Tag Archives: Alex Wilborn

Duruflé and Respighi Are an Unexpectedly Dynamic Duo at Belk Theater

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Review: Charlotte Symphony Plays Respighi’s Pines of Rome

By Perry Tannenbaum

November 14, 2025, Charlotte, NC – Neither Maurice Duruflé nor Ottorino Respighi would rank high among composers that Charlotte Symphony subscribers most wish to hear. The orchestra’s previous two music directors, Christopher Warren-Green and Christof Perick, never performed Respighi as part of the orchestra’s classics series – he remained the province of guest conductors – and the Duruflé Requiem, after concerts by the old Oratorio Singers and Carolina Voices early in the century, hadn’t surfaced at all locally since 2007.

So a pairing of Duruflé’s most highly regarded work with two Respighi favorites, The Pines of Rome and The Fountains of Rome, didn’t figure to fill Belk Theater with rabid enthusiasts. Yet the sheer scale of the Requiem, calling forth the Charlotte Master Chorale under Kenney Potter’s leadership, made the Belk an obvious choice over the snugger Knight Theater.

Although our current music director, Kwamé Ryan, brought us Respighi’s Roman Festivals last spring, a guest conductor was once again on the podium for these more beloved Roman delights by the Italian icon. While a Duruflé-Respighi pairing will never be boffo box office, starting with the Requiem – which likely drew hundreds of the choristers’ family members to these performances – made the host of Master Chorale choristers onstage before intermission available to swell the audience for the Fountains and Pines afterwards. Adding to the electricity in the house, guest maestro Francesco Lecce-Chong deployed two groups of brass players upstairs to opposite sides of the grand tier for the final “Appian Way” section of The Pines.

Based on Gregorian themes from the Mass of the Dead, the Requiem sounded like the oldest piece on the program, though it was the newest. Fortifying that impression was the dominant role of the Chorale compared to the two soloists, mezzo-soprano Megan Samarin and baritone Eleomar Cuello. Most of us likely felt that Cuello’s noble bearing and vocals in the “Domine Jesu Christe” section were all too brief: even there, the choir had the larger share of the singing.

Samarin’s conquest in the middle “Pie Jesu” section, an ethereal solo, also seemed too fleeting, though here the Chorale was silent. Sampling recorded versions of the Requiem on Spotify and Apple, you’ll probably conclude that the orchestral version performed at the Belk packs more wallop than the organ scoring, which was probably the version that Carolina Voices chose 18 years ago at the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. Another reason for the guest vocalists to make a more muted impression this time.

The fourth section, the “Sanctus,” decisively upstaged Cuello as Lecce-Chong rallied the forces of the orchestra and the Chorale together, but the baritone returned for a second cameo during the first half of climactic “Libera Me,” fueling the fires of the choral “dies irae” that followed. Somehow, the sublimity of the concluding “In Paradism” doused those fires. The beatific loveliness of the women’s voices certainly made for a heavenly arrival, yet the men miraculously eclipsed them in their visionary entrance, truly a mystic chorus of angels.

Instrumental excellence peeped in occasionally during the Requiem, chiefly in Timothy Swanson’s oboe obbligato for the “Kyrie” section, in bassoonist AJ Neubert’s “Lux Aeterna” intro, and in the exquisite welcome to “In Paradisium” from yet another principal, harpist Andrea Mumm Trammell. Even more play was afforded to the players in the Respighi pieces with all their resplendent colors and shadings.

Memories of hearing Respighi are invariably more sugary to me than the actual music, which under Lecce-Chong’s baton, especially in The Fountains of Rome, was refreshing and exhilarating – and, of course, effervescent. Neubert probably made an even stronger impression on oboe in his lovely, languid sketching for “The Fountain of Valle Giulia at Dawn,” with principals Taylor Marino on clarinet, Jon Lewis on cello, and Victor Wang on flute following eloquently in the same opening section.

The sunnier middle sections, depicting “Triton Fountain” and “The Fountain of Trevi,” were more impressively orchestral and brassy, Triton’s horn issuing an early proclamation at the beginning of his section and a rampage of brass, chiefly trombones, heralding midday at Trevi, Rome’s most majestic fountain. No doubt the audience was a bit surprised by the delicacy of the Fountains finale, “The Villa Medici Fountain,” and its sprinkling of percussion, celesta, and soft chimes, simulating a distant church at twilight.

My mind had first been changed on Respighi way back in 1997 when Daniele Gatti had led the London Royal Philharmonic into town with diva pianist Alicia de Larrocha. His rendition of The Fountains with the Londoners was sufficiently revelatory for me to place a rush order for Gatti’s recording of Respighi’s complete Roman trilogy, where additional revelations awaited: Roman Festivals and Pines of Rome were both more powerful, varied, and grand. Though The Pines had popped up on my calendar at the dearly departed Eastern Music Festival in 2011, this was my first opportunity to hear – and compare – Fontane di Roma and Pini di Roma in the same live concert.

With a feel as sure for Respighi as Gatti’s, Lecce-Chong’s performance was worth the long wait. “The Pines of the Villa Borghese” had a marvelous orchestral bustle before principal trumpeter Alex Wilborn was dispatched to the wings for the signature eerie effect in the solemn “Pines Near a Catacomb.” Even more quietude came with “The Pines of the Janiculum” as piano, clarinet, cellos, and a soft oboe anthem enhanced the magic. But the epic build and variety of “The Pines of the Appian Way,” seasoned with prerecorded nightingale chirruping and crowned, at the end of a satisfyingly long and majestic crescendo, with the outbreak of brass from the balcony, surpassed the grandeur of the Respighi we had heard before and joined the peaks of the Master Chorale as the pinnacles of the evening.

Review: “Messiah” at Knight Theater

Handel’s Messiah Rejoices Greatly with Charlotte Symphony

By Perry Tannenbaum

December 13, 2024, Charlotte, NC – While I’m not as faithful to the Yuletide visitations of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah as I was ages ago at Queens College CUNY, where I attended free concerts at least three of my four years, my diligence has lately improved. In the last decade, I’ve seen four performances, counting the one that launched this weekend’s run at Knight Theater, with Kenney Potter preparing the Charlotte Master Chorale and guest conductor Julian Perkins leading the Charlotte Symphony. I’d actually had my heart set on a Messiah performed at the Teatro Colón in early November, but an unresponsive press office and an unexpected dress code, discovered at the box office after we had landed in Buenos Aires, thwarted our plan.

Wrapped into our plans were an opportunity to hear how a Bach choir flying in from Stuttgart would handle the King’s English, and how the vocalists would compare with our esteemed Chorale and guests. Not to mention the fabled acoustics of Teatro Colón. Lacking those Argentinian comparisons, I can still say that the Chorale was a match for any chorus I’ve heard in Messiah, and that the guest vocalists were the best I’ve heard in recent memory, including those who performed with the New York Philharmonic in 2015. Those who look for a massive orchestra might have reason to pause before rushing to the Knight, for the scale of forces led by Perkins seemed more like the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra that performed with the Chorale at First United Methodist in 2018 than the band we saw at the Knight in 2017. Over a dozen different orchestrations evolved during Handel’s own performances of Messiah over 17 years, from 1742 to 1759, so Perkins could easily match a version to the number of his orchestral recruits.

