Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Springfield, MA
October 3, 2015
by Michael J. Moran
To open the SSO’s 72nd season and his own 15th season as
music director, Kevin Rhodes presented several examples of what he calls in his
“Rhodes’ Reflections” column in the program book “our most difficult repertoire
right out of the gate” by three “composers using folk music elements.”
After a rousing “Star-Spangled Banner” to launch the new
season, Dvorak’s “Carnival Overture” began the concert on a festive note. The
whirlwind speed of the opening and closing theme nicely contrasted with a
slower than usual tempo in the ravishing middle section. From the glistening
percussion at the start to the final climax for full orchestra, all the players
proved their mettle in this virtual mini-concerto for orchestra.
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| Philippe Quint |
Next, the darker northern colors of the violin concerto by
Sibelius were masterfully rendered by 41-year-old Russian-born soloist Philippe
Quint, whose flawless technique was matched by his interpretive subtlety. He
and the orchestra captured all the brooding intensity of the first movement,
the tender warmth of the second, and the lumbering humor of the finale. Almost
as restless as the famously kinetic maestro, the charismatic Quint paced
rhythmically with the music even when he wasn’t playing, always maintaining
productive eye contact with the musicians.
The concert closed after intermission with a performance for
the ages of Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra.” Rhodes achieved an ideal balance
of the careful orchestration in all five movements, highlighting the high drama
of the first, the jaunty humor of the second, with its playful side drum
ostinato, the eerie “night music” of the third, the lively rhythm of the fourth,
with its hilarious send-up of the Nazi march from Shostakovich’s “Leningrad”
symphony, and the brilliance of the finale.
Unusually, this concert featured two encores: a fiendishly
difficult reworking by Paganini for solo violin of a theme from Paisiello’s
opera “La Molinara,” which Quint dispatched after the Sibelius with
crowd-pleasing acrobatics; and, to close, “O Fortuna,” the opening number of
Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” which the SSO performed last month in Gillette Stadium
before the New England Patriots’ season opener for their largest audience ever.
This orchestra is really going places.
