It’s been a busy week! It shouldn’t have seemed to be as busy on paper, but with the two different concerts over the weekend it seemed like a lot of work.
Plus these were the final concerts for a wonderful member of our cello section, Ùna O’Riordan, who is leaving for a position with the Detroit Symphony this week. It cast a pall over the week, that’s for sure. She’s a good friend and colleague, and she’ll be missed, a lot.
I thought that I’d share my impressions of my favorite moments from the last classical concert (of Saturday and Monday). It was nice to get to experience the Barber Prayers of Kierkegaard for the first time. The Portland Symphonic Choir was in fine form, especially the men in their a capella opening. Director Steven Zopfi has really done wonders with the choir – they are unrecognizable as the group I first heard upon coming to the OSO 11 years ago. I’m sure they might say the same about us as well. The Barber is such a powerful work, and an example of how music can add layers of meaning to already meaningful texts, in this case the stunningly beautiful prayers of Søren Kierkegaard.
The Bernstein Chichester Psalms was a repeat voyage for me, but it’s been since my freelancing days in D.C. that I’d last done it (at least 13 years ago). The standout in these performances was the lovely and extraordinarily calm singing of boy soprano Logan Stugart in a treacherously chromatic solo that he pulled off with aplomb, and not a trace of visible nerves. My hat is off to him!
The Tchaikovsky Pathetique was a revelation to me – I hadn’t really relished earlier performances, they tended towards the moribund and “slower = more profound” approach which to me just equals more muscle pain. Mark Eubanks played the opening bassoon solos so beautifully, as did clarinetist Yoshinori Nakao. It was great to play this piece with a bit of a lighter, more transparent touch, and rarely has the brass sounded more noble than in the coda of the first movement.
On a closing note: we had a few cell phone solos in some exquisitely quiet moments in the last movement: I’m amazed that there are still people that clueless that come to concerts. We heard your cell phone ON STAGE!!! I can only imagine how much it ruined the performance for those sitting around you. I don’t mind if you get excited and clap where ettiquite might dictate that you refrain from doing so, but just turn off the stupid cell phone, for Pete’s sake.