The Bushnell, Hartford, CT
www.hartfordsymphony.org
February 15–17, 2019
by Michael J. Moran
Red roses in the hair or lapels of many Hartford Symphony
Orchestra (HSO) members set a festive Valentine’s weekend tone for the fifth
“Masterworks” program of the HSO’s 75th season. Led by their Assistant
Conductor Adam Boyles, it featured five Latin-style works by four composers,
all but one HSO premieres.
The concert opened with the only piece likely to be familiar
to many listeners, Aaron Copland’s “El Salon Mexico,” written in 1936 and last
played by the HSO in 1999. Named, according to the composer, after a
“Harlem-type nightclub” he had visited in Mexico City, its original melodies
are based on Mexican popular themes and dance rhythms. A lively performance
under Boyles’ animated baton got the evening off to a foot-tapping start, which
never let up from then on.
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| Julien Labro |
Next came two works by Argentinian tango master Astor
Piazzolla which featured the bandoneon, a South American concertina, and
French-born soloist Julien Labro. Playing his instrument as it rested on his
knee after he placed his right foot on a bench, Labro produced a colorful range
of sonorities in both the energetic 1974 “Libertango” and the more virtuosic
three-movement 1979 “Concerto for Bandoneon, String Orchestra, and Percussion.”
The HSO and Boyles had a field day in both pieces.
A warm ovation brought Labro back for an encore, which he
played on an accordina, a mouth-blown cross between a harmonica and an
accordion. With lush accompaniment from orchestra and conductor, he gave a
loving account of the main theme from the Italian film “Il Postino.”
Intermission was followed by the most dramatic music of the
evening, “Three Latin American Dances,” written in 2004 by Peruvian-American
composer Gabriela Lena Frank. Inspired by Bernstein’s “West Side Story”
Symphonic Dances (from which Boyles led a thundering audience-participation
“Mambo” as a closing encore), it showcased a battery of exotic percussion,
including bongos, thunder sheet, and rain stick. Joyous renditions of these
dances and of Mexican composer Arturo Marquez’s sumptuous, nostalgic 1994
“Danzon No. 2” sent the enthusiastic audience home in a romantic glow.
Attendees at Boyles’ entertaining and informative
pre-concert talk caught the mood early in a sensual tango lesson by elegant
dancers Chantelle Johnson and Kadeem Jordan from the Arthur Murray Dance Studio
in Bloomfield.