Leading from behind a harpsichord – pretty novel in itself – Perkins had some interesting ideas on staging, deploying the brass to the balcony for their dramatic entrance into “For unto us a Child is Born” and then after intermission, bringing principal trumpeter Alex Wilborn downstage for a climactic “The Trumpet Shall Sound” confrontation with bass baritone Hadleigh Adams. Otherwise, it would seem presumptuous to say that Perkins, for all his Handel and Baroque expertise, directed any of the four guest soloists at all. Each one of them was magisterially confident and self-assured. Hadleigh was not the least of them in that regard, striding auspiciously to centerstage for the first time and quaking the hall with his “Thus saith the Lord” proclamation. After delivering his towering “Why do the nations so furiously rage together?” rebuke at the crest of Part 2, Hadleigh loudly clapped his book shut and stormed back to his seat.

Richard Pittsinger was not quite so flamboyant, for the tenor wore his hair the same way before and after intermission. But his impact came sooner with supremely creamy accounts of the “Come ye, my people” recitative and the “Ev’ry valley shall be exalted.” He truly made the “rough places plain” again and again with soft floating glides that never strained his breath control. Drama was definitely in his arsenal, just before the climactic “Hallelujah” chorus, when he delivered one of the more militant verses of the Psalms, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.”

It was no less difficult deciding whom to love most among the women. Mezzo-soprano Diana Moore sang her first air, “But who may abide the day of His Coming,” so richly and dramatically that I could hardly wait for her return in “O Thou, that tellest good tidings to Zion” so she could conquer its challenging low notes. Even the QR code on the program sheet doesn’t lead to the text, so Moore faced a more amusing hurdle when she came to the “spitting” in her “He was despised and rejected of men” air near the beginning of Part 2. Pronounced too diffidently, the audience might wonder what was said – too emphatically and you risk laughter. Passing that test, she went on to a satisfying Part 3 duet with Pittsinger in “O death, where is thy sting?”

Less tasked and dramatic but far more lyrical, soprano Anna Dennis dazzled in each of her airs, especially in her first splash late in Part 1, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!” Here the refrain ideally exemplified how spectacularly Handel brought his lyrics to life. Equal to the joy she delivered here was the sanctified tenderness Dennis lavished upon “I know that my Redeemer liveth” launching Part 3. The effect was all the more ethereal for the effortless way that Dennis reached her highest notes.

Of course, the “Hallelujah” and the closing “Amen” fugue make the mightiest, most lasting impressions, but the Chorale delivered drama and delight all evening long. They were hardly accompanied by more than the harpsichord and organ until the brass and sawing violins exploded into “Wonderful! Counsellor!” in the incomparable “For unto us a Child is born.” The dynamic was no less dramatic toward the end of the evening when they reached the shuttling between gloom and jubilation in “Since by man came death.” Most exquisite, perhaps, was the delicacy Potter and Chorale endowed upon “All we, like sheep, have gone astray” seemingly more staccato than we’d ever heard it before. A disagreement seemed to arise whether it was “glorify” or “purify” when the Chorale broke into so many contrapuntal groups for “And He shall purify.” Any other blemish in the evening was almost impossible to detect.

Photos by Perry Tannenbaum

With a Riddling Program, Sphinx Virtuosi Youthfully Inspire Symphony’s Gala

Review: Sphinx Virtuosi @ Charlotte Symphony’s Annual Gala

By Perry Tannenbaum

October 9, 2024, Charlotte, NC – It’s always encouraging when an annual gala at least partially sheds its patrician aura of black ties, ball gowns, and champagne toasts. So I heartily applauded Charlotte Symphony’s musical director emeritus Christopher Warren-Green when, instead of mentioning crass sums of moneys raised or needed, he notified us that a part of tonight’s proceeds would be sent to those in dire straits in Western North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene. In an even more unexpected gesture, the evening’s guests, Sphinx Virtuosi, announced that they would linger in Charlotte to play an additional concert on Friday at Charlotte Preparatory School – free if you bring a Hurricane Helene contribution.

They all worked well, together and apart, in gifting the gala audience at Belk Theater with a fine show, though not exactly what was initially planned. Or even what was listed in the printed program. Instead, a series of changes to the program were announced by email before and after the program went to press. Even then, a couple of new wrinkles emerged after the lineup seemed to be settled in the last inbox update on September 19. Maybe the plutocrats who dined and toasted earlier at the pre-concert cocktail and dinner sessions got a heads-up.

As a result of the first alteration, changing the title of LA-based composer Levi Taylor’s from American Forms to Daydreaming (A Fantasy on Scott Joplin), the opening segment of the concert became an explicitly extended tribute to Joplin. Actually, the Overture from Joplin’s only surviving opera, Treemonisha (1911), was nearly as new as Taylor’s offering and similar in length. The orchestration chosen by Warren-Green, arranged by Jannina Norpoth with Jessie Montgomery (a Sphinx Medal of Excellence winner in 2020), was premiered last year in Toronto as part of a “reimagining” of Joplin’s opera, so it didn’t quite sound like any of the handful of versions that Spotify can offer. Principal clarinetist Taylor Marino was brilliant playing the catchy recurring theme, an instrumental assignment that Norpoth reaffirms, but principal trumpeter Alex Wilborn’s spot struck me as a lively improvement upon Norpoth’s predecessors.

In a shorter, no-intermission program, it was nice to have a proper mood-setter leading into Taylor’s premiere – and Sphinx Virtuosi’s entrance – rather than a genial throwaway aperitif. Paradoxically, the Joplin overture, aimed for an opera house, was not as raggy as Taylor’s new work, an homage to the Joplin music we’re most familiar with. Personably introduced by cellist Lindsey Sharpe, the piece had an engaging solo spot for principal cellist Tommy Mesa and a refreshing jauntiness. Amazing how much more highbrow and classical the Joplin idiom sounds when you ditch the piano so justifiably associated with the “King of Ragtime.” Taylor took a well-deserved, enthusiastically applauded bow when concertmaster Alex Gonzalez pointed him out in the audience.

Sphinx’s outreach to Helene victims is quite natural when you consider its DNA. Conceived in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan in 1997, Sphinx quickly became an important of young Black and Latino talent with its annual junior and senior competitions, open to musicians up to age 26, and its Performance Academy, a competitive boot camp, where faculty members include Norpoth, Gonzalez, and second violinist Rainel Joubert – who would play in the Delights and Dances string quartet when the Michael Abels composition, commissioned by Sphinx, had its Charlotte premiere.

The full ensemble departed – all too briefly – as Warren-Green and CSO delivered a more familiar Leonard Bernstein overture to his opera, Candide. If Sphinx had lingered offstage longer, the CSO performance might have been more prudently paced. Dynamics were OK, but when piece started off too swiftly, there was little room for Symphony to speed up when the piece thundered and thrust to its climax. The whole acceleration plus crescendo effect, so exciting in multiple Rossini overtures, was never even a possibility, surely the nadir of Warren-Green’s work with CSO as far back as I can remember.

