Review 5-07 (#61)

Live Performances: Classical

Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra

Calvary Presbyterian Church, Milwaukee

May 12, 2007

A Renaissance Event

A renaissance indeed – and a welcome one. With this concert, and under a new Music-Director, the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra made its long-awaited return to the Milwaukee performing arts landscape and, in one stroke, made that vista seem infinitely wider and richer. Richard Hynson, Music Director of the excellent Bel Canto Chorus, proved himself every bit as adept in the orchestral repertory, conducting with vision and authority and giving the Milwaukee region’s public an experience with several composers not well known (although they certainly deserve to be).

In a marvelous collaboration with POLANKI, the Polish Women’s Cultural Club of Milwaukee, the MCO was able to make its re-introduction to the area’s cultural life especially fruitful; the resultant confrontation with the work of three important twentieth century Polish composers lent an edge to the program that shot bolts of electricity through the keenly-interested audience. Their vociferous response came as complete validation for Hynson’s sagacity in selecting these works by Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969), Henryk Górecki (b. 1933) and Wojciech Kilar (b. 1932). The intensity throughout the first half of the program was exceedingly high, thus the welcome release provided by the second half appearance of the “Peninsula Suite” of American composer Nancy Bloomer Dreussen (b. 1931) before the hearing of Tchaikovsky’s thrice-famous Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48.

On paper, this was a terrific program; in the actual hearing, it was even more stimulating than one could have imagined beforehand. Grazyna Bacewicz’s is scarcely a household name, yet this Polish composer/violinist/pedagogue/national icon won front ranking in her native country because of her burning musicality, evident in both her violin artistry and her gifts as a composer who continued to evolve until the very moment of her death. An auto accident in 1954 led her to embrace composition full-time after the debilitating effects of her injuries. Even before that, however, she had achieved acclaim, not only in Poland, but throughout Europe and beyond. Her 1950 Concerto for String Orchestra, heard on this program, won the National Prize in Poland and was even performed in America by the National Symphony Orchestra. While based structurally on the Baroque concerto grosso form, its character is far more restless, darker and more turbulent. Themes emerge from each other. The melodic kernel of the first movement moves with surprising flexibility, returning repeatedly to a core point, while the second theme is resolutely pulsating. In the Andante, the heart-stopping leading line plays out over a glistening cushion of supporting strings. The “Vivo” finale darts to and fro, diving into and emerging from dense harmonic convolutions balanced on sharp-edged cross rhythms. For all its tumbling mobility, the work never abandons its forceful substance or biting fervor. Mercurial, yes, but always with an inviolable strength.

The MCO players bit into the work with head-turning ferocity while closely heeding Hynson’s penetrating direction. Once or twice, there were passing intonational anomalies in the midst of the upper strings, but, overwhelmingly, the playing was accurate, focused and impassioned. A performance to match the sheer quality of the work.

Henryk Górecki became a world-wide sensation with the global release on record of his Third Symphony, a disc which sped to the top of classical sales figures and remained there for an extended period. Critical opinion was mixed: some thought it an affecting work while others dismissed it as sentimental drivel. In truth, that symphonic work doesn’t represent the best side of the composer – he had far more to say and better ways of saying it. His “Three Pieces in Old Style” is informed by a higher degree of craftsmanship and invention, early as it was (1964) in the composer’s sizeable catalog.

Hynson and his players easily commanded the work’s interplay between modern modality and traditional flavor, managing deftly the rising tide of the first section, the almost belligerent middle section (where thematic fragments play vigorously over rhythmically-driven harmonies) and the chorale-like final section with its lower register/higher register contrasts. The questioning of the beginning gave way movingly to the radiant clarity of the closing portion in which dissonance intrudes but is held off by the final shining chord. In all aspects, this was a beautiful, truthful performance – one which gripped and held the audience enthralled.

Wojciech Kilar’s “Orawa” (composed in 1986) takes it title from the mountain range on the Polish/Slovak border. A pastoral work, it opens with a solo violin voicing a simple melody joined later by other themes by other instruments and steadily building in animation to a brisk climax. The work offers considerable charm, enfolded in a smart musical package. Hynson and the MCO had its essence firmly in hand and accorded it a five-star performance.

After intermission, Hynson gave us Nancy Bloomer Deussen’s “Peninsula Suite.” The peninsula here is found in the San Francisco Bay region in California. To describe it as high-grade movie music is no slight; Deussen’s score has the dewy freshness of the Technicolor tone painting done by the best motion picture composers and was so soothing to the senses one could not but welcome its gentle presence. Scored for string quartet and string orchestra, the work received all of the requisite attention to coloration and gentle expression to make it glow. A charming work, ideally cast here.

Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings is so well-known it requires no explication whatsoever. Here, however, Hynson and the MCO players gave it a performance so crisp, so lovingly devised, that the encounter seemed a first-time (first-love) occasion. Unless you’re jaded beyond hope, the lilt, irresistible melodies and craftsmanship of the piece cannot fail to delight – given that those presenting it do so with respect and affection. Those two qualities were in great – extravagant – abundance and the work pulsed with life.

The venue for this first of what we hope will be many future concerts was Calvary Presbyterian Church, a large edifice located just east of Interstate 43 in Milwaukee. It afforded comfort (chairs rather than pews), fine acoustics (full, but not over-resonant) and an intimacy that made everything up-close and immediate. Given its central location, it could serve handsomely for MCO programs to come.

Hynson and the players he had assembled to form the revived ensemble gave their public (gratis – this was a free event) hard evidence of its value to the community. Exploring the repertory Richard Hynson so thoughtfully sets forth, this ensemble is vital to the region’s cultural life. It warrants the full support of that constituency to assure its future and, to that end, we are pleased to offer our unstinting endorsement. We know, too, how excited MCO’s musicians were to have their ensemble back again.

The Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra deserves to live. It’s (re) birth certainly presented us with a healthy, vocal baby. (Erik Eriksson)