Word: senturia
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Last night's was an odd concert. The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra surpassed itself in many respects: it delivered a fully professional performance of Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony, under the direction of Michael Senturia. Yet an accumulation of minor failings and a stolidly unadventuresome program--Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Handel--revealed that the orchestra is, after all, only a remarkable organization of musical amateurs...
...concert also marked Michael Senturia's last regular concert in Sanders Theatre as director of the HRO. It was a brilliant farewell. While Kogan faced the orchestra feet together, like a conductor, Senturia spread his feet, hunched his shoulders, and went at Mendelssohn's Fourth Symphony like a boxer. An incredibly sharp attack started the symphony; the strings, warmed up, sounded as one. Senturia shifted tempi with assurance when the increased excitement demanded change. In the middle movements, although the fourth horn had problems, the woodwind solos over a string obbligato were exceptionally good for the HRO. Senturia took...
This change in music at Harvard has in part come from a closer contact with the faculty, Senturia in particular. (It is, however, an open question how an older conductor would follow in his steps in this respect.) Greater attendance of faculty at student concerts is a small item but a significant one, for it springs from a new seriousness of students which stimulates faculty interest in return. Performance is still extra-curricular, but it is now closer to the faculty itself...
This precedent ushered in the faculty appointment of Michael Senturia as conductor of the HRO in 1959. Nevertheless, the department wished to move slowly, and stipulated that his term as instructor not be renewable. But Senturia's work with the orchestra had raised its quality remarkably, and last spring the orchestra's officers and the faculty committee agreed that his successor, to be chosen very shortly, will hold a normal instructorship capable of promotion...
...orchestra, solus, attacked the more-than-Mozartian Beethoven with refreshing vigor. Too often enthusiasm is the mark of the obvious (like Sir Arthur Sullivan) or the sloppy (like Dmitri Mitropolous). But the HRO has struck a balance: their performance of the Second Symphony was robust and remarkably successful. Mr. Senturia's tempos were well chosen, his dynamics well modulated, his orchestra's tone large and rich. And if the winds sometimes seemed a bit lost, the strings were at their best, and behold, the tympanist was wonderfully good...