Then the listed world premiere of Curtis Stewart’s Drill went AWOL, along with guest percussionist Britton-René Collins. This surprise was less of a disaster than the lackluster Bernstein, for the Sphinx Virtuosi returned instead with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Allegro Moderato, the opening movement from his Four Novelleten (1903) for string orchestra. So many of Coleridge-Taylor’s principal works have yet to be recorded that it’s probable that this excavation, listed as Op. 59 in Wikipedia, has yet to get a hearing outside of Sphinx’s orbit – another gladdening example of the ensemble’s vital and generous outreach.

All the remaining works were glorious, throwing the Bernstein blooper far into our rearview mirrors. It helped a little to know your Vivaldi when Sphinx moved upstage to merge with the CSO as tango king Astor Piazzola’s “Verano Porteño (Buenos Aires Summer)” movement from his Four Seasons of Buenos Aires filled the stage with violinist Adé Williams as guest soloist. For those who saw Aisslinn Nosky playing the complete Vivaldi at the Charlotte Bach Festival, the Piazzola Four Seasons evoked some pleasant nostalgia, especially since the Festival Orchestra, like the Virtuosi, often performs without a conductor.

Williams, a winner of the Sphinx Junior Division back in 2012, still played with youthful vitality and joy. Both Symphony and Warren-Green were obviously fond of her playing, her swooping glisses, and the tango twists Piazzola brought to his baroque inspiration. Controversial in Argentina for his modifications of the trad tango – cab drivers often turned him away! – this summer piece was popular enough for Piazzola to draw encouragement for him to complete his seasonal cycle. The Belk audience responded favorably as well, with their first standing O of the evening.

The Abels piece was an even longer, grander gatherum, with the string quartet arriving upstage where Williams had just stood. Joubert and CSO principal second violin were to Warren-Green’s left opposite CSO principal viola Benjamin Geller and cellist Gabriel Cabezas, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence winner in 2016. The Delights were rather delicate before the composer, who famously co-wrote the acclaimed Omar with Rhiannon Giddens, gradually ramped up to the Dances.Cabezas was more than able to eloquently launch Abel’s slow-building piece, which tacked leftward after his engaging solo with additional solo spots for the rest of the quartet members.

Nor was Abels in any hurry to layer on the orchestra, for their first contributions were background pizzicatos behind the full quartet before they picked up their bows. The piece is no less than the title work on a 2013 album recorded by the Harlem Quartet and the Chicago Sinfonietta conducted by Mei-Ann Chen. Definitely worth a listen if you missed the gala – and Abels’ Global Warming leads off the Sphinx Virtuosi’s recent Songs of Our Times release, their first album. Some rousing fiddling embroidered the loud and lively climax of Delights & Dances, easily the most epic piece of the night, programmed in exactly the right spot.

Mexican composer Arturo Márquez’s Conga del Fuego Nuevo (1996) was no less appropriately placed in the encore slot, starting up white-hot and danceable without lowering its flame. Fully recovered from his Bernstein misadventure, Warren-Green not only led the combined ensembles zestfully, he exhibited some winsome showmanship of his own, not only bidding Wilborn to stand up for his solos on muted and unmuted trumpet, but also commanding the winds and the brass to rise when moments came. How can a piece we’ve never heard before sound so familiar? Maybe via discreet borrowing and insistent repetition. No matter, CSO’s jolly encore became a curtain call at the same time – and a wonderful welcome to the 2024-25 season. Hopefully, the Coleridge-Taylor and the Abels were previews of the next Sphinx recording.

Photos by Perry Tannenbaum

Falletta and Wilborn Dazzle at the Knight

Review: Charlotte Symphony Plays Wagner + Strauss

By Perry Tannenbaum

March 22, 2024, Charlotte, NC – Charlotte Symphony’s latest concert pairing, Wagner + Strauss, is logical and cohesive enough, but with the two Germans represented by the “Liebestod” (love-death) from Tristan and Isolde followed by the great Death and Transfiguration tone poem, abundant jollity seemed unlikely at Knight Theater. Wedged between these famed titans of 19th and 20th century music, however, were two lesser-knowns, Richard Strauss’s contemporary Oskar Böhme (1870-1938) and American composer Julia Perry (1924-1979). Thankfully, these composers, especially Oskar, lightened things up. Originally scheduled to perform with Symphony in August 2020, renowned conductor JoAnn Falletta returned for her first guest appearance with the orchestra since 2002, and principal trumpeter Alex Wilborn, similarly postponed by the pandemic, made his solo debut in Böhme’s Trumpet Concerto.

When former Symphony music director Christof Perick last performed the “Liebestod” at Belk Theater – almost precisely 15 years ago – he also paired the piece with a revered Strauss tone poem, Also Sprach Zarathustra. Strauss was one of Perick’s prime passions, and the Friday evening performance reaffirmed that the ardent Prelude and Liebestod remains deeply embedded in the ensemble’s DNA. Falletta’s reading, gradually peaking to a lovers’ climax, with delicious peeps at the hypnotic love theme that blossomed with promise, made me feel afterwards like asking if anybody else in the audience craved a cigarette.

Musically, it seems like a trumpet is a better post-coital sequel for Symphony than a cigarette when they finish the Liebestod, for who can contemplate Strauss’s Zarathustra without recalling its trumpet heraldry? Now that Wilborn is in the principal chair, he could bring us a virtuosic account of Böhme’s Trumpet Concerto with a surprise bonbon afterwards. The opening Allegro moderato brought forth a beautifully burnished tone from Wilborn’s horn and delectably supple phrasing, hardly seeming to challenge his technique, while Falletta emphasized the massiveness and lyricism of the orchestral accompaniment. That foundation segued nicely into the middle Adagio religioso movement, which began with stately dignity from the strings and brass and peaked with soaring aspiration from the soloist, no less pleasing than the melodic opening movement. It was only in the closing Rondo that we could savor anything close to Wilborn’s full virtuosity. Some real jollity here.

Perhaps both Wilborn and Falletta felt that the fireworks were all too brief in Böhme’s finale, for after the audience ovation, the trumpet virtuoso returned with perhaps the lengthiest encore ever heard at Knight Theater. Jean-Baptiste Arban’s “Variations on The Carnival of Venice” had all the virtuosic challenges and exploits you could ask for, with merciful orchestral interludes between the clusters of variations so that Wilborn could catch his breath. It wasn’t just speed that was demanded: in the most intense variations, we needed to make out the main melody amid a blizzard of relatively quiet filigree. The effect was sensational, exhilarating, and exhausting. Falletta showed us how much fun she was having long before she could rest her weary arms and face us again, and Wilborn, in a gesture that promised both him and his audience some respite, jokingly signaled to us when there were only three variations remaining.

Sadly, it would be an understatement to say that African American composer Julia Perry’s work has been neglected in her homeland. Only a handful of recordings – and no full-length CDs – exist from her voluminous output, which included 12 symphonies and four operas. The work unveiled in Charlotte, A Short Piece for Orchestra (1952), has only been recorded once, 14 years ago by the Imperial Philharmonic of Tokyo.

Falletta’s helter-skelter reading of the work made it feel far more modern and audacious than the more lyrical and legato Tokyo take under William Strickland’s baton. A live performance certainly brought out more textures after the raucous opening, including some dreamy reeds from principal clarinetist Taylor Marino and acting principal oboist Erica Cice. From the rear of the ensemble, a snare drum’s tattoo and some noodling from a celesta crept in. Really lovely stuff. My first exposure to Perry came just three days before her centennial birthday might be celebrated (apparently, there’s a half-billion-dollar bond deadline that’s considered to be a bigger deal).

