THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 10, 1994 TAG: 9409100252
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music Review
SOURCE: By MARK MOBLEY, MUSIC CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Beethoven's Ninth has the makings of a celebration. The most famous melody in classical music builds to a chorus of universal praise. The conductor emotes. The orchestra storms and whispers. The audience leaps to its feet.
So the Virginia Symphony selected this work to open its 75th season Friday at Chrysler Hall. Yet while the orchestra showed how far it has come, it did not play as impressively as it can.
Music director JoAnn Falletta came alive in the famous finale. The flexible sentences for the lower strings were persuasive, as were the fleeting recollections of the previous movements.
The Virginia Symphony Chorus was boisterous as usual but also telling in the mysterious, rapturous section.
Bass Mark Doss was both appropriately stentorian and persuasively genial. Soprano Kay Paschal hit her treacherous high notes. Marvellee Cariaga sounded fine in the thankless, generally inaudible mezzo role.
Tenor Carroll Freeman sounded edgy in his first entrance and underpowered in his solo march.
Falletta led an emphatic, sometimes ponderous account of the expansive first movement. The brisk scherzo slipped a bit. And the third movement took some time to come together, to feel convincingly expressive.
Figuring out what to play with the Ninth is a perennial problem. The Overture and ``Venusburg Music'' from Wagner's Tannhaeuser is a B-plus solution - German, not too long, familiar but with the ``Venusburg Music'' added as a twist. This orgiastic scene served to prefigure the joyous march that winds up the Beethoven Ninth.
The performance had much to recommend it. New personnel for this season include a skilled principal clarinetist replacing one on a leave of absence.
And concertmaster Vahn Armstrong demonstrated again how important his position is.
But the reading wasn't polished. Falletta elicited a slow, controlled interpretation at the outset. Certain passages in the strings had bounce, but climaxes weren't passionate or precise.
The quiet, exposed end of the piece did not flatter the horns.
The concert opened with ``The Star Spangled Banner'' and the premiere of short work by a local composer.
``Tribute To A Generation'' is a curtain-riser by Brent Havens of Virginia Beach, whose career has centered on film and television scores.
This piece begins with Coplandesque breadth and quickly shifts into a driving rhythm and busy counterpoint.
It seemed too short and a bit murky. But it served to get an obviously talented local musician out of the studio and on to the stage. Let's hear more. MEMO: MUSIC REVIEW
The Virginia Symphony at Chrysler Hall, Norfolk. The program will be
repeated at 8 p.m. today at Chrysler Hall and at 3 p.m. Sunday at
Williamsburg United Methodist Church, Williamsburg. To learn more, call
623-2310. by CNB