifying Hieronymus Boschian images of the Last Judgement.

The “overwhelmingness” of Berlioz’s setting is often mentioned as its most “memorable” feature, and there is much in this music that can overwhelm. For me, however, though I’m thrilled by the sheer mass and weight of the assembled brass and percussion, it’s the softer music that holds more fascination and admiration these days. Perhaps it is this that made Charles Dutoit’s performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood this past Saturday, July 9, so unusually special. Oh, the four brass ensembles were there, of course, but they played in excellent sync with one another with an uncommonly rich and mellow timbre. Even the six sets of tympani were played in a more circumspect fashion than is usual in this work. What impressed the most in this open-air concert was the remarkable integration Dutoit brought to this music’s many disparate movements, his ideal pacing and tempi, his elegant phrasing, his attention to balance and nuance. He was clearly aiming less for splash and flash, seeking much more the lyric, of which there is a great deal more in this work than one might always think. Far in memory remained the more blazingly extrovert (and LOUD!) performances of Munch and Ozawa in this venue, though no less valid, to be sure.

As this was opening week at Tanglewood, one should probably forgive the many less-than-perfect things that were heard: several surprising false entrances from within the orchestra, an errant though thankfully soft cymbal stroke, individual voices unblended and non-agreed-upon phrase endings in the otherwise attentive Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and a tenor soloist of a lovely voice, yet whose timbre and temperament seemed less than ideal for this composition. For a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert, this list is too long. One might worry that a bit of discipline might be lacking now that that this wonderful ensemble is without a visible music director.

Yet there was much to admire. John Oliver’s TFC sang with nobility and beauty, up to the immense challenges presented by this sprawling music, the bass and alto sections particularly uniform in their sonorities. Principal English Horn Robert Sheena’s use of a particular reed or instrument tellingly colored his solo in the Quid sum miser with a very appropriate plaintiveness. Tuba artist Mike Roylance’s velvet underpinning of the sinuous melodic line in the Offertorium was a wonderment to hear, so subtle, shaped, and blended. The horns summoned up a nice, nazzy tone for their muted enharmonic interruptions at “mors stupebit” in the Tuba Mirum. The resoundingly deep bass drum strokes mid-way through the Lacrymosa were perfectly essayed – a small detail, but so important. I was intrigued that Dutoit, unlike other conductors I’ve heard, ended this most remarkable movement with a very rapid diminuendo and hardly any fermata. Shaw, Ozawa, and Munch all linger there for a while. Finally, is there any string section, anywhere, that can play the aforementioned Offertorium unison melodic lines so beautifully and so soulfully as the BSO? One senses that these wonderful players have this music deeply in their blood.

I was told after the concert that Maestro Dutoit accomplished this very moving reading of the Berlioz while quite ill and running a temperature of 102°. One surely would not have known this in the hall from his vigorous and musical leading of this challenging masterwork. Bully for him for his “show must go on” attitude, and much gratitude is extended to the BSO and TFC for going his way so willingly. For all its little flaws of execution, this Berlioz Requiem from the Tanglewood Shed will be one to remember.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 31 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Unfortunately, several issues conspired to make this occasion a disappointment:

1: No texts were provided; 2: The program book was totally at odds with the order of the works the group performed, which necessitated Wickham’s need several times from the stage verbally to correct the program book’s listings; 3: Owing, he said, to “the New Hampshire heat,” though the evening was pleasantly cool, Wickham twice begged the audience’s indulgence to shorten the program’s length; 4: The singers were score-bound, with only a few singers regularly watching their helpful leader; 5: The choir gave evidence of not being fully prepared on much of the repertoire. I wrote “shaky” several times in my note-taking throughout the evening. 6: While exhibiting excellent intonation in almost all that they sung – chords “locked” pleasingly at the ends of most pieces — there were just too many instances of false entrances here and there, occasioning a visible befuddlement on the faces of a couple of singers who had strayed from the printed score; 7: The programming was a puzzlement, with seemingly not much thought put into how to construct a program which ought to begin brilliantly, constantly build upon itself, and reach a musical highpoint by the end. Come, Holy Ghost by Jonathan Harvey which closed the concert before its obligatory encore, was a work of interesting construction, but its execution seemed lacking in energy and coherence, owing, perhaps, to vocal fatigue and that New Hampshire heat; and 8: The women’s attire was distractingly disparate. The first lady to come on stage did so in a very tight dress quite short of modesty for an elevated stage and wore sheer black stockings. Other women were bare-legged, yet another wore black pants, skirts were of varying length and jewelry was of such a variety as to be further distracting. On the other hand, the men’s attire was undistracting and appropriate.

On the plus side, the several soloists — unfortunately left unnamed by either Monadnock’s program book or the choir’s Director — knew their parts well, sang beautifully, and showed a welcome professional stage deportment. There is obviously some real vocal talent within this choir.

Despite all of the aforementioned issues, the generous audience awarded the singers a standing ovation spiked with some cheering from the galleries. My opinion of the evening was clearly at odds with most of those in the audience.

I realize that it is a truly good thing that these eager young singers are devoting part of their summer vacation to enthusiastically present beautiful music of their countrymen. Perhaps it is churlish of me to have expected a higher standard of execution from this ensemble. Yet I would suggest that if they wish to be judged as the equal of the finest of amateur ensembles that regularly appear throughout New England, there is much more for them to undertake to achieve this admittedly high standard. As a very knowledgeable audience member was overheard to say: “These kids just aren’t quite ready for prime time.”

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 31 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Stu Rosner Photo

Masaaki Suzuki, the internationally renowned Bach specialist, brought gripping drama and superb pacing to his performance of the 1749 version (the last of four) of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion Thursday night April 21st with an appropriately downsized but energized Boston Symphony Orchestra, a roster of excellent soloists, and sixty singers drawn from the ever-diligent and responsive Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Anyone harboring an interest in this wonderful music ought to try to attend the remaining performance on Saturday evening, April 23. The rewards are abundant.

From Maestro Suzuki’s first incisive downbeat it was evident that something special and, frankly, unexpected was afoot. In a town rife with expert early music ensembles and a high level of performance practice knowledge, it seemed a bit daring of the BSO to program this extraordinary work. The orchestra’s usual stock-in-trade is music from later historic periods. Yet great music should be heard by as many people as possible, and it was heartening to see that Symphony Hall was almost full with quietly attentive listeners. And these listeners heard a riveting performance, full of drama, elegantly sung, never dull, always involving, and rife with the pathos of the Apostle John’s remarkable telling of the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus.

I have always been struck with how different the two major Bach passions are from one another. Bach’s setting of John is more overtly dramatic, more quickly paced almost in jump-shot newsreel fashion than the composer’s setting of Matthew, which is more monumental in scope, more contemplative and deeply focused inward, and takes time to ponder philosophically the enormity of the unjustified cruelty meted out upon Jesus by the government and its surrounding subservients. In addition, the two depictions of Pilate are quite different. In Matthew, he is the minion of his government and tries to curry favor with the populace. In John, Pilate is a more human, even humane, individual. At one point, he asks of Jesus – and himself – “What is Truth?” And, as John tells us, after his questioning of Jesus, Pilate seeks to find ways to free Christ from his captors, implying a sympathy with his prisoner not heard in Matthew. And then there is the angry crowd, savage, bloodthirsty, and unrelentingly bent on destruction in John, hungry for the same yet a bit less “italicized” in Bach’s Matthew setting. Many more differences abound, too numerous to discuss here. What is most interesting to me in all of this is how Bach characterizes each Apostle’s recounting of the same event, reflecting in music John and Matthew’s unique perspectives – two different men with distinct personalities and degrees of observation.

That incisive downbeat mentioned above set in motion one of the great dramatic tales in all of music. At Maestro Suzuki’s ideal tempo, the swirling, turbulent strings tumultuously surged as oboes wailed above in painful and slow suspensions, underpinned by the bass instruments’ incessant and throbbing pedal-tones, all as prelude to the impact of the chorus’s tripartite heartfelt cry of “Herr…” (Lord). If this sounds like an unnecessarily “purple” description of the Bach St. John Passion’s opening moments, I can only urge you to go to the concert listen for yourselves – it’s all there in the music.

The mood and pace thus established, Maestro Suzuki led his musicians in an extraordinary performance of this tragic tale so dramatically portrayed by Bach’s genius for characterization and dramatic exposition. Christoph Prégardien has an ideal voice for the Evangelist — clear, bright, and beautifully colored. He was unerringly effective and dramatic in his storytelling, though he was, unfortunately, suffering from a cold, which compromised some of his high notes, but none of his impact. That he was able to sing through his illness and present such a strong characterization is a real tribute to his resourcefulness and professionalism. His role is the most demanding of the soloists, and one hopes he can marshal his voice successfully through the ensuing performances as he has also been allotted one very demanding tenor arioso and two arias.

The role of Jesus was sung, deeply and expressively, by bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann, who also was asked to sing the additional bass arioso and two arias. It was instructive to see and hear how differently he and his tenor colleague altered their onstage personae when asked to step out of character for their arias. Mr. Müller-Brachmann, in particular, employed a good deal of “body English” as he sang his arias, but did so in an understandably reactive fashion to the text. Whatever his role, he was a commanding visual and vocal presence, and he brought sensitive musicianship to everything he sang. His essay of “Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen,” his thrilling high-speed duet with the chorus urging all in earshot to rush to Golgatha to be present at Jesus’s crucifixion, was ideal in its fervor and proselytizing zeal.

Hana Blasíková brought an extraordinarily clear timbre to her two soprano arias. Her program book biography alludes to her many early-music pursuits, and surely some of that experience informs the tone she brought to her singing. It was very effective, though not evenly focused top to bottom. This was no serious detriment, however, and her singing was expressive, heartfelt, and with good continuity in her assignments, the first early in the first half, and her last late in the second half.

Ingeborg Danz, contralto, brought lovely tone to her two arias when not heavily accompanied. However, she was not sufficiently audible in her first, “Von den Stricken…”, though Maestro Suzuki seemed to be trying to calm its plangent oboe duet accompaniment, strongly played by John Ferrillo and Robert Sheena. The same lack of sufficient vocal heft was evident in the rapid and ardent middle section of the great “Es ist vollbracht!” though that aria’s slow beginning and end were lovely. The solo Viola da gamba accompaniment was curiously detached sounding, surprising in a town full of expressive players that could have been engaged.

The solid ministrations of the vocally gifted baritone David Kraviz brought well-sung and brightly characterized personae to the brief but dramatically essential roles of Peter and Pilate. Always an engaged and thoughtful singer, it was a pleasure to see him on the Symphony Hall stage so soon after his triumph as Nick Shadow in Emmanuel Music’s The Rake’s Progress last week.

The other important “character” in Bach’s Passions is, of course, the chorus, and here, once again, John Oliver’s crisply trained Tanglewood Festival Chorus did not disappoint. In fact, they thrilled. From their opening cry of “Herr…” through the chorales so carefully shaped by Suzuki, they were of singular mind and sound. In the turba choruses they were appropriately frightening in their vehemence as they cried for Jesus’s crucifixion and pinpoint accurate later with their fleeting “Wohin?” interjections. They even managed to sing through the conductor’s breakneck tempo for the famous dice-throwing soldiers’ chorus “Lasset uns den nicht zerteilen,” which, to these ears, was simply too fast, one of the conductor’s only missteps of the evening. Throughout their music, the chorus’s German was exemplary.

The impressive continuo players were anchored by organist James David Christie, ‘cellist Martha Babcock, and bassist Lawrence Wolfe. The busy Suzuki conducted from a stage-center harpsichord which he played for the recitatives.

It was quite wonderful to witness the completeness of conception Masaaki Suzuki brought to his interpretation. It was clear from the very beginning that this is a man who knows what he wants. Importantly, he indicates everything he wants clearly and precisely to his musicians. There is no indecision or hesitation in his gestures. While obviously something of a taskmaster, he appears to have the attention and respect of everyone on stage at every moment. Most importantly, his interpretation was of individual movements united in one long arc of drama from beginning to end. His was a story told in brilliant and heartfelt musicianship, paced with assurance and force, emotional but never maudlin, precise but never mechanical. As a twenty-first-century approach to Baroque music with an orchestra more accustomed to the style of later periods, I found his approach close to ideal. Here is a musician whom one never doubted is on a mission – to bring Bach into the lives of his listeners and performers in as forceful and meaningful a manner as is possible. That is a noble cause, and the BSO is to be complimented for engaging this dedicated musician to share with us his deep insights into the emotional force of this great score.

