Word: senturia
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...Michael Senturia, the principal conductor of the evening, chose a formidable program, demanding Stravinsky (his Symphony of Psalms) and sprightly Beethoven (the Second Symphony). It takes great temerity on the part of any college conductor to think of scheduling even the Beethoven, which is not the silly little Mozartian nothing many people think it, let alone the Stravinsky, which does have the simplicity, order and concentration of the best of Mozart...
...unlike Mozart, Stravinsky's setting of three Latin psalms is angular, harsh and massive. The chorus is made to sing heavy, declarative lines, which must, for a performance to succeed, be delineated and articulated with considerable precision. And last night under Mr. Senturia's direction, the Glee Club and Choral Society sang the Psalms impeccably. Their tone, full and fortunately wholesome, was rigidly controlled throughout, attacks were impressively clean, and self assured...
...Senturia's pared-down orchestra (the Symphony is scored for brass, winds, tympani and 'cellos) provided an admirable accompaniment. The first desk winds handled the fugal introduction to the second psalm with ease, a particularly delicate passage full of grace and restraint, and in the more monolithic third psalm the brasses showed strength and carefully controlled enthusiasm...
...excellent. Notably, poor string playing plagued the orchestra from time to time. This was especially evident in a marked fuzziness of the very first allegretto passages of Haydn's Symphony No. 99 and in several muddled string sections in the third and fourth movements of this same work. Michael Senturia conducted skillfully, but in spite of his efforts the exuberance of this fine symphony did not come across...
...like a tuba solo suffered a moment of agonized embarrassment for the performer. Indeed, such a faux pas might easily have flustered the most experienced of artists, but Mr. Pottle recovered quickly and played quite well from there on. The orchestra was adequate, and Mr. Walker again sang superbly. Senturia generally kept up a good balance among soloists and instruments except in the middle of the rather terrifying Dirge, where he allowed the powerful, stabbing orchestral figures to overwhelm the vocal part. The sparkling Nocturne (Tennyson), cleverly humorous Hymn (Ben Johnson), and serene Sonnet (Keats) received especially fine treatment...