Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 16, 1994 TAG: 9402160040
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
RSO conductor and music director Victoria Bond chose Barber's "First Essay for Orchestra" as the opening piece for Monday night's concert. It was in general an elegant performance, as Bond played the work's moody and melancholy beauty for all it was worth. Her interpretation emphasized the contrasts and coherence of the three- part piece, which ranks as one of the most personal expressions of the great neo-Romantic American composer.
The faster middle section did not hang together as well as the outer parts, at least among the string players. But by the time the final equivocal bars died away, the total impression was that of an emotional and moving musical experience. The RSO's brass players in particular did themselves proud, and Bond recognized the orchestra's trumpet section during the applause.
The duo-piano team of Carolyn Victorine and Rebecca Wallenborn were soloists during Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat major, K365. The Roanoke-based pair do not play at the level of virtuosity of some imported keyboard stars who have performed with the RSO in recent years. But they turned in a generally competent reading of the piece, which Mozart wrote as a star vehicle for himself and his sister Nannerl.
The main attraction of this concerto's first movement was there Monday night: the conversational interplay of both instruments, which reminded one great musicologist of a "transfigured, heavenly barrel-organ." Victorine and Wallenborn tossed phrases and melodic ideas back and forth in a fine demonstration of how Mozart's double-piano writing differed from his solo-piano concertos.
On the other hand, the highly decorative solo work in the middle-movement Andante was not so successful. The abundant ornamentation, which Mozart scattered like filigree over both piano parts, was not as smoothly rendered as it could have been.
Nevertheless, by the end of the third-movement Rondeau the orchestra and soloists were rewarded with a more than perfunctory ovation. The pair responded with a mid-concert encore of Percy Grainger's duo-piano arrangement of George Gershwin's "Embraceable You."
For the post-intermission piece, Victoria Bond chose what is probably the most Brahmsian and substantial of all of the symphonies of Antonin Dvorak, the Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70.
It was a satisfying if not incandescent performance from the RSO, who were impressive in the dark and foreboding opening bars. This piece got a thoughtful reading from Bond, who prior to the concert compared the work's thematic organization to the interplay of characters in a good novel.
Especially lovely was the spacious Poco adagio, which has to be one of the finest slow movements of the 19th century. And the dance-like Scherzo had many listeners in my part of the auditorium swaying back and forth in delight. The RSO earned respectable applause for the piece, and Bond had principal clarinetist Thomas Josenhans stand for special recognition.
Seth Williamson produces feature news stories and a classical music program for public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM) in Roanoke.\
by CNB