Word: hro
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...audience at Sanders Theatre Friday night heard the best music that's been played at Harvard all year, and they probably had more fun than anyone else in Cambridge. The HRO concert was more than music--it was sheer delight...
...program began with Mozart's Haffner Symphony. In previous concerts the HRO has played Mozart without adequate discipline, but Friday night they displayed complete mastery. The violins were unexpectedly precise, despite difficult sections of trills and runs. The orchestra did not sacrifice emotional force for precision, however, and the trio of the third movement was interpreted almost romantically. The controlled performance of the finale added to its excitement...
...HRO next performed the world premiere of conductor James Yannatos' Prieres dans L'Arche, a setting of four poems by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, scored for a small orchestra and soprano. In each poem an animal characterizes himself in a prayer ending with "Ainsi soit-il." Yannatos does not portray the animals, but the attitudes they represent. The animals' feelings are summarized by their way of saying amen, and the score provides the interpretation which the printed page leaves to the reader. For instance, the cat, aided by a marvellously meowing orchestra, says amen in smug anticipation...
...HRO played attentively. They thundered when the occasion demanded, or played under the chorus's pianissimo, which was very soft, Randall Thompson's orchestrations are more or less routine work for instrumentalists; the strings played what they had well, the wind solos were good, but not always exactly in tune...
...orchestra member complained last year of the new director's ambitious plans: "He'll never get the HRO to play that." But it's not the same HRO this year. It's substantially larger and better. And Yannatos, who took over this fall, has given it spirit, a feat not to be underestimated in any orchestra. For with spirit comes unanimity, and with unanimity comes the impressive control that Yannatos exerts over a group of players, not subservient to his will, but gladly making music with...