Part of a series of reviews of concerts I attend. Select "Concert Reviews" from the list of labels in the sidebar to see all of them.
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Wheaton College Conservatory of Music
Mozart’s Requiem
Friday, April 5
Edman Memorial Chapel, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois
Most years, the Wheaton Conservatory makes a project of
preparing and presenting one of the masterworks of the classical repertoire.
Some years are more involved than others; this year’s presentation of the
Requiem Mass in D Minor (K. 626) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was about
medium-level, in that it involved four of the large ensembles and a week’s
worth of special rehearsals.
Mozart’s Requiem is one of the great works I am most
familiar with, as there are two standard trombone excerpts from it.
Interestingly, I missed having the chance to play those parts by two years both
ways – the Conservatory presented the Requiem the year I was a junior in high
school, and now again two years after I graduated.
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| Standing ovation for Dr. Trotter, soloists, choirs, and orchestra |
But I immensely enjoyed being an audience member for this
presentation. The mass choir – containing the Concert Choir, Men’s Glee Club,
and Women’s Chorale, sounded as good as I have ever heard them. Diction,
balance, phrasing – all good.
One regrettable part of the performance was the difficulty
in hearing the vocal soloists. I had heard all four of them sing before and I
know they are talented, capable singers, but due perhaps to the dynamic of the
hall and the large orchestra behind them, it was hard to hear them at times.
However, in sum, it was an excellent performance, and I want
to congratulate Dr. John William Trotter on his first masterwork project at
Wheaton.
Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Scheherazade
Monday, April 8
Orchestra Hall, Symphony Center, Chicago, Illinois
The Civic Orchestra’s April home concert, under the
direction of its principal conductor, Cliff Colnot, had two works, one of which
I knew, one of which I did not, and both of which I heard live for the first
time.
The concert opened with the short “descriptive orchestral
piece” The Enchanted Lake, Op. 62 by
Anatoly Liadov (I must admit I had not heard of Liadov, or if I had had
forgotten about him since my music history classes).
Immediately following was the piece I had been looking
forward to hearing since the Civic’s season was announced: Scheherazade, Symphonic Suite, Op. 35 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
As I said above, this was the first time I had heard this piece performed live,
though I knew it with some familiarity due to its having a standard trombone
excerpt.
The Civic’s performance of the suite was, in two words,
energetic and passionate. I could tell the Civic brass section received
coaching from members the CSO brass section, because they seemed to channel
some of that power into the brass-heavy passages. Concertmaster Emily Nash
performed the frequent violins solos (which represent Queen Scheherazade’s
storytelling) with incredible sensitivity. When Colnot acknowledged soloists
individually, he saved her for last, and he was clearly elated with her work –
as were all of us on our feet in the audience.
The Wheaton College Symphonic Band
Concert in Blue
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Edman Memorial Chapel, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois
Dr. Timothy Yontz, director of the Symphonic Band, has a
knack for creating diverse programs for the Band’s home concerts. This spring
concert, however, was the first time I can remember him giving a theme to a
home concert (I say “home concert” to distinguish from biannual Children’s
Concerts and Christmas Festivals). The theme was simply “Blue,” and most of the
works on the program had the word blue in their titles. That connecting theme
yielded another wonderfully diverse program, showcasing the immense talent of
this wonderfully diverse group of young musicians. There were pieces with a
jazz influence (“Blue Moon” and “Rhapsody in Blue”) and one piece performed in
collaboration with the Concert Choir, to name a few. It was, as always, well
done.
