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concert review: Monterey Symphony
May. 25th, 2005 07:48 amI drove to Salinas for this concert (the Monterey Symphony plays the same programs there and in Carmel, and Salinas is a lot closer and has more parking) because of the shortest piece on the program. I heard Gluck's Overture to Iphigenie en Aulide just once, on the radio over thirty years ago, and I have never forgotten it. It was written in 1774, at the crest of the Sturm und Drang, my favorite period in all music. Iphigenie is a tragedy, and the overture alternates sad, quiet sections with thunderously stormy ones in a hypnotically repetitive way. This performance was more brisk and matter-of-fact than the one I remember (Otto Klemperer, one of the most lugubrious conductors of all time), but it was good to hear live, and the first question I always have about a small-time orchestra new to me - are they of professional quality? - was answered positively.
Not so their vocal supplement. The next piece on the program was Bruckner's Te Deum, the choral masterwork of his mature period, and since his mature period was the finest of this great composer's work, I was eager to hear this again. Well, it was brisk and matter-of-fact again, which is fatal with Bruckner, and the balances were terrible. The brass drowned out the rest of the orchestra, the orchestra drowned out the chorus, the chorus when exposed got wobbly, and the tenor soloist sounded like a duck. I was dismayed to see from the program that he studied with B's teacher. It doesn't say what he studied with her, however. Quacking?
After that I wasn't holding out much hope for the concluding trip to the Protestant side of the force, Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony. This is by far the least of Mendelssohn's symphonies. The orchestra originally scheduled to premiere it in 1830 hated it so much they refused to play it, and they do not look like fools today for that. So why was this performance so good? Maybe because of the light touch, and the refusal to wallow in the pomposities of the outer movements.
The conductor, Max Bragado-Darman, is a short man with a really big, clear beat. Obviously he needs to choose his repertoire very carefully. Based on this concert, if he did, say, some Debussy I bet I could be persuaded to go hear it. (I don't normally like Debussy.) The hall was very odd. So gently raked that if you sat immediately behind an aisle you couldn't see the stage, running all the way up to the ceiling with no balcony, it had the plain unadorned air of a high-school auditorium and no acoustical focus at all.
Not so their vocal supplement. The next piece on the program was Bruckner's Te Deum, the choral masterwork of his mature period, and since his mature period was the finest of this great composer's work, I was eager to hear this again. Well, it was brisk and matter-of-fact again, which is fatal with Bruckner, and the balances were terrible. The brass drowned out the rest of the orchestra, the orchestra drowned out the chorus, the chorus when exposed got wobbly, and the tenor soloist sounded like a duck. I was dismayed to see from the program that he studied with B's teacher. It doesn't say what he studied with her, however. Quacking?
After that I wasn't holding out much hope for the concluding trip to the Protestant side of the force, Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony. This is by far the least of Mendelssohn's symphonies. The orchestra originally scheduled to premiere it in 1830 hated it so much they refused to play it, and they do not look like fools today for that. So why was this performance so good? Maybe because of the light touch, and the refusal to wallow in the pomposities of the outer movements.
The conductor, Max Bragado-Darman, is a short man with a really big, clear beat. Obviously he needs to choose his repertoire very carefully. Based on this concert, if he did, say, some Debussy I bet I could be persuaded to go hear it. (I don't normally like Debussy.) The hall was very odd. So gently raked that if you sat immediately behind an aisle you couldn't see the stage, running all the way up to the ceiling with no balcony, it had the plain unadorned air of a high-school auditorium and no acoustical focus at all.
