Word: bache
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...after a good start in the first Bach sinfonia, the orchestra began having trouble. Failing to complement a fine oboe solo by Robert Hecker, the strings evidenced poor, high-schoolish intonation in the second and third sinfoniae and in general let the music control them. The sinfoniae were further flawed by a glaring absence of dynamic contrast and formal clarity...
...Idyll's original performance was by a minimum of musicians strung along the stairway of the Wagner villa. In a misguided attempt at authenticity, Hathaway eliminated most of the Bach Society's already small complement of strings. Without security in numbers. the string players were cowed by the infamous intonation problems of this highly chromatic piece...
...Aaron Copland's Quiet City (1940), the Bach Society had the advantage of two fine wind players. Alan Pease's trumpet was as "nervous" as is called for in the score, and Fred Fox's English horn was properly dark and seductive. The strings handled their part with a minimum of painful intonation and a good deal of taste. All in all Quiet City was the most successful of the works attempted, evocative where the others were dutiful...
This vear's Bach Society failed to live up to the expectation of authenticity which it aroused. Though classical in terms of instrumental forces, it played the Beethoven with a Romantic concept of dynamics. Instead of a long crescendo, the development of the first movement was a wearingly consistent fortissimo. In the second movement, the wind-string balance was totally off, reaffirming the traditional inability of Harvard winds to play softly. Even considering the conservative tempo of the last movement, the orchestra's struggling with the notes is forgiveable; but its loudness and dullness...
That program was designed to take advantage of the orchestra's size, but it also tended to expose the orchestra's weaknesses and shortcomings. Had Hathaway been more sensitive to the real potential of his orchestra, there might have been some fine results. As it was, the Bach society's performance--energetic, amateurish, on top of the music as much as laboring under its weight--was Harvard music at its most typical, if not at its best...