Chamber Music by Boëly

Boëly, Chamber Music, Quatuor Mosaïques, Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, C. Coin, E. Lebrun (released on April 27, 2010) Laborie (Naïve) LC05 | 74'26"

We warmly recommend the recordings and live performances of Quatuor Mosaïques, for anyone not immediately turned off by the sound of period instruments and historically informed performance practice. In this new release, Christophe Coin brings in some musicians from his larger ensemble, the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges in a selection of chamber music by Alexandre Pierre François Boëly (1785-1858). Recorded on the group's private label, Laborie Records (distribution by Naïve), the sound is lush and detail-oriented, not too close for comfort but including the sharp breaths of the musicians and some extra-musical sounds of bow attacks. Boëly grew up in Versailles (his birthday, April 19, was just celebrated earlier this week) and the musical life of its court, as the son of a singer in the Chapelle Royale who also taught the harp in Versailles. A classicist in the age of Romanticism -- worse, a champion of the outmoded contrapuntal music of Couperin, Frescobaldi, and J. S. Bach -- his reputation suffered, but the music heard here justifies a reexamination (there are some online scores, including music for piano, organ, and a Mass for Christmas Day).

We owe the opportunity to the research of the Centre de musique romantique française in Venice, and to a conference devoted to Boëly's music at the Sorbonne in 2008, in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death. (This is the second recent release we have noted to be inspired by the recently founded CMRF, after the Onslow disc from Quatuor Diotima reviewed earlier this week.) One of the selections featured here has been edited in a modern edition: for the others, the musicians worked from their own transcriptions or directly from manuscript sources, adding to the sense of historical discovery. Boëly's music might be compared to Schubert's, in that he continued to use traditional forms but while enlivening his harmonic idiom with more adventurous chromatic diversions.

The D major sextet, arranged by the composer from his own symphony, and the single movement for string quartet, a tender Adagio sostenuto, are certainly worth discovering. Three melodies, Mendelssohnian songs without words "for cello with the accompaniment of expressive organ" (unearthed in a library in 2005 by Florence Gétreau, and performed here by Eric Lebrun on the colorful, recently restored Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Chapelle de Conflans) are sprinkled through the selections. Listening to the fine trio and quartet also included on this disc, it is charming to think that, like Haydn, Mozart, and a few other composers, Boëly (a fine pianist and organist) was also known to play the viola part in his own chamber works. Do not be disappointed by the very slender printed booklet, at least as long as you do not bridle at the thought of downloading the extended liner notes [all in French] online.

Mrs. Almaviva: Not So Happily Ever After

Le Nozze di Figaro: R. Jacobs Salzburg Festival Online Score: Neue Mozart-Ausgabe | Mozart Werke

Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro is one of the Top Ten operas performed in America, and we may have carped a little about having to see yet another production of it, when Washington National Opera gutted this year's season in response to the financial crisis. To be fair, the last production of the opera at WNO, in 2001, was not all that recent, and in truth it is an opera of which I never tire -- when it is done well. Premiered in Vienna in 1786, Figaro was the beginning of a legendary collaboration between Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, who created the libretto from a very current "hit" play by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro, from 1784. Talk about your current events or "CNN opera": the story's themes -- fidelity and infidelity in love, social inequality, jealous competition for prestige -- are as viable today as they were then, whether wigs are part of the costumes or not. (For more background on the opera, see my earlier preview article on the subject.)

Beginning on Saturday night, Washington National Opera will revive a production from Houston Grand Opera: it dates from 1988 but is still in use there, last being revived in 2005 and planned again for 2011. The production was created by Göran Järvefelt, a Swedish director who cut his teeth in the Drottningholms Slottsteater outside Stockholm, just before his sadly early death from cancer. We have written about Drottningholm before, a magical place for any musicologist or theater historian interested in 18th-century opera: it is also the setting of Ingmar Bergman's legendary film of The Magic Flute. The set designer, Carl Friedrich Oberle, drew his inspiration from some of the 18th-century sets found at Drottningholm. Harry Silverstein, who handled the stage direction of the production in Järvefelt's absence at Houston Opera, also directs here in Washington.

