Two of the highest pinnacles of the string orchestra literature were on the program for the the second of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra's Intimate Neighborhood Concerts, titled "Night Serenades," Thursday night at Little Rock's St. James United Methodist Church.
It takes some doing to keep Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's very familiar Serenade No. 13, much better known as the "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," from sounding trite. And Associate Conductor Geoffrey Robson and his 22 string players did all they could: quick tempos; fine, vigorous playing; plenty of attention to dynamics; and avoiding the tendency (or the temptation) to rush. Despite that, the piece came off a bit like classical musical comfort food.
The church's reverberent acoustics made the 22 string players sound like twice that number when playing the great, sweeping, lush chords that open Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings.
That helped a lot. The piece is nearly as familiar and comforting but much grander, and the musicians gave it a grand reading indeed. Robson employed a little rubato (a slight slowing and speeding up) in some of the cadences of the second-movement Waltz, not entirely usual but not inappropriate.
The beautiful third-movement main melody in the lower strings (the violas later did just as well with it all by themselves) was gorgeously executed. And with an unexpected supporting percussion section (rain on the church roof), the gallop to the finale was near perfect.
The Aria for Oboe and Strings by ASO Composer of the Year John Corigliano certainly won't be mistaken for musical comfort food. Oboe soloist Lorraine Duso Kitts excellently wove her throaty solos in and out of a melange of string sounds, sometimes the whole ensemble, sometimes just a muted solo quartet.
The performance was, however, struck by what apparently has become the Corigliano Kid Curse. A noisy baby was an unwelcome contributor to two pieces at a November Masterworks concert; last night a talky child could be clearly heard in the quieter portions of the Aria.
Metro on 03/13/2015