The crisp dynamics that distinguished A Short Piece made a difference once again as Falletta turned to Tod und Verklärung. There was thunder like Perick brought to the work plus a little more electric crackle. In the more sweeping passages, the orchestral blend was as exquisite as ever, yet there were also ample opportunities for Cice, Marino, principal flutist Victor Wang, and concertmaster Calin Lupanu to shine in the hushed moments. Perick’s interpretation had more narrative cohesiveness and continental flavor, while Falletta’s took the piece in a more American direction, almost exiting the realm of a tone poem and crossing over into a concerto for orchestra. Opening up the dynamic range was certainly an intriguing and exciting approach. After waiting an extra four years, Falletta clearly triumphed in her return.

Charlotte Bach Fest Opens With Christmas-in-June Verve and Plenty of Brass

Review: Christmas Oratorio at Charlotte Bach Festival

By Perry Tannenbaum

June 10, 2023, Charlotte, NC – When Bach Akademie Charlotte artistic director Scott Allen Jarrett explains the oddity, it makes perfect sense. Nothing that Johann Sebastian Bach wrote is more perfectly suited for presentation at the Charlotte Bach Festival than his Christmas Oratorio, even though the Akademie’s festival is celebrated in June. Bach never intended this oratorio to be performed annually on just one occasion. No, each of the six parts of the Oratorio was to be performed on a different day of an extended Christmas celebration, extending to the Feast of Epiphany on January 6 and including New Year’s Day festivities on January 1, marking the Feast of the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus.

Similarly, Jarrett is dicing the six parts of the oratorio into four concerts, two evenings at Myers Park Presbyterian Church and two Bach Experience matinees at Myers Park United Methodist, spreading out Oratorio performances over a period of four days. Interspersed with these choral events, a harp recital at the Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, an Uptown organ recital at St. Peter’s Episcopal, and a vocal fellows recital give the five-day fest extra variety and reach.

Recordings of the complete Oratorio range in length from 2:15 to 2:45, and the timings listed in the wonderfully informative Festival Program Guide add up to 2:28, just below the median. If 148 minutes of music divvied into four concerts sounds like small portions, never fear. Each of the Oratorio concerts is fortified with at least one other Bach piece, and each concert is illuminated by a Jarrett intro or lecture, with demonstrations at the lunchtime Experiences. The opening concert at Myers Park Presbyterian began the cycle with Parts 1 and 2 of the Oratorio, “The Birth of Jesus” and “The Annunciation of the Shepherds.” These delights were followed after intermission by one of two Sanctus settings that will be presented at this year’s Festival, and a “Cantata for Christmas Day,” Christen, ätzet diesen Tag.

The opening Chorus of “The Birth,” with pounding timpani and three baroque trumpets triggering the ensemble’s proclamation of “this Day of Salvation,” brought back ancient memories. My first encounter with the Oratorio was in the late ‘80s when I borrowed it on a set of CDs from the Mecklenburg Public Library. There was a brilliant flash of familiarity moments after I pressed the play button, for I had previously dubbed a marvelous recording, by tenor/conductor Peter Schreier and soprano Edith Mathis, of two earlier Cantatas by Bach, BWV 213, and 214, both written to celebrate auspicious birthdays. It was the opening of the latter Cantata, written for the nobody less than the Queen of Poland, that leaped to mind as soon as the Christmas Oratorio began because the music and scoring are exactly the same. Only the text is changed. As Brett Kostrzewski’s program notes meticulously chronicle, both of the Cantatas on the Schreier recording (with the Berlin Chamber Orchestra) figure prominently in the first four parts of this Oratorio.

Looking up the recording on Spotify, you’ll find that the opening chorus of BWV 214 is by far the most popular track on the album, racking up more plays than the other eight sections of that Cantata combined. So Bach chose well, and the three baroque trumpets played live at Myers Park Presbyterian were far more thrilling than any recording can convey – and that’s before the éclat of the chorus layered on. When the 16 voices are trumpeting “this Day of Salvation,” they’re singing music that Bach previously set to “trumpets resound!” It was nothing short of thunder where I sat.

Tenor Gene Stenger was the Evangelist in both Parts 1 and 2, a warm and authoritative narrator. For anyone who hadn’t experienced the solo voices in the Bach Festival Chorus before, alto Sylvia Leith quickly established that they would be topnotch, with a creamy rendition of the “Prepare thyself, Zion” aria, preceded by a stirring recitative. Edmund Milly, singing the bass solos in the penultimate pair of movements before the concluding Chorale and the return of the trumpets, kindled and rekindled a dignified fire. There are full texts and translations in the Program Guide, so the German can be followed word by word and understood, but if you were simply satisfied with the translations, they were alertly – and legibly – projected on both sides of the stage for even more comfort amid the sonic excitement.

Though the trumpets temporarily retired, Part 2 was not at all anticlimactic, unfolding more gradually with a Sinfonia and another Evangelist pronouncement from Stenger before the onset of the full chorus. Stenger parleyed briefly with soprano Arwen Myers, portraying the Angel, who announced the birth of a savior, in the City of David, to the shepherds. Milly reappeared almost as much in Recitative as Stenger the Evangelist, with new voices taking on the Arias. “Happy shepherds” was a special treat as tenor Patrick Muehleise joined in a jocund duet with principal flutist Colin St-Martin.

After the intermission and the brief setting of the Sanctus (which has a very special place in the Jewish liturgy as well), we had to be impressed when Jarrett told us that Christen, ätzet diesen Tag was the only Bach piece he knew of that was scored for as many as four trumpets. Co-principals Josh Cohen and Perry Sutton, mainstays at Charlotte Bach since 2018 and 2019 respectively, were joined this year by Dillon Parker and a Charlotte Symphony recruit, principal trumpet Alex Wilborn, usually seen with a modern valved horn. Written a full 20 years before the Christmas Oratorio, the Cantata for Christmas Day showed off different colors and vocal configurations, and Jarrett chose vocal and instrumental soloists who hadn’t been featured before the break, adding to the freshness of the performance.

The heavy brass-and-drums artillery in the opening and closing sections of the earlier Cantata was as thumping as the bookends of the Christmas Day suite in Part 1of the Oratorio. Thank you, Jonathan Hess, for your verve on the timpani. No Evangelist or storyline appeared here, for this earlier Bach work was more prayerful and preachy in its celebration. Laura Atkinson sang the long alto recitative, stressing how the birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. After tenor Corey Shotwell extolled the newborn as a relief from the fear and sorrow that “poor Israel had been oppressed [with] unduly,” Atkinson joined him in a superb “Come and bring your prayers to heaven” duet.They were only slightly upstaged by the more leisurely paced duet that preceded them, “Lord how blest is thine ordaining,” the true centerpiece between the brassy bookends of the Cantata. Surely this was one of the highpoints of the evening. Principal oboist Margaret Owens shone in accompanying soprano MaryRuth Miller and bass Craig Juricka, ably embroidering the intervals between their vocals. The repose of this song beautifully combined the spirits of Christmas and thanksgiving.