When it is staged at Washington National Opera the production will feature Teddy Tahu Rhodes, who was also Count Almaviva in the Houston production in 1998, so he presumably knows the staging well. Rhodes may have his limitations, but he combines a resonant voice with a natural stage presence. Soprano Virginia Tola, a favorite singer of Plácido Domingo's last under review as one of the better parts of WNO's Die Fledermaus in 2003, will be the Countess. She sang the role in 2008 in Valencia and seems attractive and capable. Ildar Abdrazakov will be the Figaro, and past experiences with his voice have been encouraging. I am most interested in hearing soprano Verónica Cangemi live after a few years of greatly admiring her work in recordings, including La fida ninfa and Griselda in Naïve's always impressive Vivaldi Edition. I don't know the voice of mezzo-soprano Michèle Losier, who is Cherubino in the first cast, but have heard good things, like her performance at the 2008 Queen Elisabeth Competition (although she did not win a prize there).

In the supporting cast are some local favorites sure to turn in charming performances, including Valeriano Lanchas as Bartolo and Robert Baker as Don Basilio. (My enthusiasm for this production, at the moment, extends only to the first cast, but we hope to have a report for you of the second cast later in the run.) Another wild card is the conducting of Patrick Fournillier, a journeyman at the podium who is starting to make some waves: more than one listener has admired his work leading performances of Cyrano with Domingo at La Scala. In the wake of his surgery this year, Domingo relinquished part of the run of WNO's production of Hamlet to Fournillier as well, a wise and welcome move, so we will have more opportunities to assess his conducting.

The first cast of Washington National Opera's production of Le Nozze di Figaro will perform in the Kennedy Center Opera House on April 24, 26, and 29 and May 2, 4, and 7.

Uchida's Forte, Piano Playing

Read my review published today in the Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, Mitsuko Uchida at the Music Center at Strathmore
Washington Post, April 23, 2010

On Wednesday night, devotees of Mitsuko Uchida filled the Music Center at Strathmore. The technical mastery of the Japanese-born pianist, now in her 60s, does not necessarily inspire awe in the listener, although there is plenty of daring virtuosity left in her agile fingers. No, what people came to hear was her way of turning a phrase. She gave carefully measured weight to each note, evoking again and again sounds as delightful and delicate as a wildflower, small daubs of bright color on tiny petals, like minute lines carved with painstaking care into glass.

Uchida performed pieces by two of her favorite composers, Mozart and Schumann, and one had the sense that in the late phase of her career she is becoming even more of a specialist. Indeed, her last recital here, in 2005 (also presented by Washington Performing Arts Society) was an all-Mozart program, and her latest recording, released on the Decca label, was made during live performances of a complete series of the Mozart piano concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra.

As she showed in the A Minor Sonata, K. 310, her Mozart uses the full power of the modern piano; it was refined but not afraid to indulge in dramatic contrasts. The first movement's main theme had an anxious, pointed quality, the left hand allowed to be obtrusive and heavy, while the second theme was serene and withdrawn, the whirring 16th notes smoothed by an ultra-legato touch. As in most of the evening, Uchida excelled in the slow movement, taking utmost care with the shape and articulation of every line. [Continue reading]

Mitsuko Uchida, piano
Washington Performing Arts Society
Music Center at Strathmore

Mozart, Piano Sonata in A Minor, K. 310
Schumann, Davidsbündlertänze, op. 6 | Fantasy in C Major, op. 17
Bach, French Suite No. 5 (G major, BWV 816)

OTHER THOUGHTS:
Zachary Lewis, Mitsuko Uchida and Cleveland Orchestra craft more Mozart for the ages (Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 16)
Alex Baker, Mitsuko Uchida at Strathmore (Wellsung, April 22)

'Shadowboxer'

We welcome another review from guest contributor Janet Peachey, who is a composer based here in Washington. Dr. Peachey also teaches music theory and composition at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

Shadowboxer, Maryland Opera Studio, Clarice Smith Center (photo by Cory Weaver)

Last weekend the Maryland Opera Studio premiered a new American opera, Shadowboxer, by composer Frank Proto and librettist John Chenault. The work, heard on Sunday afternoon at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, is based on the life of boxing legend Joe Louis, world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949. The opera was the brainchild of Leon Major, director of the Opera Studio, who kicked around the idea for over twenty-five years before finding a composer and librettist to do the work. Proto and Chenault were suggested to him by fellow University of Maryland faculty member, soprano Carmen Balthrop. Proto has written extensively for orchestra and is equally well-versed in both “classical” and jazz styles, and it seemed fitting to include jazz in such a quintessentially American work. Although neither Proto nor Chenault had written an opera before, although they had collaborated together on other projects. Both were drawn to the idea of an opera about Joe Louis, particularly Chenault, a lifelong boxing fan.

