Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 19, 1991 TAG: 9103190281
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There was some spectacular individual playing, but the final impression fell somewhat short of individual performances.
Composer James Sochinski's latest celebratory commission, the "RSO Fanfare No. 5," was dedicated to the RSO's redoubtable principal trumpeter Allen Bachelder in recognition of what Sochinski called the musician's "extraordinary professionalism and dedication to the art and craft of performance."
Scored for the small brass section of Beethoven's "Pastoral" symphony, which would be heard later, the fanfare had a Copland-esque feeling to it and a fine first-trumpet part. Bachelder received special recognition from music director Victoria Bond and Sochinski after the work's performance.
The Kandinsky Trio of Roanoke College were the special guests for a performance of the relatively rarely heard "Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano in C Major," Op. 56 by Beethoven, usually referred to as the "Triple Concerto." With a ferociously difficult cello part, this work lacks a first movement with the kind of drama that Beethoven usually provided to begin his concertos. But it nevertheless contains some fine writing, and the chamber-like quality that the concertante group provides makes it an engaging piece.
The Kandinskies, to put it simply, played their hearts out.
Violinist Benedict Goodfriend's patented big sound and brilliant tone were much in evidence from beginning to end. Cellist Alan Weinstein did a bravura job with his part and its unusually high tessitura and furthermore was able to project all the way to the back of the hall (many cellists find their biggest problem with this work is simply to be heard over the orchestra and the other soloists). And pianist Elizabeth Bachelder played with taste, precision and assurance.
There was bounce and vigor in this performance, and some almost heart-breaking eloquence from both Goodfriend and Weinstein. The audience sensed a joy and spontaneity in the interplay of the three solo instruments.
Bond achieved a good balance - in bad performances the opening tutti tends to dwarf the soloists' entrance - but the tempo of the final movement seemed rather too slow.
At its best, Bond's reading of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 36, the so-called "Pastoral" symphony, was genial and glowing with good humor. There was a sweetness in her account of the second movement and attention to detail that made for a convincing clarity.
But something about this performance fell short of what this symphony is capable of. There was to my ears a slackening of attention at too many points - sizable contingents of violins, for example, were not together in the first movement and at the beginning of the fourth. At several points the playing of the high strings seemed not very well articulated. At their best, Bond and the RSO achieve a fruitful kind of tautness in their music making, which seemed absent at times Monday night. The fourth movement, titled by Beethoven "Storm and Tempest," seemed to lapse into the melodramatic at moments.
There were, however, numerous fine individual performances, particularly from hornist Wallace Easter, flutist Carol Noe and clarinetist David Widder.
The cello tutti in the fifth movement was beautiful. And Bond's final movement was full of impetus, vivid and happy. But the structural integration she usually achieves was not often evident.
by CNB