Branford Marsalis Helps Bring Charlotte Symphony and Subscribers Back Together at Last

Review:  Branford Marsalis Plays Ibert

By Perry Tannenbaum

2021~Branford Plays Ibert-04.jpg

More than 15 months had elapsed since my wife Sue and I had sat together at Belk Theater and enjoyed a Charlotte Symphony concert – exactly 15 months since we had seen Gabriella Martinez with the orchestra on Valentine’s Day at Knight Theater. Needless to say, much had changed since our last night out in Uptown Charlotte. Until we turned off the I-287 innerbelt onto College Street, we had no idea what a solemn concrete canyon the Center City has become – because the explosion of new buildings, high-rises, penthouses, and parking garages has hit us while foot traffic on a Friday night remains nearly extinct. Fortunately, we had allowed for extra travel time as we made our way to the landmark “Branford Marsalis Plays Ibert” concert, for the capricious Saturday night traffic was as heavy as usual, doubling our surprise when we left I-77. There wasn’t a Hornets basketball game scheduled that night, so we were among the first to enter the BankAmerica parking garage, with hundreds of spaces to choose from.

Thwarted by travel restrictions that kept him on the other side of the Atlantic, Christopher Warren-Green was unable to preside over our auspicious reunion, so resident conductor Christopher James Lees was called into action, acquitting himself quite brilliantly. Attendance for the concert was capped at 500, about 24% of capacity, and our tickets had been channeled to the Apple Wallet app on my iPhone, which the usher firing his QR scanner gun was able to wield better than I. We were so eager to enter the hall and see the CSO again that I forgot to get an exit parking stub in the lobby, but there was no crowd lined up for them after the concert when I did remember. Masking was still in effect for everyone except wind players, so it was helpful to find staff at their customary posts in the lobby – at the ticket booths and at the entry to the grand tier – so we could recognize and happily greet one another.

Marsalis, the Grammy Award-winning saxophonist, would be playing Erwin Schulhoff’s Hot-Sonate in addition to Jacques Ibert’s Concertino da camera, so there was plenty to bone up on in our seats before the lights went down. Sadly, there were no program booklets to assist our preparations, only the sort of glossy 5”x8” cards subscribers will remember from the pre-pandemic KnightSounds series. An informational email from the ticket office had popped into my inbox that afternoon, which contained a link to a PDF version of a 24-page program booklet. If you’re among the lucky 500 attending the sold-out concerts, you’re covered.

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Filled out by Béla Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances and Gershwin’s Lullaby for string orchestra, the program was an adventurous delight from start to finish – about an hour in length, as promised in that handy email, without an intermission. Bartók was particularly shortchanged by the abbreviated program handouts, for the names and tempos of his six Folk Dances couldn’t fit on the same card with all the movements Marsalis would be playing. Even if the Bartók movements had been listed they would hardly be indicative of what we would see and hear. Until the penultimate “Poargă românească (Romanian Polka): Allegro,” the dances weren’t at all festive. The “Brâul (Sash Dance): Allegro” was rather poignant, despite its nimble pace, and the “Pê-loc (Stamping Dance): Andante” was actually bleak. Even the gorgeous “Buciumeana (Hornpipe Dance): Moderato” had a forlorn fiddler-on-the-roof sadness to it. Otherwise, what was surprising was the extent that all these arrangements by Arthur Willner were miniature violin concertos, here featuring concertmaster Calin Ovidiu Lupanu, who was especially impressive high up in the treble of the “Stamping Dance.”

A nice array of winds and brass – including principals Victor Wang on flute, French hornist Byron Johns, and trumpeter Alex Wilborn – joined the strings onstage as Marsalis made his first appearance. Beginning with “quarter note = 66,” the movement markings in Schulhoff’s concerto for alto saxophone were deceptively fussy and clinical, for the heat of the Hot-Sonate came from jazz, just emerging from its raucous childhood when this suite was composed in 1930. Originally written for sax and piano, the arrangement by Harry Kinross White is most beguiling in its bluesy third movement, where the horns added an astringent accompaniment. Quaintly described by the composer “lamentuoso ma molto grottesco (plaintive, but very grotesque),” this “quarter note = 80” movement delivered the deepest jazz flavor, and I could easily imagine Johnny Hodges, on leave from Duke Ellington’s Orchestra, playing its premiere. Unfortunately, Schulhoff’s idea of the grotesque was no more edgy than his grasp of the alto saxophone’s capabilities. Despite the undeniable appeal of the music, Marsalis wasn’t really tested by the demands of Hot-Sonate.

Gershwin’s Lullaby, not jazzy at all, was a perfect palate cleanser between the two Marsalis stints. The strings wafted a tropical lightness that had a “Catch a Falling Star” lilt and laziness. Little showcases were set aside for the string section leaders, most notably Lupanu and cellist Alan Black, and the piece ended deliciously in bubbly geniality, with rounds of delicate pizzicatos. Absent during the Gershwin, horns and winds reasserted themselves forcefully in the Concertino da camera, originally scored by Ibert for 12 instruments, including the soloist, with only five string players. Marsalis was noticeably more tasked now, from the opening Allegro con moto movement onwards: more speed, more range, more complexity, and more technique were required from him, while the vibrant accompaniment offered more distractions. There’s actually some percussion from the strings amid this opening movement, but I was so focused on Marsalis and his unmasked accompanists that I didn’t notice which string players were tapping their bows.

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An achingly lovely, oboe-like lament by Marsalis began the Larghetto section, with the strings gradually creeping in ever-so-stealthily behind him. Extra strings, 22 in all, were a definite asset here as the music swelled. Wang’s flute and Wilborn’s trumpet had the most impact behind Marsalis as we cheerfully swung into the concluding Animato. Though often labeled as separate movements on CDs (including Branford’s recording with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2000), this concluding Larghetto-Animato was in itself like a three-movement concerto, for Marsalis drew a second cadenza between orchestral bursts that was far more demanding than anything he had played so far, nearly requiring circular breathing to execute its cascading, fleet-fingered runs. The audience was keenly attuned to the saxophonist’s virtuosity, for they gave him a lusty standing ovation when he was done, a judicious upgrade from the warm applause showered on the Schulhoff.

A wonderful evening, all in all, and a giant step back to normality.

Barefoot in Carnegie Hall, Conqueror at the Knight

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Review: Charlotte Symphony and Conrad Tao Perform Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto

By Perry Tannenbaum

Celebrations of Ludwig van Beethoven don’t really need to lean on a convenient excuse. Just before celebrations broke out worldwide on January 1, 2020, commemorating the great composer’s 250th birthday, New York City’s WQXR played out 2019 with their traditional New Year’s Eve countdown of their audience’s top 100 favorites, culminating in a marathon tribute to Beethoven. Not only did Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony No. 9 take the top spot yet again at the flagship classical FM station, six works by Beethoven were in WQXR’s top 10, including the top three. Charlotte Symphony certainly wasn’t standing in back of the line of orchestras poised for celebration as the new decade began.

Returning to Knight Theater from a tour of Southeast Asia with the London Chamber Orchestra, maestro Christopher Warren-Green capped the first full week of 2020 with a double-dose of the birthday boy’s compositions, the “Leonore Overture No. 3” and the “Emperor” Concerto No. 5, which finished No. 10 in the latest WQXR popularity poll. In between, we heard the Symphony No. 7 in C by Jean Sibelius, perhaps the first time that the Finnish composer’s final symphony has been performed in Charlotte. Pianist and composer Conrad Tao made his Charlotte debut with the orchestra.