Attend the concert Saturday if you can. Listen on WCRB 99.5 if you can’t. Either way, your time will be well rewarded.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 31 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 32 years.

A bit more about Weilerstein: she first discovered that she wanted to play the cello at age four “after her grandmother assembled a makeshift instrument out of cereal boxes for her to play while she was sick with the chicken pox. After convincing her parents to buy her a real cello, she showed an natural affinity for the instrument and performed her first public concert six months later” (at age four and a half, according to the artist’s website ). So today, at age 27, she has been playing in public for some twenty-three years. No wonder, then, that her self-assurance is so high.

The Shostakovich concerto she played with her Russian colleagues was a daunting choice. After all, this work was premiered in Leningrad on October 4, 1959, played by this orchestra conducted by its revered Music Director Yevgeny Mravinsky, with Mstislav Rostropovich as soloist. Yet, if anything, one would believe that this portentous history only served to move Weilerstein to greater heights of interpretive acumen and technical virtuosity. Not once did she detectably slip, and her arc of concentration was uninterruptedly complete from first notes she played until the end. And this is no small concerto – its demands of emotional involvement and technical skill are formidable. Combining elements of black humor and gritty cynicism, it asks of its players an unblinking and straightforward focus. It concurrently paints the huge emotional turmoil that Shostakovich felt in his bones and soul as his country emerged from the savagery of World War II and was faced with a chillingly unpredictable future. All of this is audible in the music, and the orchestra, several members of which likely suffered through the aforementioned turmoil, and Weilerstein projected all of the raw emotion and pained contemplation as effectively as one might wish. Her playing of the concerto’s lengthy and far-reaching cadenza held all present in total thrall. In short, this concerto performance was a triumph, and one of two highlights of the afternoon.

The St. Petersburg Philharmonic was founded in the late days of the Tsarist regimes in 1897 as Alexander III’s court orchestra. It has a starry past. Tchaikovsky premiered his “Pathetique” Symphony shortly before his death, and the orchestra gave the first Russian performances of Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ein Heldenleben, Mahler’s First Symphony, Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony and Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy. Among its conductors were world-renowned musicians such as Richard Strauss, Alexander Glasunov, Arthur Nikisch, and Serge Koussevitzky, the latter two of whom became Music Directors of our own Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1918, directed by the composer, the orchestra premiered the “Classical” Symphony of Prokofieff, and in 1926, Shostakovich’s precocious Symphony No. 1 was given its premiere. From 1938, and through the ensuing fifty years, the demanding directorship of Evgeny Mravinsky helped spread the orchestra’s fame throughout the world. It premiered many important works by Shostakovich, and its players’ virtuosity, especially of its string section, became the talk of the western world.

That string section virtuosity, still very much in evidence, was audible throughout Sunday’s concert. Yuri Temirkanov, the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor since 1988, is a maestro of restrained movement, yet at all times his wishes were evident in the orchestra’s playing. Clearly well rehearsed, they played more often as one organic aggregation than individual players, though solos from within their ranks deserve mentioning.

Conductor and players began with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture, op. 36. Fittingly, it turned out, not only for the impending Easter holiday, but because this orchestra had given the premiere performance of this music on December 15, 1888, under the composer’s direction. Many of this ensemble’s felicities were immediately apparent, and it was heartening to see the smiles passing between Temirkanov and his players, as if they were jointly embracing an old friend, which of course they were. The Overture’s beginning was taken very slowly and reverently, presenting two ecclesiastical chant-based themes from the Russian Orthodox church. This ritualistic and incense-scented atmosphere cannily set the stage for the ensuing brisk Allegro, colored by the ingenious orchestration for which this composer is justly famed. Temirkanov carefully marshaled his forces and saved his fortissimos for the Overture’s conclusion, where they were hair-raisingly effective.

After the aforementioned Shostakovich concerto and intermission, Temirkanov and his orchestra returned to play Johannes Brahms’s darkly hued Symphony No.4 in E minor, op. 98. This was to be a somewhat old-fashioned yet welcome essay of this music, non-interventionist with much emphasis on middle voices and a less spiky and more legato general overlay and sense of line. While this might have created a murky overall texture, the result was rather one of hearing the inner workings of a symphony that is often played surficially, with mostly brilliant top and deep bottom. Here we heard the often-underplayed middle much more clearly and to good effect. For instance, the big cello theme of the first movement had the violas’ countermelody ardently played as equal partner in duet, a most welcome illumination. Bronze tone highlighted First Horn Igor Karzov’s flawless solo. And, the Symphony’s second movement especially benefited from Temirnakov’s mahogany-hued limning of Brahmsian sonorities.

Temirkanov set a very bright tempo for the third movement, so fast that I feared for the orchestra’s holding together for a particularly treacherously scored set of measures to come a bit later, and indeed, even this great string section had a bit of a snarl getting through when it arrived. But this was short-lived, and the movement’s overall impression was of bracingly high spirits.

The Symphony’s fourth movement is a passacaglia, and most of today’s interpreters favor maintaining a consistent pulse throughout, perhaps in reaction to the taffy-pulling changes in tempi all too familiar from early-twentieth-century renditions. Temirnakov favored a variegated set of tempi, slowing when expression seemed to call for it, and I found this approach a good compromise. In particular it allowed a very espressivo playing of the famous flute solo, here beautifully and sensitively offered by Principal Marina Vorozhtsova. A quickened tempo at its conclusion led to a powerfully realized finale.

But there was more — in fact, the second highlight of the afternoon. After being called back for his third curtain call, Maestro Temirkanov signaled an encore, and from the complete silence which preceded it, and, as if from another world those wonderful strings began to quietly intone the opening measures of “Nimrod” from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The eloquence of this reading, leading its rich polyphony inexorably to its monumental climax, was a wonder to hear, as was the beautifully controlled final diminuendo. Five minutes of pure magic. I wished, during those minutes, that this orchestra might have performed the entire Elgar score in this concert, perhaps in place of the Brahms which, while quite fine, wasn’t as special as the music that had book-ended it. Further ovations moved Temirnakov to bow yet again, and then signal to his players that it was time to leave. Many in the audience did so as well, but reluctantly. It had been a special afternoon in Symphony Hall, indeed.

Some historical information was gleaned from the Boston Celebrity Series program book’s excellent annotation by Dr. Richard E. Rodda, © 2011. Also, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic’s website is filled with interesting data here .

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 31 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 32 years.

Recently, under the auspices of the venerable Cambridge Society For Early Music, Kitchen played five concerts of this music in five similarly intimate venues, and it was my privilege to have attended two of these, well, events, as in sum they transcended the mere description of “concert.” How so, you might ask?

Well, first of all, Kitchen is a musician of extraordinary talent. He plays with beautiful tone, soulfully and always dead-in-tune, no matter what the repertoire he essays. No matter how long or challenging his concerts, he rarely if ever shows any sign of strain or fatigue. Further, he is an extremely thoughtful player. One hears this a number of ways: his skillful and engaging from-the-stage chats with his audience inform and enlighten. His knowledge of repertoire is vast and thought-provoking, especially telling when he invokes examples of music to make a point about the music he is about to play. In Rockport, for example, he illustrated one of his discussions by playing the opening subject of Bach’s famous organ Passacaglia. To further make his point he then played the opening fugue subjects of the first five preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier as a means of showing how differently structured the melodic lines of those works were from the music Bach had composed for solo violin. From another presenter, this talking from the stage could stray into hubristic pedantry. From Kitchen, it was a welcome and high-minded elevation of the proceedings.

Kitchen happily embraces modern technology when he plays. First-time attendees of his concerts are often amused and intrigued to see that his “music stand” holds not a paper instrumental part but an Apple laptop computer, the illuminated screen of which displays the music he will perform.

Kitchen brings with him yet another extraordinary bit of technology. He projects an enlargement of Bach’s instrumental score onto a large screen to one side of him as he plays. This affords the music-reading members of his audience the remarkably involving opportunity to follow Bach’s musical text while listening to him play. But this experience is kicked up yet another notch. The score projected on the screen is not mere notes — it is the image of the actual handwritten autograph score as set down in pen and ink on paper by Johann Sebastian Bach himself.

As a musician, this creates for me a very special and almost indescribable sensation. It’s one very significant thing, of course, to hear a concert so gorgeously played as was this. It’s another to have the score of the music clearly projected on a screen so that one may follow it. But to see Bach’s own elegant calligraphy as the visual complement to the simultaneous and equally beautiful live ministrations of Kitchen somehow elevates the concert experience to a near-spiritual occasion, almost as if Herr Bach’s presence were palpable in the room. [Ed: see the BMInt article here.]

Before he began to play, Kitchen opined that most student violinists, when first shown these fiendish works by Bach for solo violin envision the notes as “…a bleak field of torture,” an amusing characterization that brought forth chuckles from the audience. He then went on to explain that these complex works, when boiled down to their very basic structures, are based on pairs and radially symmetrical spirals. He illustrated that as one passes through the three Sonatas and three ”Partias” (sic — that is how Bach inexplicably wrote their titles in his manuscripts, though today we call them Partitas), the keys progress from doleful minor settings into ultimately exultant majors. This would be the order in which Kitchen would play his selections. He also pointed out that 1720,  the year in which these six works were completed, was a turning point in Bach’s life. His first wife Maria Barber had just died, and he had subsequently married Anna Magdelena. Perhaps the minor-key works, including the famous Ciaccona from the D-minor Partia No. 2 symbolized Bach’s sadness at losing Maria, and the ensuing major-key works show Bach’s increasing happiness (thirteen children’s worth!) with Anna Magdalena?

In any event, Kitchen made the strongest possible case for each of the works he performed in the following order: two excerpts from the Sonata No. 1 in G-minor, BWV 1001; the complete Parti(t)a No. 1 in B-minor, BWV 1002; the Grave and Fuga from the Sonata No. 2 in A-minor;  After intermission and another enlightening discussion, he continued with the towering Ciaccona from the Parti(t)a No. 2 in D-minor, BWV 1004; the complete Sonata No. 3 in C-major, BWV 1005, with its similarly towering Fuga; and as a dramatic ending to his recital, the brilliant Preludio from the Parti(t)a No. 3 in E-major, BWV 1006, which Kitchen played immediately without pause at the conclusion of the prior work. Enthusiastic cheers and a deserved (for once) standing ovation ensued.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the beautiful violin Kitchen plays for his Bach recitals. It is a 1730 Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu, the “Baron Vitta,” once owned and played by one of Kitchen’s teachers, Szymon Goldberg. When Goldberg died in 1993 at the age of 84; his trust loaned the “Baron Vitta” to the Smithsonian. In the spring of 2007, Goldberg’s widow, pianist Miyoko Yamane, donated the “Baron Vitta” to the Library of Congress. In turn, the Library has loaned the violin to Nicholas Kitchen. The instrument has a deeply rich and burnished, golden timbre.

I used the term “high-minded” earlier in this article, and it surely also applies to this entire concert – its concept, its content, its realization. I urge all readers who have read this far in this very long piece to not miss the next opportunity to hear Nicholas Kitchen in recital or as leader of the Borromeos. You’ll be very happy indeed to have made his musical acquaintance.

For more information on Nicholas Kitchen, visit the artist’s web site here For a concert schedule of Rockport Music, click here

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 31 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 32 years.

This venturesome program is worthy of any major professional orchestra. To hear it played so cleanly, with grace, élan, force when required, and virtuosity, by students on the cusp of a professional career was salutary and admirable. Throughout the evening, Wolff, who conducted almost entirely from memory, led his musicians with extraordinary, readable clarity, so clear that there could never be a doubt in any player’s mind exactly what the music expected. I hoped that these young musicians knew how lucky they were to have him as an exemplar of the conductor’s art. Surely not every conductor they will face in their future will give them as much to go on as Wolff offered them Friday.

