Word: tonight
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Last Friday at a rehearsal for tonight's Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra concert, conductor James Yannatos added words to his baton gestures and shed light on this apparent mystery: I got a glimpse of the conductor qua taskmaster...
...ideas about how the music should sound often paid off immediately-in strauss' Don Juan, a phrase which had to his ears fallen flat ("it sounds like the thing got stuck in bubblegum") was then hewn to near-perfection, ushering in an exhilarating moment that should stick out in tonight's performance...
This concerto existed in a rougher, more Beethovenian perform before the Finnish composer excised some blocky, thorny passages from the first movement. There is still plenty of muscular music in the 1905 version we hear tonight, which makes greater demands on the soloist in terms of smoothness and tone. In rehearsal only the first two movements were heard, apparently because of Yannatos' temper, but two were enough to show Castelli at the top of her game. Awesome voicing, awesome dynamic range, and some Heifitzian melodrama suggest a Sibelius not to be missed. For those inclined to adduce parallels, note...
...last piece on tonight's program is Walter Piston's Third Symphony, a warm, polished, slightly reticent work. The HRO's brass section, sometimes dicey, was wonderful here in rehearsal and Yannatos' tough love made its staccato playing even better. The slow turns of the oboe at the outset have an Italianate flavor (Walter's grandfather was named Antonio Pistone) and the tonal language is cosmopolitan: Piston, luckier than most Harvard seniors, won a Paine Traveling Fellowship after graduation. You'll want to listen in the third movement for exuberant music that Dr. Y wants to deliver in "band style...
...Harvard students performing at passim tonight are exceptionally talented and exceptionally soulful...