THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 13, 1996 TAG: 9609130820
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music review
SOURCE: By Lee Teply, Special to the Daily Break
LENGTH: 63 lines
IT'S HARD TO decide whether to call Bobby McFerrin a musical entertainer or an entertaining musician.
He is a highly skilled vocalist/ conductor and a thoroughly captivating stage personality. Those many talents worked together to draw unusually fine playing from the Virginia Symphony at a gala performance Wednesday at Chrysler Hall.
In two purely orchestral works, McFerrin chose fast tempos that gave the music extra energy and excitement.
Leonard Bernstein's ``Candide'' Overture was played with spirited accents, giving clarity to the many tricky rhythms. As in the other fast pieces on the program, there were only rare moments in which a slight pause was taken for a breath. While this tendency allowed excitement to build, it also precluded intended moments of relaxation.
Felix Mendelssohn's ``Italian'' Symphony has much of that energy built into it, so McFerrin's conducting had great results. With a minimum of gestures, he allowed numerous details to stand out nicely. Generally soft dynamics gave an extra sharp focus to the sound and added to the work's tension by pulling the listeners into the musicians' personal world. Care with dynamics yielded a perfect balance between strings and winds.
One aspect of McFerrin's extraordinary vocal technique was shown in two pieces he performed with the orchestra. His beautifully phrased singing replaced some of the usual instrumental solos in Gabriel Faure's quiet ``Pavane.'' Topping several special moments was a rising scale that connected seamlessly to the oboe line.
In Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Cellos, McFerrin took one of the solo lines himself, in a dialogue with co-principal cellist Michael Daniels. The two sounds were well balanced and supported by the clean articulation of the strings. The middle movement was one of the few truly slow - and completely relaxed - performances of the evening.
Vivaldi intended this piece for two equal instruments, but McFerrin had a perhaps unfair advantage over Daniels. He could use a full range of vowels, consonants and tone color to give additional character to his lines.
As fine as the orchestra's playing was, it was McFerrin's solo pieces that brought the audience to their feet.
He used his ``natural'' voice only rarely to do traditional ``singing.'' Mostly, he used his incredibly wide range of sounds to imitate instruments, sometimes more than one at a time, in a variety of pop and jazz styles. He was joined by members of the orchestra in duets, and by the entire audience in some efforts.
Motion was always a part of his performance, but particularly in a piece in which he jumped from side to side, much as Tom Hanks did on the large keyboard in ``Big,'' to tell the audience what pitches to sing under his improvisation. His theatrical flair was evident in a medley from ``The Wizard of Oz'' in which he duplicated the sound of almost every character with amazing accuracy.
But one of his encore's was even more amazing. He got the orchestra to sing - not play - Rossini's ``William Tell'' Overture. It was both clean and powerful. And the players let their enjoyment show, more than they ever do. For once they weren't worrying, they were really happy. ILLUSTRATION: MUSIC REVIEW
Who: Bobby McFerrin and the Virginia Symphony
When: Wednesday evening
Where: Chrysler Hall, Norfolk by CNB