It says something that this ensemble chose to open its concert with the Shostakovich Ninth. This symphony, often misunderstood as a lightweight palliative to the “heavyweight” symphonies that precede and follow it, is anything but easily tossed off. It is a mysterious and quite deeply emotional work, full of treacherous challenges for every orchestra section. The woodwinds, strings, brass, and percussion all have their moments “in the barrel.” Particularly memorable playing was heard from piccolo artist Alyssa Griggs and trombonist Ross Holcombe in the Symphony’s first movement, and flautist Martha Long and clarinetist Randolph Palada in solo and duet in the second movement. The heart-wrenching cri de coeur bassoon solo, which interrupts the bustling Scherzo, was superbly played by Luke Olaf Varland. His essay of this wailing lament was a highlight among many in this endlessly fascinating symphony. Maestro Wolff led with precision and authority, setting ideal tempi throughout. Although his choice for the final movement’s romp to the finale was so brisk that some rapid articulation was sacrificed, certainly no excitement was lost.

After intermission, violinist Julia Glenn, gowned in a stunning confection of red, pink, and sparkles, was welcomed on stage for the Stravinsky Concerto. Glenn already enjoys an international career. She has played at Carnegie Hall, collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, and was the first-place winner in the 2010 Alexander & Buono International String Competition – all this as a Harvard student junior majoring in linguistics with an emphasis on Mandarin Chinese. She also studies with James Buswell (himself a Harvard grad) at NEC through the joint Harvard-NEC A.B./M.M. program. Obviously, this is one talented – and very busy – young woman.

The choice of the Stravinsky Concerto for this concert was interesting. Was it hers? This wonderful work, not heard often enough, abounds with some of Stravinsky’s most elegant music. It runs the gamut from spiky, spunky and challenging asymmetric meter-stretching writing to what surely must be among the composer’s most lyric and songful music, gloriously spun out in the Concerto’s third movement, the exquisite Aria II. From the outset Glenn was totally involved in her performance, fully focused, and betraying not one whit of insecurity, playing with energy and gorgeous tone. Wolff and the Orchestra were with her all the way, resulting in a memorable and thrilling performance. I wished I had the opportunity to have heard it again, right on the spot. Brava! Keep an eye out for this gifted musician – she would seem to have all the means necessary for a splendid career.

The nonpareil Ravel Daphnis Second Suite filled the stage with added harps, percussion, and that woodwind rarity, the richly-toned alto flute. Again, Wolff commanded an interpretation which was refreshingly clear and straightforward, with none of the stretching and manipulating other interpreters often bring to this pellucid score. The opening Daybreak section rippled and flowed with audible precision heard from celeste player Alex Zhu and harpists Maria Rindenello-Parker and Drew Cryer. The sun rose with a crescendo of pure glory and led to the famous flute solo which in the ballet accompanies Daphnis and Chloe’s miming the tale of Pan and Syrinx. Pamela Daniels was the creative, individualistic and breath-blessed flautist. The ensuing Danse Générale was appropriately Dionysian, with only a fleeting moment or two of carelessness that perhaps betrayed a bit of understandable fatigue.

This concert was played throughout at an extremely high level of precision and budding artistry. It was a very real tribute to the depth of talent and training offered to these students by the superb faculty of our rightly much-admired New England Conservatory of Music. May these young musicians live long and prosper. The world needs talent like this to evolve to the better place it should become.

This program, with one major and intriguing change, will be offered again on Wednesday, February 9, at 8 pm in Jordan Hall. The formidable Russell Sherman will replace Julia Glenn as concerto soloist, playing a work one would not immediately associate with him – the Gershwin Piano Concerto.

Note: the author sincerely hopes he has correctly attributed the many solos mentioned. The program book was his guide.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 31 years.

The place to be on the snowy and chilly afternoon of Sunday afternoon, January 16, was inside the Concord Academy Performing Arts Center where the Concord Chamber Players were presenting one of their estimable series of concerts. Estimable, because its founder, Wendy Putnam, a Boston Symphony Orchestra violinist who founded this valuable organization in January, 2000, brings with her several Boston Symphony colleagues to make music five times a season. For this concert, the third in this season’s series, she brought along Thomas Martin, clarinet, Richard Sebring, horn, Richard Ranti, bassoon, Steven Ansell, viola, Michael Reynolds, ‘cello, and Lawrence Wolfe, double bass, surely not your “garden variety” list of artists. All of these players hold significant positions within the BSO’s roster of world-class players and are well known to BSO attendees, so quality of execution and presentation was a foregone conclusion.

And they did not disappoint. The concert began with a novelty — a five- instrument version of Richard Strauss’s beloved Till Eulenspiegel in a smile-inducing transcription by Franz Hasenöhrl, which won the composer’s seal of approval when it was first presented in 1945. Transcriptions of major orchestral works for a greatly reduced number of players to perform in parlors at home has been an established tradition in Europe for many years. Despite this, I was leery of a five-instrument condensation of a major Straussian large orchestra work famed for its brilliant orchestration. And indeed, much of the visceral weight of the score was sacrificed in this scaled-down version, but surprisingly, none of its charm. This was a very canny scale-down scored for violin, clarinet, bassoon, horn and double bass, and while not a literal transcription – several redundancies in the original were dispensed with – the music retained its original shape and direction, and the five players handily conveyed much of the sense of the original, albeit within a quieter dynamic, and Putnam’s treacherous violin solo’s downward plunge was neatly dispatched. All in all, this was a pleasing, engaging concert opener.

The surprising revelation of the afternoon was a brilliant performance of the Serenade in C Major for String Trio, op. 10 by the protean Hungarian musician Ernö Dohnányi. Not as well known today, Dohnányi was, in addition to being a first-class composer, a virtuoso pianist, a talented conductor, and, as Steven Ledbetter pointed out in his excellent program note “…regarded as the most versatile Hungarian composer since Franz Liszt, and the one who played the greatest role in the development of Hungary’s musical life early in the 20th century… He grew up in a musical family and passed the art on to his own offspring – his grandson is the conductor Christoph von Dohnányi.”

The op. 10 Serenade begins with a strong rhythmic cell – dum dum da-dum – marked Marcia: Allegro which impels much of the movement forward and introduces an almost Dvorakian style, though not quite as melody-based. After this incisive workout, the second movement, Romanza: Adagio non troppo, quasi andante ensued, with its deeply expressed emotions beautifully limned by violist Steven Ansell. Much of this Serenade sounds almost viola-centric, and he happily relished his every opportunity, much to the delight of the audience and his companions on the stage. He “starred” again in the well worked out Scherzo: Vivace third movement, though it was an equal pleasure to watch and hear ‘cellist Michael Reynolds, ever the watchful and collaborative colleague. The haunting and skillfully written Tema con variazione: Andante con moto afforded all three players many opportunities to deliciously interact, something these players do every day on stage in Symphony Hall, but a special pleasure to observe in this more intimate setting. The Rondo (Finale): Allegro Vivace began and maintained throughout an almost moto perpetuo sense of active forward motion, spurred on by the vigorous and energetic playing of all concerned. What emerged from all of this was the sense of a discovery of an important string trio, though the famous musical pedagogue Sir Donald Francis Tovey had discovered it years before and deemed this Serenade one of the most important additions to the string trio repertoire since Mozart and Beethoven. It’s easy to hear why – this is a major work by a masterful composer, and we must thank Putnam and The Concord Chamber Music Society for its revival in such an elegant performance.

After a brief intermission, the entire ensemble returned for a traversal of Beethoven’s charming and energetically brilliant Septet in E-flat Major, op. 20. Its six movements offer many opportunities for the individual musicians to shine – particularly memorable were the delectable bassoon and clarinet solos in the heartfelt Adagio and the many masterful solos afforded in the Tema con Variazione: Andante. The final movement, ending with a fiery Presto, brought the work to a satisfyingly hearty conclusion. Throughout the Septet, double bass virtuoso Lawrence Wolfe was a veritable Rock of Gibraltar of security and artful elan for his six colleagues.

Kudos are due Wendy Putnam for her artistic leadership in bringing such a satisfying program to Concord, and additional praise should be brought to her many individual Concord business partners and individual contributors who have so faithfully and generously supported her valuable musical ministrations. The large, rapt audience maintained utter silence throughout the entire program — a tribute to their concentrated attention and appreciation for the musical gifts they were proffered.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

In his excellent program note, Hugh Macdonald writes: “Without the Spanish idioms which play so important a part in Falla’s other works, the style recalls the austere and dignified manner of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms or the choral works of Honegger and Milhaud.” This is a completely accurate statement. If I were to have heard this music and not known it were by Manuel de Falla, I would not have guessed the composer. The references Macdonald makes to Stravinsky and Honegger are dead-on. Much of the astringent and pungent dissonance that is part of Honegger’s and Stravinsky’s compositional vocabulary is quite apparent throughout, though there is also an occasional and particularly telling sweetness that somewhat offsets the more drier discourse. And there isn’t much more than a hint here and there of de Falla’s earlier “Spanish” music. Use of percussion, and in particular the large tubular chimes, are all that hearkened my ear back to, say, El Amor Brujo or perhaps Nights in the Gardens of Spain. But that was just about all. Having said this, was this “un-Spanish” music by de Falla successful and memorable?

Yes, and no, I’d have to say. I found the entire suite fascinating to hear, but I also found parts of it more emotionally moving than others. And I can now more fully appreciate the challenge faced by the true believers in this composer’s music in general and this score in particular: how best to present the essence of de Falla’s unfinished Atlàntida? Even in its truncated form, Frühbeck de Burgos’s suite of excerpts has its musical ups and downs. I can appreciate why he decided to include certain moments of the score – his love of de Falla is deep and loyal, and to omit anything “worthy” must have been hard for him. Of what’s “there,” to be sure, it is interesting indeed, but, sorry to say, not all of it is on the elevated plain that the better parts of the music inhabit.

The suite is divided into a prologue and three parts, and it presents a tangled web indeed. The vocal portions of the music are written in Catalan and derive from an epic poem by Jacint Verdaguer  “whose desire . . . to boost the revival of Catalan culture equaled his sense of a glorious Spanish past and his Catholic piety,” Macdonald writes. In this poem one reads of the classic myths of Hercules, his ill-fated love of Pyrene the Queen of the Pyrenees, the Garden of Hesperides, a shipwreck from which the future Christopher Columbus survives, Queen Isabella’s dream in which she envisions a dove (colombe) and a bejeweled ring (the Indies), and ultimately the triumph of the Christian Church. To put it mildly, this is quite a rich brew, and it is not surprising that due to its depth and breadth, de Falla was surely challenged to write a score that could possibly contain so disparate a stew of ideas.

Since a concert reviewer’s goal is to assess a performance and not lecture, I would advise any reader who wishes to learn more about the impetus of this music to visit the BSO’s website here, where the reader will find an informative podcast written by Richard Dyer that I urge a listen-to. Now, as for what was performed…

I attended the Saturday evening November 6 performance, before which the BSO had given two prior concerts and an open rehearsal, so the performers were clearly on top of their material.  It is always a pleasure to hear a concert under Maestro Frühbeck de Burgos’s direction. His direction is always completely clear to his players, and his “old-world” bearing and thorough knowledge of the music at hand commands their complete respect and attention. And, given this conductor’s total immersion in Spanish culture and his complete understanding of all of de Falla’s music, he is clearly the right man to bring this unusual score to life for us. In large, he succeeded.

The Prologue began with orchestra, chorus, and narrator and a sense of monumentality, quite dissonant and impressive, abounding with deep tam-tam strokes – music appropriate to the vision of a vast submerged continent. Its style was of vertical and undifferentiated counterpoint, columnar and marmoreal. The chorus sang in Catalan from memory, and its mighty exclamations were interspersed with the tale-telling of the narrator, baritone Philip Cutlip, singing from his score, and a child, touchingly sung from memory by boy soprano Ryan Williams, whom Frühbeck de Burgos had employed in his Elijah performances here last season. A solo from the back row of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus was confidently sung by member Felix M. Caraballo. This broad and impressive introduction was to be one of the more memorable musical moments of the score.

The aria of Pyrene that followed was regally and soulfully sung by the contralto Nathalie Stutzmann, whose rich mahogany timbre was to inform elegantly all she sang this evening. And, the ensuing “Hymn to Barcelona,” the city Hercules was to establish on Spain’s coast was, in the hands of Frühbeck de Burgos and the impressively powerful TFC, defiant, declarative and triumphant. The “Llegada de Alcides a Gades” heard next was charming, though overwhelmed by its neighbors.

