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NEW WORLD SYMPHONY
MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS/CARTER BREY/
ROBERTO DIAZ (5-6-06)
NEW WORLD SHINES WITH DARK MASTERPIECE
By Lawrence Budmen
Almost a century after Jean Sibelius composed his Symphony No.4 in A Minor, the score remains one of the Finnish master’s most enigmatic creations. The music is darkly ruminative and brooding. A ray of light breaks through the musical darkness; only to be extinguished by massive salvos of brass in the depths of the instruments’ lowest register.
At the New World Symphony’s concluding concert of the season on Saturday, Michael Tilson Thomas brought musical order to the bleak chaos of this disturbing masterpiece.
Conducting without a baton, Tilson Thomas elicited bold accents and stunning precision from his ace instrumentalists. The agitated, shimmering string figuration in the first movement moved with piercing urgency. Despite Sibelius’s murky orchestration, inner voices emerged with stunning clarity.
Daniel Thomas played a warmly beautiful cello solo that introduced the work’s spare thematic motif. In the midst of the score’s bleak tonal portraits, Dustin Budish’s virtuosic viola solo was a bracing sunburst. The composer’s trademark blocks of sound had granite like solidity.
Katie Young’s light oboe tones introduced the sprightly dance theme of the second movement. Tilson Thomas’s intense traversal of the Largo captured the music’s tragic cast. In the exhilarating finale, the glowing warmth of Stephanie Wernli’s clarinet soared above the pensive orchestral texture. Biting brass and percussive crescendos had terrific impact and the Lincoln Theater’s problematical acoustics became live and vibrant.
In Glinka’s rousing Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla, Tilson Thomas drew massive, resonant tone from the cello section. The conductor brought textural transparency and attention to subtle instrumental details in this curtain raiser.
Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote was given cinematic treatment with invigorating, characterful playing. Highly colorful wind timbres charged through the ensemble with rippling finesse. The performance lacked the lush, sumptuous string sound that is quintessential Strauss.
Cellist Carter Brey (from the New York Philharmonic) brought rich tone, extraordinary musicality, and nobility of line to the bejeweled solo part. Violist Roberto Diaz exhibited classical restraint. The lovely, finely spun sound of concertmaster Daniel Carlson matched them at every turn.
Strauss’s witty score was the perfect conclusion to an audacious New World Symphony season.
Copyright
Miami Herald
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