Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 27, 1994 TAG: 9404270036
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, swollen to humongous, Mahlerian proportions, was joined by one of the biggest choruses ever seen in Western Virginia for a performance of Gustav Mahler's apocalyptic Symphony No. 2 in C minor, the "Resurrection" symphony.
The sold-out house at the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium gave Victoria Bond, her players and singers what may well be the most fervent and vehement expression of appreciation I've witnessed in years of attending RSO concerts.
Bond, chorus master Jeffrey Sandborg, soprano Marianne Sandborg, mezzo-soprano Margaret Yauger and the individual directors of the five regional choruses whose members made up the symphony choir returned repeatedly for bows and bouquets amid shouts of bravo.
Bond had time to tour the orchestra shaking hands, giving individual attention to each member of the huge horn section that played such an important role in this work.
It was a fine performance indeed, with special credit going to the chorus. Never in Western Virginia has such a big chorus sung with such exquisite attention to dynamics, phrasing and articulation.
Especially articulation and dynamics. When this chorus intoned the first words of Klopstock's resurrection prophecy at a hushed pianissimo level, the effect was unlike anything I've ever heard from an area choir.
As Sandborg remarked before the performance, "Nobody can sing as quietly as 380 singers - unless maybe it's 500 singers."
Somehow Sandborg managed to elicit such clear articulation from the huge group that the German words were easily discernible, even at the back of the hall.
In some respects this was a performance that was greater than the sum of its parts. Picky listeners might have noticed that the upper brass sounded either over-rehearsed or tired as early as the first movement, with some of the trumpet calls bobbled. And there were a few squeaky clarinets and trumpet clams in the second movement as well.
But generally speaking, this performance of the Resurrection Symphony was a freight train, beginning with great mass and continuing inexorably to its finish. The initial dark mutterings from the celli and double basses, rumbling underneath trembling violins and violas, were played with such clarity that one could almost feel the horsehair biting into the strings.
The tension was momentarily relieved in the flowing second movement, which radiated a genial nostalgia - though maybe it was relieved a little TOO much at moments, when the second violins were not playing well as a section.
The third-movement scherzo, derived from Mahler's song "St. Anthony of Padua's Sermon the Fishes," featured customarily strong solo work from trumpeter Allen Bachelder.
The climax of the work came in the fourth and fifth movements, which in a sense can be considered a single movement. Mezzo-soprano Margaret Yauger sang her ingenuous children's song "Urlicht," with its assurance of heavenly joy as a kind of prelude to the massive final movement.
There was much movement on stage during this segment, as flocks of brass and percussion players migrated back and forth between the huge offstage orchestra and the ensemble visible to the audience. On a few occasions it appeared that percussion players barely scrambled back to their onstage places in time for their cues.
The offstage music generally worked well, especially the ghostly horn and trumpet calls, cued by Bond from players who were watching her backstage on a closed-circuit video system.
This huge final movement, with its apocalyptic vision of the heavens cracking open and the dead rising to heavenly bliss, was one of the most exciting things I've ever heard from the RSO.
The massive bass drum and timpani rolls, the blazing horn and trumpet calls, beautiful solo work from Yauger and Marianne Sandborg, and the final triumphant affirmation of the huge choir made for a cathartic, even draining experience. Regional symphony orchestras rarely get any better than this, and Bond and her players earned every second of the ardent applause that followed.
by CNB