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ASO Chorus Gets Ready for Berlin
CONCERT REVIEW Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Thursday in Symphony Hall. Program repeats Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. 404-733-5000, www. atlantasymphony.org
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra last performed Hector Berlioz’s Requiem in the fall of 2003, a few weeks before the ASO’s illustrious Chorus traveled on its own to Germany for its debut with the Berlin Philharmonic.
It was heady stuff. They sang Britten’s “War Requiem,” conducted by Donald Runnicles, the ASO’s principal guest conductor who was also making his Philharmonic debut . The concerts were a triumph, with the chorus proving itself a peer to the Philharmonic, typically described as the world’s best orchestra.
From a group that doesn’t suffer fools, a Berliner musician offered his highest praise by declaring the ASO Chorus’ singing a match for the Philharmonic’s own burnished, golden string section in tone. The ASO Chorus and choral director Norman Mackenzie had stepped decisively onto a global stage. There was immediate talk of a second invitation.
It’s finally about to happen. This weekend in Atlanta Symphony Hall, Runnicles, the ASO and Chorus perform the Berlioz Requiem, a preparation for another Runnicles-ASOC-Philharmonic performance in Berlin, May 15-17. (One hopes the Atlanta Symphony orchestral musicians, who will again stay home, won’t start nursing a grudge.)
As expected, the chorus Thursday night was polished to sleek, unblemished perfection. At turns warm or fierce, it’s without a weak section: the sopranos were as angelic at the flute-accompanied opening of the “Dies Irae” as the men were hauntingly pastoral for the “Quid sum miser.” 200 voices strong, this is a formidable instrument.
Tenor Joseph Kaiser, who’s also on board for the Berlin gig, sang the “Sanctus” from the top balcony, invisible to most of the audience. His sound is masculine and bright, with a wide vibrato and a teardrop in his tone — an affecting apparition of a voice.
Runnicles, however, still seemed to be working through his interpretation. Some sections lacked punch, some gravitas. In the rhythmically eccentric “Lacrymosa,” for example, his tempos were too quick, the phrases too cursory, and the chorus too tonally homogenized. This combined to dilute the (potentially) devastating impact of the climax, one of several viscerally explosive moments in the score. Most of these matters will likely tighten in subsequent performances, at home and at the Philharmonie.
Leos Janacek’s “Sinfonietta” open the evening. Both the Berlioz and Janacek exploit spatial relationships between sections of the orchestra. Both go heavy on the brass.
The Janacek begins and ends with powerful fanfares — produced by multiple trumpets, tubas and timpani — which lap in waves over each other. With no chorus on stage, the 18 brass players sat in the upper choir risers, distant from the rest of the band and all the better to blast to their lungs’ content.
There were moments of ragged ensemble, though Runnicles had a sure hand in the Janacek, as idiosyncratic a composer as Berlioz. The conductor found the composer’s operatic voice — weary yet hopeful, where phrases are often drawn from Czech dance rhythms —in every rough-hewn lyrical gesture.
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By fanothebartster
May 2, 2008 1:09 AM | Link to this
Who stole my art blog?
By Peter Stelling
May 4, 2008 11:40 PM | Link to this
I cannot comment on this week’s performances, because I was in Kentucky this weekend enjoying a totally new experience as one of the throng cheering the horses at Churchill Downs. My son and daughter-in-law used my tickets for the Berlioz REQUIEM (which I deeply regret having missed) and my son tells me the performance on Friday was incredible. What moves me to comment on this review is the disturbing observation that a second outing by the ASOC to Berlin on its own may set up some kind of grudge mentality on the part of the ASO musicians. It is probably not an entirely remote possibility, and Pierre has likely felt a journalistic responsibility (if not a slightly opportunistic urge to stir the pot) to ask the question. Back in the seventies, when I worked on the ASO staff, one of the musicians (after all these years, I truly cannot recall who it was, and I regret that lapse of memory) walked into my office and said to me: “During the weeks when he (ROBERT SHAW) is conducting big choral numbers, we in the orchestra feel like lost lambs in the shadows of a deep valley between Robert and his love affair with his Chorus.” The remark was nearly a paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm. Is the good shepard really looking after ALL of us? Food for thought. The Chorus, built from scratch by him, is Robert Shaw’s single greatest legacy to the city of Atlanta. His second greatest achievement was the progress he was able to make in building the orchestra through careful hiring of new players (much aided by his trusted Concertmaster/Personnel Director, Martin Sauser, who made many of those final hiring decisions with Robert’s enthusiastic rubber stamp). The grand instrument we know today as the ASO is also to be credited to the continuing orchestra building efforts of subsequent music directors, Yoel Levi, and our present M.D., Robert Spano. I am a huge fan of Norman Mackenzie and the Chorus that he has built into an even greater “instrument” than it was in Shaw’s time (some will accuse me of sacrilege for stating this opinion, but I’m stuck with it). So, my question is: Does it behoove the mutual growth and development of our ASO and ASOC to grant the volunteer chorus a life of its own (much deserved, without question) when our local journalists leap to suggest the question, “have they outgrown the founding organization?” I don’t think this serves the best interests of the home team in the final analysis and that focus should be kept on the unity of the ASO organization and its ancillary support groups as a family. While I am going on about this subject, I also believe that Norman Mackenzie should be given his own annual subscription concert to show what he can do with both the ASO and ASOC together in repertoire that goes beyond the usual holiday offerings, which seem never to vary in the slightest degree for years on end. (I cannot endure one more baroque era MESSIAH! At least give us the variety of the Mozart orchestration or, better yet, the grandly Edwardian sonorities of the orchestration favored by Sir Thomas Beecham. The musicians get paid whether they play or not, so why not use ALL of them?). These are questions that might well be pondered in future in the Executive Offices and in the Board Room. Our local journalists do the organization as a whole a disservice to focus on the past triumph of the ASOC in Berlin and place the spotlight on events to come in that foreign capital under the guise of writing a review of the concert that was given last Thursday evening IN ATLANTA. The orchestra on stage that night WAS the ASO, and they were given scant mention. It was a major subscription concert of the Atlanta season, not a rehearsal with stand-ins for the Berlin Philharmonic concerts to come. The shades of Shaw and von Karajan must be having a very interesting conversation about this one on high? Stir the pot, boys.