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THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
October 31, 2005
Symphony concert performs well at new venue
Program shows off many different sound combinations, pays tribute to Mozart
BY LEE TEPLY THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT • Reach Lee Teply at lteply@odu.edu.
NEWPORT NEWS — The Virginia Symphony Orchestra’s Friday evening concert was a perfect opportunity to hear it in its new Peninsula venue, the visually and acoustically impressive Ferguson Center for the Arts in Newport News.
The program, a mixture of infrequently performed pieces, showed off just about every possible sound combination of the orchestra, and they all were great. Most impressive was the fact that, even in the densest textures, it was still possible to hear significant details of the softer instruments.
No doubt that was partly due to the skill with which conductor JoAnn Falletta blended and balanced the orchestra colors. But, she has used that skill in other venues, and the results have not been as completely satisfying. A wider range of pieces still needs to be experienced, but the first impressions of the new hall were overwhelmingly favorable.
In the first of this season’s many tributes to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose 250th birthday will be celebrated in January, the program included three pieces with connections to one of the early developers of the modern orchestra. Using instruments and effects that Mozart could not have known, the pieces were somewhat distant reflections on the 18th-century genius.
Jacques Ibert’s “Hommage a Mozart,” composed in 1956 for his 200th birthday, is today little known. There were some balance problems – so unlike the rest of the concert – and places where string players were not together. The orchestra was not quite ready to make this more than a work of just historical interest.
When the next piece, Tchaikovsky’s “Mozartiana,” came off so well, one had to wonder if the Ibert problems were more the composer’s than the performers’. The Russian’s clean, balanced orchestration of four Mozart works was a complete success.
The “Ave verum corpus” arrangement was appropriately heavenly, and the following set of variations used all of the options known to the 19th-century French/Russian school of orchestration.
Of many impressive solos, the most revealing was the extended slow violin variation played by concertmaster Vahn Armstrong. He has performed many times in many places , but here, it seemed to sing more effortlessly and with a fuller tone. He sailed with ease through the concertolike writing.
In the concert’s actual concerto, Ernst von Dohnanyi’s “Variations on a Nursery Song,” pianist Orli Shaham played with good tone in all registers and with a nice flexibility. The piece’s technical demands are as great as those of some big Romantic concertos, but she played as if their difficulties did not concern her.
Instead, she concentrated on the many details of figuration and phrasing, which again were quite easy to hear. The orchestra was also busy, and, from its dark, murky introduction, it was a full partner in this piece, which should be heard more often despite its juvenile theme.
More instruments were brought on stage along with the Virginia Symphony Chorus for the very grand finale, Maurice Ravel’s two suites from “Daphnis and Chloe” (1912).
Like the great Stravinsky ballets composed before World War I, it was written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and, although it is not performed as often, it is equally intoxicating.
Falletta was at her best as she guided about 200 musicians through the enchanting score. Of the many fine individual contributions, that of principal flutist Debra Wendells Cross stood out.
Robert Shoup’s chorus was ready for Ravel’s challenges, topping the orchestral sound with a shimmering aura. For a short but timeless 30 minutes, the musicians really made the Ferguson Center a dreamy musical heaven.
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The Virginia Symphony Orchestra with a complement of 79 professional musicians under the direction of Grammy-nominated Music Director JoAnn Falletta performs 140 concerts annually, reaching 200,000 concert goers every season in venues throughout the region. Our education and outreach programs reach 53,000 students and adult learners every year. The Virginia Symphony Orchestra is the cultural cornerstone of the performing arts in Hampton Roads.
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