The opera depicts the final moments of Louis’s life, when he relives his entire career through a series of flashbacks. He is portrayed by three different actors: as a wheelchair-bound old man on the verge of death who remains on stage throughout the opera, reflecting on the events taking place; as the younger Joe Louis interacting with other characters as his life progresses; and as the fighter in the ring whenever fights are shown (a non-singing role, always in a choreographed fight against the same opponent). Characters surrounding Louis are his wife, his mother, agents and trainers, a trio of newsmen (either nay-sayers or supporters, depending on which way the wind is blowing), a trio of “beauties” who seduce Louis (later on appearing as nurses), and a ring announcer.

Louis’s eventful personal life plays out against the historical backdrops of the Great Depression, Jim Crow era segregation, and World War II. Consequently, Shadowboxer deals with a number of different themes: the racism Louis endured as the first African American sports hero; his patriotism and defense of American democracy and freedom during World War II in spite of being treated as a second-class citizen; his courage, honesty, integrity, and “clean” approach to the sport; his generosity and subsequent financial difficulties, especially with the IRS; his relationships with his mother, Lillie, and his wife, Marva; his weakness for women; the drug addiction and mental illness that plagued him at the end of his life.

A pivotal moment in both Joe Louis’s life and the opera was his first defeat in the ring, at the hands of Max Schmeling of Nazi Germany. Two years later, Louis came back to fight Schmeling again, this time knocking him out in just two minutes and four seconds and regaining the world title. To much of the world, this victory symbolized the triumph of American democracy over German fascism.

According to Chenault, the title Shadowboxer has two implications: first, in Chenault’s words, “the image of Louis confronting his own mortality in an epic struggle with death;” second, as a metaphor for Louis’s position in the history of boxing between his predecessor, Jack Johnson, and his successor, Muhammad Ali, whose career overshadowed Louis’s. This is brought out towards the end of the opera when a solo on-stage saxophone and trumpet portray Johnson and Ali, with their words projected on the screens. However, there are other allusions to the concept of a “shadowboxer” throughout the opera: taunting Louis before their second fight, Max Schmeling calls him a shadowboxer. (Ironically, in real life, but not in the opera, Louis and Schmeling became good friends in later years.) When representing the U.S. during World War II, Louis laments that he is “a symbol, not a man.” When Louis can’t seem to stop his womanizing, his wife Marva complains that he has become a shadow and says “I love the man who isn’t there.”

Other Articles: Chris Klimek, 'Shadowboxer' an operatic take on an American icon (Washington Examiner, April 21) Karren Alenier, Shadowboxer: Joe Louis Fights His Ghosts (The Dresser, April 21) Tim Smith, 'Shadowboxer,' opera about legendary Joe Louis, premieres at Clarice Smith Center (Baltimore Sun, April 20) Andrew Lindemann Malone, Down for the Count: “Shadowboxer” at the University of Maryland (DMV Classical, April 20) Robert Battey, 'Shadowboxer: Based on the Life of Joe Louis' at Maryland Opera Studio (Washington Post, April 19) Terry Ponick, An inside look at the Joe Louis opera, Shadowboxer (D.C. Theater Scene, April 18) Anne Midgette, Inspired by Joe Louis, opera 'Shadowboxer' scores one for reality (Washington Post, April 17) Ken Sain, An opera that packs a punch (Montgomery County Gazette, April 15)

With so much story line, there is plenty of drama and multiple layers of meaning which both the libretto and the music express effectively. The work is scored for a 44-piece orchestra in the pit and an 8-piece jazz band at the back of the stage; the orchestral and jazz portions blend seamlessly together, creating a lush musical tapestry supporting the singers in their wide ranges of emotional expression. Conductor Timothy Long drew superb performances from the musicians, members of the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Studies Program, as well as the fifteen opera soloists and twelve-member chorus. That the voices were always audible above the orchestra is a tribute to both the composer and the conductor. The singers’ clear diction and the supertitles displayed on large monitors at the sides of the theater made it easy to understand the text.