We don’t have too many instances of rewrites among Beethoven’s published works, but his lone opera, Fidelio, and its overture are prominent exceptions. The three Leonore overtures (plus a “Fidelio Overture”!) testify that Beethoven not only fussed over the music for his opera, he also fussed over the title. Leonore, Creatures of Prometheus, and Coriolan are the overtures most favored as fillers on CD collections of the symphonies, and Warren-Green programmed Coriolan in an all-Beethoven concert in 2012. As far back as I can trace, this is the first time Symphony has separated the “Leonore Overture” from Fidelio, but our musicians likely recalled rehearsing it for an opera-in-concert version conducted by Christof Perick in 2004 and when Opera Carolina offered us a fully-staged Fidelio in 2015.

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Musicians were perhaps too amped-up for the celebration as the Overture kicked off the concert. The opening sforzando over a timpani beat and the mysterious fadeaway that follows that burst were beautifully played. Woodwinds blended effectively and the flutes had a wonderful rapport before forebodings of the big tune rippled through the lower strings. But the crisp delivery and sleekly calibrated dynamics we have come to expect from this orchestra were missing on the first pass through the main theme, and there was no room left to dramatically turn up the volume later when the big tune repeated twice more. Thankfully, the ensemble steadied immediately afterwards – for the entire evening – sharpening their focus. Winds and horns remained tightly knit, principal flutist Victor Wang continued to charm, and principal trumpeter Alex Wilborn, deployed deep in the balcony, brought us forlorn pathos before concertmaster Calin Lupanu, playing fervidly, triggered the final galloping reprise and climax.

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Other than interpolating how exhausted he still was after conducting the Leonore, Warren-Green was all about Sibelius when he picked up his mic for the first time in 2020, pointing out that the Finn was battling two illnesses as he wrote the piece over a 10-year stretch: depression and alcoholism. He also drew our attention to the trombone solos with insights gleaned from the original 1924 manuscript. The winds and strings, particularly the violins, drew a sweetness from the music that I hadn’t found on either of the CDs in my collection, and there were definite hints in the darkest passages, where the violins played low in their range, of the illnesses that afflicted the composer – and possible promptings for the way Shostakovich would register WW2 in his symphonies. Only the flow and the full grandeur of my Ashkenazy recording with the London Philharmonia were missing in Warren-Green’s reading. As for principal trombonist John Bartlett, the orchestral wreath surrounding his contributions – along with the embroidery Sibelius weaves with the winds – might cause you to overlook his unquestionable excellence.

No such danger threatened Tao as he emerged in his colorful attire. Only later admitting that he had begun the new year by packing negligently and forgetting his formal attire, Tao attacked his opening cadenzas with swashbuckling panache, and his phrasing proved to be no less audacious and individual than his attire and attack. Clearly, Tao has heard this soaring masterwork in his own way – but without perversely differing with traditional interpretations or seeking to draw undue attention away from the composer. Warren-Green and the orchestra responded vigorously to the young soloist, as much in the forefront of the epic opening Allegro movement as the piano. Of course, Tao impressed us more in the softer passages than the accompaniment here, but Symphony was certainly an equal partner in the magical Adagio that followed. The upper strings, delicately supported by pizzicatos from the lower strings, solemnly and lyrically cleared the way for Tao’s ethereal entrance – with a clarity that I’ve never heard on a recording. A bit of subtlety and nuance eluded Tao here and there in his phrasing, but Warren-Green and his ensemble remained marvelously simpatico in sustaining the sublimity.

For those of us who love this piece, Tao’s way with the ingenious transition between the Adagio and the Rondo finale likely sparked the most controversy and admiration. He certainly took his time, not playing the ending quite as softly as the usual pianissimos I’ve heard, but the sforzando burst to launch the concluding movement still had a satisfying snap and éclat. Symphony was as zestful as ever in its response, and Tao parleyed a playfulness and a muscular power we had not seen from him earlier, conclusively proving he could punish a keyboard.

Two more Beethoven masterworks, his Missa Solemnis and “Pastoral” Symphony, highlight the remainder of the 2019-20 mainstage classics series, the latter to be led by JoAnn Falletta. Symphony certainly had the appeal of their Tao program nicely gauged, scheduling an extra Sunday matinee after the usual pair of performances. Of course, Tao may have been kidding us when he spoke of forgetting his formalwear. In his enthusiastic New York Times review of Tao’s Carnegie Hall debut back in November, critic Anthony Tommasini couldn’t help noting that the pianist was clad in black slacks, a black jacket, a black T-shirt… and barefoot!

Christopher Warren-Green Expands Symphony’s “Titan” Concert to Rousing Effect

Review: Charlotte Symphony’s Mahler 1

By Perry Tannenbaum

When Charlotte Symphony’s season announcements and brochures were issued last July, Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 “The Titan” stood alone on the program for their concert coinciding with semifinals of the ACC basketball tournament at the nearby Spectrum Center. Whether there were second thoughts on the length of that program or worries about automobile traffic inconveniencing concertgoers, two additional works – and an intermission – were added to the evening. Mahler’s Symphonic Movement: Blumine seemed a natural add-on, since it was part of an earlier draft of the symphony, which premiered in 1889 as a five-movement piece titled “Symphonic Poem in Two Parts.”

Adding a piece by Strauss wouldn’t appear much less apt – if it were Richard Strauss, not quite four years younger than Mahler and very much his contemporary. But Johann Strauss, Jr., the renowned “Waltz King”? Picking up a microphone as soon as he appeared onstage at Belk Theater, music director Christopher Warren-Green immediately cleared things up. Far from a grotesque contrast, parts of Strauss II’s Emperor Waltzes were actually echoed in the second movement of “The Titan.” And since Blumine was the second movement in the original “Symphonic Poem” before Mahler excised it, the whole grouping had an elegant logic to it.

Implicit in Warren-Green’s intro were dual assignments – with dual effects. We were subtly being asked to catalogue the musical and melodic content of the Emperor Waltzes and retain our findings until after intermission. Then we were to identify an undisclosed fragment of what we had heard when it was echoed in “The Titan.” Listeners were thus encouraged to take Strauss’s work a little more seriously in searching for enduring substance and to realize that Mahler’s music, with its fun-loving Viennese influences, wasn’t as ponderous and forbidding as they might have believed. Whether such attitude adjustments actually factored into the audience’s enthusiasm for the performances, they certainly sounded like fruitful approaches for the musicians to take as they played.

Unburdened of the worry that they were tossing off light fare, the orchestra played the Emperor Waltzes with infectious zest. Principal percussionist Brice Burton’s snare drum caught my attention first, before the woodwinds announced the idiomatic Strauss sound. Principal cellist Alan Black and principal timpanist Ariel Zaviezo kindled our anticipation as the most familiar of the melodies drew near. Weighted toward the trombones, the brass episode was impressive, and as the piece climaxed, four percussionists were on their feet, as cymbals and a bass drum joined the fray.

