PHILHARMONIC SALUTES ITS STAR PLAYERS
Ellen Pfeifer, The Boston Globe, April 26, 2003 The playing was marked by thrilling rhythmic snap, dazzling dispatch of every bravura challenge, and melodic phrasing of melting tenderness.
Posted: 2003-04-30 10:30:08
CAMBRIDGE - In its last program of the season, the Boston Philharmonic paid tribute Thursday night to the gifted instrumentalists within its ranks as well as one of Boston's most honored composers, John Harbison.
With the exception of Harbison's Oboe Concerto, the musical selections came from the French repertoire, which conductor Benjamin Zander described as "all about color, texture, and precision." Framed by gorgeously shaded and freely inflected performances of Debussy's "Nocturnes" and Ravel's second suite from "Daphnis and Chloe," the program included two concerted works, Chausson's "Poeme" and Saint-Saens's A-minor Cello Concerto. If the Debussy and Ravel represented musical composition "outside of the box," then the Chausson and Saint-Saens qualified as the "Conservatoire style at its best," according to Zander.
The Saint-Saens received the most exciting performance of the evening in the hands of the Philharmonic's principal cellist, Rafael Popper-Keizer. The playing was marked by thrilling rhythmic snap, dazzling dispatch of every bravura challenge, and melodic phrasing of melting tenderness.
A different kind of virtuosity - of the last-minute substitution variety - was on display in the Chausson. With only 35 minutes of rehearsal, co-concertmaster Wei-Pin Kuo stepped in for the ailing Joanna Kurkowicz. Although his sound is not large or glamorous, Kuo brought dead-on accuracy of intonation, agility, and an appropriate inwardness of expression to the "Poeme."
The centerpiece of the concert was, however, the Harbison Concerto, played by Peggy Pearson, Philharmonic principal and Boston's most highly regarded freelance oboist. The 1992 work, commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, takes its cue both from Baroque music and jazz - lifelong passions of the composer.
The titles and procedures of the three movements - Aria, Passacaglia, Fantasia - come out of the world of Bach, but the big-band music that keeps breaking in is 20th-century American in inspiration. The soloist has plenty of opportunity to dazzle either as a singer of plangent melodies or as virtuoso in ornate acrobatics. Pearson, glamorously gowned in red silk, brought equally glamorous panache to her playing.