The true gem of this suite was the section drawn from Part III of the larger work, an excerpt entitled “Isabella’s Dream.” Stutzmann, here embodying A Lady of the Court, tells that Queen Isabella had a dream while inside the Alhambra. A little page, sung by Williams, further informs us that she held her head in her hands as she related her dream to Ferdinand. This was accompanied by the most ravishing and rich harmonies heard thusfar, elevated by elegant harp arpeggios beautifully stroked by the BSO’s new Principal Harp Jessica Zhou. Then it was time for soprano soloist Alexandra Coku to take the stage and sing Isabella recounting her dream. This Coku did with great beauty of voice, gracious stage presence, and dramatic aplomb. She seemed very much at home with this aria of an ecstatic vision, with Frühbeck de Burgos and the BSO truly simpatico accompanists. Here at last one began to recognize some of de Falla’s most characteristic gifts of orchestration, melody and harmony. The music and Coku’s performance were, for me, the most memorable music of the Suite, approached only by the following music for chorus and orchestra entitled “La Nit Suprema” – The Supreme Night. This began with a rich introduction ravishingly played by the BSO’s violas, and followed by music that was very different from what we had heard earlier. We were finally favored with a bit of imitative counterpoint played on muted strings by the entire string section, and this somewhat consoling music resulted in a very atmospheric and valedictory finale of great beauty and closure.

So, what ultimately can a listener make of Atlàntida? It was a rare privilege to hear virtually unknown music by a master composer so elegantly excerpted and presented. I would hope to hear the aria “Isabella’s Dream” again. And I feel fortunate to have been shown the outlines of what is surely an important work in the oeuvre of Manuel de Falla, with maestro Frühbeck de Burgos as a most informative and illuminating guide. It is concerts such as this one — challenging, unusual, something new to hear for a change — for which BSO patrons must surely be grateful.

The concert’s second half was occupied by a favorite “chestnut,” the Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73 by Johannes Brahms. All of the Frühbeck de Burgos felicities were on display: sensitive, structure-revealing yet non-interventionist conducting, carefully considered, never overdone rubati at phrase endings, elegant phrasing of the famous ‘cello theme in the first movement, tactful pointing of the instrumental lines’ inner voices, very sensitive accompaniment to solos, particularly Richard Sebring’s horn in the first movement, rich, rounded, soft and generous ensemble sound, a hands-off and elegant approach to music-making — all these were evident. The finale, often driven, was given room to breathe, and though its initial fires were banked, they then were slowly encouraged to glow and finally blaze forth at the arrival of the movement’s coda. Throughout the symphony the well-parsed and thoughtful tuba playing by the orchestra’s Mike Roylance was a pleasure to hear and feel.

Note: This concert will be repeated Tuesday, November 9, at Symphony Hall.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Levin is not a shy soloist by any definition, and for that his audiences are truly grateful. In his commentary before the concerto performance, he gave a brief talk from the piano bench about the unique keyboard instrument he was about to play. And quite the instrument it is. Built in a Prague workshop and now owned by Harvard University, it is a contemporary copy of fortepianos which Beethoven most likely would have recognized. Indeed, its tone is highly reminiscent of a Broadwood of Beethoven’s time. But what makes this instrument unique, said Levin, is its singular ability to play the Fourth Concerto’s second movement precisely as Beethoven asks: “una corda.” Twentieth-century  pianos have a “soft pedal” that moves the instrument’s hammers slightly off-center, allowing the instrument to play on two of its normal three strings. Yet the resulting sound is a mere approximation of a true una corda sound, which, as literally translated, is the sound of “one string.” Levin’s instrument, he averred, is the only fortepiano he has played that actually allows only one string to be struck when una corda is applied. And it’s true – the resulting sound is otherworldly, almost “lunar,” as Levin characterized it later in his post-concert Q&A session.

What followed was certainly the fastest performance of this concerto that I have ever heard. There was nothing Moderato at all about the opening Allegro, and while the quick tempo afforded ample room for Levin to astonish with his uncannily fleet and accurate finger work, a certain sense of mystery and the sense of a wondrous tale unfolding were sacrificed. But there were compensations: right from the concerto’s first note, something new had been added. I was intrigued that Levin chose to arpeggiate the first chord. The reason for this was to be justified a bit later, but I cite it here as only one example of the many felicities Levin and Labadie gave to their exposition of this remarkable  music.

When Robert Levin plays a Mozart or Beethoven concerto these days, it is a given that he will improvise his cadenzas on the spot, as was the custom in Mozart or Beethoven’s day. This is no small task. A successful and stylistically appropriate improvisation requires a thorough knowledge of period style, plus the technical and intellectual gifts to bring it off effectively and dramatically. That Levin has become a master of this is well known, and his cadenzas are highly anticipated moments of his concerto performances. He did not disappoint in any of the four he played on Friday. In fact, he astonished. Skillfully weaving snippets of music heard before in the concerto and on-the-spot newly composed far-reaching excursions of his own, Levin made his way through each cadenza with a remarkable combination of virtuosity and taste. It was entertainment of the highest order, and greatly appreciated by those both off and on the stage, if the involved gazes and smiles from the H&H orchestra were any indication. A brief pause ensued at the end of the first movement, as Levin took a few minutes to disassemble his instrument to temporarily free a recalcitrant sticking hammer, after which the good-natured audience applauded his ministrations.

What all in the hall were awaiting, however, was the Concerto’s second movement, where the orchestra’s strings are tasked by Beethoven to play in unison and octaves as forcefully as possible in dialogue with the piano, which is asked to play as softly as possible. It was here that Levin’s fortepiano’s una corda was truly revelatory. I’ve never heard the resulting dynamic contrast so extraordinarily achieved – a tribute to Beethoven’s genius, certainly, but achievable only with this particular instrument’s capacity to play as the composer had directed. And, there was even something more. Once again, Levin arpeggiated several of his instrument’s initial pianissimo chords. An “a-ha moment” occurred as I wrote in my notes:  “…amazing una corda sound – huge contrast with orch. strings – arpeggiates lots of chords – perhaps mindful of Orpheus’s lute?” And so was explained the Concerto’s first arpeggiated chord. Even then, Levin was setting up the idea of the second movement’s long-assumed representation of Orpheus taming the Furies with his sweet sounding and softly stroked lute as he seeks his beloved Eurydice at the gates of the Underworld. In his post-concert talk, Levin averred that this indeed was what he had intended with his many arpeggiations. Even more wonders ensued in this remarkable movement. Near its end Beethoven writes a long trill for the keyboard over which is applied a long crescendo and diminuendo. Hearing Levin begin this trill with the fortepiano’s una corda applied, then abetting the volume of his crescendo by slowly moving from una corda to tres corda, then back again in making his diminuendo, was yet another demonstration of the power of Levin’s creativity as a gifted and informed musician.

The Rondo-Vivace that followed was just that, Vivace once again emphasized. A couple of what sounded like momentarily slipped notes were explained by Levin in his post-concert talk. Apparently the sticking hammer problem had returned, presenting even more vexing challenges than it had posed in the first movement.  I also had worried that Labadie’s bright tempo might compromise the even more quickened pace indicated at the Coda, but I needn’t have fretted – Levin and company dispatched this opportunity effortlessly. So all in all, a bracing, fleet, informed, and salutary performance of this nonpareil concerto by all concerned was heard and heartily applauded by all in the hall, on-stage orchestra and conductor as well.

There was Haydn to be heard this evening, too, and considerably wonderful it was. Labadie and the H&H orchestra played two symphonies that once again reaffirmed the great genius and boundless creativity of this remarkable composer. Though I would have preferred a couple more violas and ‘cellos to boost their overall balance with the violins, I was again struck by Haydn’s daring harmonic excursions and his wonderful sense of humor. This virtuoso group under Labadie’s energetic and demonstrative conducting thankfully played all to the hilt. The entire orchestra was spot-on; the wide dynamic range they exhibited throughout the evening was a joy to hear. The sensitive and musical contributions of Christopher Krueger, flute, Stephen Hammer, oboe, and John Grimes, tympani were especially noteworthy.

The key-of-G-centric program opened with the Symphony No. 83 in G-minor, “The Hen.” The avian association was amusingly heard in the first movement’s second subject, but it was the second movement in which Haydn’s creativity once again astonished. A series of six eighth notes begins the movement and becomes its cause celebre a bit later, when no fewer than twenty-two of these eighth notes are repeated by the strings piano diminuendo as preparation for an unanticipated fortissimo outburst from the orchestra. Talk about “surprises”! Despite a brief repeated error by the first violins in the Allegro spiritoso part of the first movement, Labadie and his willing collaborators made the most of this symphony, especially in its gigue-like spirited final movement. They did the same in the symphony, which closed the concert, the famous No. 94 in G-major, Surprise, or as German-speaking countries have it: “mit dem Paukenschlag” (with the tympani strike). As had become customary for the evening, Labadie led a brisk and dynamically nuanced performance with energy, wit and clarity. For me, the real “surprise” of this symphony’s second movement is not its celebrated and startling tympani-spiked fortissimo chord heard early on, but rather its daring harmonic excursions as its theme-and-variations format wends its way from one amazing measure to the next.

This was wonderful evening for H&H in Symphony Hall, I thought: robust and elegantly played Haydn, thoughtful, probing, and enlightening Beethoven with Robert Levin’s magisterial contributions, all stitched together by an energetic and inspiring conductor and the considerable combined talents of the orchestra members. Bravo to all concerned!

Note: This concert repeats on Sunday, October 31 at 3:00 PM.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Harumi Rhodes, Randall Hodgkinson, Michael Reynolds and Roger Tapping (BCMS photo)

This exemplary organization, Boston Chamber Music Society,  enthusiastically embarked upon its twenty-eighth season at Sanders Theatre Sunday evening, October 17, with an engaging program of Beethoven, Martinu, and Saint-Saëns. In his welcoming speech, Board President Stephen Friedlaender made note of BCMS’s successful mission and thanked his audience for their ongoing support, mentioning that only a few subscriptions remained to be sold to meet this season’s objective. In a time when other institutions are literally giving away tickets to boost their audience attendance, BCMS’s success in attracting a large and loyal audience speaks well for the quality of its offerings. Indeed, Sanders Theatre was well-stocked with chamber music enthusiasts Sunday evening, and a quiet, attentive audience it was. The proverbial pin-drop would have been a shattering disturbance for this crowd. Bravo to them all for their quiet deportment while the musicians played. However, at the end of each work, silence was banished by well-deserved cheers and fervent applause. What was the program which elicited such responses?

Harumi Rhodes, Roger Tapping and Michael Reynolds opened the evening with Beethoven’s charming and thought-provoking String Trio in D major, Op. 9, No. 2. Rhodes and Tapping, violin and viola respectively, brought a lovely sense of blend and rhythmic vigor to their playing, and Reynolds’s resonant cello provided a gracious underpinning. The first movement’s opening was nicely insinuated, setting up the energetic Allegretto which followed. Only twice did the ensemble’s bright tempo need to slow slightly to accommodate Beethoven’s rapid passagework. Of the remaining three movements, the third and fourth remain happily in memory. The third, dubbed “Menuetto” by the composer was more scherzo-like than overtly danceful, Beethoven looking forward rather than backward. The playful Rondo finale began innocently — the muted string beginning lending a fantasy-like atmosphere — and then blossomed into the more overtly “Beethovenian” middle section of the abaca rondo form. One was once again mightily impressed by the range of this composer’s fertile imagination, even at this early stage of his career.

Something of a novelty was offered as the evening’s second work – Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola, H. 313 by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959). Boston and New England have a “history” with this composer; his Symphony No. 6 (Fantaisies Symphoniques) was given its world premiere by the BSO under Charles Munch in 1955, and its subsequent recording helped reinforce Martinu’s reputation as a first-class composer among those who may not have heard his music before. Earlier, a 1948 invitation to teach composition at Tanglewood had held great promise, but a debilitating injury from a fall sadly prevented the composer from leading his seminar.

