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WILLIAM NESMITH Correspondent
- Evansville Courier & Press
- Posted May 2, 2011 at midnight
EVANSVILLE - The symphony orchestra, the most distinctive feature of Western classical music, is undoubtedly the most flexible instrument ever invented by man to express musical ideas.
No other ensemble, band or instrument has the resources to either blast the listener through the back wall of a concert hall or play music so delicately that one has to be absolutely silent just to hear what's going on.
The Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra provided both of these extremes - and everything in between - in one of the season's most interesting concerts on Sunday afternoon.
The EPO was joined by members of the Owensboro Symphony and ladies from both the Philharmonic Chorus and the Owensboro Symphony chorus in a concert featuring music of Berlioz, Prokofiev and Holst, under the batons of both music director Alfred Savia and Owensboro Symphony Conductor Nicholas Palmer.
It was the first collaboration of its kind between the two groups.
Savia led the first half of the program, Berlioz's "Corsair Overture" and Prokofiev's "Scythian Suite."
The Berlioz is a concert staple, familiar to most concertgoers. To my ears, this overture goes in fits and starts, and then, out of nowhere, simply erupts with the usual Berlioz swagger and energy.
It was fun to hear on a dreary Sunday afternoon.
The second work on the program, Sergei Prokofiev's "Scythian Suite," is not an easy listen, but it is certainly a fascinating one. The audience certainly heard things it had not heard before - and judging from the ovation, seemed a little perplexed by it.
This is a work that requires an enormous orchestra and which batters the casual listener. It is a piece with genuinely barbaric sounds.
The reason for that description is that the Scythians were a nomadic tribe that established an empire around the Black Sea about 500 B.C.
In the history of Russia, they play a role roughly equivalent to the Celts of western Europe, and the artifacts they left behind have exerted a continuing influence on Russian decorative art. To Prokofiev, they represented barbarism.
The EPO's performance of this seldom-played piece caught all of the thunderous energy Prokofiev could have wanted.
There were many moments when the audience was being blasted out of the room by the assembled forces of two symphony orchestras.
Then, in the "Night" movement, there were times of such delicacy and orchestral witchery that I had a hard time discerning just what instruments were being played. It was wonderful.
The piece ends with a depiction of sunrise, but not the one you usually get. This was no C-major chord with every instrument in its most gracious register. This was the rising of a furnace, a white-hot star.
The second half of the concert, led by Palmer, was devoted to just one work - "The Planets" by Gustav Holst.
Like the Prokofiev, this one doesn't get played often since it requires an enormous orchestra supplemented by a female chorus. Palmer's version of this great piece was just about perfect.
The first - and most famous - movement, "Mars, the Bringer of War," is unlike anything else in the repertoire, with its insistent pounding rhythms and swelling crescendos. It is as accurate a depiction of a brutal, impersonal juggernaut as there is in any artistic medium.
Palmer's version of this was especially notable for the balance he brought to the sound of the orchestra. This same balance was evident in the rest of the piece. At every moment, it was as if each beat of the score had been individually and separately rehearsed to be just right.
This was wonderful music-making.
Broadcast: A digital recording of the concert will air at 7 p.m. on May 15 on WNIN-88.3FM.
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http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/may/02/philharmonic-review/
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