Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 23, 1993 TAG: 9309230013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The New River Chamber Winds gave their inaugural performance Tuesday night at Radford University's Preston Hall. Conducted by founder Mark Camphouse, the group did four difficult pieces of a caliber normally heard only from visiting chamber wind ensembles.
The all-local players - mostly professionals with a few accomplished students - represent the creme de la creme of the area's wind performers. There are no drive-ins from Washington, D.C., or North Carolina in this group, and the small crowd of 248 seemed impressed to hear such a high standard of playing from a strictly local group.
The musicianship and professionalism of these players was impressive even to those who've heard most of them many times. That's because Tuesday night they played without the context of scores of string players (most of the ensemble are current or former members of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the New River Valley Symphony Orchestra).
Camphouse began the program with his own "Ceremonial Fanfare," a rip-roaring tripartite essay in the genre scored for four trumpets, four horns, three trombones, tuba, and a battery of percussionists. Featuring screamingly high trumpet parts and a nobly lyrical mid-section, the work roared to a thunderous climax.
The woodwinds got their first big chance with the "Petite symphonie pour instruments a vent," or "Little Symphony for Wind Instruments" of Charles Gounod.
In this piece the New River Chamber Winds simply sounded great. Precise articulation and intonation, beautiful ensemble, organ-like sonorities and sculpted phrasing all made this little-known work pure pleasure.
Camphouse's square-cut stick technique has a semaphoric clarity that brought to mind a comment once heard from the American composer Morton Gould: "He could conduct 50 blind men in a snowstorm." He was at times a little too tight and controlled: one wished for the occasional touch of rubato in the Gounod's mellow Andante cantabile movement.
The Finnish composer Eina Rautavaara's "A Requiem in Our Time" began like no requiem I've ever heard, with a jaunty and wickedly syncopated figure with stabbing, dissonant bursts from the trumpets.
The Rautavaara was probably the most difficult piece of the evening, and featured beautiful trumpet and euphonium solos in the final movement from Allen Bachelder and Dayl Burnett.
The second half of the concert was devoted to Igor Stravinsky's "Octet," whose unusual scoring (two trumpets, flute, clarinet, two bassoons and two trombones) came to him, the composer claimed, in a dream.
It was a lovely and shapely performance that showcased the astringent harmonies and clean neo-classicism of the piece. Camphouse's interpretation kept all emotion but wry humor at arm's length - Stravinsky would have approved.
by CNB