If the term “madrigal” was meant by the composer to reflect the style of vocal writing which offers melodic lines that play off of each other in close imitation, then certainly this very substantial work for violin and viola abundantly and effectively illustrates this definition.  Harumi Rhodes and Roger Tapping were kept happily busy by the considerable demands of this fiendishly difficult duet, bringing all manner of wit, color, verve and virtuosity to their playing. Beginning with a burst of energy which seemingly never lets up, the music moves at lightning speed with intertwining sinuous and vigorous instrumental lines that almost unceasingly imitate and elaborate upon each other’s individual statements. What may sound merely “busy” in this inadequate written description sounded rapturously upon the ear in the hands of these gifted players.  The second movement, beginning with instruments muted, created a dream-like, otherworldly atmosphere for the ensuing music of this short but poignant interlude. Shortly, with mutes taken off, the soundscape of Martinu’s “signature” musical style emerged. The final Allegro reestablished the flashing virtuoso demands posed in the first movement with an almost hoedown-like forceful rhythmic pulse. The music grew in intensity and speed, leading to a brilliant finale which at its conclusion elicited cheers from the enthralled audience.

After intermission, pianist Randall Hodgkinson joined the aforementioned string players for a bracing exposition of Camille Saint-Saëns Piano Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 41. Hodgkinson has been playing with BCMS since 1983, and his collaborative presence on stage over those twenty-seven years has been a bulwark of this organization’s presentations. He was in his usual fine form throughout this sparkling and remarkably varied music. Back when I was a music student (don’t ask!) it was fashionable among us young know-it-alls to pooh-pooh Saint-Saëns as a facile and basically “uninteresting” composer. With age comes wisdom, one hopes. The depth and variety of creativity offered by this composer, as clearly heard in this splendid quartet, neatly belies that earlier misconception.

Beginning with a plesant et gentil introduction, the first movement sets the stage for the intriguing and engaging remainder of the work. The second movement clearly evokes, as Steven Ledbetter writes in his admirable program note, a Bach-like chorale melody that is elaborated upon in ingenious fashion, first by the strings singing out the long melodic line, the piano providing active ornamentation. The roles then reverse as the piano’s chorale melody deeply unpins the elaborating strings. Without a whit of tedium, this contrapuntal device pervades the entire movement to delightful effect. The third movement, with its nocturnal and will-o’-the-wisp feel twice offers opportunities for brilliant cadenzas, flourishingly dispatched by Rhodes and glitteringly essayed by Hodgkinson. The work’s fourth movement — cheerful and optimistic along the way of its many delightful melodic and harmonic twists and turns — brought home the thought that here once again are affirmatively demonstrated the wit, depth of talent, and great melodic gifts of this marvelous and rightly admired composer. One departed Sanders Theatre Sunday night refreshed and grateful to the BCMS for its creative programming and thankful for the musical gifts its members offered us all.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Unusual stage seat vantage for BMInt publisher Lee Eiseman's photo

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson played an all-Chopin recital in Rockport Music’s stunning new waterfront Shalin Liu Performance Center Friday evening, June 11. This was the first single-instrument concert in this elegant venue, and the hall was completely sold out, with several attendees occupying stage seats.

My BMInt colleague Vance Koven has written a review of the Festival’s opening night [below this one] that described in deep detail the beauty and “appropriateness” of this splendid new performance space. I also urge readers to visit the Festival’s excellent web site for intriguing in-depth statements by the hall’s architects, Alan Joslin and Deborah Epstein, and from pianist David Deveau, who has served as the Festival’s Artistic Director since 1995.

Ohlsson is a commanding physical and artistic presence. His smiling acknowledgement of the applauding audience as he entered the hall gave hints of his good-naturedness, and indeed, his warm embrace of Frédéric Chopin was notable throughout his entire recital. Whether conjuring up enormous reserves of strength and sonority or giving flight to seemingly impossibly fleet strings of rapid passagework soaring from the depths of the keyboard up to its very top, then plunging again to its deep end, Ohlsson’s playing never betrayed an iota of self-consciousness or grandstanding. His fortes and fortissimi were never harsh or brash, but solid and grounding in their elemental force. His pianos and pianissimi were pellucidly gentle and caressing. His playing was astonishing clear and unmuddied by over-zealous pedaling. In short, this was as satisfying a recital of Chopin as one could hope to hear, broad in scope and edifying in the understanding Ohlsson exhibits of this amazingly diverse repertoire. It was easy to hear why this artist has become a favorite among Polish audiences and why he was awarded the opportunity to be a leading performer in this past February’s bicentenary celebrations in Warsaw and at the composer’s birth-home in Zelazowa Wola.

Throughout the evening, one was constantly grateful to hear Ohlsson’s careful limning of voicing within the musical structure, in which each hand clarifies and emphasizes important internal harmonies.  This ability is an extraordinary gift, one which he shares with another great Chopin interpreter, Ivan Moravec. Yet the two pianists could not be more different in what they bring to their interpretations of this remarkable music.

With the recital’s opening Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major, op. 36, one was immediately struck by Ohlsson’s superb dynamic shadings. He exhibited this control of sound volume in a beautifully planned several-measure-long crescendo, remarkable in its ever-growing sonority over a broad scale of time. After the Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major, op. 47, Ohlsson really began to hit his stride in the Barcarolle in F-sharp Major, op. 60. Again, listeners were afforded an opportunity to note this pianist’s fabulous control in his exquisitely voiced interpretation of the work’s middle section. One immediately appreciated Ohlsson’s structuralist approach to his interpretations and never heard anything at all arbitrary in this man’s understanding of Chopin’s well-planned architecture. I wonder if the Shalin Liu’s waterfront perch, with the open ocean visible behind the pianist, abetted this marvelous music’s conjuring of its title’s watery antecedents with the undulatory and comforting ministrations heard from the pianist’s left hand.

The two op. 27 Nocturnes next offered, No. 1 in C-sharp Minor and No. 2 in D-flat Major were played without pause between them, creating an interesting connection of harmony and ideas. That Ohlsson is a thinking person’s interpreter was ever evident, and his playing of the Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp Minor, op. 39 only served to underscore this observation. Such a creative work, this Scherzo, with its daring harmonic excursions and episodic contrasts! It made for a stunning first-half closer, eliciting bravos and the first of several standing ovations from the audience.

The recital’s second half was given over to a hearing of the complete set of 24 Preludes, op. 28. Ohlsson was a splendid tour guide through this kaleidoscopic collection of exquisitely concise and elegant works which span the gamut of emotions within their short spaces. Chopin explores every possible key playable on a piano in these pieces, but unlike the preludes and fugues in J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, which Chopin used as a model, Chopin’s harmonic plan follows the theoretical “circle-of-fifths.” This allows the 24 Preludes to be played, as Sandra Hyslop’s elegant program notes tell us: “…one after the other, with agreeable and seamless modulations from piece to piece.”

This Ohlsson did, with his deep intellect informing each short work with eloquence and richness of emotion. One was at first reminded of being presented with a beautiful platter of rich petits fours, each of different flavor and intensity, but then one encounters the great and profound Prelude No. 15 in D-flat Major, and the simile becomes untenable. Here, in this affecting deep and dark work, Ohlsson was equally deep in his projections of the melancholy and noble tragedy inherent in the music, and made this a highlight of his recital. Subsequent revelation followed upon revelation, and in the final Prelude No. 24 in D-minor, Ohlsson evinced his enormous physical strength in the work’s final three sepulchral deep Ds – each hammered home as if they were nails driven into a hardwood coffin. The audience leapt to its feet and roared its appreciation for a wonderful evening of profound music-making.

Ohlsson obliged with two impressively played dance-inspired encores — the Mazurka in C-minor op. 50, No. 3, with its wonderful nationalistic harmonic and rhythmic tang, and the familiar Waltz in E-flat Major, op. 18, performed this evening with wonderful panache which neatly summarized all of the evening’s earlier felicities of structural understanding, dynamic shading and digital dexterity. There was even an occasional intriguing hint of a distinctively Viennese lilt.

It’s evident why Ohlsson is a favorite of the Rockport Music Festival. His focus is unstinting, his self-assurance complete, betraying no trace of weakness or fear. How appropriate that he should be the person to first play a solo recital within its splendid new hall’s elegant walls.

Leaving the post-concert reception, a colleague noted how wonderful it was to have a brilliant new recital hall built in these times of fiscal challenges and rampant pop-culture mediocrity. How true! Boston – a beautiful new temple of chamber music awaits your patronage. You’ll not be disappointed.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

By now there is no real disagreement about the artistry that Thomas Quasthoff brings to all of his singing.  All the world is his stage these days.  Abbado, Levine and Rattle want him for their concerts, and he garners paeans of praise from the music critics across the globe who hear him.  Thus there was great anticipation within Jordan Hall before Quasthoff and his comradely accompanist Justus Zeyen emerged from the stage door to begin their “journey,” as Quasthoff described it in a short speech before he began to sing.  That speech, plus several other “entre-nous” moments of palaver with the audience served as an intriguing window into this artist’s complicated and focused psyche, but I’m not so sure that these extras-musical moments helped elevate the proceedings.  More about that later.

Quasthoff began his “journey” with four Schubert songs, and the singer’s choice of Lieder was as interesting as his interpretations.  Three of the four were set to the verse of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the first being “Prometheus,” D. 674, in which the protagonist shakes an angry fist at Zeus and the other gods for the grim lot they have dealt him.  This song is a daringly deep work with which to open a recital.  Immediately apparent were Quasthoff’s considerable gifts of language enunciation and his embodiment of the “speaker’s” emotions.

Quasthoff has obviously carefully considered this song, and indeed, it was apparent throughout the afternoon that he had examined everything he sang with an analyst’s eye for detail and nuance.

He likely first looks at the overall work, what it’s about, what its inherent emotions may be, how the poetry is set by the composer, how the accompaniment may underscore, or not, the poetry’s “meaning,” a myriad of early “surface” examinations.  Next, delving deeper, he would appear to think about each individual phrase of the song, how it might begin and end, what it’s emotional or musical highpoint or highpoints may be, what kind of breath may be required to sing the phrase through, where the phrase might be meaningfully interrupted by a breath, and so many other considerations.  Then, after all of this is scrutinized and made part of the entire equation, he looks for the key word or words within each phrase, the word(s) which contain the essence of the poetry’s meaning or emotional core, and how that word has been set by the composer.  He then contemplates which particular vocal color might be applied to that word that most completely communicates its essence.  He does all this, I’m convinced, before he even begins his first traversal of the song with his pianist.

Quasthoff’s desire to delve deep as this into his music and music making is a tribute to his intellectual curiosity as well as his musical honesty.  Both abet his almost uncanny talent to communicate with a receptive and thoughtful listener.

Throughout “Prometheus” there was never a doubt, in Quasthoff’s searing interpretation, of the anger the protagonist feels towards the gods.  At the song’s very end, the words “wie Ich!” are sung.  Quasthoff’s pronunciation of that final German ch was heard as an elongated hiss, a wonderful effect, clearly expressing utter contempt.

“Grenzen der Menschheit,” D. 716, continued the extraordinary exposition of text by the singer, whose deep and resonant tones filled out and potently described “Mit gelassener Hand/Aus rollenden Wolken/Segnende Blitze/Über die Erde sät.” (With calm hand/From the rolling clouds/Sends blessed lightning/Over the earth.”  This resonance was then contrasted with the most elegant legato brought to a following phrase that describes the smooth seam of God’s cloak.  One was reminded of how Goethe’s ever-philosophical words often are a perfect match to Schubert’s extraordinary music.

Drama abounded in “Erlkönig,” D. 328, the harrowing tale of a horseman and his young son held in the rider’s arms as they gallop through a stormy night, haunted by a ghostly long-tailed and crowned spirit, the Erl-king.  Quasthoff embodied the three “actors” of this drama, singing the father’s verses with steadfast assurance.  The child’s fearful concerns were sung with uplifted eyes as if the child were looking up to his father as his terror of the Erl-king was manifested.  And as the Erl-king himself, Quasthoff summoned up a truly menacing persona.  Throughout the wild ride, pianist Justus Zeyen was a dramatically accurate and literate portraitist.  The power of this interpretation, in which every word was freighted with drama, overwhelmed.

The ensuing “Im Frühling,” D. 882, was notable for its calm and serenity, with Zeyen a particularly sensitive accompanist, dispensing jewel-like and pearly tone as Quasthoff softly sang of nature’s benign wild creatures and the pangs of love, past joy, and memory.

Following the Schubert songs, Quasthoff programmed a 20^th-century masterwork:  “Six Monologues from ‘Jedermann’” by the Swiss/French composer Frank Martin.  Stemming from 1943-4/1949, this cycle portrays a man enamored at first of riches, then, as his profligate life progresses, realizes that life should offer more than mere material wealth, and ultimately embraces God as his true treasure.  Quasthoff believes in this music, and spent a bit of time explaining Martin’s lamentable under-appreciation, and mentioning that the composer’s Requiem and Golgotha oratorio were true masterpieces.  He then began to sing, and what and how he sang was the highlight of the recital.

