REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Rachmaninoff & Rhapsody in Blue"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

June 6-8, 2025

by Michael J. Moran

The HSO and its Music Director Carolyn Kuan closed their 2024-2025 “Masterworks” series of weekend concerts in festive style, including a powerful closing appearance by pianist Clayton Stephenson. The program comprised three works - written in the U.S. over an 80-year period by two American-born composers and a Russian immigrant - which were all distinctively American.

Photo by Jim Henkel

After a helpful spoken introduction and brief excerpts played by different HSO members, Kuan led the orchestra in a dramatic account of John Adams’ “Dr. Atomic Symphony.” This was adapted in 2007 from music in his 2005 opera “Doctor Atomic,” which portrayed the moral ambivalence of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and his Manhattan Project colleagues in creating and testing the atomic bomb in the 1940's. The symphony’s three continuous movements featured many instrumental solos, but none more eloquent than the plaintive trumpet of HSO principal trumpet Dovas Lietuvninkas, expressing Oppenheimer’s anguish. 

Stephenson was next; a dazzling soloist in George Gershwin’s 1924 “Rhapsody in Blue" to show how jazz could enrich classical music. With technical polish and emotional exuberance to spare, the Juilliard-educated Stephenson shifted seamlessly between the piece’s contrasting moods, from quiet blues to joyous outbursts. Kuan and the ensemble were proficient partners, with a sinuous opening solo by HSO principal clarinet Sangwon Lee.

Stephenson’s perky encore performance of Igor Stravinsky’s 1921 arrangement for solo piano of the “Russian Dance” from his 1911 ballet “Petrushka” was equally virtuosic and invigorating.

Photo by Jim Henkel

The concert ended with a vibrant rendition of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s three “Symphonic Dances,” his last work for orchestra. Written in 1940 at his summer home on Long Island, its jagged rhythms and percussive instrumentation reflected both the influence of the composer’s native Russia and his growing Americanization over two decades spent in the U.S. The first movement featured an alto saxophone solo, sensuously played by Carrie Koffman, while the finale quoted an ancient Russian liturgical hymn of joy in its lively climax; a curious but memorable epitaph.

Next up for the HSO are a free concert in Bushnell Park on June 14 and their five-concert summer Talcott Mountain Music Festival in Simsbury (June 27-July 25).