Word: bache
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Whenever the Bach Society Orchestra performs, it leaves an ambiguous impression: it is never clear whether it is a chamber group, a small symphony orchestra, or simply a label under which disparate musical activities take place. The first half of last Saturday's concert ranged from Beethoven's Coriolanus Overture to the same composer's Wind Octet, Opus 103. Conductor Daniel Hathaway kept the orchestra precisely together throughout Coriolanus, but many of the opportunities for playing back and forth between parts were muffed. He might have had better luck at a faster tempo. However, the orchestra's total sound...
...most delightful piece on the program (and also that best suited to the talents of the Bach Society) was Couperin's Le Parnasse ou l'apotheose de Corelli. Hathaway played his own harpsichord part, waving a free hand whenever possible at the small group on either side. He seemed caught in the middle in more than one way, however, since the violins and cellos often disagreed on the tempo, the one rushing ahead of Hathaway and the other lagging behind. For the rest the performance was superb--the parts all meshed and precision triumphed over muddle. The programmatic aspect...
...Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 1 Yannatos elected to use the entire string section. Most of the weaknesses in the HRO's rendition of the Concerto appear to be the consequences of using such an unwieldy group. The first movement was too heavy and the violins never agreed sufficiently on any phrasing -- or even the precise location in time of the beat -- to bring out the movement's exquisite suspensions and interweaving of parts. Edgar Engleman, the concertmaster, played the solo part in the third movement clearly and sensitively, but the rest of the strings overbalanced...
Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 is less revealing than the Bach, but it needs if anything more attention and imagination to be successful. It got both in what was a truly stirring performance. The strings might have played together a larger proportion of the time, and the kaleidoscopic changes of mood, especially in the first movement, might have been handled more nimbly. But these are quibbles; this year's HRO sounds extremely good, better than any of the last few years, and clearly prepared and executed the Beethoven, and indeed the whole concert, with both care and ability...
...with a nine-tiered canopy (symbolizing her husband's place as the ninth King in the Chakri line), glowed in a champagne-colored gown, despite a lingering cold and a heavy dose of antibiotics. After an all-French dinner, from consomme to patisserie, the Royal Navy Orchestra played Bach...