HRO at Sanders

The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra showed remarkably few first-time jitters as it opened its season Friday night. Dancing in slow motion through the rich progressions of the Prelude and Love Death from Wagner Tristan and Isolde, it contrasted beautifully the mellifluous soft passages and the surging climax. Conductor James Yannatos directed the beginning with such strictness that the beat became too prominent in the phrasing, but the consequent stiffness vanished as both the music and the performers warmed up.

Luise Vosgerchian, a lecturer in Music at Harvard, was featured in the Stravinsky Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, a short and somewhat loosely constructed concerto of three movements. Miss Vosgerchian gave a bold and clear performances. However, the orchestra did not achieve the necessary dynamic discipline: there was no piano comparable to those in the Wagner. The soloist was consequently a little overtaxed in many passages. In every other respect the orchestra accompanied Miss Vosgerchian flexibly and forcefully.

For Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 1 Yannatos elected to use the entire string section. Most of the weaknesses in the HRO's rendition of the Concerto appear to be the consequences of using such an unwieldy group. The first movement was too heavy and the violins never agreed sufficiently on any phrasing -- or even the precise location in time of the beat -- to bring out the movement's exquisite suspensions and interweaving of parts. Edgar Engleman, the concertmaster, played the solo part in the third movement clearly and sensitively, but the rest of the strings overbalanced him.

The Trios were delightful, and in the recapitulations the Minuet overcame its initial rhythmic weakness. The last repetition was almost perfect, and thus served as a final reminder that the performance was a solid one, marred only by the unfortunate surfeit of strings.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 is less revealing than the Bach, but it needs if anything more attention and imagination to be successful. It got both in what was a truly stirring performance. The strings might have played together a larger proportion of the time, and the kaleidoscopic changes of mood, especially in the first movement, might have been handled more nimbly. But these are quibbles; this year's HRO sounds extremely good, better than any of the last few years, and clearly prepared and executed the Beethoven, and indeed the whole concert, with both care and ability.