It would be hard to imagine a more deeply thought performance of music that haunts the memory with its plangent harmonic language and powerful, strongly chordal structure.  Again, Quasthoff’s searching intellect was perfectly matched to his texts.  I look at my program book today and I see that I had stopped taking notes, and had began to circle individual words which the singer invested with special color and nuance.  Almost every third of fourth word is circled.  Q.E.D..

After intermission, Quasthoff returned with Brahms exclusively, but before he began to sing, he made two requests:

1. No text-messaging

2.  Suppress the hearing-aid squeal

I had heard the annoying hearing aid problem earlier, but I honestly couldn’t imagine any serious vocal recital attendee text-messaging during the music.  Shortly after Quasthoff began to sing, my disbelief was destroyed by an elderly gentleman two rows in front of me who had brought out his PDA, and not 20 feet away from Quasthoff, was staring at its illuminated screen!

Perhaps it was this event that slightly dulled my appreciation of the Brahms being put forth from the stage, though the fourth song of the op. 94 Five Songs made a bewitching impression – the gorgeous “Sapphische Ode,” in which are referenced the fragrance of rose petals, dew shed from branches moved by the wind, and tears shed from a lover’s eyes.  All had telling effect, and once again Zeyen’s sensitive accompaniment fully complemented.

After the applause accorded the Brahms op. 94, Quasthoff asked the audience if it would “do something together” with him.  There had been several tubercular eruptions between each of the songs, and the singer asked that this extra-musical intrusion be suppressed.  Lightening the mood, he characterized these as “lung clinic” interruptions.  He went on to say that he held the next music, Brahms’ Four Serious Songs, op. 121 in the highest esteem, that they were indeed about death, but there really was no need to emphasize that fact by death rattles emitted from the audience.  The good-natured audience complied – not one cough was heard between the songs.

After a minimum of enthusiastic encouragement, Quasthoff offered three encores – Brahms:  “Auf dem Kirchhofe,” op. 105, Schubert:  “Seligkeit,” and Brahms:  “Unüberwindlich.”  He was stopped by a catch in his throat at the beginning of “Seligkeit” – here is what he said:  “There was a frog…Shit happens!” (much audience laughter)  ”Thank God at the end of the concert!  HE (looking at Zeyen) was perfect!  OK, frog is gone.”  Having said this, “Seligkeit” gave him a bit of trouble with its occasional high notes.  But the fully pantomimed and almost “mugged” “Unüberwindlich,” which Quasthoff told us was about an alcoholic’s wish to be spared his addiction, and his ultimate failure to achieve this, was hugely enjoyed.  This ended the recital.  But…

Am I hopelessly old-fashioned?  I fully appreciate an artist’s wish to be involved with his audience, but I wonder – was I the only one in Jordan Hall that afternoon who was a bit put off by the palsy-walsy bantering from the stage?  It seemed a bit of a philosophical dissonance to interrupt a program of such gorgeous music by so much distracting talk.  Yet, audiences SHOULD be educated about stifling coughing at concerts.  Too bad it falls to the artist on-stage to do the educating.  It breaks the mood, and in Quasthoff’s case in particular, the mood he creates is so completely compelling.

A few further thoughts:

Pianist and singer provided an amusing and strong visual contrast.  Zeyen is quite tall and lean, Quasthoff quite short and stout – an explanation point and a period, if you will.  And yet both are in complete sync and sympathy with one another, hand-in-glove artistically.

This was ultimately a heartfelt, moving and memorable recital, my few qualms aside.  Quasthoff brings with him a very large toolbox, and he uses all of the tools in that box – falsetto, mezza-voce, gorgeous legato, etc., etc. to great effect.  He has obviously thought through each and every word of each song and planned in advance how to sing that word so as to best reveal its emotional totality.  Quasthoff is a deep-thinking singer, performing on a very high intellectual plane.  Thank goodness we have him with us.  May he and Zeyen return soon!

P.S.:  Any true Quasthoff fan must acquire and read the singer’s autobiography The Voice: A Memoir. It is a great help in understanding the singer’s unique sense of humor and his “take” on his worldly existence.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Bernard Haitink returned to the BSO podium last night (April 22) and led with masterful technique, elegant style, and full understanding an unusual and rewarding program, which “on paper” had seemed somewhat unadventursome. And the drama of yet another last-minute program change added to the evening’s excitement.

Excitement? Assuredly! By now one takes for granted that our BSO will play beautifully, and so it was last night. But when Maestro Haitink is on the podium, the bar is raised yet again. His walk to the podium is a little slower these days, and he looks a bit more frail, but not a whit of that mattered once he turned to face the orchestra and commandingly gestured to the players that he was ready to make music. With one flick of his wrist to garner their attention, it was evident, even before his initial downbeat, that the orchestra was going to give him exactly what he wanted.

One can opine at great length what makes a great conductor. Last night, all one had to do was watch and listen. Along with his elegant and clear baton technique, Haitink brings an old-world knowledge base to his music making which can be sensed and heard from the very moment bows are put to strings. He opened his concert with the rarely heard Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Orchestral Suite, Opus 60, a 1920-vintage work by Richard Strauss, and scored for a smaller-than-usual-for-him orchestra. The music is charming, full of homage to music penned by Jean-Baptiste Lully who was in some ways the inspiration behind Strauss’s score, though many other influences and inspirations are alluded to, as was thoroughly explained in Michael Steinberg’s eloquent program note. The Suite is in nine movements, and each offered a platform for the virtuoso musicians of the BSO to strut their stuff. The perky Overture was a bit soft-grained and less “etched” than Fritz Reiner’s famous recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but yielded nothing in charm and virtuosity to that storied band. Flautist Elizabeth Rowe was especially elegant and coy in her Minuet solos, and in “The Fencing Master” movement bold and extrovert solos were heard from Thomas Rolfs, trumpet, Toby Oft, trombone, Richard Sebring, horn, and Randall Hodgkinson, piano. BSO Concertmaster Malcolm Lowe was the dashing soloist in the polonaise “Dance of the Tailors,” oboist John Ferrillo and Elizabeth Rowe traded phrases beautifully in “The Minuet of Lully,” the exquisitely scored Entrance of Cléonte was ravishingly played, and the culminating movement “The Dinner,” amusingly spiked with reminiscences of earlier Straussian compositions was distinguished by a beautiful cello solo played by Assistant Principal Martha Babcock, who has been a pillar of strength all season while her colleague Jules Eskin has been on sabbatical.

Evident throughout this performance was Haitink’s masterful understanding and sense of the piece. His lovely shaping of instrumental lines and their tapering at the ends of phrases was especially beautiful to hear, as it was all evening.

After intermission, BSO Principal Horn James Somerville stepped on stage with Maestro Haitink to perform Mozart’s delightful Concerto No. 2 in E-flat, K. 417. It had been announced earlier to the press and also with a leaflet inserted into the program book that Mr. Somerville’s appearance was due to the unfortunate absence of violinist Leonidas Kavakos who was unable to travel from Europe due to the ash-cloud mischief created by Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano. While it surely would have been pleasant to hear Mr. Kavakos, Somerville played with such eloquence and sensitivity that one was actually grateful for the substitution. His approach to the Concerto was less bravura than some other players, but his sensitivity to nuance, especially apparent in the first movement, was salutary and heartwarming. Showing no strain at all with Mozart’s musical requirements, Somerville played with aplomb and assurance, ever supported along the way by Haitink’s attention to orchestral detail so often glossed over by lesser accompanists. At the Concerto’s end, his on-stage colleagues abetted the audience’s grateful ovation for Somerville. Hatink, too, seemed pleased, affectionately clapping the soloist on the back as the two protagonists walked to the stage door.

The “Haffner” Symphony No. 35 in D K. 386 by Mozart is surely one of this composer’s most wondrous symphonic creations. It abounds with irresistible energy, lovely melody, brief though affecting Mozartean melancholy, and ultimate exultant joy. Written, reluctantly we’re told, by the composer who at the time complained to his father that he was just too busy to write another symphony, the resulting music is a virtuoso miracle of light and optimism. All of Haitink’s strengths alluded to earlier were in evidence in this performance.

What an innovative and extrovert first movement this symphony enjoys! Haitink’s tempo was ideal, allowing the BSO’s famed string section to romp through the cascading up-and-down scales with apparent ease. The “Andante” was taken at a quicker-than-usual pace which perfectly matched the charming, serenade-like sections and permitted the requisite contrast with the momentarily darker oboe and clarinet interjections of the movement’s middle. The “Menuetto and Trio”  continued the light and courtly feel, effectively preparing “Finale: Presto,”  whose infectious zest spread from player to player, and ultimately to the audience, which, at the movement’s end, stood and offered up well-deserved bravos.

Bravos for a Mozart Symphony? Yes, indeed, when played so well and conducted so professionally and artfully by a great musician. When called back to the stage for a third curtain call, Haitink asked the orchestra to stand with him. They demurred and offered an ovation of their own in a show of deep respect and gratitude for what their Conductor Emeritus had brought to them that evening, and, more importantly, what he had brought to Mozart and Strauss.

This program repeats today, Saturday and Tuesday. Attend, if you can, and witness great music making. You’ll not be disappointed.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Last week’s concerts were to have been the last TFC/F. de B. collaborations this season, so perhaps the extra sense of frisson heard in the Rossini Stabat Mater could be attributed to an affectionate sense of farewell from the chorus to the conductor, but he had the willing and committed performances of the BSO members and a superb quartet of vocal soloists along with him as well. I am not exaggerating in saying that this unusual and rarely performed Rossini “oratorio,” as Frühbeck de Burgos had described it, received a performance that one could not have imagined as being any better.

This unusual 10-movement work, whose poetry describes the anguish of Jesus’ mother as she views his crucifixion, went from strength to strength from its very first notes, and what one immediately noticed was Frühbeck de Burgos’s total command of every nuance and his total ease in demonstrating exactly what he wanted to hear from everyone on stage. He had noted earlier that he has performed this work all over Europe, and to great acclaim. It was clear that he had worked through all of the many challenges of tempi, mood and balance the piece presents. In the hands of a lesser musician, parts of this work can stray into tawdriness and almost amusing musical “second-class-ness.” Not for one second did this happen in these performances. What emerged was a remarkable work of great emotion and a very Italianate passion. Not only is this a work of great originality, it also presages music to come. One regularly heard foreshadowing of what Verdi would later employ, especially in his Manzoni Requiem.

Rafael Frühbeck De Burgos conducts the BSO, TFC & Soloists (Michael J. Lutch photo)

The Tanglewood Festival Chorus was clearly the hero of the evening whenever it sang. This was surely one of that organization’s most fully satisfying performances. It was clear from the very first movement when they sang the dramatically set and halting text “dum – pen – de – bant fi – li – us” (where her Son was hanging), with perfectly centered and rich yet text-aware tone, that we were in for a special evening of choral singing.

Tenor Eric Cutler sang the “Cujus animam” aria with a pleasing, bright Italianate tone, disappointing only at the end when he somewhat hammily shut his score and physically assumed the posture of an affected soloist about to reach for a high c-sharp, which on Saturday was something of a stretch for him.  He was admittedly quite good, musically, but off-putting visually in this, his “big moment.”

“Quis es Homo” is scored for chorus and mezzo-soprano was notable for its fabulous singing from Alice Coote, who brought an almost Kathleen Ferrier-like richness of focus and tone to her music, and the elegant pacing and playing brought by the conductor and the orchestra.

Bass soloist Alfred Walker and the chorus rose splendidly to the occasion of Rossini’s a cappella setting of the “Eia, mater” text, which Frühbeck de Burgos elected to conduct without baton. Hearing the chorus correct the sometimes not-quite-perfect tuning of Mr. Walker in this treacherous little movement was instructive and heartening. The conductor artfully led the ensuing “Sancta mater” with wonderfully controlled rubati and dynamics. The give-and-take here was of the highest order that one longs to hear but so rarely does.