Erhard Rom’s scenic design is simple but powerful. At the back and sides of the stage are three large screens, onto which vintage black-and-white images were projected: boxing scenes, posters, and news headlines, as well as various World War II photographs. Aside from that, the only props are chairs and the masks worn throughout much of the opera by cast and chorus members. The costumes, designed by David Roberts, are period suits and dresses in various shades of gray; the only colored object on the stage is the elderly Joe Louis’s bathrobe.

Outstanding performances were delivered by the entire cast, in particular Jarrod Lee and Duane A. Moody as old and young Joe Louis, respectively, and Adrienne Webster as Louis’s wife, Marva Trotter. Not surprisingly, the most stunning performance was by Carmen Balthrop in the role of Louis’s mother, Lillie Brooks. Leon Major’s brilliant staging communicated the depth inherent in the score and libretto. Shadowboxer is a complex and profound tour de force which is highly deserving of future productions, and the Maryland Opera Studio is to be commended for commissioning it. Anyone interested in contemporary American opera should take advantage of the remaining performances scheduled for April 23 and 25.

Classical Month in Washington (July)

Last month | Next month
Classical Month in Washington is a monthly feature. If there are concerts you would like to see included on our schedule, send your suggestions by e-mail (ionarts at gmail dot com). Happy listening!

July 2, 2010 (Fri)
7 pm
Festival Opening Gala
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 3, 2010 (Sat)
2 pm
Britten, Turn of the Screw
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 3, 2010 (Sat)
7 pm
Festival Orchestra: All-Italian program
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 4, 2010 (Sun)
2 pm
Puccini, Il Trittico
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 4, 2010 (Sun)
8 pm
National Symphony Orchestra: A Capitol Fourth [FREE]
U.S. Capitol, West Lawn

July 8, 2010 (Thu)
7:30 pm
Britten, Turn of the Screw
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 9, 2010 (Fri)
7:30 pm
Puccini, Il Tabarro / Gianni Schicchi
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 9, 2010 (Fri)
8 pm
Rossini, Il Turco in Italia
Wolf Trap Opera Company
Barns at Wolf Trap

July 10, 2010 (Sat)
12:30 and 3:30 pm
Sheila Silver, The White Rooster (short opera) [FREE]
Tapestry Vocal Ensemble
Freer Gallery of Art

July 10, 2010 (Sat)
2 pm
Puccini, Suor Angelica
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 10, 2010 (Sat)
7 pm
Castleton Festival Orchestra: All-French program
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 11, 2010 (Sun)
2 pm
Puccini, Il Tabarro / Gianni Schicchi
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 11, 2010 (Sun)
2 pm
Sheila Silver, The White Rooster (short opera) [FREE]
Tapestry Vocal Ensemble
Freer Gallery of Art

July 11, 2010 (Sun)
3 pm
Rossini, Il Turco in Italia
Wolf Trap Opera Company
Barns at Wolf Trap

July 11, 2010 (Sun)
7 pm
Britten, Turn of the Screw
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 13, 2010 (Tue)
8 pm
Rossini, Il Turco in Italia
Wolf Trap Opera Company
Barns at Wolf Trap

July 15, 2010 (Thu)
7:30 pm
Britten/Gay, The Beggar's Opera
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 16, 2010 (Fri)
7:30 pm
Castleton Festival Orchestra: All-American program
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 16, 2010 (Fri)
8:15 pm
National Symphony Orchestra: Romeo and Juliet
Singers from Wolf Trap Opera Company
Filene Center, Wolf Trap

July 17, 2010 (Sat)
7 pm
Britten/Gay, The Beggar's Opera
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 17, 2010 (Sat)
8:15 pm
National Symphony Orchestra: Evening with Marvin Hamlisch
Filene Center, Wolf Trap

July 18, 2010 (Sun)
2 pm
Puccini, Il Trittico
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 18, 2010 (Sun)
3 pm
Latin Days, American Nights
New York Festival of Song, Steven Blier
Barns at Wolf Trap

July 22, 2010 (Thu)
7:30 pm
Puccini, Suor Angelica / Gianni Schicchi
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 22, 2010 (Thu)
8:15 pm
National Symphony Orchestra: Around the World with Joshua Bell
Filene Center, Wolf Trap

