Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 25, 1995 TAG: 9504250122
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Victoria Bond left Roanoke on Monday night the way she arrived, with a standing room-only crowd, lots of emotion, yells of ``Bravo!'' and standing ovations.
The outgoing music director and conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra chose Brahms and Prokofiev for her final appearance with the baton at the Roanoke Civic Center.
The crowd was clearly moved by Maestra Bond's swan song, and it wasn't hard to find damp eyes when the last applause finally died away.
But there was also an undertone of ``the Queen is dead, long live the King,'' with RSO promo material for next season promising ``new faces and a return to the classics.'' At least a few concertgoers interpreted this as a jab at Bond's propensity for programming new works during her tenure with the symphony.
Monday night's program will be repeated tonight at 8 in the Burruss Hall auditorium on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg.
The Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra in A Minor, Op. 102, was the first of the two short works Monday night.
It was a good choice for a farewell concert, full of bittersweet nostalgic beauty and devoid of pyrotechnical showoff passages. The soloists were the newest generation of Roanoke's musical Cummins dynasty, violinist Cenovia Cummins and cellist Stephanie Cummins. The Cummins sisters returned to Roanoke from major careers in New York City and elsewhere.
A famous conductor once said that, because of the work's autumnal lyricism, the combined age of the soloists in the Brahms Double Concerto should never be less than a hundred years.
The Cummins sisters together fall considerably short of the century mark, but they did a yeoman job of convincing us that they had the joys and sorrows of a long life under their collective belt Monday night. Their playing was simultaneously mellow and authoritative, with especially beautiful tone from Stephanie's $55,000 cello (though the instrument was difficult to hear in the middle tessitura, where it remained for much of the third movement).
Technical perfection? No - the violins seemed to disagree about tempi on more than one occasion during the first movement, for one thing. But it was hard to quibble with the standing ovation the work earned - it was a heart-felt performance of heartbreakingly beautiful music.
The Roanoke Valley Choral Society, joined by the Roanoke College Choir, did a tremendous job in Sergei Prokofiev's showy cantata ``Alexander Nevsky,'' based on the exploits of the heroic 13th century Russian prince. Even though Saturday's fire at nearby old First Baptist Church in Gainsboro interrupted electric power to the Civic Center and canceled a crucial rehearsal for this work, the singers did a beautiful job with this accessible and evocative piece.
Their vocal blend was lush and full, most (not all) of the entrances were clean and sharp, and their enunciation was crisp (though the fact that most of the work is sung in Russian made this somewhat more difficult for this reviewer to judge).
The RSO's side of it was, let's say, enthusiastic. It was not the best performance this ensemble has ever turned in, with some glaring clams and wrong notes from the trumpets and tuned percussion. On the other hand, Prokofiev makes tremendous demands of (for example) the trumpets in this work, with repeated exposed and piano entrances on very high notes. Considering that an important rehearsal was missed, it was a pretty good job. Mezzo soloist Carolyn Sebron's big, warm voice did a lot to rescue the piece.
The RSO's Bond era ended with loud and long applause, a standing ovation and yells of approval as she toured the orchestra, shaking hands with section leaders and returning repeatedly for more applause.
Seth Williamson produces feature news stories and a classical music program on public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM) in Roanoke.
by CNB