Ms. Coote returned for her gorgeous “Fac ut portem” aria and one was once again moved by her creamy tone put to the service of precise rhythm, textural clarity and dynamic control. This is one very communicative singer. Yet any mezzo who sings this aria knows that however beautifully she may sing, she will soon be overshadowed by the next movement, the ultra-dramatic soprano–and-chorus “Inflammatus.”

Here was soprano Albina Shagimuratova’s chance to shine, and shine she did, super-nova style, with brilliant tone and fabulous focus. Yet, she was up against an almost superhuman rival for attention. It must be said that the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, when singing in unison and asked for fortisissimo, as they were several times on the text “…in die judicii” (on the day of judgment) was truly something to behold, a veritable force of nature. I can’t recall hearing such appropriately laser-focused sound from a chorus ever before. It was absolutely stunning, and yet, so was the rapt and dramatic singing they brought to the soft music that followed. TFC actually surpassed the soloist in this movement – quite an achievement in this molto drammatico environment!

The a cappella “Quando corpus morietur” chorus which followed was sung dead-in-tune from its beginning to its end, further evidence of the TFC’s all-around mastery of the challenges presented by this work. One again eschewing the baton, de Burgos shaped the chorus’s sinuous musical lines as might a sculptor his marble. The TFC’s rapt and sensitive tone and its attention to his every gesture made believers of everyone in the hall.

Rossini sets his final movement “In sempiterna secula, Amen” as an instrumental and choral fugue, and Frühbeck de Burgos took special pains to ensure that its many overlapping sequential entrances were clear and never covered by the complicated counterpoint. Near the movement’s end Rossini, always the dramatic showman, stops the fugue in its tracks and poignantly recalls the spare and foreboding music that was first heard at the very beginning the Stabat Mater’s first movement. The fugue then begins anew where it left off and brings this remarkable music to an emphatic close.

As the soloists walked onstage for their bows, the chorus’s conductor, John Oliver, joined them. When he gestured to chorus to stand for its bow, well-deserved and very well focused bravos welled up from the audience. They knew what they had just heard, and so did Mr. Oliver. His smile spoke volumes. And, similar bravos were accorded Frühbeck de Burgos and the orchestra for their significant contributions to this evening of extraordinary music making.

The concert had begun with a somewhat generic traversal of the music from Mendelssohn’s magical Overture and Incidental Music written for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The orchestra’s Principal Flautist Elizabeth Rowe was calm, collected and lovely in her daunting solo in the Scherzo, as were indeed all of the woodwinds. Associate Principal Horn Richard Sebring was nonpareil in his Nocturne solo, and Mss. Shagimuratova and Coote were spot-on in their solos. The women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus were a somewhat large yet elegant and fleet-voiced gathering of fairies. Maestro Frühbeck de Burgos kept things moving right along.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

The concert opened on a semi-serious note – semi-serious in that Richard Strauss’s wonderful set of variations he entitled Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character illuminate several episodes in Cervantes’s tale about Don Quixote, the wryly confused knight who always doesn’t quite “get it” as he travels the countryside with his rotund sidekick Sancho Panza.  One of the many miracles of Strauss’s musical description of this knight errant is the composer’s obvious affection for his characters.  This work elicited some of the composer’s most variegated and beautifully scored music, yet it never condescends to humiliating the protagonists.  It does, however, colorfully paint the misguided exploits of Quixote and Panza in vivid colors, whether depicting the Knight’s misguided charging of windmills, disrupting of a flock of sheep, or scattering a procession of monks.

The role of Quixote is played by a solo ‘cello, which is given extremely challenging and difficult music, and the role of Panza is played by a violist upon whom are visited similarly challenging solos.  In this concert the solo cello was consummately played by Lynn Harrell who seemed acutely attuned to every odd character trait Quixote offers up. In the role of Sancho Panza, BSO first violist Steven Ansell, who has been a very busy man in Symphony Hall lately, was, in a word, ideal, bringing Panza to life with brilliant and characterful playing of the highest order. The orchestra was equal partner in projecting this marvelous work, with breathtaking ensemble and solo excursions from woodwinds and brass at every opportunity, and there were many.  The closing five minutes of this performance will be long remembered.  Harrell was particularly affecting in his depiction of the dying knight’s final earthly moments, embodying Quixote’s expiring sigh with a smooth and elegantly played downward glissando, and the two woodwind-rich final chords, treacherously scored, were perfectly in tune.

In his friendly program note to his audience, James Levine wrote of how much he loves the music he selected for the concert’s second half, and that he had played these works often in the past.  While this may be so, I had the slightly uncomfortable feeling that not enough rehearsal time had been spent on these gems.  The up-tempo polkas and march fared better than the more extended waltzes, and while one really missed the now-familiar Viennese lilt in waltz playing, where the second of the waltz’s three beats is slightly anticipated, there is no denying the pleasure of hearing this great music—and it is great—played by this orchestra in its present excellent state.

As wonderful as the aforementioned Johann Strauss works were, Josef Strauss’s daring and forward-looking Delirien “won the gold.”  Delirium is special in many ways—its first few measures seem to have no tonal center—we’re kept in suspense as to where this music is going to lead.  Dramatic tremolando strings create a sense of foreboding – this in a waltz?  But the atmosphere clears somewhat, and we are swept into the work’s haunting opening phrase, the first of several moments in this masterwork that seem to say one thing, but imply another. This sense of unrest, of a slightly off-kilter perspective is maintained for almost the entire work, which only at its end emphatically brings home the happiness and contentment most waltzes are meant to express.  If you don’t know Delirium, a good place to start is with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2003 New Year’s Concert CD on Deutsche Grammophon.  It will challenge any misgivings you may have of this wonderful repertoire.

Kudos to Levine and the BSO for bringing us this intriguing concert!

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Three performances of growing intensity were given last week of a thorny yet fascinating new work for chorus, baritone soloist and large orchestra in Symphony Hall. James MacMillan, Scottish composer of high repute in the British Isles, had been asked by the London Symphony Orchestra to compose a work in honor of its President—Sir Colin Davis—in celebration of the maestro’s 80^th birthday. The resulting St. John Passion, a potent distillation of the gospel plus several additional liturgical texts was given its premiere in London under Mr. Davis’s direction on April 27, 2008. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, The Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Rundfunkchor Berlin had ultimately jointly commissioned the music. The Boston performances last week were the work’s American premiere.

Sir Colin was from 1972 through 1984 the Principal Guest Conductor of the BSO, and his earlier ties to the orchestra have only been strengthened in the past several years by his renewed series of annual appearances, which began in November 2003 after a much-too-long 19-year hiatus. He has a special affection for John Oliver’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and that organization’s collaborations with Mr. Davis over the years have been highlights of many a Boston singer’s career. So it was a special alignment of the stars that allowed the Orchestra’s management the opportunity to similarly celebrate Sir Colin’s 80th birthday with the American premiere of James MacMillan’s St. John Passion.

The work stands in two parts. The longer first portion is largely narrative of the arrest of Jesus after Judas’s treachery, Simon Peter’s three-time disowning of Jesus, Christ’s appearance before Pontius Pilate, and the unruly mob which demands his crucifixion. The shorter second “half” of the work, though still narrative, allows for more contemplation of the issues at hand with two important added tropes as it assays Jesus’ crucifixion, the parting of His garments, the touching dialogue between Jesus and His mother at the foot of the cross, and Jesus’ death. The first of these tropes are what are known as “The Reproaches,” Middle-Ages texts added to the liturgy heard on Good Friday which were meant to make the person of Jesus seem more human by allowing him to show deep anger and frustration with the people who allowed him to be condemned and crucified. The second trope is a meditation for orchestra alone, which acts as the close of the composition.

MacMillan’s music is polyglot but never random. He employs a large traditional orchestra with an expanded percussion section which includes temple blocks, tuned gongs and Sanctus Bells, bells which when rung in a traditional Mass celebration of Holy Communion announce the presence of the Holy supernatural. A full complement of strings, woodwinds, brass and a chamber organ make for a particularly rich orchestral palette. He divides his vocal resources between a Baritone soloist who sings the words of Christ, a small “Narrator Chorus” whose role is to sing the words of the St. John gospel in quasi-chant like fashion, and a very large mixed chorus, whose weighty interjections are heard at several important points in ongoing telling of the story.

From this alone, one can gather that this setting of the Passion story is something quite different from its predecessors, yet there are many points in MacMillan’s music which to my ears recall other Passion settings by J.S. Bach, Heinrich Schütz, Osvaldo Golijov, Arvo Pärt and Krzysztof Penderecki.

In the hall, MacMillan’s music is riveting and expository, mostly tonal, though excursions into atonality occur. Throughout it is skillfully wrought for instruments and singers, challengingly difficult, and ultimately quite emotional in effect. If one is willing to submit to the content of the text and be swept up into the drama and awful poignancy of St. John’s compelling description of horrible cruelty wished upon a Godlike person by his uncomprehending contemporaries, one cannot help but be significantly moved by this music.

In the role of Christus, baritone Christopher Maltman was exemplary and riveting. His instrument has all of the requisite and commanding power his role demands, and his invocation of drama and force as he portrayed one of history’s most extraordinary individuals was compelling and moving, especially so in The Reproaches, when Christ, while dying on the cross, demands to know why his people have allowed him to be brought to such a hideous end when he had done only good for them.

The Tanglewood Festival Chorus, this time wisely on-book for such a complex new work, heroically rose to every challenge presented by this demanding score. The smaller Narrator Chorus was flexible and extremely musical as it recounted the gospel text, elegantly essaying the composer’s unusual ornamentation of vocal lines and multiple group glissandi. The larger mixed chorus was heard to great effect whenever it was asked to sing. It was especially moving when it embodied the mob which demands Jesus’ blood, and when it unexpectedly personified Peter’s tripartite disowning of Jesus. Later, in the description of the scene at Golgotha of Christ on the cross speaking to his mother, the chorus’s soft interweaving of the Stabat Mater with the Coventry Carol’s touching lullaby text, all overlaid with the familiar Passion Chorale so movingly used by Bach, was a wonder to hear.

Sir Colin led the BSO with an economy of gesture yet as a powerful advocate for this music. The orchestra rewarded him and his audience with detailed and beautiful playing of the highest order, all-powerful when required, and preternaturally quiet and contemplative when asked. This was especially evident in the “postlude” of the oratorio that MacMillan has titled “Sanctus Immortalis, miserere nobis” (Holy Immortal one, have mercy on us). Interestingly, it was here in this orchestra-only movement that the music reached its emotional center. Beginning with sepulchrally deep and foreboding sounds from the very depths of the orchestra, it slowly builds with a long crescendo to a pain-filled and harrowing keening in the strings of tremendous emotional power. It ultimately subsides, but leaves one with a palpable sense of loss and feeling of remorse with the weight of what has just been told over the course of the past ninety minutes.

With its power to bring the listener into the drama of the Passion, to feel the agony it describes, to be there as witness at Calvary, and to be so strongly reproached directly by Christ, James MacMillan has created a drama that will not soon be forgotten by anyone who has heard or participated in its reenactment.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

The Orchestra’s virtually sold-out January 24^th offering, “Baroque and Beyond,” was notable for its freshness of repertoire and variety of programming. Hangen opened with the J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concerto, #2, with its stratospheric piccolo trumpet part played with ease and taste by Greg Whitaker. Markus Placci, violin, Nancy Dimock, oboe, and Melissa Mielens, flute were the other skillful soloists. Hangen’s choice of tempo was ideal, as it was throughout the afternoon. The small ensemble was fleet and light on its feet, in short, ideally matched to the music. The orchestra next turned its attention to a suite of seven dances drawn from Jean-Phillipe Rameau’s 1739 opera-ballet Les Fêtes d’Hébé. While nicely essayed, I thought the larger ensemble that Hangen had assembled too large for the music, and any significant sense of Baroque affect was in too small supply. This, though, did not dampen the grace the players demonstrated with their playing, nor the exuberant enthusiasm of the audience at the suite’s end.

The concert’s first half closed with the amusing and engaging Funeral Music for an Artful Canary: A Tragi-Comic Cantata by Georg Phillip Telemann. Matthew Truss was the imposing counter-tenor, who gamely sported a canary-yellow shirt and tie for the performance. Truss, a two-time finalist in the New England Regional Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions has been the recipient of many awards and has sung several major counter-tenor roles in his recent past, among them that of Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

He is clearly involved with his texts, and it was fun to watch the audience – and the orchestra – react to his characterizations. He should, however, work on his German pronunciation: gute nacht should not sound like “goo-tay” nacht! But this was of no matter, really, as the audience roared it approval at the end of this alternately poignant and tongue-in-cheek lament.