July 23, 2010 (Fri)
7:30 pm
Castleton Festival Orchestra: Stravinsky/de Falla
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 23, 2010 (Fri)
8:15 pm
National Symphony Orchestra: Rodgers and Hammerstein
Filene Center, Wolf Trap

July 24, 2010 (Sat)
7 pm
Puccini, Il Trittico
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 25, 2010 (Sun)
2 pm
Castleton Festival Orchestra: Stravinsky/de Falla
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 25, 2010 (Sun)
4 pm
Verdi, La Traviata
Opera International (semi-staged)
Music Center at Strathmore

July 25, 2010 (Sun)
7 pm
Castleton Festival Orchestra: All-Beethoven program
Castleton Festival
Châteauville Foundation (Castleton Farms, Va.)

July 30, 2010 (Fri)
8:30 pm
National Symphony Orchestra: Distant Worlds (video games)
Filene Center, Wolf Trap

July 31, 2010 (Sat)
8:30 pm
National Symphony Orchestra: The Planets (in HD)
Filene Center, Wolf Trap

Paavo Järvi on Hans Rott

Hans Rott, Sy. No.1 + Orch.Prelude, Julius Caesar Ovt., Sebastian Weigle / Munich RSO Arte Nova (Best available recording so far)

For over two years, ever since reading Frederick Pollack’s poem on him, I wanted to publish something on the composer Hans Rott to make good use of the poem set in context. A recent trip to Frankfurt to hear Paavo Järvi conduct (and record) the Rott’s Symphony in E has finally given me the proper excuse to do so, over on WETA, later tomorrow: http://www.weta.org/fmblog/?p=1938. Here's some of what Järvi has to say about Rott:

Quatuor Diotima, Exquisite Stillness

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Thomas Larcher, Madhares (to be released on June 8, 2010) Onslow, op. 54-56 Online scores: François Sarhan, BOBOK Ravel, String Quartet in F Major

As previewed earlier this week, the Quatuor Diotima came back to La Maison Française on Monday night, for another appearance on the French embassy's highly esteemed contemporary music series. This adventurous French string quartet took its name from a work by Luigi Nono and has won prizes and critical acclaim for its performances of contemporary music. As heard in the three recent works on this program, the group's approach to dissonance and unconventional instrumental techniques is little different from how they approached the gorgeous late tonal string quartet of Maurice Ravel: even when a more savage or pitiless interpretation could have been justified, they simply let the sound emanate and make its own point. The listener never feels beaten over the head, either by lush extended triadic harmony or by tone-neutral growls or rasps.

The opening work, Bitume, is the second string quartet by French composer Gérard Pesson (b. 1958), who teaches composition at the Conservatoire in Paris, commissioned for the Diotima to play at the 2008 Festival d'Automne in Paris. It is an evocative piece, using all manner of unusual techniques to create strange combinations of sounds -- using the wood of the bow to create flute-like overtones, sul ponticello effects -- as the work began on a single note, to which it would return at times. A pleasing rhythmic pulse would be established, only to recede again into the cloud of strange sounds, vaguely insect-like and all of it sotto voce. The piece ended with a faster section, based on a catchy, quasi-Latin rhythm.

Pesson's quartet was paired nicely with a string quartet by François Sarhan, BOBOK (see the .PDF version of the score), composed in 2002 as part of a cycle of chamber works inspired by the short story of that name by Fyodor Dostoevsky. A largely nonsensical tale about a failed writer, in the process of losing his mind, looking for material among the voices of the dead in a cemetery, it inspired some otherworldly sounds, as in the tense viola solo that concludes the piece, over a tone-free whine of vaporized space noise. The work began with all of the instruments in strict homophony, all playing in the same rhythmic pattern, often focusing on the opening chord, which returned many times. That unity comes apart at the seams, as the instruments sometimes seem to get caught up in obsessive loops, only to return to rhythmic calm. Sardonic humor also abounds, in oompah patterns, and a biting, sarcastic tone that could be described as Prokofiev- or Shostakovich-like grotesquerie. Near the end, a folk-like or naive innocence entered the work as Sarhan called for the violins and viola to be played like a cello, while the cellist was instructed to bow left-handed.

