Chamber Orchestra: Solzhenitsyn returns (2nd review)

For his first return visit to the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia podium, Ignat Solzhenitsyn led the kind of program that characterized his tenure as the orchestra's second music director. An unfamiliar, deeply emotional modern piece added novelty and extra weight to a concert anchored by two works from the core of the repertoire.

The modern piece, Witold Lutoslawski's Funeral Music from 1958, is a good example of one of the perennial truths of art: Any theory can generate good work when it's adopted by a talented artist. Funeral Music was Lutoslawski's first 12-tone work, but it contains none of the elements that made mid-century audiences cringe when they saw the words "12- tone" and "atonal" on a program.

Lutoslawski composed Funeral Music to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Bela Bartok's death, but the work creates moods and voices statements that transcend its immediate subject. Lutoslawski limited himself to the colors of the string orchestra, but he still managed to create a powerfully colored work, with a heavy emphasis on the darker areas of the string orchestra palette.

Funeral Music's four sections run through four gently nuanced moods and reach a climax that fades into a series of short, precisely spaced phrases on the solo cello (played in this performance by Chamber Orchestra regular Elizabeth Thompson, making one of her first appearances in the principal cello chair).

Acknowledging errors

The two standards on the program— Mozart's 20th Piano Concerto and Haydn's "Drum Roll" symphony— both require a conductor who can balance conflicting tendencies. The Mozart opens with a beautifully ominous orchestral prelude, and its first two movements are so forceful and emotional that they sound like they could have been composed decades later, at the height of the romantic era. Solzhenitsyn pulled the force out of the orchestra without overwhelming the elegant Mozartian simplicity that pops up in some of the piano passages.

Solzhenitsyn conducted the Mozart concerto from the piano, as he usually did during his tenure as music director (and as Mozart did when his concertos received their first performances). In his post-concert remarks, Solzhenitsyn noted that you can't deliver a technically perfect performance when you double as soloist and conductor, and he mentioned that he had missed a couple of notes. I detected, myself, one or two places in which the orchestra could have been better coordinated. But that's a small price to pay for the extra liveliness and spontaneity the procedure adds to Baroque and early classical concertos.

Time to rollick

Solzhenitsyn's rendering of the dark opening of the Haydn sounded serious but not too serious (Haydn isn't Beethoven), and he made sure the symphony rollicked when it was time to rollick. In the second movement, he balanced an appropriate gravitas against an overall charm that includes touches like the lively violin solo played by concertmaster Gloria Justen and the oboe passages played by Geoffrey Deemer and Jeremy Kesselman.

As a conscientious critic, I should also note that I detected a faint, brief sound from an errant instrument just after the rest of the orchestra finished a movement in the Haydn symphony. Lapses like that happen, and they can be overlooked when the overall performance works as well as this one did. But it's best not to have to overlook them.

The Chamber Orchestra's new director, Dirk Brossé, has led it in new directions. I've been happy with most of the things he's done so far. I don't think you can say one conductor's approach is better than the other. But a touch of the Solzhenitsyn Era adds depth and soul to the Chamber Orchestra offerings. Let's hope Solzhenitsyn retains the connection.♦


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