After intermission, the orchestra presented the winner of its Student Concerto Competition. The contest is an annual event that offers an outstanding young instrumentalist from the Indian Hill Music School a concert appearance with the Orchestra, in most cases the first such opportunity the young artist has experienced.  This year’s winner was piccolo artist Jinji Zhang, all of 15 years old, who played two movements of Vivaldi’s Piccolo Concerto RV443 with admirable and confident aplomb.

Hangen and his players then offered the Canon in D by Johann Pachebel, its composer’s “greatest hit,” in a decidedly “non-echt-Baroque” version that for all the romantic layering in this arrangement still pleased with its exposition of the composer’s rich gifts of invention and melody. Needless to say, the audience ate it up

The concert concluded with energy and brilliance. The familiar orchestral excerpts from Christoph Gluck’s masterful opera Orfeo ed Euridice were heard in artful and virtuosic performances of the work’s Overture, the Dance of the Blessed Spirits, with particularly beautiful playing by the orchestra’s principal flute Melissa Mielens, and a furiously exciting Dance of the Furies, highlighted by brilliant playing by the orchestras strings at Hangen’s just-right blistering tempo.

Maestro Hangen had saved the best for last, though. Recalling Mr. Truss to the stage, who had “re-ragged” in a beautiful pink shirt and tie, Addio, addio miei sospiri was sung to a fare-thee-well with cascading roulades, accurate fioritura, and a brilliant cadenza, which appropriately demonstrated Mr. Truss’s considerable vocal range from top to bottom. Predictably, and rightly, the audience was brought to its feet.

In the swirling artistic milieu that is the Greater Boston classical music scene, it is a joy to encounter an orchestra, conductor and audience of the high character and quality as that of The Indian Hill Symphony Orchestra in suburban Littleton. Kudos to the many Metro West individual and corporate supporters of this fine ensemble and its Music Director.  And, speaking of the audience – its rapt and attentive silence during the music is a tribute to its sophistication. Would that Symphony Hall audiences were as quiet and attentive!

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Maazel, a child prodigy who was conducting major orchestras from a very tender age, is renowned as a master of baton technique. He is able to communicate the minutest detail of his interpretive wishes by demonstrating what he wants with a minimum or verbal instruction. This is something most orchestras understandably like these days – rehearsals become more efficient with less talk, they say, and more music-making ensues. There was certainly music-making happening in these concerts, and Maazel’s readings exhibited all of this eminent conductor’s present strengths and weaknesses, the latter of which have been noted by New York critics while Maazel was in his Music Directorship role there with the New York Philharmonic. There, they all admired Mr. Maazel’s efficiency and control, but found that he had a tendency to “micro-manage,” as they put it, every single little detail in the score, so that characterful playing and spontaneity of performance was often sacrificed for precision. I was never quite sure what these critics meant by this, but now I think I understand.

The Beethoven Eighth is a brusquely robust and mercurial work with much rough-hewn humor. Written at a time when Beethoven’s growing deafness must have been sorely vexing him, one can even sense an element of frustration and impatience in this music. It seems never to rest, and this restlessness is best heard when the symphony is left to unfurl in a completely naturalistic manner. This Mr. Maazel seemed unwilling to do. Fussy phrasings and changes of tempi often intruded and impeded the symphony’s elemental flow. As a result, the performance, while well played, seemed to lurch a bit too much, and there is already much lurching purposefully written into this music. After the applause, I tried to understand why I was so puzzled by what I had just heard, and I then remembered a splendid BSO/Haitink performance from several years ago that seemed to have everything just the way it ought to have been. If only Mr. Maazel had been a bit less intrusive…

Many of the same issues arose under Mr. Maazel’s direction in the Ninth Symphony. Beautifully played by the orchestra throughout and rousingly sung by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in the finale, this challengingly disjunctive work often failed to cohere, and there were niggling vocal issues with the quartet of soloists.  Michael Polanzani, who should know better, in his solo repeatedly singularized the German word for “brothers” by ignoring the pluralizing umlaut above the u in Brüder, and at times the entire quartet seemed to be over-reaching, even applying an unfortunate and inappropriate crescendo to their final fermata.

Yet, the Beethoven Ninth has the power and virtue of rising above most human shortcomings, and this performance, while not particularly sublime, nonetheless reminded us of this great symphony’s extraordinary breadth of human emotions, and its still sadly unrealized plea for universal loving brotherhood among humankind.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Musical Exoticism – Images and Reflections

by Ralph P. Locke

Price: $99.00 ISBN: 978-0-521-87793-0 Cloth

Cambridge University Press, 421 pages with 31 b&w illustrations, index

This thorough discussion of musical color and affect commonly referred to as representing “exoticism” is exhaustively researched and analyzed in this new volume by Musicology Professor Ralph P. Locke of the Eastman School of Music.  Its scholarly perspective and construct will appeal most directly to serious students of music, though there is much here that will engage any curious music lover.

Professor Locke has taken on an enormous task – that of explicating and illustrating how Western composers and jazz performers have employed certain techniques to add a sense of perfume, tang, and aural otherworldliness to their music that sets it apart from the familiar and comfortable. The how and why of this makes for an engaging read, aided by well-chosen illustrations and musical examples.

I confess that I hadn’t really thought too deeply about musical exoticism in the past, though I certainly thought “I knew it when I heard it.” After spending only a few minutes perusing this book before reading it closely, I was astonished with how deep and wide a subject this is. As a means of intriguing further interest in Professor Locke’s research, I’ll briefly cite several composers and a few of their obviously “exotic” works he examines:

• Baroque operas of Monteverdi, Rameau, Lully, and Handel

• Mozart – Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Rondo alla Turca, Violin Concerto in A, K. 291 “Turkish,” Die Zauberflöte

• Rimsky-Korsakov – Scheherazade, Symphony No. 2, “Antar,” Capriccio Espagnol, Sadko

• Stravinsky – Petrushka, L’Oiseau de Feu, Le Sacre du Printemps

• Debussy – La Cathédral Engloutie, Ibéria, Pagodes, Prélude à L’après-midi d’un faune, …

• Brahms – Hungarian Dances

• Delibes – Lakmé, La Source

• Meyerebeer – L’Africaine

• Bartok: The Miraculolus Mandarin

• Britten – Curlew River, Death in Venice

• Verdi – Aida, Nabucco, several others

• Puccini – Turandot, Madama Butterfly

And then there are performers of “popular” and jazz music such as Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, Desi Arnaz, Marlene Dietrich, Barbra Streisand, and many others… well, one can readily see how fertile the ground is for Professor Locke’s explorations.

In a note on the book’s jacket, Hugh MacDonald – also a musicologist and annotator of substantial reputation – calls attention to this breadth of repertoire, and of other issues raised of equal importance:

“…Locke is the first critic to confront this enormous repertoire as a

major phenomenon in Western music…and the ethical and political

issues are more relevant today than ever.”

Indeed, it is the ethical, moral, and political issues called to mind by some of the more “ethnic” performers and performances that Professor Locke cites that lead one to contemplate as never before how pervasive musical exoticism has become throughout the music of the Western world.

A minor cavil: this weighty subject is given such a thorough examination that it becomes a bit cumbersome at times to plow through. Several short readings will result in a more balanced meal than a long and uninterrupted session, which, for this reader, resulted in something of a surfeit. It is certainly more a reference work than a quick study. But this should be no deterrent to a serious and intellectually curious music aficionado.

This is an engrossing, intriguing, and fascinating book. Professor Locke offers us a rich feast, one which whets our appetite for more information and urges us on to further explorations of our own.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.

Petrenko’s star is clearly on the rise, and it is notable that his 2006 appointment as Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has twice been extended, the latest until 2015, and he has also been awarded the orchestra’s “Chief Conductor” title.  No small feat for a 33-year old, and kudos to the BSO management for offering us a look at him early in his career.

Petrenko’s technique reminds me of another great Russian maestro, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, whose unusual stick maneuverings demonstrate expressively sinuous sculpting of phrases.  Whatever one makes of this, Petrenko was in full control from the first few measures of Stravinsky’s early (op. 3, 1908) Scherzo Fantastique. It is a shimmering and kaleidoscopically colored workout played to a fare-thee-well by the BSO, a work they had encountered only three times (first in 1970) in their long history with this composer.  Other correspondents have noted the score’s debt to Rimsky-Korsakov, and the composer has added that it also was influenced by Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Dukas, and even Wagner (!).  I hear the Dukas, and I’ll add that the work’s expressive middle section showed clearly Ravelian harmonies.  The huge orchestra sported three harps, and the overall effect was alternately filamentous, transparent, colorful and virtuosic.  Obviously a fiendish piece to play, the Orchestra betrayed no strain whatsoever, and with Petrenko’s clear and concise shepherding, a brilliant reading was achieved.

Next came Sergei Rachmaninoff’s brooding and darkly hued Isle of the Dead, a symphonic poem taking its inspiration from an enigmatic and unsettling painting of the same title by Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin.  So obsessed was Böcklin with his subject – a white-shrouded figure stands behind a draped coffin as an oarsman rows them toward a dolorous, crypt-studded island – that the artist painted the scene five times.  The compelling image appealed to Rachmaninoff’s innately gloomy view of most things, and the music which resulted is one of his finest purely orchestral achievements.

In similar obsession throughout the work, the music almost constantly rocks to and fro in 5/8 meter, sometimes 3+2, sometimes 2+3, perhaps illustrating the lapping of water against the boat’s hull, or more likely the oarsman’s row-strokes.  Superbly orchestrated, the music grows first toward a powerful and desolate fortissimo climax, its impactful arrival pushing forward the surging 5/8 asymmetry of the melody.  Shortly, a completely different theme appears, a soaring and hopeful phrase laden with melancholy remembrance, that reaches a lofty and seemingly triumphant second climax.  But it is not to be – the lofty heights soon give way to a downward-spiraling crash, ending with a set of pounding triplets from the full orchestra, effectively clubbing any hope of redemption into submission.  And if one should harbor any doubt of the outcome of this, Rachmaninoff invokes his oft-heard use of the Dies Irae chant, whose notes and text are known to signal death and destruction.  From this point, after two hopeful, beautiful but ultimately short-lived violin and oboe solos, the work slowly fades into the darkness of the brooding seascape.

Petrenko consistently found the appropriate balance of tempo and instrumental color, which tellingly enhanced the poetic and story-telling character of his interpretation.  Of the many highlights, the black-velvet, perfectly tuned and timed brass chorale entrances in the later minutes of the work remain poignantly clear in memory.  Interestingly, the BSO had not performed this masterwork in Symphony Hall since 1945.  The music’s return was long overdue and very welcome, especially in such an expert performance as this.

The concert’s second half offered Dimitri Shostakovich’s massive and at times emotionally enigmatic 1953 Symphony No. 10 in E-Minor, op. 93.  Only at its end does it triumphantly repudiate the oppression the composer felt, as did virtually all Soviet artists at the time, the brutal dictatorship of Josef Stalin.  A huge work, which encompasses many deeply felt emotions of grief, anger, and the ultimate triumph of the soul, the 10^th Symphony is regarded as among the composer’s most important works for orchestra, and a watershed moment in Soviet symphonism.  Petrenko, conducting with a score but clearly mostly from memory, led a memorable performance, in which the present fine estate of the BSO’s deep strings and all its woodwinds was very much in evidence.  William Hudgin’s cheerfully burbling clarinet in the symphony’s final movement, and his duet with fellow traveler Thomas Martin in the work’s opening movement were astonishing in their accuracy and elegantly tapered phrasings.  Timpanist Timothy Genis reminded us throughout, and especially at the music’s powerful end, how fortunate we are to have him.  A tiny bit of brass insecurity (rarely-heard early entrances in both horn and tuba) only lightly distracted for a couple of seconds from the overall powerful exposition of this 20^th century touchstone of a symphony.  Smiles pervaded the orchestra as Petrenko acknowledged the audience’s cheers at the end, a happy Symphony Hall evening for all concerned, and an auspicious debut for a talented young conductor.

John W. Ehrlich is music director of Spectrum Singers, which he founded 29 years ago. He has been a singer and conductor in the Boston area for more than 30 years.