Thomas Larcher's third string quartet, Madhares (2006/07), began with a glissando-tremolo created by tapping a coin on the first violin's strings. The music of the Austrian composer, born in 1963, will be featured on a recording to be released on the ECM label this summer. Like many composers who came of age in the late 20th century, Larcher does not shy away from the use of tonality in his music: alongside many experimental sounds were passages of fairly traditional tonal music, including the folk-like section that concludes the work. One wishes that that final section and its false sense of resolution had been omitted, instead ending the piece on the return of that haunting coin motif. The Diotima proved with this survey of string quartets from the past decade that it could master modern techniques, creating sounds often not at all associated with their instruments, the many complicated metric patterns requiring one of the players to conduct with his instrument to keep the ensemble together, and so on.

With the final work, Ravel's F major quartet, they showed where that sense of coloristic exploration came from, a comparison akin to hanging some late Cézannes that explain what inspired later Cubist or abstract paintings. The Ravel is a gorgeous work that we have reviewed in many performances, from the exceptional to the adequate, and this one was so successful because it did not wallow in the swaths of color, remaining crystalline, finely etched, and rhythmically active. A very pleasing evening concluded with an encore from the quartet's recent disc of music by George Onslow, the finale of the C minor quartet, op. 56.

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Julian Rachlin

The chamber orchestra of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields performed before a full house at George Mason University's Center for the Arts on Sunday afternoon (their latest visit to the area, after a Strathmore appearance just last year, with Julia Fischer, and in 2006, with Gil Shaham). This performance was unique given that it was directed by violin and viola soloist Julian Rachlin, who stood facing the audience where the conductor would normally be placed and took the concertmaster’s chair only for the first selection. The eclectic program included arrangements of Grieg, Beethoven, Schubert, and Piazzolla.

The first impression of this chamber orchestra, founded in 1958 by Sir Neville Marriner, is their warm, easy string sound. Whether this resonance is due to the quality of their instruments or the quality of their playing is to be determined; however, it is likely a splendid combination of the two. The opening Prelude from Grieg’s neo-classical Holberg Suite provided a Proustian moment of recollection, with a soaring melody above an active accompaniment and gentle pizzicato from the lower strings. The sweet Air (Andante religioso) movement was always in time, yet well shaped. Perhaps the time taken for the ensemble to sense when all sections are ready to make an attack or release causes a flexibility preventing them from rushing through anything.

Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9 in A Major (”Kreutzer”) provided lots of material for the orchestra to dig into, as well as the flying horsehair from Rachlin’s bow. Though the orchestra was disjointed for a few moments with the viola principal looking around for help, overall there was an abundance of communication between soloist-director (from his central perch from which he would at times turn 360 degrees) and orchestra. Rachlin’s violin playing is always clear, no matter how aggressively he pursues a figure, and he uses vibrato as a special tool instead of a given. The second movement of Richard Tognetti’s arrangement featured many chamber-like moments that were highly effective, with Rachlin’s pizzicato notes as forceful as cracked whips.

Other Reviews: Joan Reinthaler, Transcriptions for string orchestra are out of balance (Washington Post, April 20) Wynne Delacoma, Rachlin and Academy deliver fiery take on Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons” (Chicago Classical Review, April 8)

Rachlin’s formidable endurance was shown through the second half of the long program (two hours, twenty minutes), consisting of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata (arranged for viola) and Piazzola’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. The intimacy and plaintiveness of the viola was a magical contrast to the nearly violent Beethoven. The second-movement Adagio became ethereal, while the larger gestures Rachlin used with his viola suited the third movement well. Piazzola’s sexy, cosmopolitan version of the Four Seasons came off as a virtuosic tour de force, with Rachlin sawing to no end, yet could rarely surpass being anything but kitsch. The orchestra seemed to enjoy using extended techniques for percussive or entertaining means, though overall there were seemingly too many ideas stuffed into the work, perhaps partially due to Leonid Desyatnikov’s arrangement.

You can take a look at this preview of next year's season at George Mason. Our picks for highlights in 2010-11 include visits by the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie (January 29), the Mark Morris Dance Group (February 4 and 5), Opole, Philharmonic of Poland (February 12), and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with Arabella Steinbacher (April 23), along with another chance to see the Waverly Consort's classic The Christmas Story (December 10).