Logical choice or not, Blumine was a fairly odd piece to send us off to intermission with, for it conformed to the relative quietude we expect of second movements in large orchestral works. Surprisingly, this andante sounded nothing like the sort of derivative apprentice work you might expect a major composer to discard upon mature reflection. As performed by Warren-Green and his players, Blumine had some of the ethereal flavor we might associate with Mahler’s middle symphonies, especially at the end of the piece, where the playing of the strings, lightly tinged with Andrea Mumm Trammell’s harp, was quite exquisite. Yet it was principal trumpeter Alex Wilborn who made the deepest imprint on the performance, playing his serenading episodes with a mellow and magnificent softness. Principals Victor Wang on flute and Taylor Marino on clarinet had gleaming moments of their own, but principal Hollis Ulaky drew the best solo wind passages and played them flawlessly on her oboe.

None of the recordings of “The Titan” that I looked up reach the length of a full hour except for that of Seiji Ozawa with the Boston Symphony, who just ekes past the 60-minute mark after restoring Blumine as his second movement. So I heartily endorse Warren-Green’s decision to fortify and vary the originally-announced program with judiciously selected appetizers, but you just needed to look at the Belk Theater stage to see that “The Titan” was the evening’s main dish. At the outset of the “Langsam” (Slow) portion of the opening movement, a phalanx of eight French hornists was seated in front of the battery of percussion, which included two sets of timpani drums.

More brass lurked offstage. After softly churning strings, reminiscent of Wagner’s famed evocation of the Rhine River, played under mournful woodwinds – with just a glint of piccolo – a trio of distant trumpets was heard, triggering a response from the horns. Then as the trumpeters entered from offstage, the cellos steered us toward echoes of Beethoven’s “Pastoral Symphony,” bringing us the springtime awakening of nature promised in Mahler’s 1893 program notes. When the winds reached their bright, full-throated twittering, the season burst into blossom. But with solo spots from Wang’s flute, Marino’s clarinet, a soft tattoo on the bass drum, and more fine section work from the French horns, there was ample space for reflection afterwards.

Echoes of Strauss II were readily apparent in the “Kräftig bewegt” (Forceful animated) movement that followed, not subtle at all once we had been alerted to them; and in the trio section that followed, the waltzing spirit of the orchestra became more contagious. After timpani and percussion had engaged, there was a nice simple spotlight for Byron Johns and his French horn. The other middle movement, “Feirlich und gemessen” (Solemn and measured), lost its power to intimidate as soon as the listener realized that the fugal figure was a slowed-down, macabre mutation of the familiar “Frère Jacques” nursery song. Initiating the round, principal Kurt Riecken had the rare opportunity to offer us a sampling of his solo handiwork on the double bass, with oboe and clarinet taking us to higher frequencies. Cellos and violas initiated another round before the clarinets lightened the gloom with a klezmer-like interlude.

Aside from the cresting of the opening movement, there was nothing titanic about “The Titan” until we reached the “Stürmisch bewegt” (Stormy animated) finale. Here is where the double-duty barrage of timpani was detonated, though there also was some finesse from the lyrical violins in the early stages. With the entrance of the trombones, the horns, the woodwinds, and the trumpets, the strings throbbed with more urgency. Increasing the final drama, Mahler circled back to the calm, the distant heraldry, and even some of the vernal twittering of the opening movement, and Warren-Green obviously reveled in quietly setting up his final explosion. The entire phalanx of eight French horns stood up, punctuating the majesty and the showmanship of the climax. Programming Mahler yielded some vacant patches down in the orchestra seats – and a totally empty upper balcony – but the Belk Theater audience responded to “The Titan” with a lusty standing ovation that was as enthusiastic as any I’ve seen there. Ultimately, they bought into the whole “Mahler Lite” concept as completely as the musicians.

 

Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony Upstaged by Epic Paganini Concerto

Review:  Italian Symphony

By Perry Tannenbaum

Last week’s Symphony concert at Knight Theater, Italian Symphony, was a bit of a double entendre. Yes, the featured work on the program was Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, also known as the “Italian,” but all the other pieces on the bill had something Italian about them, even if the composers hailed from cooler climes. Other than Mendelssohn, we heard from Parisian maestro Hector Berlioz, whose musical marinara, gleaned from his poorly-received Benvenuto Cellini opera, was discreetly called “Roman Carnival Overture.”

In between these two non-Italians, we heard from Luciano Berio and the virtuosic Niccolò Paganini. Our guest conductor, Milan native Roberto Abbado, sustained the Italian connection. Only our guest soloist, Muscovite violinist Sergej Krylov, broke the Italian mold – unless we also consider the Charlotte Symphony musicians.

The last time Symphony played the “Roman Carnival Overture” in 2012, we were also at Knight Theater, but maestro Christopher Warren-Green had to battle the embryonic acoustics of the stage, which swallowed much of sonic details before they reached the audience. With the handsome wood-grained shell that now encloses the orchestra, strings sounded mellower and more immediate, the thrumming percussion that prodded the tempo had a far more audible and visceral effect, and the whole piece was livelier, with trombones asserting themselves in the final build.

Abbado seized upon the intro to Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 – its precipitous pauses, hairpin tempo changes, sudden thunderous outcries, and outbreaks of joyous melody – and brought out its kinship with Rossini’s overtures. The pause before Krylov’s bravura entrance was so emphatic that the intro might rightly be looked upon as an overture. As for Krylov, while he isn’t Italian, his pedigree for the Paganini concerto can hardly be bettered, for he studied under the renowned Salvatore Accardo, arguably the greatest living exponent of the entire Paganini violin repertoire. Accardo’s six-CD collection; including six concertos, the famed Caprices, and more; is calling out loudly to everybody at Knight Theater who sampled the goodies.

Of course, seeing this music performed live surpasses what you can merely hear. The speed, the exquisite harmonics, the double bowing, and the ricochet bowing heighten the drama when you watch them executed with such energy, deftness, and excitement. In the heat of the opening Allegro maestoso movement, you could see concertmaster Calin Lupanu and principal cellist Alan Black craning their necks to see around Abbado and fully savor what Krylov was doing. Not only was it epic enough to draw their smiles, most of the audience jumped up and gave the violinist a rousing ovation – forcing him, somewhat sheepishly, to remind us that there were two more movements to come.

The middle Adagio movement really required the audience to quiet down if it were to be heard, an oasis of tranquility before another onset of dazzle and fireworks. Anyone who had overlooked the purity of Krylov’s tone, particularly on the low notes and midrange of his instrument, could savor it here. Where the movement builds in volume and passion, both the soloist and the orchestra were up to the drama. The final Rondo: Allegro was shorter than the epic opening, but with some bodacious pizzicato work sprinkled amidst more frequent ricochet episodes, Krylov was no less spectacular, sparring a little with acting principal trumpeter Alex Wilborn along the way.

For those of us who love Luigi Boccherini’s guitar quintets, it bordered on criminal that credit to Luigi as the original creator of “La ritirata di Madrid” was deferred to the program notes on Berio in Symphony’s program booklet instead of in the main concert listing. All the guitar quintets are delightful, but the named pieces, the “Fandango” and “La ritirata,” are the stunners. Both take their names from their fourth and final movements, where Boccherini stretches the limits of his ensemble – string quartet plus guitar – by adding percussion effects. In the “Fandango,” he sneaks in a pair of castanets while the guitarist forcefully strums, but in the “Ritirata,” the strumming of the guitar simulates the fanfare of a full marching band, supplying all the percussion as the platoon moves through town and retires quietly to its barracks.

