Word: biss
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...Bach Society closed its season last night with a program commendably chosen and performed. Gregory Biss and the orchestra warmed up Allessandro Scarlatti's Concerto in F for Strings, a brief and harmonically simple piece culminating in a robust gigue...
...sharp contrast to Scarlatti's simplicity were the shifting moods of Gabriel Faure's Pellas and Melisande, composed as incidental music to the Maeterlinck dramatic poem. Biss achieved a good variety of sonorities in the four richly orchestrated movements. In the Prelude the orchestra sounded rich and as one unit; at other times, as in the second movement, subdued violins contrasted sharply with pizzicati in the celli and wood-wind solos. The dance-like quality attained in the third movement was excellent. The music lost direction, however, in the Marche Funebre, when Biss had to struggle to keep the dotted...
...movement. In the second, the sole twelve-tone piece, pizzicato strings, harp and per cussion executed difficult rhythms gracefully if not perfectly. At the end of the third piece, a dirge with an ostinato bass, the orchestra turned into a chorus and sang the final chord. Happily, Biss repeated the performance for an amused audience...
...variation from mezzo-forte than did any conscious effort on the part of the conductor or orchestra. Broad contrasts between the tutti and the first violins' soli in the fourth movement remained unexploited. Phrases, instead of concluding, were simply cut off. Ultimately, after opting to repeat every section possible, Biss managed to rouse the orchestra to life--probably because the symphony was nearly over...
...whole spirit of the Schubert Symphony differed from that of the first half of the program. A sharp, solid attack began the first movement. The rich tuttis which followed seemed to involve Biss in the music more than anything had in the Bach and Mozart. In the third movement, for example, Biss seemed more at home demanding histrionics of the orchestra than he had been before demanding discipline of it. Again, perhaps because of the limitations of his orchestra, his Presto vivace barely passed allegro; but the overbearing horns and the soft sections that never got soft should have been...