With principal Andrea Mumm Trammell sweetly plucking her harp, Berio’s orchestration of the arrival could be even quieter and stealthier. Nor did Berio deprive us of the services of traditional percussion – plus trumpets – where Boccherini had brought his quintet to a full roar. It was quite obvious that Abbado and Symphony relished their opportunity to bring orchestral power to this chamber music classic, and the fadeaway finish was absolutely adorable.

If Krylov’s pedigree was optimal for the Paganini, then no less can be said for Abbado’s with the Mendelssohn. Many regard the recordings by Claudio Abbado, Roberto’s uncle, as the most definitive traversal of Mendelssohn’s five symphonies. The nephew stamped his authority on the “Italian” in the opening measures of the most familiar movement, the vibrant Allegro vivace. Unlike the metronomic statement of the long melody line that we heard from Warren-Green and the ensemble in 2013, Abbado had a freer feel for the opening movement, the violins setting an exuberant pace and the winds injecting softer replies.

While the middle movements were mellow and satisfyingly cohesive, contrasting effectively with the bracing beginning, Abbado seemed to allow the lull to have a lingering effect on the Saltarello: Presto finale. The two flutists, Amy Orsinger Whitehead and principal Victor Wang, led a spirited charge into the breech, but when the strings answered back, it was merely with their former exuberance and not with a new ferocity or fire. Instead of Mozart bumping into Beethoven, it was more like Mozart flowing into Mozart, insufficiently bolstered by the timpani and brass. The flutes’ charge should have ignited more magic.

Charlotte Symphony’s “Royal Celebration” Delivers Brassy, Breathtaking Music

Review: Music for a Royal Celebration

By Perry Tannenbaum

Charlotte isn’t known as a city that treasures its heritage, so it was gratifying to see that Charlotte Symphony was dedicating its Music for a Royal Celebration concert to the 250th anniversary of the Queen City’s founding. Presumably, the audience that filled Knight Theater knew what all the celebration was about. If they didn’t, nobody was going to fill them in from the podium, although we had an able emissary from the Crown onstage in Charlotte Symphony maestro Christopher Warren-Green, who conducted at Their Majesties’ last two Royal Weddings in his native UK.

Warren-Green regaled us, instead, with anecdotes about programming Sir William Walton’s “Crown Imperial March” at the most recent Royal Wedding and the fire emergency that marred the premiere of George Frederic Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks in 1749. This was the latest of the three Handel works that Symphony performed, including “Zadok the Priest” (1727) and excerpts from the Water Music (1717) – and the only one written during Queen Charlotte’s lifetime (1744-1818). She wouldn’t become queen until 1761, however, seven years before her eponymous Charlotte Town was incorporated.

If you’ve ever heard “Zadok the Priest” performed, you’ll realize that the Charlotte Symphony Chorus had to be part of the celebration. Composed for the coronation of King George II, Handel loosely adapted a couple of verses from the opening chapter of Kings I that fit the occasion, the first of his four Coronation Anthems. With the strings pumping quiet arpeggios, this piece didn’t immediately sound anthemic, but after about a minute-and-a-half, Warren-Green had stirred a keen enough sense of expectancy for the powerful onslaught of the Chorus to feel inevitable, soon reinforced by the brass.

Solomon reigned for 40 years over Ancient Israel, yet the sounds of hosanna and hallelujah that Handel devised to replicate the spirit of his coronation weren’t altogether different from the “Hallelujah Chorus” he would compose in Messiah for the King who shall live forever. As a matter of fact, Handel took the liberty of urging his new King to “live for ever,” too. More reason for the Symphony Chorus to fire up their parts with a gusto that signaled their awareness of the kinship of these kingly compositions. And this was just the concert opener!

As the program booklet seemed to hint – and Warren-Green reemphasized – you can play the three suites of the Water Music in any order you choose. Maestro chose not only to have Suite II and Suite III shift places but also to give far more play to the third suite than the second. The strings sounded rich and resonant plunging into the Overture of the first suite, but their fleet and nimble pace was even more impressive. Principal oboist Hollis Ulaky smoothly cued the ensuing Adagio with hardly a pause and closed it poignantly, a perfect setup for the French horns kicking up the liveliness and tempo in the Allegro. The Bourree found Ulaky combining with Symphony’s new principal bassoon, Olivia Oh, in response to the chirping strings.

Slated to headline Symphony’s upcoming February concert, when he’ll play Michael Daugherty’s Trail of Tears, principal flutist Victor Wang stepped forward during Suite III to acquaint us with some of his virtuosity. Principals from the four string sections formed a quiet little quartet behind Wang in the opening Sarabande before the full sections showed their nimbleness in a fleet Rigaudon. No less virtuosic – but a lot more surprising – Wang picked up a piccolo to front the final Minuet and Gigue, speeding up effortlessly for the latter movement.

Warren-Green’s arrangement of Handel’s score trimmed the movements in Suite II that Symphony performed to a pair, but it was easy to see why he held off presenting them when two trumpets joined the ensemble, including acting principal trumpeter Alex Wilborn. They wasted no time in making an impact, trading spirited volleys with the horns in the Allegro – and then in the rousing Hornpipe, the most familiar movement in all of the Water Music. With the Royal Fireworks still looming after intermission, the loudest outburst of percussion so far sent us off to the break with a foretaste of the thunder to come.

Wilborn and a battery of heavy percussion asserted themselves quickly in Hubert Parry’s “I was Glad,” another choral coronation piece – first detonated in 1902 for Edward VII and Queen Alexandra – that offered the Symphony Chorus another opportunity to loudly proclaim Old Testament scripture, this time adapted from Psalm 122. Instead of obliging the singers to sit through the remainder of the concert, Warren-Green used their departure as an opportunity to deliver his tasty intro to the Royal Fireworks, which we would hear in their entirety.

Written to celebrate the triumphant conclusion of the War of Austrian Succession and the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, the Music for the Royal Fireworks bursts with imperial pride and colonial ambition, an affirmation that Brits ruled a goodly chunk of the planet in 1749. Especially mighty were the outer movements, an epic Ouverture to start, and the sequence of three movements that climaxed the work, “La Réjouissance” and two Menuets, finishing with a majestic deceleration. There are many recorded examples of Royal Fireworks, but only the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performance comes close to capturing the thrill of hearing Charlotte Symphony’s brass playing it live. Nothing I’ve sampled comes close to replicating the full conquering thunder Warren-Green drew from his orchestra when the trumpets’ roar combined with the pounding drums.

The reposeful movements in the middle of Royal Fireworks, the Bourrée and “La Paix,” were accorded their due as the orchestra – especially the brass – primed themselves for their final blasts. Walton’s “Crown Imperial March,” though more benign than Handel’s closing salvos, wasn’t at all an anticlimax. There was still lively percussion, yet the opening had a sleekness to it from the strings, and the mod harmonies reminded us that we had indeed transitioned from 1749 to 1937. Every recorded performance of this piece doesn’t pause for a moment, as Warren-Green did, before the music truly explodes into its vigorous march – try Andrew Litton’s version with the Bournemouth Symphony to approximate the sensation at Symphony’s celebration. It was carried off so naturally that it felt like all of us onstage and throughout Knight Theater were collectively holding our breaths.